NO. 1873 PREHISTORIC RUINS IN GILA VALLEY FEWKES 4! I 



3. RUIN NEAR FLORENCE 



This mound is of considerable size and is situated a short walk 

 from the town, on the south side, near a settlement of Papagos. It 

 is referred to in the author's account 1 of excavations made at Casa 

 Grande in 1906-07, where a plan of the compound is published. 



The author visited the large modern reservoir south of Florence 

 and searched carefully for a "ruin" which is designated on several 

 maps, but failed to find it. A small mound was discovered near 

 the bank of the reservoir, but larger "buildings" which were re- 

 ported by several Americans did not materialize. 2 There are 

 mounds in the broad stretch of desert between the reservoir and 

 the prehistoric buildings at Picacho which several reliable men 

 whose stock "run" in this region have described in detail, but the 

 author was unable to locate them with any certainty. 



4. ESCALANTE RUIN 



It is recorded that when Father Kino's party, in 1694, followed 

 down the left bank of the Gila, Sargent Escalante and some com- 

 rades swam this river to visit a ruin the walls of which they had 

 observed on the opposite bank. All that now remains of this' 

 "tower" is supposed to be the mound situated about a mile west of 

 Posten's Butte, which is nearly opposite Florence and about the 

 same distance from the right bank of the river. 



Mr. H. C. Hodge thus refers to a ruin not far from Florence: 



"Four miles to the west of Florence, on the line of the canal, are the ruins 

 of another old town, the outlines of some of the buildings being easily traced. 

 One of them is 120 feet long, and 80 feet wide. It was surrounded by a wall 

 of concrete and stone, portions of which now remain ; and this wall was 130 

 feet long on two sides of the building and 225 feet long on the other two sides, 

 forming a kind of court-yard enclosing the buildings. This court-yard was 

 filled in on the south and east sides with earth to the depth of four feet." 3 



Possibly the ruin here referred to is that which the author has 

 called the Escalante ruin, or it may be Tcurikvaaki. 



Although the standing wall that once attracted Escalante's atten- 

 tion as a tower has now fallen, a high mound marking the position 

 of a massive walled building or "citadel" and the low ridge, indi- 



1 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. Quarterly Issue, Vol. IV, p. 3, 

 1907. 



~ One or more were possibly destroyed when the reservoir was constructed. 

 "Arizona as it is, or the Coming Country, 1877, p. 182. 



