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| Above, Square Tower House at Mesa Verde National Park. Photo by Armand Vaquer. |
Travel Awaits has an article on seven national parks that focus on ancient ruins.
Most, as the article states, are in the Southwest U.S. Last September, a friend and I visited one of the parks featured.
They begin with:
Originally established to conserve and preserve some of the most beautiful and unusual wilderness places in America, the National Park System soon grew to include archaeological and historic sites. The first park to preserve “the works of men,” as President Theodore Roosevelt put it, was Mesa Verde, established in 1906. Others followed, preserving and showcasing ancient ruins and archaeological sites throughout the country. Most of them are in the Southwest. And for good reason.
People of the Southwest built their homes and cities in stone, carving them in soft sandstone crevices or building structures up to four stories high from clay and mud bricks. In the bone-dry environment of the desert, these ancient structures baked in the sun but stayed preserved. Visible for miles in the wide-open spaces, they were easy to find, and as settlers moved into the area, they started visiting them -- with no regard to their preservation. Vandalism threatened to destroy structures that stood centuries in the desert sun, and the NPS incorporated them to help preserve them.
Having lived in the Southwest for a few decades, I’ve visited these national parks, and over time a few of them became my favorites, where my family returns year after year -- always finding something new. We’ve taken ranger-led tours through some and explored others on our own. The following are only a few of our favorite national parks preserving ancient ruins in the Southwest.
To read more, go here.
