Kinishba -- An Ancestral Pueblo Site

About an hour south of Show Low and five miles west of Fort Apache Historic Park in northern Arizona, an unpaved dirt road leads to Kinishba Ruins.  It’s a small site that once was home to Ancestral Pueblo people.

Entrance to Kinishba Ruins

The entrance fee to Fort Apache includes admittance to Kinishba.  At the Nohwiké Bágowa Museum, you can buy a small guidebook about the site.  I highly recommend purchasing it because there is no description at Kinishba of what you’re looking at.  But there are numbered posts that correspond to explanations in the guidebook about the buildings and spaces at the Kinishba; without the guidebook, I wouldn’t have known what I was looking at.

One of the buildings at Kinishba

Occupied from sometime in the 9th century to a time period in the 15th century, the ruins consist of several buildings of dry stone construction.  Some buildings still have walls but others just show foundations that are a few feet high.  There are also a couple of plazas – small, squarish sections of land but it wasn’t obvious what those spaces were until I read about them in the guidebook.
 
At its height in the 14th century, as many as 800 people might have inhabited Kinishba.  The ruins are situated on a windswept plain, high above a river that ran along the edge of the settlement.  Kinishba was an agricultural village and evidence of pottery, jewelry, and artifacts have been found there.

View to the west of the river down below and mountains on the other side

In the 1930s, an archaeologist named Byron Cummings supervised the excavation of Kinishba by his students from the University of Arizona and members of the White Mountain Apache Tribe.  Cummings also constructed some buildings near the ruins; one served as a museum but it closed in 1952.  These buildings are now in a state of disrepair.

Buildings built by UofA Dean Cummings to simulate the actual Kinishba ruins

When I visited last November, for most of the time I was the only person at Kinishba.  Two other people arrived at one point but they didn’t stay long, perhaps because they didn’t have the guidebook to tell them about the place.

View of interior of one of the buildings at Kinishba

I tried to imagine living there a thousand years ago but had a hard time visualizing what it must have been like when Kinishba was a vibrant community filled with people.  However, it is well worth the time to seek it out and I very much enjoyed the hour I spent at Kinishba.

Fort Apache -- The Army Fort

Located on the White Mountain Apache Tribe’s land, Fort Apache was a U.S. Army fort in the 19th century and is now a National Historic Landmark.  I spent a day there last November, learning about Apache history, about the fort and its work, and what happened after the Army left.  The site looks nothing like the fort in the 1948 movie called Fort Apache, which I wrote about in another post.

Banner in the Arrowhead Cafe

 
Fort Apache is about five miles south of Whiteriver, just off Highway 73, in Navajo County, Arizona.  After paying the entrance fee which, at the time of my visit, was $10.00, you’ll get a map of the site which you can use to orient yourself.  However, I recommend buying the Fort Apache Walking Tour Guide because that contains a lot of background information.

Sign at entrance to Fort Apache Historic Park

To the left of the entrance, in the same building, is the Nohwiké Bágowa Museum.  Translated as House of Our Footprints, it provides an excellent introduction to Apache history and culture. You’ll definitely want to spend some time here to get an idea of how the Ndee people, the White Mountain Apache word for themselves, lived before, during, and after the Army occupied the place.
 
A well-stocked gift shop is also in the museum.  I had read online that everything sent from the post office here was stamped with a Fort Apache postmark, which I thought would be fun to have as a souvenir.  Another gift shop, with different items, is located in another building.

U.S. Post Office at Fort Apache

Fort Apache was originally called Camp Ord and was founded in 1870.  General George Crook enlisted the cooperation of local Apaches as scouts who helped the Army in their wars against other Indigenous people.  One of the buildings on the site has an exhibit with detailed information about why the White Mountain Apache people aided Crook in the Apache Wars in the second half of the 19th century.  There were economic, political, and other reasons but the exhibit also makes clear that the presence of the Army also completely changed the Apache people’s traditional way of life.  One very interesting fact is that 12 Apache scouts received the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1872.

View of one area of Fort Apache

In 1922, the Army vacated Fort Apache.  The next year, an Indian boarding school was established on the fort’s grounds.  Named the Theodore Roosevelt School, today it’s a middle school for local children.

Another view of Fort Apache

Although Fort Apache isn’t large and following the walking tour won’t take long, if you stop to read all the information plaques, enter the buildings that are open to the public, eat in the Arrowhead café, browse the gift shops, take photos, and just soak up the atmosphere, you can easily spend several hours there, as I did.  Anyone who is interested in the Old West, Arizona history, Indigenous culture and history, and Army life will enjoy visiting Fort Apache Historic Park.