Cliff Palace The Wetherills a family of ranchers living in Mancos Colorado Colorado became friendly with the Ute and obtained permission from them to graze their cattle in Mesa Verde during the winter winter months On December 18 1888 Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charles Mason were riding across the mesa
in search of lost cattle They came to the edge of a steep canyon and when they looked across for their missing animals animals they saw instead a complex of abandoned stone buildings buildings wedged under the overhanging rock of the canyon wall
Some of the structures towered four stories high others surrounded surrounded large round pits and in many there were remnants of pottery baskets and other signs that people had once lived there The two cowboys had discovered Cliff Palace a village that had once housed more than two hundred people It is the largest cliff ruin in Mesa Verde Over the next few years the Wetherills continued to explore in Mesa Verde and they discovered and named other ruins When news of the cliff dwellings was made public many other people came to see them The visitors were interested in finding out how people had lived before the first Europeans came to America They also came to collect pottery and other souvenirs The first systematic investigation of Mesa Verde was conducted conducted in 1891 by a Swede named Gustaf Nordenskiold He had originally come to America hoping that the dry climate of the Southwest would cure his tuberculosis When he heard about the cliff houses at Mesa Verde he became intrigued and made arrangements to visit them Nordenskiold wrote detailed descriptions of what he found at Mesa Verde and later published published them in a book He also took photographs that provide
us with important information about the condition of the ruins at that time Like the Wetherills and many other visitors to the Mesa Verde ruins Nordenskiold began his own collection of pottery pottery tools and other items found in the abandoned village Photo by Gustaf Nordenskiold of Balcony House 1891
