Grand Canyon National park

In 1699, the Spaniard Juan Manje may have been the first to use the name Colorado to refer to the river but many years would pass before the name took hold. Explorer John Wesley Powell is credited with promoting the name Grand Canyon, which he may have borrowed from General William J. Palmer's 1868 railroad survey map. Powell and his crew endowed the canyon with many romantic and descriptive names. Geologist Clarence Dutton had a fondness for architectural and oriental terms. The topographers Francois Matthes and Richard Evans carried on the heroic nomenclature by using mythical, classical, and religious names including those from Arthurian legends. Turn of the century travelogue writers, the National Park Service, and visitors have also added a wide variety of names to the Grand Canyon's features.

By the 1890's, Grand Canyon was recognized as one of America's most scenic wonders. President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed the area the Grand Canyon Forest Preserve in 1893, but miners, stockmen, and settlers were quick to voice their opposition. In 1903, President Roosevelt visited the Grand Canyon for the first time and stated, "In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which, so far as I know, is in a kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world.in your own interests and in the interests of the country.keep this great wonder or nature as it is now.". And although Roosevelt established Grand Canyon National Monument by presidential proclamation, not until 1919 did Congress finally pass legislation to create Grand Canyon National Park.

The statistics - one -half to eighteen miles wide, a mile deep, 277 river miles long - hardly begin to convey the awesome spectacle that is the Grand Canyon. The canyon is the epitome of the geologic forces at work on the Colorado Plateau. A third of the Earth's geologic history is exposed in its walls and slopes that stair-step from boreal forests on the North Rim to Sonoran-like desert at its bottom. And while geologists have unravaled many of the intricacies of each individual layer of rock, the details of the formation of the great canyon are still shrouded in mystery. Likewise, biologists have recorded and studied the diversity of plants and animals within its walls but have barely begun to understand the interrelationships of the canyon's dynamic and complex ecosystems.

Tusayan Ruin

Excavation of the Tusayan ruin was conducted in i930 under the direction of Harold S. Gladwin and the staff of the Gila Pueblo of Globe, Arizona. They named it Tusayan following the Spanish nomenclature for the district; the exact meaning of. the word Tusayan is lost to us. The museum was established to interpret, the partially-excavated ruin. The ruin is unique in that no attempt was made at reconstruction, and portions of the ruin were deliberately left unexcavated-standard procedure today, but unheard of in 1930. The site represents the westernmost extension of the Kayenta Anasazi. It is one of the most heavily visited archeological sites in the National Park System.

Who were the Anasazi? They were the prehistoric peoples of the Four Corners region of the American Southwest, known for their pueblos and cliff dwellings, and the pottery, tools, and decorative items they produced. They occupied this region for about 1300 years. Impressive evidence that these ancient people were the ancestors of today's Pueblo peoples leads present day archeologists to call them the 'ancestral Pueblo."

The ancestral Pueblo first appear in the archeological record of the Southwest around the year AD 1. At that time they lived in pit houses, and the beautiful baskets they left behind led archeologists to use the term.' Basket maker' to describe these people and the time period from AD 500 to AD 700. Around AD 700, as they became more dependent upon agriculture, they began to construct stone pueblos to satisfy their need for permanent settlements. Archeologists classify this later period as 'Pueblo."

Compulsive builders, the ancestral Pueblo worked without cranes, bulldozers or trucks. Their masonry varied from crude shelters to magnificent multistory structures. Sites range in size from small multifamily units to villages and towns, located just about anywhere they could lay a few stones.

The largest concentration of ancestral Pueblo population was in what is now Montezuma Valley in south-western Colorado and southern Utah. This is the site we now know as Yellow- jacket, the remains of one of the largest cities of the ancestral Pueblo world. With an estimated population of 3,600 people, it boasted four plazas, twenty towers, 1,826 rooms, 166 kivas, streets with north-south alignment, and a reservoir with spillway. Chaco Canyon, in north-western New Mexico, served as a trade and distribution center for goods ranging from California abalone to Mexican parrots. Roads 25 to 40 feet (7-12 meters) wide, and 40 to 60 miles (65-100 kilometers) long radiated from Chaco.