Montezuma Castle National Monument, Arizona (1959)

Cover: The Castle
High in a cliff cavity stands Montezuma Castle, a prehistoric Indian dwelling so perfectly preserved that ceiling timbers in many of the rooms are still intact
Montezuma Castle National Monument, in the Verde Valley of central Arizona, protects one of the best preserved and most interesting cliff dwellings in the United States. Within the monument, occupying part of a limestone cliff which borders Beaver Creek for half a mile, are the ruins of several prehistoric Indian house clusters. Among them is the large structure called Montezuma Castle, which is about 90 percent intact and original.
The Verde Valley of central Arizona is bordered on the north and east by the great plateau of northeastern Arizona and on the southwest by the Black Hills. Through the level floor of the valley winds the Verde River, fed by Beaver Creek and several other tributaries.
Several million years ago the mouth of this valley was dammed by a lava flow from Arizona’s volcanic Black Hills. The impounded waters formed a lake 35 miles long and 18 miles wide. In it, streams feeding the lake deposited enormous quantities of limy mud. Perhaps by 2 million years ago, the overflow from the imprisoned waters had worn down the lava dam so that eventually the lake was drained. Subsequently, the Verde River and its tributaries cut channels through the now dry and hardened lime deposits of the old lake bed. Since then, much of the limestone bordering these streams has been eroded away, thus broadening their valleys.
Scant archeological evidence so far available indicates human beings were living in the Verde Valley over a thousand years ago.
These were industrious, sedentary Indians from southern Arizona who settled on the fertile river terraces and began farming. They lived a distinctly rural life, with no cities or large centers of population, in little villages of one-room, pole-and-brush houses.
These farm folk probably lived in comparative peace in the valley until about the beginning of the 12th century. After 1100, another group of farm Indians entered the valley from the north. These people constructed communal dwellings, or pueblos, which after A. D. 1250 were converted into large compact defensible structures.