Mesa Verde National Park
Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park. Photo courtesy National Park Service/Martha Smith
President Theodore Roosevelt established Mesa Verde National Park more than 100 years ago, protecting historic cliff dwellings and other archaeological treasures left by the Ancestral Puebloans, who lived in the area from about A.D. 550 to 1300.
The park contains more than 5,000 archaeological sites, an incredible number that includes more than 600 cliff dwellings, and about 8,500 acres of protected wilderness.
With bipartisan support from Colorado’s congressional delegation, in 2007 we assisted the National Park Service in adding more than 320 acres to the park, ensuring that visitors to Mesa Verde will enter the park through preserved and scenic land.
