The Telluride Blanket

In 1896, ranchers Mel and Ed Turner were searching for stray cattle somewhere in the canyons of southeast Utah and found a perfectly preserved high quality woven blanket. This blanket, some yarn, and a picture of an alcove ruin later came into the possession of Telluride banker W.E. Wheeler.

The Wheeler estate passed to the Pekkarine family who in 1970 left their possessions to the Telluride Historical Museum. After nearly a century of resting in Telluride, the significance of the blanket was realized. In 1994, the picture of the alcove was published with an appeal for help in locating the site where it had been found.

Only three other pre-historic perfectly preserved blankets are known. The Telluride Blanket is the only brown, red, and white twill fabric from the time period of 1041 to 1272 AD.

The Telluride Historical Museum is located in the restored 1896 Hall’s Hospital at 201 West Gregory Ave. This location is very close to Tomboy Road and the east trailhead for the Jud Wiebe Trail. I visited the museum after hiking the Jud Wiebe Trail clockwise, starting at the Cornet Falls west side trailhead.
 

The museum interpretive display says that a researcher led a visit to the site where the inscriptions of “E. Turner” and “Mel Turner” and “1896” were found. The recent guide to interpreting archaeology sites, “The Cliff Dwellings Speak” by Beth and Bill Sagstetter has an account of the story and site visit in Chapter 14.

The author describes how the documentation of early explorations is often separated from the artifacts recovered and an effort called Reverse Archaeology is needed to fill in the information gaps. The efforts by Fred Blackburn and the rediscovery of the Wetherill Cave 7 are an example.
 

In 2004 the Sagstetters were looking at a 10 year old magazine that showed the photo of the cliff dwelling where the Telluride Blanket was found a century before. Bill was stunned to realize that he had visited this site; in fact it had been the first wild site that he had found in 1968. Equally stunning is that in the ten years since the photo was published, no one else had identified the site.
 

The Telluride Blanket is 57 inches by 59 inches and is described a “wearing blanket”, multiple uses, sleeping, wrapping for warmth, used to carry material, spread on the ground for sitting. The twill weave is difficult to master and this blanket must have been woven by an expert. The cotton must have come from a warmer climate than the area where the blanket was found.
 

The site visit to the ruin pictured found that the Telluride Blanket and the historic inscriptions was actually in an alcove 300 feet above the pictured site. The conditions above were dry and there was dirt where the pot containing the blanket could have been buried. The author mentions that what he thought was a very neat site in 1968, now tells an interesting story. We improve our powers of observation and understanding with experience.

There are ongoing investigations of the Telluride Blanket. Where did the cotton and dyes come from? What happened to the pot, beads, and awl that were originally found with the blanket? A question that hikers would ask is where is the site? If you were starting out as a canyon hiker in 1968, or even now, where would you look first?

The small room where the Telluride Blanket is on display doesn’t have any other Ancestral Pueblo artifacts. In the Telluride area the Utes are the people of interest and there are some displays relating to their activity in the mountain area. The San Juan Mountains were the center of their lives and the cycle of life is emphasized.