11 Most Endangered
Mesa Verde National Park
Year Listed: 1998
Location: Colorado
Current Status: Favorable
Threat: Deterioration, Natural Forces
Sprawling across more than 52,000 acres of rugged canyon and tableland in southwestern Colorado, Mesa Verde is America's best-known national park dedicated to archaeological resources. Created by Congress in 1906, the park contains the world's most important and best-preserved collection of pre-Columbian cliff dwellings, remnants of the Ancestral Puebloan culture that flourished in the area from the 6th through the 13th century. But this awe-inspiring place Is in peril. Of the more than 600 cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, the National Park Service has the resources to provide regular maintenance for only 40 to 50. Problems arising from chronically inadequate funding were compounded in 1996 when a fire damaged some sites and exposed others to erosion. Some are in such poor condition that they could be lost within a few years unless steps are taken to protect them.
Update
Significant progress is being made to preserve the many thousands of fragile historic and archeological resources in Mesa Verde National Park. A host of private gifts and government grants have been received since the listing, including $1.5 million from Save America’s Treasures Program. These funds are being used to catalog previously undocumented resources and provide stabilization for sites threatened by erosion, drought and other factors.
