Montezuma Castle

Story and photo

By Bill Wagner

If one was watching “House Hunting,” the verbiage might go something like: “Five story, mountainside retreat with majestic view of Beaver Creek. Peaceful. Nearest neighbors miles away. No utilities.”

Actually, no one is going to be moving in anytime soon, since Montezuma Castle is a national monument.

Actually, it’s one of the four original sites that received that status in 1906 as President Theodore Roosevelt took advantage of the newly passed Antiquities Act.

Nine hundred years ago, only the Sinagua tribe knew of its location. For reasons no historian or archaeologist has been able to determine, they abandoned the site in the 1400s.

Early settlers in the area presumed it to be of Aztec origin, giving it the name. For the record, it is not of Aztec origin and was abandoned nearly a century before the Aztec chief was born.

The national monument is located just off Interstate 17 about 50 miles south of Flagstaff and 80 miles north of Phoenix.

Despite Roosevelt’s good intentions, the historic declaration came years too late to protect the site from looters, who left the dwelling void of relics.

The structure is actually a five-story, 20-room dwelling built into a recess of a limestone cliff nearly 100 feet above ground. The prehistoric dwellers had to use ladders to climb to and from the residence. Nearby is yet another multistory residence.

The second structure, which today is a deteriorated ruin that is a shadow of its former self, had 45 rooms in six stories. 

For more than four decades, visitors were allowed to climb ladders and wander inside the cliff dwelling. In 1951, the ruins were closed to public access to prevent further deterioration.

They remain among the most accessible and best preserved examples of cliff ruins in the U.S.

Today, visitors look up in awe and wonder what life was like for the Sinagua (Spanish for ''without water'') when they moved into the area some 1000 years ago.

The village that included the Montezuma Castle probably finished growing around 1300 and was abandoned a century later when the Sinagua left the Verde Valley area, according to the National Park Service. 

In addition to the castle, Montezuma Well and Tuzigoot are nearby and part of the national monument. 

The well is 11 miles from the castle and is described by the park service as a limestone sink formed when a huge underground cavern collapsed centuries ago. The Sinaguans used its waters for irrigation.

Tuzigoot, the remnants of another Sinaugan village, is 30 miles to the northwest off U.S. Highway 89.

Thanks to its central location and the fact there is little else on I-17 between Phoenix and Flagstaff, the monument gets a steady stream of visitors. The monument is open year-round except on Christmas Day. In the summer, the areas are open from 8 until 7 p.m. Winter hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The entrance fee is $5 per person. 

For more information visit www.nps.gov/moca or www.nps.gov/tuzi.