About 50 miles west of Durango the Great Sage Plain spreads out to the horizon. Sleeping Ute Mountain dominates the area with its unmistakable suggestion of a giant Indian asleep, facing the stars. It is in this area that the entryway to Mesa Verde and the town of Cortez are found.

Cortez dates from 1886. In 1889 Montezuma County (2,097 square miles) was carved out of La Plata County, and Cortez named as its governmental seat.

But the area's occupied history goes back to prehistoric times as evidenced by the cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park. Long after the ancestral puebloans (popularly known as the Anasazi) abandoned their homes around 1300 A.D., Indians of the Ute Tribe entered the area. The Ute Indian Territory changed dramatically in the 19th-century when the mining rush brought the first whites to the area. New treaties were drawn up, and miners soon were followed by farmers and ranchers. President Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed Mesa Verde a national park on June 29, 1906, formalizing a tourist interest that had existed for decades. Today Cortez is the service center for the richest archaeological area in the United States.

In 1910 a new experiment in agriculture resulted in dry land farming. The practice of farming non-irrigated land became successful, and today there are many such farms in the area. The production of pinto beans ranks at the top.