In 1932, John Wetherill visited the Mesa Verde. As we strolled through Cliff Palace he told of the month he and his three friends had spent there in 1888-89. He pointed out the kiva where they had lived, the spot where the beautiful stone axe had been found and the place where they had discovered the fourteen mummies. He recalled that all of the roofs had been torn out, just as Charles Mason said, and he remembered that they had found more baskets in Cliff Palace than in any other cliff dwelling.
Then, pointing across the canyon, he said, “That’s where Richard and Charley were when they first saw Cliff Palace.” The bold cliff at which he pointed is called Sun Point today, and it was from this same point that Mason said he and Richard Wetherill first saw Cliff Palace.
It is quite true that other men have claimed they were in Cliff Palace before 1888. Not a shred of documentary evidence has been found to support these claims, however, so credit for being the first modern men to enter the greatest of all cliff dwellings goes to Charles Mason and Richard Wetherill.
During the years that followed the discovery of Cliff Palace, the Wetherills and other men discovered hundreds of cliff dwellings in the canyons of the Mesa Verde. They found, also, that the mesa tops were dotted with additional hundreds of ruins. As a result of these discoveries the fame of the Mesa Verde spread and within a short time many men were digging in the ruins.
The period following 1888 is the sad chapter in the history of the Mesa Verde. From the very beginning it was apparent that digging in the ruins was a profitable business. The Wetherills sold their first collection for $3000 and the word spread that artifacts from the ruins had actual cash value. Charles Mason indicated this only too well in his article published in the Denver Post on July 1, 1917. The article was signed by four of the Wetherills and without doubt gives a fairly accurate picture of what happened in the Mesa Verde following the discovery of the ruins.
In referring to their second expedition Mason wrote, “This time we went at it in a more business-like manner. Our previous work had been carried out more to satisfy our own curiosity than for any other purpose but this time it was a business proposition.” And in referring to a still later expedition Mason stated, “In spite of the fact that all of the cliff dwellings had been worked over two or three times, we succeeded in making a very good showing.”
The Wetherills themselves took a number of collections of artifacts from the cliff dwellings. Most of these collections are now in museums and since the Wetherills kept notes on their findings the material has real scientific value. In 1891, Baron Gustav Nordenskiold, a young Swedish archeologist, excavated in a score of the cliff dwellings and took a splendid collection back to his homeland. Soon after his return home Nordenskiold died and the collection was sold to a museum in Finland, where it rests uneasily today. In addition to the Wetherills and Nordenskiold, many other men worked in the ruins and they probably carried away an equal amount of material.
As a result of all this early work the ruins were well cleaned out before the area was made a national park. A number of cliff dwellings have been excavated by archeologists in recent times and little material of any importance has been found in them.
Even though the Mesa Verde could only be reached by a thirty mile horseback trip, it was visited by a surprising number of people in those early years. Some came only to see the ruins but many came to dig and on the return trip the packs often bulged with things taken from the ruins. Priceless artifacts which had so long been unmolested were thoughtlessly carried away.
As a result of these visits, however, the fame of the Mesa Verde grew and finally public sentiment came to its aid. Gradually there developed a realization that the ruins should be preserved for all time and made accessible to all people.