The Pioneer Women

The Pioneer Women

In late June, I attended the Western Writers of America Conference in Kansas City, MO, which is the trail-head for the Santa Fe, the Oregon, and the California Trails. Kansas City takes great pride in its statuary and its fountains. Two memorable statues in Kansas City for me are the Pioneer Mother (http://bit.ly/2uvkSqz) in Penn Valley Park near downtown, and the Pioneer Crossing Park (http://bit.ly/2t2MXRK) in the nearby Shawnee Mission area of Kansas. Earlier in the year, we detoured east from I-35 to visit Ponca City, OK, to visit the Pioneer Woman Museum, home of an equally well-know statue of the Pioneer Woman.

These memorials pay tribute to the role strong-willed women played in developing the West, as we know it today. While each bronze is unique, all three emphasize the role of mother and child. The family produced a leavening effect on a wild, untamed, and uncharted land. The family reminded all of the fundamental fabric of society, the marriage of man and woman, who were to procreate and work the land.

The society of the mid- to late-1800s placed a multitude of restrictions on a woman’s role. However, the rigid societal structure weakened after crossing the Missouri border into the territories. The nature of the quest forced women to become an active partner, for survival, if for no other reason.

Each of us has our version of the strong-willed, determined woman standing beside her man, reloading the cap-and-ball rifles to ward off marauders. If the man fell, the woman picked up the rifle, continuing the fight to save herself and her children. The surviving woman, now a widow, faced a different life, then as now.

Life for a single mother in 1866 wasn’t all that different than in 1966. If a woman decided to remarry, she uprooted her family to move with her new man. In the process, the mother and the children experience a lot of anxiety about their new life. In my story, Tibby’ Hideout, Bess Newcomb says yes to a traveler who visited her twice a year while he carried trade goods to and from San Antonio. He wrote her wonderful letters. After accepting his proposal, Bess loads her family and their belongings into her Studebaker station wagon to move to Las Vegas.

Wait you say—“They didn’t have Studebaker cars in 1866. Where’d she get a Studebaker?” 

Studebaker of 1966 was the same company that built sturdy, reliable overland freight wagons and smaller station wagons in 1866.

What about LasVegas? It wasn’t there in 1866.

No, this is not the one in Nevada. In 1866, travelers on the Santa Fe Trail found Las Vegas, New Mexico, as the welcome last stop on the prairie before climbing into the mountains to reach Santa Fe.

As often experienced by new families, Tibby Newcomb wasn’t ready for a new father, or for moving from Comfort, Texas, and leaving his grandpa behind. Eight-year-old Tibby’s solution was to run-away. His Ma called him the “man of the house,” ever since he could remember. “Got her a new beau—she don’t need me anymore.” Tibby’s childish logic leads him into trouble.

Bess’s treatment of Tibby’s misbehavior may shock some of today’s readers. I remind those readers that in 1866 “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” was more than a sampler on the wall—they put it to practice. Bess gives Tibby a knuckle pop on the head when he says, “dang.” She yanked him up straight by the hair of his head for sassing her.

Tibby finds the ideal place to hideTrue to the Union, Bess fought two battles to defend her home and children. Once again, Bess must step up when her new husband falls wounded. The new family survives the encounter, a little worse for the wear. HEA.

, expecting his mother to leave him behind with grandpa. It’s such a good hideout, a gang of rustlers uses it—much to Tibby’s surprise. A reluctant Tibby leads the rustlers to Bess. In her first story,

The women who settled the west, as portrayed by Bess, became determined and strong-willed to survive the harsh land. The same respect is due those women who ventured west to marry strangers. They were not “came later” or “moved here,” (as opposed to “born here.”) These women rolled their sleeves, pitching in to stand by their men. The memorial statues mentioned in the opening were created to honor all of those pioneer women.

But wait…there’s more!

Tibby’s Hideout is one of my short stories in the anthology of eight western romances called The Posse. It’s available on Amazon, but if you want a free ebook of The Posse, join my blog, Traveling the West, and I’ll send you a copy—free! http://authorfrankkelso.blogspot.com

Bess is the protagonist of a Chapter book series, The Pioneer Woman, I plan to release in the summer of 2018. Bess, her sons Tibby and Isaiah, and her new husband, Joe Robidoux, will have more adventures.

Cowboy Day

Today, I'm sharing the post from an author friend. I liked what she had to say about being a "cowboy" isn't about wearing the boots and hat, it about living by the "cowboy code." I hope you like as much as I did.

