Their Own Road: Archaeological Investigations along State Route 260 Payson to Heber-Kohls Ranch Section

Editor(s): Sarah Herr

Year: 2017

Summary

The Kohls Ranch highway section lies at the center of the State Route (SR) 260 —Payson to Heber project area. This section also crosses a number of central places of the past. Here, near its headwaters, Tonto Creek is a mountain stream, whose terraces widen briefly near the highway before the canyon narrows into the Hells Gate Wilderness to the south. Indian Garden, a mile to the east, is a spring-fed meadow. Geology transitions in this area, as the topography created by the friable granites to the east interfinger with the stepped ridges of the limestone and sandstone to the west. The narrowing of natural passageways and a reduction in arable land to the east make the Kohls Ranch section a place where roads and people have converged over the years. The well-watered places in this section were first settled nearly 3,000 years ago, were returned to in the intervening centuries, and continue to be used today. In the twentieth century, the area became a small center for government, residential, and recreational activity in this isolated region.

The community after which this road section is named is designated Kohl's Ranch, after Lewis Kohl, who patented this homestead on Tonto Creek in the mid-1920s (Herr and Stein 2001). The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) engineering plans, however, designate the section as Kohls Ranch, without an apostrophe. This distinction will be maintained when referencing the community versus the highway project.

Cite this Record

Their Own Road: Archaeological Investigations along State Route 260 Payson to Heber-Kohls Ranch Section, 03. Sarah Herr. 2017 ( tDAR id: 448151) ; doi:10.48512/XCV8448151

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Keywords

Temporal Coverage

Calendar Date: 500 to 1300 (Ceramic)

Calendar Date: 400 to 1000 (Indian Garden Flaked Stone)

Calendar Date: 1000 to 1200 (Indian Garden Flaked Stone)

Calendar Date: -800 to 500 (Occupation)

Spatial Coverage

min long: -111.136; min lat: 34.301 ; max long: -111.078; max lat: 34.333 ;

Record Identifiers

TRACS Number(s): 260 GI 266 H4473 01C

Contract Number(s): 99-59

Project Number(s): F-053-2-202

File Information

  Name Size Creation Date Date Uploaded Access
tr2006-03_final_OCR_PDFA_Redacted.pdf 255.57mb Nov 9, 2020 4:02:45 PM Public
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tr2006-03_final_OCR_PDFA.pdf 277.75mb Feb 28, 2017 Mar 5, 2019 4:57:43 PM Confidential
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Contact(s): Desert Archaeology, Inc.

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