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| The $250,000 1200 sq-ft Visitor Center 2012 |
If nothing else, other than fearless, your MesaZona blogger is tenacious helping to get more of this story told about a 6-acre site here in central Mesa - it looks like a pile of dirt by air now. In reality - in "The Short Swift Time of The Gods on Earth" - it was a Temple Mound, one of the most important cultural centers of The Hohokam [Papago/Pima] Indigenous Peoples who inhabited the territory and cultivated the lands in The Salt River Valley for millennia and centuries before 'The Pioneers' arrived from Utah in oxen carts to colonize Arizona. Referred to as THE RUINS, Mesa Grande as one of the last places to show how the Hohokam created an irrigation network . . . The City of Phoenix set aside 1,500 acres in 1929 for The Pueblo Grande Museum
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Lucky for everyone that 10,000 tons of that dirt did not get trucked-away to build an underground parking garage! (some people might get that reference)
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Mesa Grande ruins to open visitors center this fall
HERE'S THE OPENING TO GROFF'S STORY: "While the ancient Hohokam settled into villages across the Salt River Valley, it was a temple mound in present-day Mesa that they chose as one of their most important cultural centers. . .
Mesa had once planned for a grand museum, but will instead open a 1,200-square foot center that ensures visitors focus on the ruins. . ."
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WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT PLAN?
Lost in 'the dust-bin' of city politics and a prevalent one-sided view or history or what ?????
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". . . the centuries-old story behind the ruins will finally emerge this fall, when a visitors center debuts and establishes the first regular access.
The community* determined to make Mesa Grande the first historical preservation effort * decades ago, and a downtown Mesa parade was held in 1927 to rally support."
* The word "community" gets way over-used - it was a small group of dedicated people
* BLOGGER NOTE: To see an earlier post on this blog please use the searchbox for "Midvale" or "Acquanetta" - there's a lot of colorful people who lived here in Mesa who all pitched-in to rescue the temple mound from developers.
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The Visitor Center and Mesa Grande Culture Center is re-opening for the season on Sunday
"Grub with Grubb" Oct. 26 at Mesa Grande Cultural Park
Mesa Grande Cultural Park, 1000 N. Date, is celebrating its seasonal re-opening and highlighting the addition of new Native American objects from the Evelyn and Lou Grubb collection Saturday, Oct. 26 from 10 a.m. to noon.
New exhibits featuring Native American baskets from the Evelyn and Lou Grubb Collection (The Grubb Family Trust donated their collection to AZ Museum of Natural History here in Mesa in 2015/2016)
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Look what Lou Grubb did with some of his money, instead of setting up a fund for a Museum at Mesa Grande >
It's at Papago Park (another historic site)
Looks like it could be a great design for a museum, but it's not ....it's a $6M golf course and club house, with an alfresco restaurant named "Lou's Grill"
The 1950's car dealer celebrity liked to play golf.
However as noted in an earlier post Lou and his wife did many good things . . .
But let's it all down to 'a dull roar' and focus on a high-quality experience . . [see below for that reference from Jerry Howard]
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Garin Groff's story continues
"The 6-acre site will have only a few small signs and will use tour guides to explain the history of the mound and the people who built it, said Jerry Howard, anthropology curator at the Arizona Museum of Natural History.
“We’re going to be driven more by smart phones, by the audio tour,” he said. “We’re also keeping the place very undeveloped so people get the feeling of exploring something that’s pretty much untouched, which it mostly is.”
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| Please read the history plaque |
"The Hohokam’s only other large mound to survive in the Valley is Pueblo Grande in Phoenix, which is far more developed and includes a museum."
< BLOGGER NOTE: 50 years before the City of Mesa purchased the 6-acre site located on Brown Road/Date Street,The City of Phoenix set aside1,500 acres that are managed by the City's Parks & Recreation Department since 1929.
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Groff goes on to give some history:
"Mesa Grande was constructed from about 1100 and 1400 A.D., at the headwaters of canals that stretched southward. The Hohokam’s total system irrigated 110,000 acres in the Valley and was the most sophisticated prehistoric canal network in North America."
< Insert of Turney's map from "Pre-History"
(not included in EVT 2012 article)
"The ruins are tucked into a neighborhood near Brown Road and Country Club Drive.
Howard said many people are unaware of the ruins. Mesa has only opened the site to the public one day a year recently, drawing several hundred visitors. Howard said curious groups will walk through an open gate when archeologists are working, but that probably fewer than 10,000 people have ever been to Mesa Grande.
Luckily some dedicated people stopped development or demolishing those 6 acres!
It was not "the community" at large
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"When the $250,000 Visitor Center opens this year, Mesa expects to operate it from Oct. 1 to May 15. The expected hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays.
> Mesa doesn’t have estimates for how many visitors are expected.
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| Omar Turney Canal Map 1929 |
> The small center is part of a plan to keep the ruins from being overrun.
“We’re focusing on more of a high quality experience and keeping things down to a dull roar, which would be good for the preservation of the mound,” Howard said.
The Hohokam lived in the Valley from about 1 A.D. to 1450 A.D.
About 40 small mounds were once scattered across the Valley, but development destroyed most of them. . ."
NOTE: Area in upper-right that is named
Pueblo Moroni, with many small reservoirs and temples
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"That leaves Mesa Grande as one of the last places to show how the Hohokam created an irrigation network that pioneers began to reuse in the late 1800s.The canals did more than water Hohokam corn, squash and beans. The network took silt and nutrients from the Salt River and distributed the enriching material across the Valley.
“They basically turned the desert soils into some of the best agricultural soils in the world,” Howard said.
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