Bureau of Reclamation
News Release
Upper Colorado RegionSalt Lake City, Utah Loveless (801) 524-5403 For Release April 17, 1984
Anasazi Heritage Center Groundbreaking Ceremony
A groundbreaking ceremony to commemorate the beginning of construction of the $3 million Anasazi Heritage Center, to be located 2 miles west of Dolores, Colo., is scheduled for Saturday, April 28, from 12 noon to 2 p.m., the Bureau of Reclamation's Upper Colorado Regional Director Clifford Barrett announced today.
The Heritage Center, to be constructed by Reclamation through its contractor, the Denver District Office of the Small Business Administration, eventually will house artifacts from one of the largest archeological recovery programs in the country. The Bureau of Land Management will operate and maintain the facility after it is constructed.
Featured keynote speaker at the ceremony, which is free to the public, will be Congressman Ray Kogovsek of Colorado. Congressman Kogosvek was instrumen~al in securing congressional passage of a bill in 1980 to increase the archeological funding for the Dolores Project from around $4 million to about $16 million. Other invited guests include Federal, State, and local dignitaries.
The Dolores Chamber of Commerce will sponsor the ceremony along with Reclamation's Cortez office and will be handling local arrangements. Entertainment will include a Ute Mountain Ute Tribal dancing troupe. Music will be provided by the nationally-acclaimed Cortez High School Stage Band from Cortez, Colo.
-more-Anasazi Heritage Center Groundbreaking Ceremony, cont.
Approximately 500 are expected to attend the groundbreaking ceremony.
Free beverages will be available. The public is urged to bring their
own chairs as seating will be limited. In case of inclement weather,
the ceremony will be moved to the Dolores High School gymnasium in Dolores,
Colo.
J. A. Walker Company will be the subcontractor on the Center, which
will be a museum for displaying portions of over 2.4 million artifacts
and environmental samples from a 15,724-acre area. The recovery has been
going on since 1978 and is to mitigate the effects of the Dolores Project
on cultural resources in the Dolores Valley, an area exceptionally rich
in ancient Indian and other historical artifacts dating back as far as
the 7th to 10th centuries A.D.
Reclamation already has spent over $9 million to recover archeological
data from the area to be affected by the Dolores Project. The Dolores
Project is designed to provide water for irrigation to about 61, 000 acres
in southwestern Colorado and water for municipal and industrial use to
four Colorado communities.
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