Pipe Spring National Monument
Arizona

Your first stop when visiting Pipe Spring will be at the Pipe Spring National Monument - Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians Visitor Center and Museum. The Visitor Center and Museum is a joint project of the National Park Service and the Kaibab Paiute. The Museum is where you'll learn about the people and cultures who have inhabited this region for thousands of years. There are also detailed exhibits about the more recent Native American cultures and about the early European pioneers who settled here. You can also find information here about the Grand Canyon and about Grand Canyon - Parashant National Monument.

This whole site is centered around a reliable water source that has existed here for centuries. There is evidence of Native Americans going back 10,000 years, while the Europeans didn't arrive until 1870 when a group of Mormons built a tithing cattle ranch on the site. Several stone buildings from the old ranch survive, including a fortified ranch house named Winsor Castle (the first superintendent of the ranch was Anson P. Winsor). The ranch site is surrounded by the National Monument, which is surrounded by the reservation of the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians.

A tour of Winsor Castle might take you half-an-hour (tours start off every 30 minutes during normal business hours). A hike on the Ridge Trail to see some of the other sights in the area (overlooking the Arizona Strip - that section of Arizona north of the Grand Canyon) should take another half-hour. The East and West Cabins have exhibits portraying local cowboy life and local efforts at historic preservation. The Museum though, that might take you an hour or more, depending on how much you get into it. The Museum has 12 exhibits about the history of the Kaibab Band and their interactions with other cultures and tribes, the arrival of Mormon settlers in the region and the evolution of modern Paiute culture and tradition.