Enchanting Stories of New Mexico - The Gila Cliff Dwellings

The Fresh Chile Company Podcast

I got an interesting email from a listener planning a trip back to Southern New Mexico after almost 50 years of being away. His grandparents lived in Deming, New Mexico. He was able to visit while his grandfather was alive. He lives about forty miles east of Flint Michigan. He asked about the Chino Mines at Santa Rita and about the Gila Cliff Dwellings. First, let’s talk about the Gila Cliff Dwellings in the Southwestern part of New Mexico. As the word Dwellings implies, people used to live in this area of what is now New Mexico, near the Arizona border. While it perhaps isn’t quite as spectacular at the Cliff Dwellings at Mesa Verde near Durango Colorado, it is still impressive. About a thousand years ago the people of the Mogollon, a Pueblo culture, were attracted to the water in the stream and used the area agriculturally. They carved rooms into the cliffs for a couple of generations where they made pottery and did well. I am assuming that the weather inspired them around 1300 AD to move toward the Tucson area. Other nomadic tribes on and off over the years inhabited the Dwellings. Mesa Verde, in the four corners area of Colorado is the largest archaeological preserve in the United States. It was established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. The Gila Cliff Dwelling was established by Roosevelt the next year.

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