Discover Springerville

Springerville is an interesting destination for anyone who wants to combine their days with history, art, and a distinctive scenic route. The town offers several ways to explore the past: Casa Malpais tells the story of the Mogollon, the Springerville Heritage Center houses four museums, and the Coronado Trail Scenic Byway begins here. This allows you to plan your trip around your preferred focus and switch between concentrated museum visits and a drive with historical significance.

Experience Casa Malpais on a Guided Tour

One particularly striking stop is Casa Malpais National Historic Landmark. The site was built and inhabited by the Mogollon between 1240 and 1350 AD. This time span makes the site an impressive point of connection for anyone interested in early settlement history and the traces left by past cultures.

Casa Malpais can only be visited as part of a guided tour. The tours begin at the Springerville Heritage Center. For your daily planning, this means taking the set structure of the visit into account and beginning your exploration where the tour starts. Especially when traveling with several generations, this clear structure helps you consciously incorporate the cultural activity into the day without adding any further visiting conditions.

Four Museums, Many Historical Perspectives

The Springerville Heritage Center houses the Casa Malpais Archeological Museum, the Renee Cushman Museum, the Becker Family History Museum, and the White Mountain Historical Society Museum. The four institutions offer different perspectives on archaeology, family history, art, and everyday life in earlier times. Those traveling with children can therefore bring together a variety of interests in a shared cultural itinerary: one museum invites visitors to explore archaeological connections, while another directs attention to personal and regional history.

The Renee Cushman Museum includes, among other things, an engraving by Rembrandt. This individual work adds an art-historical accent to the range of museums and offers an exciting contrast to the more strongly regional themes. The White Mountain Historical Society displays household items and tools from the period between 1870 and 1940. These objects make it possible to understand how a museum visit can also be approached through very tangible things: materials, work tools, and everyday objects bring history to life without requiring any prior knowledge.

Road Trip and Commemorative History

Springerville also provides a clear starting point for a road trip. The Coronado Trail Scenic Byway begins in Springerville. If you would like to include a drive along this route in your vacation, you can take the town into account as the starting point for your plans. A Madonna of the Trail monument also commemorates another historical dimension: Springerville is one of twelve locations where the DAR erected such a monument between 1928 and 1929.

The Right Vacation Rental for Your Travel Plans

When searching for a vacation rental in Springerville, it is worth deciding on your main focus in advance. If the trip is to center primarily on museums and cultural-historical themes, include the Springerville Heritage Center, where the Casa Malpais tour begins, in your plans. If a drive along the Coronado Trail Scenic Byway is the main focus, begin your considerations with the starting point mentioned there. You can then choose accommodation to suit your personal daily rhythm and the activities you actually want to combine.

If you would like to look at additional places for your travel plans, you can find Ganado, Greer, Steamboat, Window Rock, Sanders, Chinle, St. Michaels and Lupton here.

For the higher-level travel overview: Apache County.