The Birth of a Mountain

About a thousand years ago, the people living here watched a mountain be born. First the animals behaved strangely and the ground warmed and shook; by the time the earth split open along a miles-long fissure, families had packed and moved. A curtain of fire built the thousand-foot cone now called Sunset Crater, and ash buried tens of thousands of acres of farmland. No human remains have been found in the deposits, so it seems the warnings were heeded. The eruption passed into story as a landscape where life was cleansed.

What the plaque says

The Birth of a Mountain. , About 1,000 years ago, something spectacular happened in the lives of local Native peoples. Perhaps they first observed a change in animal behavior. Maybe they noticed the ground warming. Then the tremors increased in number and intensity. By the time the earth cracked open, people had their belongings packed. A 1,000-foot-high (305m) cinder cone, known today as Sunset Crater, grew where open parks and forests had been. Volcanic ash buried about 64,000 acres of potential farmland. Many people lost their homes and livelihoods. Stories symbolizing the significance of the eruption were told and retold. Today, the area's American Indian groups consider this a sacred landscape where life was cleansed, where a connection exists to the world below and the universe above - a landscape that cautions, reminds, and teaches.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sunset Crater Volcano — 0.7 mi
  The volcano northern Arizona watched erupt, around 1085
• San Francisco Peaks — 9.1 mi
  The sacred mountain of the west — 12,633 feet, and a live argument
• Walnut Canyon National Monument — 13 mi
  Sinagua cliff dwellings in the limestone — the Hisatsinom
• Flagstaff — 14 mi
  The ponderosa town where they found Pluto and saved the dark

More markers nearby

• Life and Landscape Transformed — steps away
• The Power to Symbolize — steps away
• As Powerful as a Volcano — steps away
• Changes to Come — steps away