Those Who Are Gone

The marker's name repeats an old mistake. Archaeologists borrowed the O'odham word Huhugam for the people who farmed the Salt and Gila valleys from about A.D. 300 to 1450 and built the largest canal network in ancient North America by hand, then rendered it as those who are gone. But they did not go. The Huhugam are the ancestors of the living Akimel and Tohono O'odham, who never left the desert. Casa Grande, the great earthen house that Father Kino named in the 1690s, is the ruin they left standing.

What the plaque says

The Casa Grande is the most prominent remnant of an ancient civilization that once occupied the Salt and Gila River valleys from A.D. 300-1450. Archeologists call these people Hohokam, a Pima word meaning "those who are gone.", The Hohokam were farmers well adapted to desert living. In prehistoric times, as today, irrigation was the key to desert farming. With simple tools and manual labor, the Hohokam dug hundreds of miles of canals. They maintained extensive trade routes in all directions, receiving goods from hundreds of miles away., The first European to observe the ruins was Father Kino, a Jesuit missionary.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Casa Grande Ruins — 0.6 mi
  The Huhugam Great House — and the country's first archaeological reserve

More markers nearby

• US 60 History Trail — 31 mi