Making Four Corners History Accessible

Several projectile points (arrowheads) from the Bluff Great House in Bluff, Utah. Courtesy of Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum.

Located in southeastern Utah, part of the Four Corners region, the Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum presents exhibitions and collects objects and materials related to the history of the region. The museum also has a partially-excavated Puebloan great house (ca. AD 1000) situated on its property. In addition to acting as an educational space for tourists and locals alike, as a federally-approved repository the museum is able to accession archeological collections related to the region’s history, doing the important work of keeping local collections local. During the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, NEH funding helped the museum respond to challenges associated with the pandemic while continuing to make its holdings accessible to researchers and the public.

The Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum accepts archeological collections from the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, the Navajo Nation, the state of Utah, and other entities. As a federally-approved repository, the museum has a responsibility to maintain both a stable and a secure environment for the incalculably-valuable objects that it holds. Crucially, it also has a responsibility to make these collections accessible to the public, including Indigenous descendent communities who use the collections on a regular basis.

Plain weave sandal from an alcove site on Comb Ridge, west of Blanding, Utah. The sandal likely dates to the Basketmaker II period, and may be about 2000 years old. Courtesy of Bureau of Land Management, Utah and Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum.

As a small organization, the museum relies heavily on volunteer and intern support to process collections. The museum was forced to cancel these programs during the early onset of Covid-19, creating major cataloging backlogs. NEH funding helped the museum hire a part-time cataloger, creating employment in the rural area, while also enabling the museum to process two major collections it had recently acquired—these included objects excavated from the Bluff Great House, located 25 miles away. Other objects came from an alcove site excavated 20 miles away, which harbored objects ranging from approximately 2000-8000 years old. These collections, which showcase the region’s deep human history, are now findable and accessible.