Images of America Mesa Verde
Mesa Verde National Park was America's first cultural park and also the world's first cultural heritage park. Created in 1906, it preserves the sites and materials of the prehistoric Puebloan people. Located in southwestern Colorado near the famous Four Corners, where the states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico meet, the magnificent Mesa Verde is situated in Montezuma County, just south of Cortez and directly west of Durango. The park's rich archaeological history was played out amid some of the most ruggedly beautiful landscapes in the West. The greater story of the evolution of the park encompasses the Ute people, Theodore Roosevelt, novelist Willa Cather, and other personalities. These remarkable vintage photographs tell that saga, which is as fascinating as that of the Puebloans.
Richard Wetherill Anasazi
Anasazi, the Navajos' name for the "Ancient Ones" who preceded them into the Southwest, is the nickname of Richard Wetherill, who devoted his life to a search for remains of these vanished peoples. He discovered the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde and Kiet Siel and the Basket Maker sites at Grand Gulch, Utah, and at Chaco Canyon he initiated the excavation of Pueblo Bonito, the largest prehistoric ruin in the United States. His discoveries are among the most important ever made by an American archaeologist.