Uravan helped give birth to the nuclear age when in 1912 the Joe Jr. Mill began processing carnotite ore into its base elements of radium, vanadium, and uranium.

This large and deep rockshelter, occupied as early as AD 600 to perhaps AD 1500, yielded brownware ceramics, provoking questions as to whether the Pueblos abandoned their territory or were assimilated into a new population and how these changes related to the Ute presence in the area.

The approximately six mile long flume is a three-sided wooden structure attached to the walls of the Dolores and San Miguel Canyons, at a level of 150 to 400 feet above the Dolores and San Miguel Rivers.

Occupied from at least 600 BC to AD 1400, the cave yielded a corn cob dating to about AD 1500, a remarkably late date indicating that prior to European contact with the area, some groups continued to grow corn in western Colorado after the Southwestern "Anasazi" fluorescence.

A recipient of a 2014 Stephen H. Hart Award, the Western Colorado Interpretive Association (WCIA) will continue its innovative work with the Hanging Flume in Montrose County. Constructed between 1889 and 1891 with 1.8 million feet of lumber, the flume was built along the canyon wall to carry eight million gallons of water per day to placer gold -- hence the moniker “hanging.”