Canyon of the Ancients

Want to see a living museum?  My favorite travelling partner and I took a great one-day adventure into the past at the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument. One of the monument's most striking archaeological sites is the Painted Hand Pueblo, named for  handprints left in an alcove on the site. What a spectacular place. These Ancestral Puebloans had some great views.

You feel such a sense of discovery if you navigate the boulders and narrow passages along the sporadically marked route to this site.  And that's the way it should be.  When you work a little harder to get somewhere, that place is all the more special. 

What about the photo?

I've gotten a few questions about this photo of the Santa Fe Depot. Yes, that is the depot in Santa Fe, New Mexico on the old Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line.   The venerable city of Santa Fe had seen centuries of trade before the fledgling Atchison and Topeka Railroad Company formed in Kansas in 1859 to follow a route roughly parallel to the Santa Fe Trail.  The railroad company's promoters added the Santa Fe name in 1863 to imply a broader range for the rail route.  Ironically, the Atcheson and Topeka's main line never went through Santa Fe. The city was served by a branch line that stopped at this depot.

Santa Fe has recently revived its historic rail yard. The center piece is a commuter train between Santa Fe and the Bernalillo-Albuquerque-Belen corridor.  Appropriately named the Rail Runner, the train transports commuters through classic western scenery along what is mostly the historic rail route. Excursion trains on historic diesel powered equipment also depart from the railyard, providing a nice blend of the city's past and future.
 
Santa Feans are good at integrating their past into the future.  Shoppers in the rail yard at the local farmers market and in the trendy stores and art galleries hear the train whistles and see these iron horses as part of their daily lives in a modern interpretation of how people of Santa Fe lived and shopped a hundred years ago. I think that's a great way to go.

The Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe railroad eventually became part of the present day BNSF Railway. They have put together an interesting corporate history at http://www.bnsf.com/about-bnsf/our-railroad/company-history/pdf/hist_overview.pdf

Thinking for the ages

I make my living preserving the historic places that shape our communities and our lives. Although you might think that archaeologists and historians live in the past, we are actually constantly thinking for the ages---looking to the future and working to identify what legacies are important to leave for our children.

Our inquiry into the past is really a light to the future.

I got to see this theory in action while working with Fort Lewis College on documenting their historical beginnings. Here is a picture of one of the old Fort buildings that was later remodeled into a dairy. While the college is now a modern establishment in Durango, Colorado, it actually started out in 1880 as a military fort that was turned into an Indian School and then remodeled into a vocational school. The college had barely evolved from a junior college into a four year institution when it left the original fort site along the banks of the La Plata River and moved to Durango in 1956.

Only a few of the original fort buildings remain on the site, but they give us a clear understanding of the days when the buffalo soldiers and other companies were encamped there. The Indian School buildings also left a legacy.

I was hired to document that legacy through a  historic building survey of 21 surviving historic structures. The College used this information along with other data to develop a plan to revive the old quadrangle.

The old fort has a great website at http://oldfort.fortlewis.edu/index.htm  The Fort Lewis Center of Southwest Studies has just opened a new exhibit celebrating the 100 years since the property was turned over to the State of Colorado. Stop by and see it if you are in the Durango.