The Origin of the National Park Service Idea: 1880 through 1910

Mesa Verde National Park preserves the cliff dwellings and other works of the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians, who lived there from A.D. 600 to 1300. This forested plateau was given the name Mesa Verde, which means green table, by Spanish explorers. Mesa Verde was the first national park to be established for its historic and cultural significance rather than its natural beauty.

In the late 1880s, some local ranchers discovered cliff dwellings and began to explore them, collecting and selling many of the artifacts. They wrote letters to the Smithsonian Institute calling for the sites to be protected within a national park, fearing that without such protection, "the tourists will destroy them." While museums, private collectors, and the local historical society were interested in purchasing artifacts, federal protection of the sites was not forthcoming.

The site attracted the interest of a young Swedish scientist named Gustaf Nordenskiöld, who came to the site and excavated the ruins with meticulous care – collecting culturally significant artifacts that the amateur collectors had not seen as important. He gathered some 600 artifacts and shipped them back to Sweden, which stirred up a nationwide controversy among Americans who did not want such a collection to leave the country. Local authorities accused Nordenskiöld of looting and briefly arrested him, but eventually they had to admit that the scientist had not broken any laws. He was released, and returned to Sweden to publish books detailing his findings. Nordenskiöld died at age 27 of the tuberculosis he had traveled to the American southwest to treat. The artifacts he collected are now held by the National Museum of Finland.

The issue spurred the movement to preserve Mesa Verde, and in 1900 the Colorado Cliff Dwellings Association, led by Virginia McClurg and Lucy Peabody, organized to campaign for that goal. Between 1901 and 1905, they worked closely with congressmen to propose five bills in Congress to create the national park, but none of them passed. The campaign finally achieved success in the summer of 1906, and the bill was signed by President Theodore Roosevelt on June 29, marking a great success for the Colorado Cliff Dwellings Association. In the same month, a new piece of legislation became law that would allow the president to reserve many more sites of this type.

The conservation movement received a significant boost during Theodore Roosevelt's presidential administration (1901-1909). At a young age, Roosevelt became enthralled with nature, becoming an expert on birds and building his famous enthusiasm for hunting. He often retreated to nature to relax and restore himself from his stressful life. His deep concern about the haphazard destruction of nature helped steer the United States toward policies that would limit the wasteful use of natural resources.