"Mesa Verde National Park", U.S. Department of Interior

This an early lithographed map details Mesa Verde Park in southwest Colorado, now known as Mesa Verde National Park. The map is filled with details including important pueblo ruins, Pueblo-like cliff dwellings, pictographs, trails and more. The terrain is depicted with hachure and the watershed is well shown. The major ruins that are today in the monument are here shown in the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, but a five mile limit line indicates that the ruins are under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior. Important ruins are Mug House, Step House, Long House, Spring House, Spruce Tree House, Balcony House and Cliff Palace. Mesa Verde contains the best preserved Indian pueblos in North America, including its Cliff Palace, considered as one of the best examples of early Indian dwellings.

The first Europeans to reach the area were Spanish explorers seeking a route from Santa Fe to California in the 1760s and 1770s. Their name for the area, Mesa Verde, meaning high, tree-covered plateau has remained to this day. In 1874 the famous photographer William Henry Jackson photographed the area and its ruins. The following year the geologist William H. Holmes retraced Jackson's route, including his findings and Jackson's photographs in the 1876 report of the Hayden Survey. Pressure on the ruins increased as settlers began to fill the nearby Mancos Valley. The continuing efforts of others, including New York newspaper reporter Virginia McClurg and the photographer and travel writer Frederick H. Chapin, to educate the public on the treasures within Mesa Verde eventually led to it becoming a National Park in 1906. An uncommon issue we've not previously encountered.

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Condition: A

Folding as issued with full original margins. Binding trim at left with short tear into blank are of neatline, closed on verso.