Actual details of the discovery of the greatest cliff dwelling are somewhat confusing for as the different men told the story in later years there was some variation in the minor details. On one point, however, there was no disagreement. Credit for being the first white men to enter Cliff Palace goes to Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law, Charles Mason. Many years later Mason, in an article in the Denver Post, told of this stirring event which took place on December 18, 1888. “In December 1888, Richard and I started out to explore. We followed the Indian trail down Chapin Mesa, between Cliff and Navaho Canyons, and camped at the head of a small branch of the Cliff Palace fork of Cliff Canyon.... We rode out to the point of the mesa.... From the rim of the canyon we had our first view of Cliff Palace, just across the canyon from us. To me this is the grandest view of all among the ancient ruins of the Southwest.” [Illustration: Cliff Palace On December 18, 1888, two cowboys discovered Cliff Palace, the largest of the cliff dwellings. The picture duplicates the view they had from the opposite canyon rim.] CLIFF PALACE—THE FIRST WHITE MEN ENTER THE RUIN After first sighting Cliff Palace from the opposite canyon rim, the two cowboys decided to enter the great cliff dwelling. Again we go to the words of Charles Mason for this part of the story. “We rode around the head of the canyon and found a way down over the cliffs to the level of the building. We spent several hours going from room to room, and picked up several articles of interest, among them a stone axe with the handle still on it. There were also parts of several human skeletons scattered about.” When archeologists excavated Cliff Palace twenty years later it was impossible to visualize the ruin as it had been at the time of discovery. Time after time it had been dug into by the early explorers and no part was undisturbed. For a picture of the ruin as it was on the day of discovery we must again refer to the story told by Charles Mason. While some of his ideas would be hard to support his impressions as he first walked through the greatest of all cliff dwellings are of interest. “The final tragedy of the cliff dwellers probably occurred at Cliff Palace. There is scarcely room to doubt that the place withstood an extended siege. In the entire building only two timbers were found by us. All of the joists on which floors and roofs were laid had been wrenched out. These timbers had been built into the walls and are difficult to remove, even the little willows on which the mud roof and upper floors were laid were carefully taken out. No plausible reason for this has been advanced except that it was used for fuel.