The News from Mesa Verde

Mesa Verde National Park Grows By Nearly Half Mile

Mesa Verde National Park in the southwestern corner of the state is bigger by nearly a half square mile.

The $1.6 million acquisition of the 324-acre Henneman family parcel at the entrance to the park was celebrated Saturday with visits by several dignitaries, including Sen. Ken Salazar. The land was transferred to the National Parks Service on July 25.

Groups Fear Worsening Air Quality in National Parks

Environmentalists and some civic leaders are protesting proposed changes to the federal clean air law that they say will worsen pollution in several Western national parks, including Mesa Verde National Park.

Advocacy groups held news conferences at the southwest Colorado park and three others Wednesday to call on the Bush administration to abandon the change being considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Mesa Verde National Park is a Land of Mysteries

The story of Mesa Verde so intrigues visitors that few walk away without having pondered its mysteries: Why did the people who lived here build their homes in the cliff alcoves, and why did they suddenly disappear?

The theories range from the mundane to the dramatic.

•Perhaps the ancestral Puebloan people (sometimes called Anasazi) moved from the mesa top to carve new homes out of the cliff sides because they were protecting themselves from an enemy.

•Perhaps they sought the shelter of the cliffs from winter’s cold and summer’s heat (the cliff dwellings are warmer in winter, and cooler than the mesa top in summer).

•Or maybe, after a lengthy drought, people moved off the top to cultivate every usable inch of land.