Recycling History

Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon are Anasazi Indian ruins that today draw large masses of tourists. They are historical and are protected and no one would consider tearing them down.

Such was not always the case. In Canyons of the Colorado, now renamed The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, John Wesley Powell tells of a ruin they visited as they floated down the river:

. . . here stood an extensive ruin not many years ago. Some portions of the pueblo were three stories high. The structure was one of the best found in this land of ruins.

Now get this:

The Mormon people settling here have used the stones of the old pueblo in building their homes, and no vestiges of the ancient structure remain.

Oh man. Can you imagine? I mean, you can't blame the settlers. Here was a lot of perfectly good building materials ready to be used. But think of Mesa Verde and imagine it being dismantled to build settler homes. What a loss.