City of Cortez history

Since 1880 more than 400 reservoirs have been built in the piedmont to store water for irrigation.

Cortez, city, seat (1889) of Montezuma county, southwestern Colorado, United States, on the Navajo Trail, in the San Juan Basin at an elevation of 6,177 feet (1,883 metres). The Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi), an early Pueblo culture, were the first known inhabitants of the region.

By the 1900’s, the cattle industry around the nearby town of Dolores was booming.

Placer mining was occurring to the south, spectacular Indian ruins had been discovered by cattlemen on the Mesa Verde, and in 1906, that area was designated as a National Park.

Mother Nature has always played a large role here and, on July 10, 1911, the storms came in and washed out the flumes, laterals, and much of the irrigation system.

In the north and northwest the Front Range, the Medicine Bow Mountains, the Park Range, and the Rabbit Ears Range are major uplifts, and Rocky Mountain National Park (established 1915) in the western part of the Front Range is a popular destination for tourists and outdoors enthusiasts.

The region contains several national monuments and parks, most of them primarily scenic, while Mesa Verde National Park, designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978, preserves the remnants of cliff-dwelling Native American settlements.

By 1980, government was our foremost personal income generator in the county, followed by tourism and then agriculture.