Mesa Verde Timeline

• 500s AD – First pit houses and signs of permanent • 1100 – 1300 – The Classic Pueblo Period saw the • 1300 – Ancestral Puebloan people had migrated • 1859 – Great Colorado Goldrush. Professor J.S. • 1880 – Chief Ouray and delegation negotiate • 1888 – The Weatherill brothers discover Cliff habitation appear construction of extensive complexes of pueblos. from Mesa Verde. There are many possible Newberry makes the first known mention of treaty in Washington D.C. that includes Palace while tracking livestock. Cliff dwellings number over 600 within the park reasons for the migration. Mesa Verde. establishment of reservation lands. • Mid-700s – People began grouping houses to boundaries. • 1889 – Activist Virginia McClurg begins a decade- form compact villages. • 1870s - 80s – Several cliff dwellings discovered. long fight to designate the National Park.

500 AD 700 900 1100 1300 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890

1906 1908 1910 1930 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2006

• 1906 The Ute Mountain Utes exchange Mesa • 1908 – Building stabilization and archaeological • 1910s onward – Tourists and archaeologists begin • 1976 - Lands are added to the National Park with • 2003/4 Forest fires brought on by drought burn • 2006 – After 100 years, Mersa Verde National Verde lands forother lands in Southwest Colorado. preservation activities are undertaken to protect visiting in increasing numbers. new wilderness designations. thousands of National Park acres, but leave Park celebrates the continued preservation and sites. These activities continue to date and will dwellings undamaged. The process of regrowth protection of these irreplaceable cultural • June 29, 1906 – President Theodore Roosevelt continue into the future. • 1978 - Mesa Verde National Park is declared one is well underway. resources for generations to come. signs legislation creating Mesa Verde National of eight original World Heritage Sites by the Park. United Nations. Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service. Restoration by San Juan Images for Mesa Verde Museum Association. Photo Credits on page 35