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Montezuma County

Ancestral Puebloans of the Four Corners Region

Added by yongli on 05/09/2016 - 14:21, last changed on 11/01/2022 - 19:36
Formerly labeled Anasazi, the Ancestral Puebloan culture is the most widely known of the ancient cultures of Colorado. The people who built the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde and the great houses of Chaco Canyon were subsistence farmers of corn, beans, and squash. The structures of this culture date...

Beaver Creek Massacre

Added by yongli on 11/05/2015 - 10:35, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 05:48
The Beaver Creek Massacre occurred on June 19, 1885, when white cattlemen killed six Ute Mountain Utes at a camp on Beaver Creek, about sixteen miles north of Dolores in present Montezuma County . Stemming from conflicts over the federal government’s Native American policies and the Utes’ off-...

Cliff Dwelling

Added by yongli on 11/20/2015 - 14:00, last changed on 05/29/2020 - 01:07
The cliff dwellings of southwestern Colorado are among the world’s greatest archaeological treasures. The term cliff dwelling can be applied to any archaeological site used as a habitation and located in an alcove or rock overhang; however, the most famous cliff dwellings are those created by...

Cliff Palace

Added by yongli on 05/25/2016 - 14:48, last changed on 09/04/2021 - 12:31
Located in an alcove on the east wall of Cliff Canyon in Mesa Verde National Park , Cliff Palace is a 150-room cliff dwelling built by Ancestral Pueblo people in the 1200s. Diné ( Navajo ), Nuche ( Ute ), Apache , and Pueblo people knew of the structures well before rancher Richard Wetherill and...

Far View Sites

Added by yongli on 06/23/2016 - 10:50, last changed on 12/19/2019 - 01:07
The Far View group at Mesa Verde National Park consists of more than twenty sites, five of which have been excavated. Far View House began as an eleventh-century Great House and part of the region centered on Chaco Canyon . Many of the surrounding sites in the Far View Group were first built in the...

Gustaf Nordenskiöld and the Mesa Verde Region

Added by yongli on 08/20/2015 - 09:34, last changed on 04/03/2021 - 08:31
In 1891 the young Swedish scientist Gustaf Nordenskiöld (1868–95) arrived in Colorado, seeking both a cure for his tuberculosis and a look at the wonders of the West. His experiences over the next two years set in motion a series of events that would ultimately lead to the passage of the first...

Hovenweep National Monument

Added by yongli on 04/15/2015 - 17:07, last changed on 08/06/2020 - 10:41
Hovenweep National Monument is known for its prehistoric masonry structures clustered around small canyons along the Utah-Colorado border. To protect these unique archaeological resources, Warren G. Harding issued a Presidential Proclamation to establish the monument on March 2, 1923. The monument...

Jesse Nusbaum

Added by yongli on 04/27/2017 - 12:35, last changed on 12/19/2019 - 01:07
Jesse Nusbaum (1887–1975) was an early National Park Service (NPS) employee, historian, archaeologist, restoration specialist, and author active in Colorado and New Mexico in the early 1900s. As superintendent of Mesa Verde National Park , he imbued the fledgling National Park Service with a new...

Long House

Added by yongli on 05/04/2017 - 14:42, last changed on 09/09/2020 - 15:45
Long House is the second-largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park . Built by Ancestral Puebloans in the 1200s, the 150-room dwelling was rediscovered by the Wetherill brothers and Charles Mason in early 1890. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was excavated and eventually opened to...

Lowry Site

Added by yongli on 11/20/2015 - 14:09, last changed on 10/25/2022 - 19:52
Named for early homesteader George Lowry, the Lowry ruin near Cortez ( Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, County Rd 7.25, Pleasant View, CO 81331) is a pueblo with thirty-seven rooms, eight kivas , and one Great Kiva. Built between about 1090 and 1120 CE, the Ancestral Pueblo site dates to...

Mesa Verde National Park

Added by yongli on 08/21/2015 - 11:50, last changed on 01/22/2022 - 11:53
Mesa Verde National Park was established on June 29, 1906. It is the largest of the National Park Service parcels protecting cultural resources in Colorado, with nearly 5,000 documented sites, including about 600 cliff dwellings . A majority of the sites are associated with Ancestral Pueblo...

Mesa Verde National Park Administrative District

Added by yongli on 10/27/2016 - 15:55, last changed on 10/24/2019 - 11:59
The Mesa Verde National Park Administrative District consists of six Pueblo Revival structures originally built by park superintendent Jesse Nusbaum along the rim of Spruce Tree Canyon in the 1920s. The buildings were the first in the National Park Service to highlight a park’s cultural theme, and...

Montezuma County

Added by yongli on 06/27/2016 - 15:03, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 05:48
Montezuma County, famous for the ancient Native American ruins at Mesa Verde , is the southwesternmost county in Colorado. The county covers 2,040 square miles of the Colorado Plateau , and has the distinction of bordering Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. It is known as the Four Corners region, where...

Morefield Mound

Added by yongli on 02/03/2017 - 13:18, last changed on 05/11/2020 - 09:37
Morefield Mound sits in the middle of the wide valley at the bottom of Morefield Canyon in Mesa Verde National Park . It served as a water supply for ancient Native Americans a thousand years ago, making it one of the earliest known domestic water-supply works in the United States. The reservoir...

Richard Wetherill

Added by yongli on 10/22/2015 - 10:53, last changed on 08/16/2022 - 16:30
Richard Wetherill (1858–1910) was a nineteenth-century rancher and explorer who lived in southwest Colorado. Although he is often credited with "discovering" some of the most significant Ancestral Pueblo archaeological sites in the Four Corners area, the sites had already been known to various...

Spruce Tree House

Added by yongli on 05/05/2017 - 10:51, last changed on 09/04/2021 - 12:35
Spruce Tree House is the third-largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park , and the first seen by most visitors because of its location near park headquarters. Built by the Ancestral Pueblo in the 1200s, Euro-Americans came to know the 114-room dwelling through rancher Richard Wetherill and...

Yucca House National Monument

Added by yongli on 05/02/2016 - 15:29, last changed on 12/19/2019 - 01:07
Yucca House National Monument was established to protect and preserve a large Ancestral Pueblo village south of Cortez in the southwestern corner of Colorado. Yucca House is an important Ancestral Pueblo village based on its size, unique configurations, and prominent, highly visible location in the...
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