Located about a mile and a half from the heart of Cave Creek, the Cave is the namesake for the historic town of Cave Creek, Arizona. It is the presumed location of an 1873 Christmas-day battle between the Tonto Apaches and the U. S. Cavalry. The Cave, which is approximately sixty-feet wide and fifty-feet high and deep, is the only cave which could accommodate eleven wickiup huts described by the Cavalry. After an early morning battle, nine Apaches lay dead, tons of winter-sustaining food smoldered, and the Cavalry’s relentless enforcement of “surrender or starve” was accomplished. Cave is located on private property and is not open to the public except by scheduled tours led by the Desert Foothills Land Trust.
