One of four sites chosen to be the first National Monuments in the United States in 1906, Montezuma’s Castle was built by the Sinagua people, who were related to the better-known Hohokam. This cliff house was built about 1100 A.D. and occupied for four hundred years. The main structure was five stories high. Obviously, you don’t build your home that high on a cliff-side unless you need a defensive position, an that was the case here, with conflicts between local groups over access to water and food resources. The population peaked about 1325 A.D. There was an even larger pueblo at the foot of the cliff, but it is not so well preserved.

This public domain photograph is another image by Dr. Edgar Alexander Mearns (1856-1916), whom we profiled under his image of Emma and Mex. This further confirms a date of 1887 for that image, as this one is dated that same year and notes it is just “3 miles from Fort Verde”.