Manitou Cliff Dwellings — Ancient History in the Rockies

The Manitou Cliff Dwellings preserve a remarkable collection of Ancestral Puebloan architecture dating back roughly 800 to 1,000 years. Located just a 4-minute drive (1.6 miles) from The Outrider Hotel in Manitou Springs, this open-air museum offers visitors a rare chance to walk inside ancient cliff dwellings and experience the ingenuity of their original builders firsthand.

The dwellings were originally constructed in McElmo Canyon near Cortez in southwestern Colorado by the Ancestral Puebloan people. Between 1904 and 1907, concerned about ongoing vandalism and deterioration, the structures were carefully dismantled stone by stone, transported by wagon and railroad to Manitou Springs, and reassembled under a natural red sandstone overhang — preserving them for future generations. The site opened to the public in 1907.

The site includes about 40 rooms of original cliff dwelling architecture, a three-story pueblo-style museum building with Native American pottery, tools, and artifacts, and interpretive displays explaining the daily life, agriculture, and culture of the people who built them. The self-guided tour takes roughly 30 to 45 minutes and is accessible for most visitors, though the dwellings themselves involve uneven ground and stairs.