The Colorado Plateau epitomizes the American Frontier. It is wild, massive--difficult to grasp all at once. The indigenous peoples of the Plateau likely recognized this, as did the early pioneers; it is working knowledge for the contemporary Native American and Euro-American populations. Pocketed by deep canyons, dotted with high, isolated mountain ranges, and subject to hot, dry summers, this region has more than once proven itself a challenge for human development and habitation.

By the end of the 13th century, drought and resource depletion had likely driven the Ancestral Pueblo from the Four Corners region. They left behind 1200 years of history. Hidden in the canyons and mesas are countless ruins of stone and mud cities, alcove dwellings, pit houses, ceremonial pits (kivas), pottery fragments, middens, and granaries. The residents of Mesa Verde, Canyon de Chelly, and Chaco Canyon established the basis of the cultural traditions that we witness today in much of the Hopi, Tewa, and Navajo communities.

Specific skills such as adobe and rock masonry, weaving, and certain dryland farming techniques that were popular among the Ancestral Pueblo, have found their way into the modern lifestyles of the regional native peoples. Cultural evidence, from irrigation ditches to corn cobs and seeds, have helped archaeologists determine that thousands of Ancestral Pueblo inhabited the areas today known as Ute Mountain Tribal Park, Hovenweep and Mesa Verde National Parks, and Chaco Canyon. Other studies suggest that similar numbers were present at the same time in the Cedar Mesa/Grand Gulch country of southeast Utah, Monument Valley of northern Arizona, and the Dolores River drainage area to the north of Cortez, Colorado.

Over the 800 years that have elapsed since the Ancestral Pueblo's mysterious disappearance, there have been several attempts by "white men" to colonize the area. As early as 1539, Spanish explorers recorded contact with native populations in the Grand Canyon area. The 1540's journals of the Spanish explorer Coronado are riddled with references to encounters with natives in New Mexico. In the 1700's, Jesuit priests came into the region with the objective of converting local peoples. The Jesuits recorded hostilities between and among various native groups, which made the Catholic Church's conversion task a little easier.

The exploration of the Colorado River by John Wesley Powell in 1869 and 1872 helped stimulate North American interest in the region. With the settlement of New Mexico and Arizona by the "white people," came increased tension and fighting among the native groups. Navajo raids on white settlers pushing into Navajo homelands were common. United States Army commanders fought back and eventually won out with their obvious military advantage. Kit Carson was sent to round up the Dineh (Navajo), and take them far away from their ancestral homeland, Dinetah, to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Several years later they were allowed to return to Dinetah, which we currently know as the Navajo Reservation in northeast Arizona and southeast Utah.
In 1879 a group of Mormons in search of a new settlement area, entered Utah and pronounced it ideal for colonization. A Mormon settlement party entered the San Juan River basin in the fall of 1880. Possessing stout tools, sufficient supplies and some livestock, they built a community in the shelter of the redrock at a site which is now Bluff, Utah. The region's population has grown based on extractive industries. Because of the large concentration of coal, oil, uranium and natural gas in Arizona and southeastern Utah, and the rich deposits of gold and silver in southwest Colorado and northwest New Mexico, this region has seen a constant cycle of "boom and bust" since the turn of this century.

But due to the remote and rugged nature of the Colorado Plateau, population has remained relatively sparse and clustered in small, isolated communities. Vast expanses of wilderness and long stretches of undammed rivers have drawn recreational tourists to the Four Corners area. Many national parks, national forests, wilderness areas, and large tracts of federally managed public lands have been set aside and are being considered for federal protection, in the on-going effort to preserve the beauty and character of the land the Ancestral Pueblo called home.