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~~~~~~~~

National Day of the Cowboy: Celebrating an American Icon

By E.E. Burke           https://www.facebook.com/AuthorEEBurke/

July 22 is National Day of the Cowboy. We in American have set aside a special day to recognize and celebrate cowboys.

What it is about cowboys and the cowboy lifestyle we find so compelling? I asked this question of other authors and got surprisingly similar answers. Or maybe it’s not so surprising.

Summed up, we all share a deep love for the iconic cowboy. He’s the hero of our romance novels, he has equal parts courage and honor, and he follows a code of ethics that don’t just guide him, they define him.

Historically, the “cowboy code” wasn’t a set of laws or statutes, it wasn’t even written down. Rather, it was about core values, and an unspoken understanding about how one should behave—in public and in private. Here’s a nice summation:

1) Live each day with courage.
2) Take pride in your work.
3) Always finish what you start.
4) Do what has to be done.
5) Be tough, but fair.
6) When you make a promise, keep it.
7) Ride for the brand.
8) Talk less and say more.
9) Remember that some things aren't for sale.
10) Know where to draw the line.

Even today, this “cowboy code,” or “code of the West,” speaks to us. Why?

I think it’s because it inspires us to be better than we often are, and it reminds us that these are the kind of values that will truly make a nation great.

But makes a cowboy a cowboy? It isn’t putting on jeans and boots and a hat, and driving around in a truck listening to country music, or displaying guns, or flying your colors. Feel free to do all that (this is what freedom grants you), but if you’re coarse and rude, or dishonest and lazy, the rest of package doesn’t matter. True cowboys, using the iconic definition I talked about earlier, are those who live by “the code.”

A little cowboy history

In reality, the original “cowboys” were mostly young men in their late teens and early twenties, who sought adventure and money as drovers taking cattle across rough, often hostile, country. They worked long hours, often through sleepless nights, keeping the herd together, safe and pointed north until they reached the rail-head. Most of the men who worked this job didn’t even own the cattle. If the owner was a rancher, he might ride along, but not always; and sometimes the owners were businesses, not individuals.

It generally took upwards of three months to reach the rail-head, where the cows would be loaded to be taken east to a slaughterhouse. Most of the cross-country cattle drives (such as the ones we think of when we hear “The Chisholm Trail”) were made in the early 1870s, before the railroads connected Texas to eastern markets.

Cowboys faced natural disasters (frequent storms and flooding), stampedes caused by any number of factors, inhospitable strangers, such as the farmers who hated the Texas cattlemen because of tick fever … and the list of obstacles goes on and on. Cowboys relied on physical vigor, cleverness, and sheer determination, along with the experience they gained along the way.

Out on the frontier, cowboys had to depend on each other’s character rather than depend on a set of written laws. In fact, the cowboy tended to be a mite independent (translate that, stubborn as a mule’s hind end). He might flaunt the law of a territory or state, particularly if he didn’t think it made sense, but you could count on him to abide by the code. Those who didn’t were drummed out of the brotherhood, at the very least.

Yes, cowboys could be wild, and at times, violent. They could also be generous, loyal and considerate, particularly to ladies. Were they perfect? Hell, no. And I’m betting they’d laugh if someone told them today they’re considered heroes with a special day set aside to honor them.

I’d like to introduce you to Texas Hardts, which follows a family steeped in the cowboy code.

Seducing Susannah, The Bride Train https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NB22Y6G/

Ross Hardt must marry a proper lady to reclaim his inheritance. Among the few remaining prospects is a beautiful, sassy widow who has tantalized him from the day they first met--the same day she slapped his face.

Susannah Braddock journeyed west on The Bride Train in search of agood father for her young son, but on the lawless frontier few candidates meet her requirements, least of all the arrogant, demanding, unfeeling railroad agent.

As Fate—and Ross’s scheming—draws them closer, Susannah glimpses unexpected tenderness beneath his harsh exterior, and she’s tempted by the fiery passion that flares between them. But when a secret comes out that threatens to destroy their budding relationship, passion isn’t enough. Only love can weather the oncoming storm.

Seducing Susannah features the founders of a legendary Texas ranch, and Maybe Baby kicks off a series about their descendants

Maybe Baby, Texas Hardts            https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N7YAQDF/

Jen Chandler can’t ignore the urgent ticking of her biological clock, no matter how many hours she puts in at work. The nesting instinct has kicked in big-time, and she wants a baby. After too many failed relationships, plus issues with intimacy, she isn't interested in obtaining a husband. Instead, she sets out in search of a sperm donor to make her dream come true.

