The national park is marking its 100th birthday with a full slate of special tours, exhibits, lectures, workshops and other programs designed to showcase its attractions and point up its role as the nation’s premier archaeological treasure.
Among the highlights:
Ranger-led hikes and one-day horseback rides to backcountry ruins that haven’t been opened to visitors for generations, plus multiday rides in May and October to retrace the first explorations, which traveled through what is now the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park.
A four-day symposium in May at the Ute Mountain Conference Center in Towaoc to explore what’s been learned from archaeological research and what questions should be examined in the future.
An anniversary celebration at various locations in the park June 29-July 2, featuring American Indian crafts, an art exhibit and quilt show, and the premier performance of a commissioned orchestral work, the “Mesa Verde Suite.”
An “alumni” reunion at the park in mid-October, for all who have worked at Mesa Verde, including rangers, museum workers, concessionaires and members of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which built many of the roads and other facilities in the 1930s.
A year-long series of weekly lectures, at various venues in nearby communities, examining topics ranging from rock art to prehistoric astronomy to the history of forest fires in the park.
The publication of a large-format coffee-table book, “Mesa Verde National Park: The First 100 Years,” plus a companion series of seven volumes on various aspects of the Mesa Verde story, from the role of local women in pushing for national park designation to the use of Navajo workmen in stabilizing and restoring many of the ruins.
An exhibit now open in the Western History Department of the Denver Public Library on early photography, archaeology and tourism in Mesa Verde. It was curated by Tom Carr, an archaeologist with the Colorado Historical Society, who will discuss the artifacts in a lecture at 6:30 p.m. May 15 at the library.
For more information on Mesa Verde’s centennial, visit mesaverde2006.org or call the park’s centennial coordinator at 970-529-4616.
– Jack Cox
