Anasazi Heritage Center is a Delight to Visit!
Displays and Exhibits Are Fascinating. Be Sure to Allow at Least Two Hours for Your Visit
- Bureau of Land Management
- Mesa Verde
- Pueblomonument
Where is the Anasazi Heritage Center?
If you're near the town of Dolores, Colorado, don't miss visiting the Anasazi Heritage Center!
The Center is located just 10 miles North of Cortez, Colorado, and 17 miles from Mesa Verde. Take Highway 184 when you reach Dolores. It is a Bureau of Land Management museum that opened in 1988, with over 3.5 million artifacts from Southwestern Colorado, are curated and available for research. The history and culture of the Ancestral Puebloans, who lived in the Four-Corners region between 1 A.D. and 1300 A.D. is made possible through on-site facilities including a main exhibit hall, theater, gallery for temporary exhibits, a library, conference room, and museum shop.
The grounds at the Center include two 12th Century archaeological sites, the Dominguez and the Escalante Pueblos, which were named after Spanish friars who explored this area in 1776.
The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. November through February. It is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.
What other sites are nearby?
The Center's front desk has maps and brochures available for visitors to access minimally-developed sites of Lowry Pueblo, Painted Hand Pueblo, Sand Canyon Pueblo, and the Sand Canyon Trail.
During this writer's visit to the Center, the Old Spanish Trail's history was displayed through artifacts, maps and historic images. It was considered the longest, crookedest, most arduous pack mule trail in the history of America! It crossed high mountains, arid deserts, and deep canyons to connect Santa Fe, New Mexico with Los Angeles, California from 1829 and into the 1850s.
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