Visitors can access the monument by traveling northbound from Silver City, New Mexico, 45 miles (72 km) on NM 15.

The terrain around the ruins is rugged and arid, and contains steep-sided canyons cut by shallow spring rivers and mesas and bluffs forested with Ponderosa pine, Gambel's oak, Douglas fir, New Mexico juniper, pinon pine, and alligator juniper (among others).

To visit the namesake dwellings, visitors are required to hike a well-traveled 1-mile-long (1.6 km) trail loop with several foot bridges over a stream.

Though local Native American Indians were aware of the location of ruins, the first European contact with the Gila Cliff Dwellings was by Henry B. Ailman (an emigrant to New Mexico who was residing in Silver City at the time).

In June 1906, Rep. John F. Lacey of Iowa and chairman of the House Public Lands Committee introduced a bill for the regulation of prehistoric sites.

These federal reservations were called national monuments and were to be managed by the Interior, Agriculture, and War departments, depending on which agency had controlled a particular site before it was withdrawn for preservation.

Several mummified bodies had been found at the Gila Cliff Dwellings location, though most were lost to looters and private collectors.

[citation needed] Administration of the monument was transferred from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the National Park Service on August 10, 1933, by Executive Order 6166.

Displayed items include a bracelet crafted from Glycymeris Bittersweet clam shells found by a student park ranger, Charles Grymko.

Believed to have been brought via trade from the Gulf of California to Snaketown (an ancient village on the right bank of the Gila River on the modern-day Gila River Indian Community south of the village of Ahwatukee), the shell eventually was etched and drilled by Hohokam artisans.