Mesa Verde National Park (Spanish for green table) was established to preserve archaeological sites built by the Ancestral Puebloans who inhabited Mesa Verde for more than 700 years (550 A.D. to 1300 A.D.).

When was Mesa Verde first discovered?

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 near today's overlook at Sun Temple, they came upon a vast canyon.

When was Mesa Verde abandoned?

A few generations later, around 1300, the Ancestral Puebloans abandoned Mesa Verde for points south. While no one today knows why, the people may have migrated away because of droughts and crop failures or the depletion of heavily used soils, forests, and animals.