Cliff Palace's Discovery

On December 18th, 1888, two cowboys, Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charlie Mason, were riding across the mesa top looking for stray cattle. At the edge of the pinyon and juniper forest surrounding them lay a vast canyon, the same one you can see from this overlook. The only difference is that they were across the canyon near Sun Temple. Through the blowing snow they could distinguish something in the cliffs which looked like "a magnificent city." These ranchers from the Mancos Valley may have been the first white men to see what they called "Cliff Palace." After further exploration, they entered the dwelling and made a small collection of artifacts before leaving for the day. In the next 18 years these same men, as well as various exploring parties and tourist groups, made expeditions into Mesa Verde.

Many of the early visitors to the Mesa Verde area camped in the dwellings for days or weeks at a time while they were sightseeing or looking for stray cattle. No laws protected the sites at the time, and earlier visitors often removed artifacts or defaced the sites. Protection for the dwellings came with the establishment of Mesa Verde in 1906, yet it was not until 1909 that Jesse Walter Fewkes of the Smithsonian Institution excavated and first stabilized Cliff Palace.

Take a look at the alcove in which the dwelling is built. The rock you see is Cliffhouse Sandstone, geologically deposited during the Cretaceous Period some 78 million years ago. Since sandstone is a very porous material, moisture seeps right down through it. Beneath the layer of sandstone, however, is a layer of shale through which the moisture cannot penetrate. In the winter months, when the moisture freezes and expands, chunks of sandstone are cracked and loosened. Later these pieces collapse, forming alcoves such as the one here.

The majority of alcoves within mesa Verde are small crevices or ledges able to accommodate only a few small rooms. Very few are large enough to house a dwelling the size of Cliff Palace. Recent studies reveal that Cliff Palace contained 150 rooms and 23 kivas and had a population of approximately 100 people. Out of the nearly 600 cliff dwellings concentrated within the boundaries of the park, 75% contain only 1-5 rooms each, and many are single room storage units. If you visit Cliff Palace you will enter an exceptionally large dwelling which may have had special significance to the original occupants. It is thought that Cliff Palace was a social, administrative site with high ceremonial usage.