Mesa Verde National Park & Ute Mountain Tribal Park

Mesa Verde National Park and Ute Mountain Tribal Park. . , La Plata Mountains , Plata means silver, but the silver and gold mines established in the mid-1800s never produced the wealth hoped for by prospectors. , Mancos Hill , The Rio Grande Southern Railroad crossed this gap on its run from Durango to Ridgeway. It was built in 1891 to connect the Silverton end of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad to the mainline at Ridgeway. The railroad traversed 172 miles, over 142 bridges and trestles , all to bypass 10 miles of the tortuous Uncompaghre Canyon just south of Ouray. It resulted in the creation of the town of Dolores and supplied the mining towns of Rico, Ophir and Telluride. , Mancos , First settled in 1881, the Rio Grande Southern Railroad reached Mancos in 1891 and by 1900, the town had almost 1,000 residents. Its name, from the Spanish word for crippled, comes from tales of both a crippled burro and a Spanish priest who injured his leg while traveling through the area. , Point Lookout , Mesa Verde National Park , The park was established in 1906. Early visitors traveled to the park on horseback. In 1908 the “Knife Edge” was built , a vertigo-inducing stretch of road that hung on to the cliff face on Point Lookout before turning inland towards Chapin Mesa. Cars were prohibited and the road was only open to wagons. In 1914 the first automobiles crawled along the improved Knife Edge road; the current road was built in 1920 and graveled in 1932. , Park Point , The highest point in Mesa Verde National Park. , Chapin Mesa , The cliff dwellings of Cliff Palace, Balcony House, Spruce Tree House, and the Park Museum and Headquarters are located on this mesa in Mesa Verde National Park. , Wetherill Mesa , Wetherill Mesa contains Long House, Step House, Mug House, and the mesa-top pueblos of the Badger House Community. , Ute Mountain Tribal Park , The Tribal Park is part of the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation. This park was created in 1971 to preserve and protect Ancestral Puebloan sites within the reservation. , Cortez , Cortez was settled in 1886. Workers on the Montezuma Valley irrigation system were some of the first residents. Construction of the system was a monumental task, bringing water from the Dolores River to the Montezuma Valley through a low divide by means of a tunnel. Work on the tunnel and irrigation ditches was completed in 1889. , “The Gap” , The Dolores River once flowed through the gap and into the San Juan River. A geologic uplift turned the river northward to its present route about 60 million years ago. , Towaoc , Towaoc (pronounced Toe-way-ahk), a Ute word meaning “all right”, is the tribal headquarters for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.