Logan Hardt, a laid-back cowboy who shows up at her Atlanta home one day, turns out to have the right genes, as well as a pressing need for cash. But he's seduced by more than Jen’s generous offer, and the closer the time comes to say goodbye, the less willing he is to honor a contract that would require him to walk away and never look back.

Could a contract between them lead to more than a baby? Maybe.

~~~~~~

Thanks for reading Elisabeth's Blog. Post a thank you on FB or Tweet on National Day of the Cowboy. It's all about honoring our past and respecting those who blazed the trail.

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Uvalde Texas

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Uvalde Texas

The short sentence from the Texas State History Association describes the west Texas town of Uvalde: Founded in 1853 … border warfare and lawlessness prevailed until the late 1880s.

If you’re a fan of “the old west,” Uvalde sat at the crossroads. The San Antonio-San Diego Mail route passed through Uvalde, heading for Del Rio and then to El Paso on the way to San Diego.

Another road led south to Eagle Pass on the way to Saltillo, Mexico. This road was the western trail of the El Camino Real to Mexico City. From the days, when Texas was under Spanish/Mexican rule, it was the primary commercial road from San Antonio to Saltillo.

The nearby Nueces River fed the wells and springs in Uvalde, making it an oasis in the west Texas desert. The Nueces flows from springs at the edge of the Edwards plateau in the hill country north of Uvalde. The Nueces meanders across south-central Texas from Uvalde to Three Rivers, Texas. The Nueces Plains formed a vast fertile prairie. During the Civil War, longhorn cattle roamed free to become the source of tens of thousands of beeves driven north in the great cattle drives of the late-1860s and 1870s before expansion of the rail system ended cattle drives.

I spent an afternoon prowling through the Virginia Wood Davis Archives in the El Progresso Memorial Library in Uvalde. I had the pleasure to meet and speak with Virginia, the well-known curator of the Archives. My visit was typical of visiting any library or bookstore—wanting to sit and read every book in sight.

My wife reminded me, “You schedule more things to do than we have time to do them.”

I found one interesting story of a ne’er-do-well in 1889, arrested for drunk and disorderly, turned on Sheriff Daugherty shooingt him dead, only to killed himself by a deputy. This Daugherty was no relation to the well-known Texas cattleman and early cattle trail driver.

In 1881, Uvalde hired a deputy sheriff named John King Fisher. What made it remarkable was Fisher had a reputation as a murderer, rustler, and horse thief. Fisher claimed, after his marriage in 1876, that he mended his ways. He bought a small ranch between Uvalde and Eagle Pass, staying out of trouble with the law until Uvalde hired him as a deputy. Within a few months, a country grand jury indicted the elected sheriff on corruption charges. County officials appointed Fisher the Acting Sheriff. A likeable fellow and efficient at keeping the peace, he made friends in Uvalde and planned to run for election in 1884.

To celebrate his rise in politics, an old pal of Fisher’s from his outlaw days, Ben Thompson, a notorious gunman in his own right, and the off-and-on elected City Marshall of Austin, invited Fisher to meet him in San Antonio.

Six months earlier, Thompson, while City Marshal of Austin, visited the Vaudeville Theater in San Antonio. In the back rooms, he entered a card-game with the theater owner, Jack Harris. The two quarreled over cards leading Thompson to shoot Harris. After a sensational trail, Thompson was acquitted, but he won no friends in San Antonio.

In an act of bravado, on the evening of March 11, 1884, Thompson and Fisher visited the Vaudeville Theater. After entering the darkened theater, Thompson and Fisher were shot in the back, killing both men. Following another sensational build up, a coroner’s jury ruled the deaths in self-defense, No one was ever charged with either murder.

Despite all the accusations of Uvalde be a rough town, few records exist to document any shooting or outrageous behavior. It may have happened, but “ain’t nobody talking about it.”

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Modern day Uvalde is a pleasant community. It is know as the spinach capital of the US, where water from the Nueces irrigates miles of flat lands south of the city. The most unusual relic in the area is a large abandoned plot that once housed the largest Internment Camp in the US. It held German Navy prisoners captured at sea, and Japanese-Americans families.
The road trip continued to Brackettville and Fort Clark in the next post.

Blackwater Draw in Portales NM

Blackwater Draw in Portales NM

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I wrote about the Llano Estacado, the Bosque Redondo, and the Pecos areas in two of my novels (The Apprenticeship of Nigel Blackthorn & A Message to Santa Fe). In a recent visit to the area, I found Ft. Sumner (what there was of it) closed and the Billy the Kid museum a disappointment. The unexpected highlight of my 2-day visit to Portales was the Blackwater Draw National Historic Landmark and, a few miles north of Portales, the Blackwater Draw Museum.

