Mesa Verde Administrative District

Mesa Verde National Park was founded in 1906 to preserve a series of spectacular Ancestral Puebloan ruins and archaeological sites in southwestern Colorado. The National Park Service was founded in 1916 to manage the nation's growing inventory of national parks. It did not begin significant oversight of Mesa Verde until 1921, when archaeologist Jesse Nussbaum took over its administration. During his tenure (which lasted until 1931), the buildings described below were built on Chapin Mesa to support the administration of the park.^[3]

The buildings share a common architectural vocabulary, which includes the use of sandstone, some of which was taken from some of the park's prehistoric structures. The walls typically have a battered exterior, and are covered by a roof supported by vigas. Woodwork in the buildings is worked to appear as if it had been fashioned using pioneer tools, and the interior walls are plastered.^[3]

The landmark buildings include:

• National Park Headquarters, 1923
• Chapin Mesa Museum, 1923–24
• Post Office, 1923
• Ranger Dormitory, 1925
• Superintendents Residence, 1921
• Community Building, 1927

Most of these buildings have undergone subsequent alteration and expansion, as the needs of the park administration have grown and changed. The buildings are clustered in a roughly 3-acre (1.2 ha) area on Chapin Mesa.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mesa Verde Administrative District.

• Architecture in the Parks: A National Historic Landmark Theme Study: Mesa Verde Administrative District, by Laura Soullière Harrison, at National Park Service.