Research

Research-center rehab project wins $356,000

Dec. 8, 2001

By Gail Binkly
Journal Managing Editor

A recent award of $356,000 will go a long way toward rehabilitating the research center and protecting historic resources at Mesa Verde National Park, if park supporters can garner donations to serve as matching funds for the project.

Mesa Verde recently won a grant of $356,000 from the Save America’s Treasures Program to rehabilitate the park’s research center, which is suffering from overcrowding and generally inadequate conditions.

However, the grant requires a dollar-for-dollar match, and federal monies cannot be used, according to park officials. The deadline to come up with the money is June 30 of next year.

"The bad news is I got some new literature the other day that eliminated three months that I thought we had," said Linda Towle, chief of research and resource management for the park.

"This is a three-year grant, but the first year was the year that just ended, when we applied for it, so we really don’t have much time. We need to have the bulk of that money in hand by June 30 and have until Sept. 30 to obligate (or contract) it and another 1 1/2 years to actually spend it."

The park was awarded the full amount it asked for, she said.

Mesa Verde was one of two parks in the Intermountain Region of the NPS that received a grant from Save America’s Treasures in this grant cycle, the other being the Murie Ranch Historic District at Grand Teton National Park, she said.

Mesa Verde has already allocated $180,000 in Recreation Fee Demo money to rehabilitating the research center.

That, along with the anticipated $712,000 from the grant and matching funds, would be enough to handle the rehab project, Towle said.

The research center, located on Chapin Mesa in an area closed to the public, houses an estimated 2.9 million objects, Towle said.

Many of those are historic and archival items such as maps, written records, and photos documenting the development of the park, including work done by the Civilian Conservation Corps, she said. Other items include natural-history specimens and historic furnishings built by the CCC and by Jesse Nusbaum, an early park superintendent.

And, of course, there are numerous Ancestral Puebloan artifacts, including pots, yucca sandals, turkey-feather blankets, dog-hair sashes and stone tools.

"It’s a phenomenal collection, both from the archaeological point of view and from the standpoint of the items in the archives," Towle said. "We need to properly store this long-term."

But the building, originally constructed in 1958 as a temporary archaeological field laboratory, is woefully inadequate for a curatorial storage facility, according to park officials.

The 5,109-square-foot facility is not insulated, has no controls for temperature or humidity, is subject to infestation by rodents, and is filled beyond its capacity, officials say.

Rehabilitating the building itself will probably cost only about $200,000, Towle said.

"Then we will be putting in compact shelving in the back of the building, and there’s a fairly large amount of labor involved," she said.

"We’re rearranging all the materials now so construction can be done, and then after construction we will be reboxing and rebagging these items into proper acid-free containers and updating our computer files so we can keep track of them."

The project is also an early step in preparing for moving the priceless collections to a planned new cultural center to be built at the base of the mesa near U.S. Highway 160.

"The restoring or repackaging is something we are going to need to do to move down to the new cultural center, when we finally get that built," Towle said.

"This money is really doing double duty, if you will — improving the quality of the storage we have up here right now and then, maybe by 2006, if the new facility is built, these items will be properly packaged before we move down the hill."

The park’s cooperating association, the Mesa Verde Museum Association, is accepting private donations for the funds for the project. The association can be reached at P.O. Box 38, Mesa Verde National Park, Co 81330, or by calling 529-4445.