The first effort toward this appears to have been made in 1886, even before the discovery of Cliff Palace and the other large cliff dwellings. In that year a group of Denver people called attention to the need for a national park to preserve the ruins of the Mesa Verde. Five years later the Colorado General Assembly addressed a memorial to the Congress and in 1894, two petitions were sent to the Congress urging that a part of the Mesa Verde be preserved as a national park. As the years passed, the agitation continued but little was accomplished. In 1897, however, the attention of the Colorado Federation of Women’s Clubs was directed to the problem and a committee of fourteen women was appointed to spearhead the fight. Three years later the committee was expanded into the Colorado Cliff Dwellings Association, an incorporated organization dedicated to the struggle for the preservation of the ruins. With grim determination the women worked, both with officials in Washington and the Ute Indians whose reservation included the Mesa Verde. After years of disappointments their efforts were crowned with success for on June 29, 1906, the Congress passed a bill creating Mesa Verde National Park. At last, after six hundred empty years, the cliff dwellings were again in the care of men who were interested in their well-being. These men were of a different race and their feelings toward the cliff dwellings were far different from those of the people who had built them. To the ancient people the cave structures had meant home and security. To the new caretakers they were a milestone in the story of mankind and as such they should be preserved for all time. 3 LIFE IN ANCIENT TIMES In a little while we are going to do a very strange thing. We are, first of all, going to go back seven centuries to the year 1268 A.D. Then we will climb down the trail and stroll into Cliff Palace. Somewhere near the center of the town we will find a comfortable seat on the roof of one of the houses. And for a year we will sit there, quietly and comfortably, watching the people. We will take no part in the activities—we will simply watch the inhabitants of the town as, through the year, they go their daily rounds. There is no better way to understand what life was like in a cliff dwelling. The ancient structures themselves do not tell the whole story, nor do the artifacts in the museum. The well-built walls and the skillfully made artifacts are ample evidence of the abilities of the people but these articles of stone, bone and wood do not tell us all we would like to know. The real story is in the people and if we are to understand it, we must see them with our own eyes. So, after setting the scene, we will go back to Cliff Palace in the year 1268 A.D., and take our seats. And when the year has passed, we will understand what life was like in the Mesa Verde when the cliff dwellings were alive.