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,…

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…

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…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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&nbsp…

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,…