The area near here approaching the Llano Estacado’s western edge lacks the traditional cap-rock walls. The Llano’s edge has shifted and crumbled, leaving several cap-rock mesas along the plateau’s edge. (Pic above.) Driving east toward Clovis, NM, along US-60, there is little noticeable change in elevation until Melrose, where it becomes clear you crossed a ridge onto the Llano. Clovis, NM, the nearby “big city” had its name applied to the discovery of a Paleo-Indian hunting ground from 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

The Clovis People

The importance of the Clovis people is their campsites’ left archaeological evidence of Paleo-Indian communities long before “conventional wisdom” believed ancestral people existed in the Western Hemisphere. The Clovis People were small, 5-feet-5 or less, weighing as much as 150 pounds, based on skeletal remains. A distinctive feature of the Clovis People was a 5- to 8-inch chert, or flint, spear-point used for hunting the extinct Columbian Mammoth, Giant Buffalo, and Giant Sloths.

An ancient riverbed, Blackwater Draw contains the fossils of thousand of extinct animals from the Paleo-age buried with various designs of Clovis points used to kill these giant species. The Clovis People were nomads and hunter-gathers. Archaeological evidence showed similar Paleo-Indian communities existed across North and Central America. All these communities adopted the Clovis spear-point design to hunt the giant animals of their period.

The Clovis Point.

The Clovis Point design is unique to the western hemisphere. All the points at the Museum are copyright protected, so I offer a drawing representative of an 8-inch Clovis Spear Point. They made a spear-point by knapping flint, or chert, to the desired shape. The top edges are serrated to improve it cutting or piercing ability. The butt-end is fluted to allow it to fit on a wood shaft. The edges around the butt are not serrated to prevent cutting the leather-thongs used to tie the two together. The Museum collection showed points ranging from 4-inches to over 10-inches. The Museum, several miles north of Portales on US 70, is well-worth the visit.

The Columbian Mammoth’s 13-foot height compares today’s African elephant. The Mammoth had shorter legs and a heavier body, weighing 10 tons compared to the African’s weight of 5-7 tons. The Museum shows drawings of a gang of hunters standing close to jab spears in the underbelly of the taller mammoth. The Historic Landmark area teaches visitors how to use an atlatl to throw a spear. None of the fiber products (spear shafts or throwing devices) survived the thousands of centuries since the Clovis People used them. Only the stone tools of the Clovis People survived. There is no way to know their hunting methods.

The Clovis people were nomads. They roamed freely, but in the search of food, not sightseeing. They traded with other communities, because we have evidence about where the flint, or chert, came from. The evidence shows they traded flint and knapping skills between communities.

Over a period of 50-100 years, the use of Clovis points spread across North America. Trade and sharing among the communities explains the wide spread use of the Clovis design.

DNA

DNA material collected from a burial site indicates 80% of native people in the Western Hemisphere are direct descendants of Clovis People -- that is today's Native Americans. The DNA indicates the Clovis People were descendants of people indigenous to Northwest Asia. Some believe this indicates they crossed the “land bridge” between the Alaskan-Russian straits to populate the Western Hemisphere. The confounded element is historians didn’t believe the “land bridge” existed in those days—so much for experts. ;-)

Archaeologists debated for years if the Clovis people were the “first” people in the Western Hemisphere, but Carbon Dating evidence from South America indicates Paleo-Indian communities in the south may be 2,000+ years older than in the north. Which raises the Question:

How did they arrive in South America? By canoe from the Pacific Islands?

Ah, the topic for another Post.

You may ask what does this story of the “First People” have to do with “the Old West”?

This post answers Custer’s Question: Where did all those Indians come from?

Thanks for reading my Blog, Traveling the West.

Frank Kelso

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Mesa Verde.3

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MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK.3

I love visiting the great National Parks in this country (like you couldn’t tell?) While I respect the mission of the Park Service to protect and maintain these great treasures for future generation to visit, I abhor the “Political Correctness” that infects the Park Service.

Exploding the MYTH

