History
Rattlesnake Point Pueblo is a prehistoric ancestral Puebloan site on the upper Little Colorado plateau, near St. Johns in Apache County, eastern Arizona. The site occupies a defensible point of higher ground overlooking the river drainage, in a region that supported small dispersed farming communities through much of the late Pueblo II and Pueblo III periods, roughly the eleventh through the early fourteenth centuries, before regional consolidation drew populations south and east toward Zuni, the Hopi mesas, and the upper Rio Grande.
The settlement is a multi-room masonry-and-earth pueblo: sandstone or rubble walls laid up with clay mortar over flat-floored room blocks, with adjoining plaza spaces and probable subterranean kiva features in the regional manner. Construction follows the vernacular ancestral pattern of the upper Little Colorado — a working agricultural village rather than a great-house or trading center — and the surviving fabric consists chiefly of low foundation lines, fallen wall stone, and ground surface scatter rather than standing architecture. Surface ceramics and lithics situate the site within the broader Puebloan trade and settlement networks of the region.
The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 under reference number 01000792 in recognition of its archaeological significance. As is standard practice for prehistoric sites of this character, the precise location and details are protected from public dissemination to discourage looting and unauthorized surface collection.
The pueblo is presently held in a status that combines private ownership with archaeological protection and is not open to the public. Within Arizona's adobe and earthen-building tradition Rattlesnake Point Pueblo represents the indigenous ancestral foundation on which the later Sonoran and Pueblo Revival adobe inheritance of the state ultimately rests — a small upper-plateau farming village whose stacked stone, clay mortar, and earthen floors are part of the long continuous record of building with the land itself in eastern Arizona.
Common questions
What is Rattlesnake Point Pueblo?
Rattlesnake Point Pueblo is a historic property located within Lyman Lake State Park in St. Johns, Arizona. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 01000792 and is documented in the NRHP nomination materials of the National Park Service.
When was Rattlesnake Point Pueblo built?
Rattlesnake Point Pueblo's exact date of construction is unknown from the registry data available for this entry. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference 01000792.
Where is Rattlesnake Point Pueblo located?
Rattlesnake Point Pueblo is located within Lyman Lake State Park in St. Johns, Arizona.
Is Rattlesnake Point Pueblo open to the public?
Rattlesnake Point Pueblo sits within Lyman Lake State Park, but the archaeological site itself is treated as a sensitive private-status resource and is not open for unrestricted tours. Visitors should check current park access policies before planning a visit.
Why is Rattlesnake Point Pueblo historically significant?
Rattlesnake Point Pueblo is listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 01000792, recognizing it as a historically and archaeologically significant pueblo site in northeastern Arizona.