Mesa Verde National Park

Located between Durango and Cortez in Southwestern Colorado, Mesa Verde (Green Table) preserves over 4,300 archaeological sites, which includes 600 cliff dwellings. Mesa Verde was occupied by the Ancestral Puebloan people from CE 600 to 1300. The first protection of area ruins started in 1889 with the Goodman Point Pueblo (Hovenweep NM). Mesa Verde attracted the attention of artifact collectors, with "curio seekers" vandalizing ruins in their search for salable artifacts. Established by President Theodore Roosevelt, with the goal of preserving "the works of man," on June 29, 1906. Roosevelt also signed the Federal Antiquities Act in 1906 to further protect cultural treasures. The creation of Mesa Verde National Park was a first to protect an area of cultural significance.

It is estimated that seasonal settlement started around 7,500 BCE, with nomatic Paleo-Indians (the first people), with the Basketmaker Culture developing at 1,000 BCE. The Ancestral Puebloans developed from the Basketmaker Culture around 750 CE. Settlement trends started with nomatic, semi-nomatic, with permanent communities commencing in the first century CE. At Mesa Verde, the first structural villages were pueblos which date from the mid seventh century. Starting at the end of the 12^th Century the cliff dwellings emerged. It is felt that prolonged drought and the resulting social instability, caused the movement of Ancestral Pueblans from Mesa Verde.

Spanish influence began in the Valley of the Rio Grande in the 16^th and 17^th Centuries. The Spanish government exploration commenced with the Don Juan de Oñate in 1598. The settlement of Santa Fe area occurred in 1607. The Spanish government officially established Santa Fe as the provincial capitol in 1610.

By the end of the 18^th Century, exploration began north and northwest of Santa Fe. The first expedition into the area of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado was by Juan Rivera in 1765. The search for wealth was a consistent motivator for Spanish exploration. This search drove Coronado into the midwest on a 4,000 mile (6,400 KM) in 1541. The governor of New Mexico was acting on the same theme when he ordered Rivera into the land of the Utes. Rivera believed that there were silver mines in the area of southern Colorado and there was a bearded tribe of natives who were of light complexion, living in the land of Teguayo.

Santa Fe was interested in the exploration of Teguayo, to discover if the bearded light skinned people were Europeans living northwest of New Spain. Rivera's first travels (June-July) took him to the La Plata Mountains where he returned with a wealth of ethnographic data on local peoples and some silver nails (clavos de plata). It is noteworthy the Rivera discovered ruins, and made the first archaeological investigation made in the continental United States. (Baker, 2015) Rivera helped to pacify the native Ute population, furthering the goal of improving diplomatic and trade relations. Rivera made his second trip from September through the first week of November. His small band was able to retrace their first trail, then continuing west to the Big Bend of the Dolores River, crossing the Dolores and continuing northward over a series of trails that would become known as the Navajo-Uncompahgre Trail, ending up at the Gunnison River Bottoms south of the present city of Delta.

Rivera's journals provided the first account of the land and it's inhabitants in western Colorado. Members of River's expedition were able to assist the Dominguez- Escalante expedition in 1776. The Friars traveled north west along Rivera's route, to the Big Bend, and north along the Navajo-Uncompahgre Trail, over the Uncompahgre Plateau to the Delta bottoms. They were able to cross the Gunnison at Delta, eventually crossing the Colorado River further north. One of their goals was the discovery of an overland route to Alta California. Dominguez and Escalante were able to travel into central Utah, and see the "bearded" natives, before heading south and crossing the Colorado River on their return to Santa Fe. Dominguez and Escalante are credited with the naming of Mesa Verde, even though they didn't explore the top of the mesa.

WH Jackson, Cliff Palace

By the mid 19^th century, Mexico had won it's independence from Spain, and lost the colony of New Mexico to the United States in the 1848 Treaty of Gudalupe Hidalgo. Through this treaty Mexico ceded New Mexico and Alta California including the vast desert area of the Great Basin. The American nation now stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Anglo American settlement and government surveys put pressure on the native inhabitants leading to the establishment of the reservations of Uintah and Ouray in 1861. The miners and the settlers who followed opened up western Colorado during the last twenty years of the 19^th Century. John Moss, a prospector had explored the Mesa, leading the photographer William Henry Jackson into Mancos Canyon to view and photograph Mesa Verde's ruins in 1873. Jackson contributed to the Hayden Survey (1876) of the area of Western Colorado. With the Ute Treaty (1873), the land of Mesa Verde become part of the Ute Reservation.

Richard Wetherill among the cliff dwellings
(credit: Denver Public Library)

It was Richard Wetherill (1858- 1910) a Mancos area rancher who was able to graze his cattle at the top of Mesa Verde. On December 18, 1888, Wetherill and Charlie Mason spotted the Cliff Palace ruin from a canyon rim. The Wetherill family was instrumental in bringing outsiders into the region to explore the ruins. In 1889 and 1890, they hosted Frederick H. Chapin, and later in 1891 Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld. Their activity, and subsequent collection of artifacts from the area resulted in the eventual creation of the National Park by Roosevelt in 1906.

Area: 52,485 Acres

Basecamp Cortez Link