Show SAN ajan ahe the walls walis of ancient empires f by albert K R lynian lau the of these arti articles clel published a word history of san juan county in a local paper twelve years ago this was prepared from material which had been collected for six years arpp many sources and these sources yielded more mar ma hirial aifer the history was yas pub ilish llis hed ed the series of articles liere here proposed will be framed fumed from the whole sum of data daia on on hand but att ius not the intention here ot A present present an exhaustive chron of 0 i sil san juan bunin mills will wll deal with places climaxes phai ses bes landmarks land marks maiks wonders of 0 nature and anhof any of the multitude of things which make san juan an I 1 inhere nj country fifty two years ago what is now san junn juan county was marked blank on all reliable maps of utah this country wil was i uncharted unexplored event even the venturesome settlers odthe territory terr itry had kd little idea how they could get into it and a 9 picked company of scouts spent the spring and pummel pummer of 1879 hunting for a suit 44 A 7 4 r V AI z 1 AJ 14 I 1 vin ancient cliff dwellers ruins san salt juan county able eri entrance trance and after all chii effort and with a full knowledge of what those scouts had discovered it remained for fora 11 a larger company to spend six months the ter and spring finding their theia way tard the barriers into the new strange rie region gion no offet one i had bad guessed that san juan different to all other tries was whiled fled about on all sides by mighty gulfi and b barrieri the struggle of these two heroid heroic companies ii 0 fought their way vay thru the barriers fifty years ago may be material for later issues tre the unexplored san juan like unexplored yucatan sahara or I 1 borneo was covered with evidences of a population that had lived and died long ago where they went why they deserted the places they had labored to prepare or whether their last bemant had perished perish dby by sword or pestilence in the ruins is still a matter of speculation and how many hay hav hashed since that disappearance was for a long tinte an unsolved riddle they had built extensively on the open prairie as well as on oil rims ana a in sheltered caves old hand holes hole I 1 leading up the surface of the cliffs showed how they had reached their crows nest of security and old roadways dams and defenses could be traced citer the laps of indefinite ages I 1 the mormon pioneers coming coining to settle the country in 1880 had little time to compare the old markings and piece together the mute frag ments meats of a thrilling story they happened to discover that this opening had bad been barricaded barricades barrica ded or that pass had bad been guarded by a fort or a wall or this natural entrance to somo some region showed traces of a deadly conflict how many men and women had been leit in their gore at these places to crumble on the sand could only be guessed but the guess need not be wild after finding mummified men with stone sione axes sunken half way thru their skulls others cut in two and skeletons with hint flint arrow leads heads halt bait hurried in in the white bone an old fort guarded the entrance en tiance known to us as dardy dandy crossing Ci on the colorado and ancient battlements could be traced commanding other crossings on the colorado and on the san juan dim scars around the passes thru the great comb reef and silent markings and wreckage near other crossings or passes began to stimulate men to think tilis thinking got get fruitful hints from the use made by the ithe utes of san juans natural defenses from some remote past these indiana indian s hail bad a knowledge of how rims and gulches can be made a mighty security from nil all pursuit what a splendid system hysten of safety barriers nature hax has given the coun try I 1 the r I 1 h e yawn yawning in g gorge of the san juan river on the south the almost impassible chasm of 0 the colorado on n the northwest and the comb reef on the east and each one of these rag rugged barriers reinforced with reef after reef and wall after will wall on bac each side alde so that thai the people who make their home within the shelter of tins thin triangle are sure to discover how impregnably they are in trenched froni from all comers they may avail themselves of it only to maintain the defensive and lived in peace or they may plunder the country i in every every direction with this as their invulnerable re theat iott it was asserted by mcleod who many months excavating the ancient dwellings of san juan that ahat he found faund the he bones end and ruins of t three distinct peoples the first had the country by themselves but the afie see sec ond two yere contemporary it at least abe he latteri times of hiie one race race over lapped tile the beginning lieg beg ining of the other race that there was war between them annot cannot innot be doubted it is not probable and not indicated by discover discoveries 1 ies that the people were warlike carlile who built on the prairie all the some same that age had war war to tile the death the houses and places of safety built in the cliffs have their certain relationship to that hostile period in the ire heart of sari juans pro tec tel triangle are traces traces of th peace full praire dwellers but more traces of the people who Il lived vedin in and loved the rocks one opinion my may be las as good is as another but the story ok oi humanity hu manily is in the story of the PC able agricultural peoples being driven out by ag aggress gressle he fighting races to the ille east cast of the protected triangle and indefinitely t on in into the stole of colorado are the ruins of the people who lived on and cultivated the brush prairie sage 1 i I empire has followed empire in in sari juan where that first people went vent and why by is the greatest mystery ot of all but it may yet be shown that the thousands of farmers who cultivated white ite mesa and the mesas east and west made their beginning beg ining in the protected triangle of san juan having established themselves there when they broke from some tyronical tyr anical monarch 1 in the south or east that when they became prosperous is the protected zone and gave agn their attentions attention ioni to the care ot of their fields and their big flocks of turkeys a race of rob lob bers crept in and preyed on them till they moved out east of the comb reef it may sometime sor retime be shown that these thee robbers from their triangle preyed upon the prairie farmers till the farmers moved away possibly to become the ancestors of the present hopi tribe the plundering plu dering race who fell heir to the bis big stron gl were in time driven out by other races who made no buildings pr or improvements and left it nothing behind them races like tb the 0 utes who held to and doted on the fine old retreat when the mormon settlers canie came in the spring of 1880 QU K 01 4 7 4 part oi of the ladder shown in picture is original cliff dwellers dal tiers ladder |