HIr - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

Montezuma Castle cliff dwelling on north side of Beaver Creek, Montezuma
Castle National Monument, near Camp Verde, Arizona. Ladders have
been removed since this picture was taken due to human erosion.
Y INTEREST in Montezuma
Castle dates back to an evening
in August, 1918, when
I was camping on the sandy bank of
the Verde River in west central Arizona.
I had come to Arizona for my health,
and three weeks earlier I had left my
cousin's LK Bar ranch near Wickenburg
for a leisurely hike to Flagstaff.
The Arizona climate and the outdoor
life of a tramp had been marvelous
tonic for my body.
The coffee was boiling and the flapjacks
had just reached the right shade
of brown when a stranger came through
the thickets along the river and introduced
himself as a local rancher, and
the owner of my camping plot by the
river.
We soon learned that we had many
common interests, and we sat by the
campfire and talked Indian lore until
long after dark. He told me about
Indian sites and old caves he had explored
in the Verde Valley, and mentioned
the great mysterious cliff dwelling
that was not far from where we
were sitting.
His conversation stimulated my interest
in the old ruins, and early next
morning I was on my way to Montezuma
Castle which in 1906 had been
made a National Monument by presidential
decree. The name by which
the cliff dwelling is known was the
idea of an early day explorer who had
a flair for the romantic. No connection
has ever been established between
this remote cliff palace and the Aztec
Indians of central Mexico, or their
princely emperor, Montezuma.
I spent much of the day climbing in
and through the many apartments of
the ancient stone and mud castle, and
my rancher friend came to my camp
again that evening.
"Tomorrow night I am going to
The Old People had all left in
1918 when Jerry Laudermilk made
his first call at Montezuma Castle
in the Verde Valley of Arizona,
so Jerry moved in and made himself
at home in a bedroom once
occupied by prehistoric Americans.
He found the sleeping quarters a
little stuffy—but it was an experience
which led to an exhaustive
study of the lives of these ancient
cliff dwellers.
Night in
Ghostly
Castle
By JERRY LAUDERMILK
Sketch by the author
sleep in one of those old Indian rooms,"
I told him.
He did not enthuse over the idea.
"It will be a lonely experience," he
suggested, "for the ruins are a ghostly
place at night."
But I persisted, and he finally gave
me a typical Arizona blessing: "Go
ahead!" he said. "It's your funeral."
The next afternoon I moved into
one of the rooms with my bedroll and
a thermos jug of coffee.
The Park Service had placed a visitors'
register on a rustic table in the
first room to the left of the ladder
which ascended to the upper stories,
and there on the dusty floor I spread
my bedroll. That register was a sort
of link with the present.
When darkness came I laid there
on the floor and tried to visualize the
procession of dark-skinned humanity
which had passed through the doorway:
women bringing their ollas of
water from the river below, men returning
from the hunt, children who
had never known any life except this.
In imagination I reconstructed what
I could of the lives of these primitive
people, and in the years which had
elapsed I have read what is known of
this ancient land and its inhabitants.
26 DESERT MAGAZINE