The name Escalante Ruin, given to the first ruin recorded by a white
man in Colorado, is situated about 3 miles from Dolores on top of a low
hill to the right of the Monticello Road, just beyond where it diverges
from the road to Cortez. The outline of the pile of stones suggests a
D-shaped or semicircular house with a central depression surrounded by
rooms separated by radiating partitions. The wall on the south or east
sides was probably straight, rendering the form not greatly unlike the
other ruins on hilltops in the neighborhood of Dolores.
This is supposed to be the ruin to which reference is made in the
following quotation from an article in Science:[33]
“There is in the Congressional Library, among the documents collected
by Peter Force, a manuscript diary of early exploration in New Mexico,
Colorado, and Utah, dated 1776, written by two Catholic priests, Father
Silvester Velez Escalante and Father Francisco Atanacio Dominguez. This
diary is valuable to students of archeology, as it contains the first
reference to a prehistoric ruin in the confines of the present State of
Colorado, although the mention is too brief for positive identification
of the ruin.[34] While the context indicates its approximate site,
there are at this place at least two large ruins, either of which might
be that referred to. I have no doubt which one of these two ruins
was indicated by these early explorers, but my interest in this ruin
is both archeological and historical. Our knowledge of the structure
of these ruins is at the present day almost as imperfect as it was a
century and a half ago.
“The route followed by the writers of the diary was possibly an Indian
pathway, and is now called the Old Spanish Trail. After entering
Colorado it ran from near the present site of Mancos to the Dolores.
On the fourteenth day from Santa Fe, we find the following entry: ‘En
la vanda austral del Vio [Rio] sobre un alto, huvo anti-quam (te) una
Poblacion pequeña, de la misma forma qᵉ las de los Indios el Nuevo
Mexico, segun manifieran las Ruinas qᵉ de invento registramos.’
“By tracing the trip day by day, up to that time, it appears that
the ruin referred to by these early fathers was situated somewhere
near the bend of the Dolores River, or not far from the present town
Dolores, Colo. The above quotation indicates that the ruin was a small
settlement, and situated on a hill, on the south side of the river or
trail, but it did not differ greatly from the ruined settlements of the
Indians of New Mexico with which the writers were familiar, and had
already described.”
[33] Fewkes, J. W., The First Pueblo Ruin in Colorado Mentioned in
Spanish Documents. Science, vol. xlvi, Sept. 14, 1917.
[34] Diario y Dereotero de las nuevas descubrimientos de tierras a los
r’bos N. N. OE. OE. del Nuevo Mexico por los R. R. P. P. Fr. Silvester
Velez Escalante, Fr. Francisco Atanacio Dominguez, 1776. (Vide Sen. Ex.
Doc. 33d Congress, No. 78, pt. 3, pp. 119-127.)