Mesa Verde National Park and the Durango and Silverton Railroad

The American Southwest is home to some of the most remarkable monuments of America's prehistoric past, such as Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. Stephen Plog, who has spent decades working in the region, provides the most readable and up-to-date account of the predecessors of the modern Hopi and Pueblo Indian cultures in this well-received account. Chaco Canyon became the center of a thriving Anasazi cultural tradition. It was the hub of a trading network extending over hundreds of miles, whose arteries were a series of extraordinary roads that are still being discovered and mapped. Interweaving the latest archaeological evidence with early first-person accounts, Professor Plog explains the rise and mysterious fall of Southwestern cultures. 224pp.

This third edition of David Grant Noble's indispensable guide to archaeological ruins of the American Southwest includes updated text and thirteen newly opened archaeological sites. From Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument in Texas to the Zuni - Acoma Trail in New Mexico (including Canyonlands National Park, Grand Gulch, Natural Bridges National Monument, San Juan River, Newspaper Rock and other Moab area rock art sites), readers will be provided with old-time favorites and new treasures. In addition to descriptions of each site, Noble provides time-saving tips for the traveler, citing major highways, nearby towns and the facilities they offer, campgrounds, and other helpful information. Filled with photos of ruins, petroglyphs, and artifacts, as well as maps, this is a guide every traveler needs when they are exploring the Southwest. Covers much of southeastern Utah including Grand Gulch Primitive Area, Natural Bridges National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument, and Canyonlands National Park. 238pp.

Mesa Verde National Park was established in 1906 to protect and study the large concentration of Anasazi Indian sites on the mesa tops, cliffs and canons. Although most of the thousands of visitors to the Park are attracted by the archaeology sites, the spectacular scenery certainly enhances the enjoyment of this area. This book provides first, a road log with brief descriptions of the geology at many viewpoints. The second section contains a more detailed geologic history of the region from some two billion years ago to the present, along with the explanation of some of the basic geological processes at work. References are given throughout the road log too more detailed discussion of specific topics in the second section of the text. A glossary at the end of the book may help with unfamiliar terms. A geological map of Mesa Verde also accompanies this book.

The summer and autumn of 1891 I passed through Colorado, engaged upon investigations of the remarkable cliff dwellings scattered in the canons of an extensive plateau, the Mesa Verde, in the southwest of the state. The present work is the result of those researches. It contains a description of the ruins, an account of the excavations carried out there and of the objects discovered. In order to trace as far as possible the development of the cliff-dweller culture, I append a survey of the ruins in the South-western states akin to the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, a description of the Moki Indians, the descendents of the ancient Pueblo tribes, and an account, based on the relations of the first Spanish explorers, of the manors and customs of the agricultural town-building Indians in the middle of the sixteenth century. A special part of the work is devoted to a description by Prof. G. Retzius of the crania found during the excavations.

At the height of the Great Depression, two of America's richest resources-its young men and its public lands-were in peril. As unemployed young men despaired at their prospects for earning a living for themselves and their families, choking dust storms stripped away farmland and fire ravaged the nation's forests. Only days after taking office in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched a new program to help save both treasures.