History:

The earliest inhabitants to live in the Foothills area at Black Mountain were from the Hohokam Tribe, around 850 - 1150 AD. Hohokam is a Pima name meaning, "Those who have gone." Very little is known about these people. From what scientists, botanists, and archeologists have put together, we are able to begin unraveling at least part of the mystery surrounding the Hohokam Tribe.

The Hohokam Tribe lived in large communities along the prehistoric Salt and Gila River. They built advanced canal irrigation systems to grow crops such as cotton, corn, beans, and tomatoes. So advanced was this system that when the white settlers first came upon the Hohokam's abandoned irrigation system, they just repaired it and started irrigating again. The very system used today in Phoenix is nothing more than an expanded version of the one the Hohokam Tribe used around 1000 AD.

Sometime around 850 - 1150 AD, a few families of the Hohokam Tribe decided to break apart from the main village and move to the Foothills area at Black Mountain. Perhaps the village had gotten too big and they wanted a quieter life or wanted to make some changes in the political structure of the day. Whatever their reasons, they began the journey north. In our area, they began as small farmers living in one-room temporary or seasonal pit homes. It must have been difficult at first being on their own, cut off from the trading systems set up by their ancestors. The Foothills area at Black Mountain provided an abundance of water for their crops, wild plant food and wildlife.

In the prehistoric past, the Foothills area at Black Mountain had two perennial streams and hundreds of springs. This was a rare resource in the Sonoran Desert and allowed the Hohokam Tribes to irrigate and grow corps. It is believed that they learned irrigation techniques from their ancestors in Mexico, the Mazatlans.

As with most American Indian Tribes, the men of the tribe were hunters and builders. They found an enormous supply of bighorn sheep and mule deer on Black Mountain to hunt. Also, fishing was plentiful in the streams and there were always small animals such as rabbits for the young braves to hunt.

The women would harvest wild plant food, which grew on the mountain. From the yucca they would gather flowers, stalks and seeds to eat. They would weave the continuously fraying fibers from the edge of the leaves to make rope. By peeling and mashing the yucca roots they would get soap for washing. This particular soap was used in many of their rituals.