Travels and Travails
Tourism at Mesa Verde
Duane A. Smith & William C. Winkler
They rode or drove over steep, narrow trails with
precipitous falls rewarding any mistake. They slept in primitive cabins and tents and faced water shortages. These were the pioneering tourists. Welcome to their world. Travels and Travails takes a look at tourism at Mesa Verde National Park over the past century.
William C. Winkler
William C. Winkler is a native Coloradan with more than 45 years
in Mesa Verde and Yosemite National Parks as Park Ranger and Concessioner.
He is a writer, photographer and filmmaker whose work can be reviewed on .
Winkler has served four Colorado governors as Commissioner of Centennial/Bicentennial, Historic Preservation,
Advisory Committee to Commerce and Economic Development, and as Chairman of the Colorado Tourism Advisory Council.
Duane A. Smith
Duane Smith received
his academic degrees from the University of Colorado and completed
his Ph.D. in 1964.
That year he began to teach at Fort Lewis College where he is a Professor
of Southwest Studies.
His areas of research and writing include Colorado history, Civil
War history, mining history, urban history and baseball history.
He is an extremely popular professor at Fort Lewis, and he is the
author of over thirty books on a variety of subjects including Rocky
Mountain Mining Camps: The Urban Frontier; A Colorado History; Horace Tabor: His Life and the Legend; Silver Saga: The
Story of Caribou Colorado; Colorado Mining: A Photographic
History; Fortunes Are for the Few: Letters of a Forty-niner; Rocky Mountain Boom Town: A History of Durango; A Land Alone:
Colorado’s Western Slope; Song of the Hammer and Drill: The
Colorado San Juans, 1860-1914; Mining America: The Industry
and the Environment, 1800-1980; Mesa Verde National Park: Shadows
of the Centuries; The Birth of Colorado: A Civil War Perspective;
and Sacred Trust: The Birth and Development of Fort Lewis College.
