The U.S. National Park Service currently has 394 units, with one more arriving soon. These include all manner of parks, monuments, historic sites, battlefields, seashores, recreation areas, trails and various other interesting designations. Each one is a beloved national treasure. They include the famous like Yellowstone National Park. But they also include the more obscure such as Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park.
However, you can never visit one of the sites. Even though it’s located within a major metropolitan area with more than four million residents, you cannot go there. You can touch it ever so briefly but you can never truly experience it legally. The National Park Service strictly prohibits tourists there. The site is the Hohokam Pima National Monument on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona.
Snaketown
The government established a national monument to protect Snaketown. This was an ancient village of the pre-Columbian Hohokam people who once inhabited a swath of the desert southwest. Researchers believe Paleo-Indians settled Snaketown sometime around 2,300 year ago. Then they abandoned it for unknown reasons (possibly drought) about 900 years ago.
The settlement served as a large cultural center with a couple of thousand residents. It included intensive agricultural cultivation and a large system of irrigation canals. Archaeologists excavated Snaketown in the 1930’s and again in the 1960’s. When done, they completely reburied the site to preserve it for future generations.
Hohokam Pima National Monument falls within the boundaries of the Gila River Indian Community. According to the National Park Service, “The Gila River Indian Community has decided not to open the extremely sensitive area to the public.”
So, this is as close as you can get to Snaketown without permission:
Closed. But Not Completely?
Nobody can enter the site in a general sense. However, thousands of people travel through the National Monument every day and probably never realize it.
That’s because, in spite of the site’s sensitivity, Interstate 10 cuts through a corner of it. I guess “visit” depends on whether one considers a 30-second drive sufficient or not. In full disclosure, I’ve visited counties for less time and counted them. Even so, I think that’s a bit different than experiencing a National Park Service unit.
People who collect parkstamps wouldn’t consider a freeway jaunt sufficient. No, they would insist upon an official National Park Passport Stamp to complete the deal. Unfortunately, no stamp exists for Hohokam Pima.
Parkstamps
12MC reader “Scott” mentioned these parkstamp passports to me. So I gave them a brief shout-out in one of the recent Utah articles. Scott also provide me with lots of National Park trivia that I will use in future articles.
I asked Scott if I could talk a little about the National Park Travelers Club‘s 9th Annual Convention and he said that would be fine. These are people who collect parkstamps avidly as a hobby. I can understand that completely with my somewhat-related desire to count counties.
If you happen to be in the Washington, DC area on Saturday, August 6th between 9:30 am and 5:00 pm, and you’re curious about parkstamps, then stop by the Columbia Ballroom of the Holiday Inn Capitol, 550 C Street SW, Washington, DC, for the Annual Convention. It is free to attend! I am seriously considering attending myself if I can work it into my schedule. Even though my stamp collection now stands at only 2. [NOTE: This article was written in 2011 and the event took place a long time ago]
This is a “big deal” year. It’s the 25th anniversary of the creation of official stamps managed by the Eastern National organization. There are currently over 2,000 of these cancellation stamps in existence. As an added enticement, they will create an official park passport stamp for the convention to commemorate the event. But it will only exist for that one day. It would be a great, extremely rare stamp to jump-start one’s collection.
I am sure Scott will answer any comments you may have below if you would like further information. Likewise I’d be glad to provide contact information for Scott if you’d prefer to send him a message offline.
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