above photo: Adriel Heisey

Salmon Ruins is an over 250 room Chacoan Anasazi site, constructed in the late 11th century along the San Juan River in northwestern New Mexico, approximately two miles west of Bloomfield. Recognizing the research and public education importance of this site, the citizens of the Bloomfield area, through the San Juan County Museum Association, have protected and interpreted Salmon Ruins for over 30 years. Originally preserved by homesteader George Salmon and his family, the site and surrounding 22 acres have been owned by San Juan County since 1969.

Salmon Ruins was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, as well as the New Mexico State Register, in 1970. Around that same time, the San Juan County Museum Association approached Dr. Cynthia Irwin-Williams of Eastern New Mexico University regarding a research and stabilization program at the site. This resulted in almost a decade of excavations at Salmon - the largest single archaeological investigation ever carried out in the Upper San Juan region.

This project resulted in the collection of over 1.5 million artifacts and samples, an extensive documentary record, and computerized analysis records, all housed in the laboratory-museum-library complex on the grounds adjacent to the site. Formally known as the San Juan County Archaeological Research Center and Library at Salmon Ruins, this research facility and public museum was constructed and paid for in the early 1970s with a $275,000 San Juan County bond. Since then, the museum has played an important role in the local community, educating local school children, adults, and tourists from around the world, as well as providing crucial research materials for archaeologists and other scientists.

In August 2001, the Center for Desert Archaeology and Salmon Ruins Museum entered into a three-year partnership to renew the research potential of this remarkable archaeological resource. Phase one of the Center-Salmon partnership focuses upon personnel and research needs at the site. The Center for Desert Archaeology is providing a full-time professional archaeologist to the Salmon Ruins Museum for the next three years. Local archaeologist and long-time Farmington resident Paul Reed has accepted this Preservation Archaeologist position. Paul's major responsibility as the Center's Chaco Scholar at Salmon is to work with the original excavation and analysis records, as well as old reports, to update and publish a comprehensive report and synthesis of the 1970s investigations.

A second phase of the Center-Salmon partnership is concerned with curation and preservation needs at the Museum. By establishing the museum facility in the 1970s, the San Juan County Museum Association demonstrated a strong commitment to caring for the collections and materials recovered during scientific investigations at Salmon Ruins. Now though, almost 30 years later, the effects of time, coupled with changes in curatorial standards, mean that the massive collection of artifacts, samples, and analysis data stored at the Research Center and Library require conservation attention.

We are proud to announce that in September 2002, thanks to this Center-Salmon partnership, Salmon Ruins Museum was awarded a prestigious Save America's Treasures grant for $175,000 to help meet these critical curation and conservation needs. More....