The Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College will host two events celebrating the centennial year of the National Park Service on Thursday, June 23, first with a lecture, followed by an exhibit opening reception. Admission and parking are free.
Special to the center's summer lecture series, A Year in the Life of the West, Judith Reynolds will give a talk at 2:30 p.m. titled "1891: The Baron of Mesa Verde, Myth and Reality" in the Lyceum Room #120. Reynolds' presentation will focus on Gustaf Nordenskiöld, the young Swedish scientist who wrote the first scholarly study of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in the late nineteenth century. Reynolds' co-authored a biography Nordenskiold of Mesa Verde with her late husband David after 10 years of research. She is a columnist, art critic, and political cartoonist with the Durango Herald. This is her third year helping to organize the center's summer lecture series.
Following the lecture, the Center will open its newest exhibit, Parks, People, Preservation: Celebrating the National Park Service in the Southwest, with a reception from 4 to 6 p.m. Drawing from the center's collections, the exhibit features national parks and monuments of the Four Corners states. Several of the thirteen national parks and thirty-seven monuments and historic sites and parks in Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico are represented. The national parks, monuments and historic sites and parks are places that provide us with the opportunity to form a deeper connection to the land, the people, and the past that anchors us as all Americans. There is simply no better getaway in the United States than a visit to one of our national parks.
An original copy of Nordenskiöld's book The Cliff Dwellers of Mesa Verde will be exhibited, as well as original historic photos and postcards from the center's permanent collections. Regional photographers' works will also be displayed, as part of the center's Images of the Southwest Juried Photo Show. Awards for Best of Show, Best Color and Best Black and White photography will be announced at 5:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be served. The exhibit runs through Dec. 6.
The Center of Southwest Studies, now in its fifty-second year, provides an active program of free public lectures and events year-round at its museum, research library, and archives facility on the campus of Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. For more information, contact the center's business office at 247-7456 or visit swcenter.fortlewis.edu.