One example of “PC” in the Park Service is perpetuating the MYTH that the Verde dwellers “disappeared mysteriously,” as though a spaceship came to take them away. I liked one docent’s private post, in which he claimed, as a Native American and a Puebloan, the Verde dwellers didn’t disappear—they moved away because the Mesa no longer met their needs. These Puebloans used their building skills to build the Puebloan communities in the canyons and valley of northern New Mexico and Arizona. This migration is typical for small groups who depend upon the surrounding area for their food and shelter. If the food source diminishes--they move. If the area is too cold, or prone to flood--they move. No spaceship involved.

Exploding another MYTH

The PC “snowflakes” in the US like to believe this country needs to get back to the land, like it was before the (evil) white man came to this country. There are posts about a “college professor" telling her students that before the (evil) “white man” came to America, the Native Americans lived in peace and harmony—the (evil) white man taught them war and scalping.

I admit, the original “domino theory” of not letting Vietnam fall to the ChiComs, actually came from a military historian who used the Iroquois Confederation as an example of tribal displacement causing a “domino effect.” The Iroquois Confederation drove smaller, less war-like tribes away to protect the Iroquois' natural resources (food supply), but this happened before the white man came. The coming of the white man exacerbated the problem of limited natural resources,

Exploding Another MYTH

Another element of the “snowflake culture” believes the Native American lived in perfect harmony with the land, acting as a good steward to protect and preserve. TOTAL BALONEY!

Mesa Verde is the perfect tool to demonstrate this fallacy. Even though the Park Service lists the types of bones found in trash dumps of succeeding periods, their “snowflake” mentality doesn’t allow them to connect the dots. At the bottom of the trash dump, they found elk and buffalo bones. In the era just before the Early Puebloan “magically disappeared,” the Park Service found only squirrel and groundhog (marmot) bones. The diminishing size of the animals is evidence the natives destroyed all mammal life in the Mesa’s ecosystem. The Early Puebloan's left the Mesa because of a food shortage.

Similar evidence exists about their agricultural deficits. They farmed the same area with the same crop, corn and beans, for 300 hundred years—these crops drained the soil of all nutrients. A few of the Early Puebloans migrated away to find areas with better natural resources, or they would have starved to death. These weren’t stupid people. Once Verde dwellers heard from the first people to move, they began to understand the Mesa could no longer support their large community. The Verde Dwellers moved, and having learned, they formed the numerous smaller Pueblo cultures that dot northern New Mexico and Arizona, rather one large community like they had on the Mesa.

These two examples demonstrate the Native Americans DID NOT live in “perfect harmony” with the land. My purpose is NOT to belittle the Native American, who has been treated badly by my government. My purpose is to expose the PC mentality in the Park Service that collects information on an ancient people, but refuses to connect the dots because it doesn’t fit their make-believe world of PC. Nature does what nature does. Man plans—God laughs.

Oh Darn. I can't get the pics to align with the text-- next time?

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Mesa Verde National Park - 2

MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK.2

Architecture

The so-called "primitive" people of Mesa Verde built stone building with square-corners, door- and

window-headers, and perfectly circular kivas. The only architectural feature they might have missed is the Roman arch. Given they built these buildings between 1100 and 1300 AD, their craftsmanship is remarkable. While the Cliff Palace gets all the attention, there are several different cliff dwellings among the canyons, each exhibiting its own style. These variations may be because the size of alcove under the mesa edge. The Sun Palace on top the Mesa continues their unique construction. They built these dwellings facing south to take advantage of solar heating of the rocks to moderate cold nights.

Key-Hole Doors

The Puebloan builders were utilitarian. The main doors were shoulder width at the top, but below the knees, they reduced the width to the space of two bare feet, which creates the "keyhole" effect. While none of their tools and techniques survived, it appears as the builders understood basic geometry. It appears they used a "plumb line" to keep the right-angle corners aligned vertically. But  who knows what they used for a square to keep the corners aligned?
These people created circular kivas by tying twine to a peg and marking the outer edge as they walked the circumference, again basic geometry.

As to twine, the Early Puebloan people were basket-makers before they moved to the mesa, which indicates they developed the basic skills to make twine from natural-fibers, like cactus and yucca; from twine came ropes. Archaeological evidence demonstrates that once living in peace on the mesa, local materials lead them into an era of pottery-makers. (Another post on this later.)


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Building materials

