The Antiquities Act: 100 Years of Saving the Four Corners’ Heritage | Politics | New West Network By Connie Gotsch

In 1900, President Theodore Roosevelt saw the need for a quick way to set aside important sites without wrangling protective bills through Congress. He asked for the power to create national monuments.

“The first was Devil’s Tower in Wyoming,” says Terry Nichols, a Park Service ranger at Aztec Ruins National Monument, in Aztec, N.M. “The second was El Morro, in New Mexico. Chaco Canyon was the fifth.” Aztec Ruins made the list in 1923, Canyons of the Ancients in 1999.

Canyons of the Ancients may have been late to the list of national monuments, but its cultural resources are unmatched in the country.

“We have the highest site density in the United States,” explains Jacobson. “About 110 archaeological sites per square mile in some parts of the monument.”