 skin rug.
(303) 832-4092 www.mollybrown.org
Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum
This 150,000-square-foot museum, housed in a 1939 Hangar #1 on the former grounds of Lowry Air Force Base, has 36 unique aircraft on exhibit, including a 1938 B-18A Bolo and a World-War-I-era Eagle Fokker D.VII. Four exhibits examine the history of avionics. Visitors can view World-War-I fighter pilot uniforms and sit inside a F-4 Phantom II cockpit.
(303) 360-5360 www.wingsmuseum.org
Anasazi Heritage Center
The 10,000-square-foot museum features the Pueblo, Navajo, and Ute cultures with interpretive exhibits, such as a hands-on discovery area where visitors can weave cloth and grind corn on a mano and metate or explore the 12th-century Anasazi ruins 200 yards away.
(970) 882-5600 www.blm.gov/co/st/en/fo/ahc.html
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
This 164,000-acre monument park boasts more than 6,000 recorded archeological sites, making it the richest outdoor mu- seum in North America. Visitors can park near and walk among the ruined sandstone walls, towers, and kivas, (ceremonial rooms), of the Ancestral Puebloan Sand Canyon, Painted Hand, and Lowry Pueblos.
(970) 882-5600 www.blm.gov/co/st/en/nm/canm.html
Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and Museum
The Denver & Rio Grande Railway com- pleted the narrow, three-foot gauge rail line in 1882 to transport gold and silver ore from Durango, up 3,000 feet through the rugged San Juan Mountains to Silver- ton. Today visitors can enjoy a 45-minute ride in Victorian-era steam locomotives or open-aired contemporary cars.
(970) 247-2733 www.durangotrain.com
Gunnison Pioneer Museum
This five-acre site contains 62 antique cars and 11 buildings, including a dairy barn, schoolhouse, and post office. The museum’s narrow gauge train is a Denver & Rio Grande Engine #268, complete with flanger, gondola, boxcar, livestock car, and caboose. (970) 641-4530
(970) 925-3721 www.pioneertrainmuseum.org
Mesa Verde National Park
Ancestral Puebloans, who lived in Mesa Verde between 600 and 1300 C.E., built the most extensive network of cliff dwellings in North America, including the 150-room Cliff Palace complex, which is nestled into the 324-foot wide, 89-foot deep natural cave along the Cliff Canyon wall. The onsite Chapin Mesa Archaeolog- ical Museum features timelines, prehistoric artifacts, and dioramas on Ancestral Puebloan culture.
(970) 529-4465 www.nps.gov/meve
Ridgeway Railroad Museum
Located at the start of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad, this 1,000-square- foot museum highlights the history of railroading in the Ouray County area and includes model trains and rail equipment. Visitors can also see rolling stock outside the building, such as a Rio Grande stock car #5574 and engine #42.
Ute Indian Museum
This 10,000-square-foot museum lies on the original eight-acre homestead of 19th-century Ute Indian Chief Ouray and his wife Chipeta. Visitors can view a 20-minute video on the traditional Bear Dance, during which Ute warriors courted women. Three exhibits explore Ute history, featuring original photo- graphs and artifacts, such as elaborately beaded moccasins, buckskin dresses, and Chief Ouray’s ceremonial outfit he wore in 1880 to negotiate a peace treaty after the Meeker Massacre.
(970) 249-3098 www.coloradohistory.org/hist_sites/uteindian/ute_Indian.htm
Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum
Located in the restored 1903 El Paso County Courthouse, this museum contains exhibits on the history of the Pikes Peak Region. It features 40,000 objects, includ- ing Indian porcupine quillwork, clothing, tools, and mining gear. Visitors can see a reconstructed section of the house lived in by Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–1885), an Indian rights activist.
(719) 385-5990 www.springsgov.com/SectionIndex.aspx? SectionID=38
Fort Garland Museum and Pike's Stockade
Built in 1858, the fort quickly became the center of U.S. Army operations against the Ute Indians. The museum features a recreation of Kit Carson’s quarters and a 40-panel display on the Buffalo Soldiers, a black U.S. army regiment, with displays of r