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Montezuma's Well
An Ancient Sinagua Sinkhole.

May 6, 2,001

Google Map To Montezuma's Well, An Ancient Sinagua Sinkhole.

Montezuma's Well is a sinkhole, a collapsed underground limestone cavern filled with water. For at least 2,000 years, the outflow from Montezuma Well (which, is a misnomer, having no connection at all with the 16th Century Aztec ruler) has been directed through a channel to fields where Hohokam and Sinagua farmers tended corn, beans, squash, cotton and other crops. The ancient irrigation channel now empties into Beaver Creek. More than a million gallons of water a day flow continuously, providing a lush, oasis in the midst of a surrounding desert grassland. Montezuma's Well is about 368 feet across and 55 feet deep; it sits at an elevation of 3,618 feet. The well is a unique ecosystem containing leeches, amphipods, water scorpions, and turtles that live in it's closed ecosystem. This remarkable habitat is perhaps due to the receiving and the discharging of large quantities of warm (76° F) water that enters from underground springs, keeping the well's environment very stable. Due to it's high concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide, there is a lack of oxygen, which has precluded many aquatic animals from living in it's waters, especially fish. From about 900 to 1400 A.D., it supported a community of over 200 Sinagua Indians, and about 1.1 million gallons of water a day still flow from it. Built into Montezuma's Well's rock walls are several cliff dwellings typical of the Sinagua civilization, and other Sinagua stone structures dot the nearby lanscape. To get there take highway I-17, 11 miles north of Montezuma's Castle to Exit 293. Follow the signs to the Well.