Several years ago private parties constructed at Manitou, near Colorado
Springs, a cliff-dwelling on the combined plan of Spruce-tree House and
Cliff Palace. The rocks used for that purpose were transported from
a large mound on the Blanchard ranch near Lebanon, in the Montezuma
Valley, at the head of Hartman’s draw, about 6 miles south of Dolores.
Two mounds (pl. 2, _a_, _b_), about three-quarters of a mile apart,
are all that now remain of a considerable village; the other smaller
mounds, reported by pioneer settlers, have long since been leveled by
cultivation. As both of these mounds have been extensively dug into to
obtain stones, the walls that remain standing show much mutilation.
The present condition of the largest Blanchard mound, as seen from its
southwest angle, is shown in plate 2, _b_. About half of the mound, now
covered with a growth of bushes, still remains entire, exposing walls
of fine masonry, on its south side. The rooms in the buried buildings
are hard to make out on account of this covering of vegetation and
accumulated débris; but the central depressions, supposed to be kivas,
almost always present in the middle of mounds in this district, show
that the structure of Blanchard Ruin follows the pure type.