The streams below the cliff dwelling grew ample amounts of cottonwood trees, which grew straight and strong. The Verde dwellers used cottonwood for ladder rails and struts to climb to upper levels. They also used cottonwood, structurally, to support the floors and roofs. The round holes in many of the upper walls are where cottonwood logs once supported the floor of a living space. The basic limestone blocks came from the detritus created by Nature in forming the huge alcoves. The Puebloan construction used no mortar (cement), but they utilized a fine-gravel/clay slurry to coat the walls to make it appear white and smooth. They stained native or tribal patterns on the walls.

This concern for appearance indicates an advanced concept of self-worth, taking pride in their craftsmanship, and in their community. 

Please take the time to visit Cliff Palace and the Sun Temple. Spend a few days in the park and a few

days visiting the surrounding area. West of Mesa Verde, about an hour’s drive, are the Hovenweep Nation Monuments. We spent 10-days in the area and plan another visit.

After visiting the Park, consider staying a few days in Durango. To get an amazing view of the mountains and the surrounding area, take a ride on the Durango-Silverton Railroad. Plan ahead, making reservations for accommodations and the train. Hint: Pay the extra bucks to take the bus ride back from Silverton to Durango. It presents another view of The Million Dollar highway, so named from all the gold and silver mined from these mountains.

Explore and enjoy the area. Darn Formating wouldn't let arrange pictures?

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Visiting Mesa Verde National Park

    Every National Park we have visited in our meandering is worthy of another visit and Mesa Verde is no exception. This park is unique for its geology, ancestral Puebloan culture, and ancient architecture. To show Mesa Verde’s entire splendor, I will write 3 posts to keep the length to something folks can read quickly.

      The best way to experience Mesa Verde is to visit in person. The Park’s Far View Inn is pricey but worth it for a few days. As with all park lodges, make reservations in advance. Motels are available in nearby Cortez and Durango for the budget-minded.

     Mesa Verde Park represents the geological formations found within 200 miles of the 4-corners of NM, AZ, UT and CO. That is high flat-topped mesas with steep sides and rugged canyons. Farther south and west the mesas and canyons are barren with sparse vegetation, The Colorado uplands support more abundant plant life. Visitors need to note the Park’s elevation is 6,200 ft. with the mesa tops above 8,500 ft. The drive up to the main visitor areas offers spectacular views of the rugged countryside.

     It is a running joke among the native people that the whites “discovered” the cliff dwellings in 1888, just like Columbus “discovered” the Americas in 1492. The point being, the local Ute tribes considered this area sacred ground of the ancients, keeping it secret; the area was not lost.

     The Ancestral Puebloans lived in this area from around 500 AD, and contrary to popular belief, did not “disappear mysteriously” around 1300 AD. The Puebloan people farmed the mesa tops to enjoy a more moderate climate. The population grew and prospered, trading good with tribes as far as California, Mexico, and the Mississippi. The mesa provided for their needs; wild game, fertile ground for their crops, and a moderate climate. Around 1000 AD, the people began building the cliff dwellings. It has been assumed for safety from marauding tribes, but physical evidence doesn’t support the assumption.

      At its peak, the Mesa Verde community consisted of about 30,000 people, which is large for a native population residing in a confined area. The steep walls and rugged canyons limited them to the mesa tops. The period of prosperity and growth lasted about 300 years. The growth strained their ability to raise enough farm products to sustain the population. The ancestral people learned a farm lesson; continuous planting in the same area depletes the soil and reduces crop productivity. Two factors worked against the Mesa Verde community, they over-hunted the animals in the area and they over-farmed, depleting the soils ability to produce sufficient crops. As younger groups sought more food, they moved south and east from the original settlement on the mesa. The ancestral people freely abandoned the mesa because it no longer provided for them; no mystery involved.

I can’t leave without sharing pictures surrounding Mesa Verde. I’ll discuss the architecture and utility of the cliff dwelling in the next article. The Ancestral Puebloans left a rich legacy of buildings and society to rival any European city. If London, England, had 3-story stone buildings in 1100AD, they were remnants of Roman buildings. And we call this culture primitive.

View West from Mesa Verde

                          

View north from Mesa Verde

West Canyon Overlook

                                                        

                          

Durango "apartment" in 1880 AD

        

                    

                                                   

Mesa Verde "apartment" in 1100 AD