{"id":134412,"date":"2026-06-23T13:34:53","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mesa-verde-attendance-rises-in-may-amid-flurry-of-120th-anniversary-festivities\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T20:15:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T02:15:45","slug":"mesa-verde-attendance-rises-in-may-amid-flurry-of-120th-anniversary-festivities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mesa-verde-attendance-rises-in-may-amid-flurry-of-120th-anniversary-festivities\/","title":{"rendered":"Mesa Verde attendance rises in May amid flurry of 120th anniversary festivities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mesa
Mesa Verde National Park is celebrating its 120th anniversary June 29 with special summer programs, a cultural festival and three free admission days. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mesa Verde National Park turns 120 years on Monday.<\/p>\n

On that day in 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an act of Congress establishing the national park to preserve cultural heritage in the Four Corners \u2013 a first-of-its-kind dedication.<\/p>\n

For hundreds of years, Mesa Verde was home to the ancestral Puebloans \u2013 a place for farming, hunting and ceremony.<\/p>\n

Coinciding with a litany of summer activities celebrating the milestone anniversary, the park\u2019s leadership reported an increase in May visitation numbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are busy and doing well at Mesa Verde National Park,\u201d said park Superintendent Kayci Cook Collins. \u201cWe got our May visitation in recently, and it was up about 4.7% over last May, and it is up about 2% year-to-date.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, park officials reported a decline in 2025 visitation numbers, with about 475,000 yearly attendees \u2013 or a 3.4% decline from the previous year. The update came as Cook Collins explained the park was gearing up and hopeful for the high-traffic months to come \u2013 its seasonal hiring nearly complete and a few long-term infrastructure projects slated for summer.<\/p>\n

Cook Collins, along with officials from the Bureau of Land Management and Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, provided updates to Montezuma County commissioners during its Monday workshop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t sure what was going to happen with gas prices and international travel, so we are hoping we are on a trajectory to have a good and busy summer,\u201d Cook Collins said.<\/p>\n

Cook Collins, who has been at the helm since 2021, also announced she will be leaving the superintendent role at the end of August to retire after 43 years with the National Park Service.<\/p>\n

\"Mesa
Mesa Verde National Park is celebrating its 120th anniversary June 29 with special summer programs, a cultural festival and three free admission days. (Anna Watson\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Events to highlight park history, culture<\/div>\n

Upcoming events coincide with Mesa Verde\u2019s 120 years celebration and offer attendees opportunities to learn about its history and connect with cultures of the Native people who used to occupy the lands.<\/p>\n

Mesa Verde includes 30 miles of trails across about 52,000 acres and contains more than 4,700 archaeological sites from the ancestral Puebloans, including 12th and 13th century cliff dwellings.<\/p>\n

A Friday evening program will delve into the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps and Morefield Campground. Established during the Great Depression under President Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal, the camp provided jobs for unemployed youths during hard times. The CCC camp, specially, provided labor to the route Knife Edge Road and completed other preservation work. The program, hosted by the Montezuma Heritage Museum, is led by interpretive ranger Eric Sainio beginning at 8 p.m. at the Morefield Campground Amphitheater and is free.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s near and dear to my heart because that\u2019s how my grandfather got his start in the National Park Service, working up at the CCC camp,\u201d Cook Collins said. \u201cHe fell in love with grandma. I could go on and on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mesa
Mesa Verde National Park Superintendent Kayci Cook Collins announced Monday she will retire in August after 43 years of federal service for the National Park Service. \u201cI have decided maybe it is someone else\u2019s turn to have as much fun as I\u2019ve had during my time at Mesa Verde and all the other places I have worked,\u201d she said. Amanda McCutcheon, deputy superintendent at Mesa Verde, will serve as interim leader. (Courtesy of National Park Service)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Another evening program at Morefield Campground is scheduled on the park\u2019s anniversary, focusing on its history.<\/p>\n

The park is also giving three free entry days from July 3 to July 5. Normally, the Fourth of July is a free-entry day but officials have expanded it to cover the entire Fourth of July weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have out-of-town guests or you just haven\u2019t been to Mesa Verde in awhile, it\u2019s a great time to come because you don\u2019t have to pay the entrance fee,\u201d Cook Collins said.<\/p>\n

Cultural dances planned in July<\/div>\n

Occurring throughout the same Fourth of July weekend is the park\u2019s Annual Indigenous Art and Culture Festival, a celebration of Mesa Verde\u2019s ancestral groups. Located at the Visitor and Research Center on July 4, the festival is providing an art market and traditional Hopi dances with the Lomayestewa family. Cultural demonstrations will be provided at the Mesa Verde Museum the following day, as well as Hopi dances at the Chapin Mesa Amphitheater.<\/p>\n

On July 10-12, the Oak Canyon Dancers from the Pueblo of Jemez be at the park and providing cultural heritage performances through song and dance.<\/p>\n

On July 21, Mesa Verde\u2019s interns will provide a paneled discussion at the Sunflower Theatre in Cortez for a third year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have had them present on their experiences and now we are broadening the scope,\u201d Cook Collins said. \u201cSo that will be a wonderful opportunity to hear more about how people get connected with skills-building opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

awatson@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Park officials announce summer lineup to celebrate Indigenous history, including three free days<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,28,173,60,29,1982,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-134412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-mesa-verde-national-park","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-parks","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134430,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134412\/revisions\/134430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134412"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=134412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}