“Amerind Museum and Dragoon Mountains Pictographs Tour”
December 6 @ 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
On Saturday, December 6, 2025, join Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s “Amerind Museum and Dragoon Mountains Pictographs Tour” with archaeologists Eric Kaldahl and William Gillespie, starting at the Amerind Museum, 2100 N. Amerind Rd., Dragoon, Arizona. This fundraising event will be held from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, with participants paying their own Amerind Museum entry fee and a separate requested donation to Old Pueblo to help cover its tour expenses and support its education programs about archaeology and traditional cultures.
The Amerind Museum, situated amid the rugged boulder formations of Texas Canyon in southeastern Arizona’s rugged Dragoon Mountains, was incorporated in 1937 as the Amerind Foundation on the private ranch property of Connecticut native William Shirley Fulton to support archaeological research on a major scale. Eventually the Amerind Foundation was developed into the Amerind Museum, Library, and Art Gallery, which encompasses one of the finest private museum collections of ethnographic and archaeological materials in North America.
Amerind’s best known research project is its 1959-1962 ground-breaking work in collaboration with the Mexican government at Paquimé, northern Chihuahua, one of the largest ancient sites in the greater Southwest, under the direction of Amerind’s first professional director, archaeologist Dr. Charles C. Di Peso. Amerind’s current director, archaeologist Dr. Eric Kaldahl, will personally guide us through the Amerind during the first part of this Old Pueblo Archaeology Center tour.
After a picnic lunch at the Amerind, we will drive in a caravan to the Dragoon Mountains’ famous Council Rocks area and West Stronghold Canyon to view ancient pictographs with Bill Gillespie, who knows the archaeology of the region well from having been the Coronado National Forest archaeologist for 35 years.
The pictographs, which show a diversity of elements, paint colors, and styles, likely were painted by both Mogollon and later Apache residents. The greatest concentration of these pictographs are in the area where the great Chiricahua Apache leader Cochise is known to have lived in the 1870s.
Tour registrants are responsible for providing their own transportation, picnic lunch, snacks, drinking water, footwear and clothing appropriate for hiking, and any lodging needed. Visiting the pictographs requires moderately strenuous hiking a little less than 2 miles over rugged, rocky, and brushy terrain with minimal trails.
Registration and Old Pueblo donation are due 10 days after reservation request or by 5 pm Wednesday December 3, whichever is earlier. To register or for more information contact Old Pueblo at info@oldpueblo.org or 520-798-1201.
Flyer: 20251206(v2)AmerindMuseum-DragoonMountainsPictographsTourFlyer
Caption: Photos of Amerind Main Gallery and pictographs at Council Rocks and West Stronghold, Dragoon Mountains, courtesy of the Amerind and Bill Gillespie, respectively