Little Ruin Canyon - Hovenweep

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Hovenweep National Monument straddles the Colorado-Utah border Northeast of Bluff, Utah, United States. President Warren G. Harding proclaimed Hovenweep a National Monument on March 2, 1923. The Monument consists of six clusters of Native American ruins. Four of these are in Colorado: Holly Canyon, Hackberry Canyon, Cutthroat Castle and Goodman Point. In Utah, the two sets of ruins are known as Square Tower and Cajon.

In 1854, W.D. Huntington and an expedition of Mormon colonists were the first people of European descent to see the Hovenweep ruins, which were already known to the Ute and Navajo tribes. The name Hovenweep, which means "deserted valley" in Piute/Ute languages, was adopted by pioneer photographer William Henry Jackson in 1874. The name is apt as a description of the area's desolate canyons and barren mesas as well as the ruins of ancient communities.


Hovenweep CastleIn 1903, T. Mitchell Pruden reported the results of a comprehensive survey completed of prehistoric ruins of the San Juan watershed in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. He saw many examples of the destruction caused by early collectors, who pulled down the walls of ruined dwellings, dug beneath the rooms, and unearthed associated burial mounds. In the Hovenweep area, he reported, Few of the mounds have escaped the hands of the destroyer. Cattlemen, ranchmen, rural picnickers, and professional collectors have turned the ground well over and have taken out much pottery, breaking more, and strewing the ground with many crumbling bones. In 1917–18, ethnologist J. Walter Fewkes of the Smithsonian Institution included descriptions of the ruins in published archaeological survey reports, and recommended the structures be protected.

Administered by the National Park Service, the National Monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. Even with federal protection, little comprehensive archaeological excavation was done on sites until the 1970s.

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