Bandelier National Monument

Best known for mesas, sheer-walled canyons, and several thousand ancestral Pueblo dwellings found among them, Bandelier also includes over 23,000 acres of designated Wilderness. The best-known archeological sites, in Frijoles Canyon near the Visitor Center, were inhabited from the 1100s into the mid-1500s, and earlier groups had used the area for thousands of years. The park was named for Adolph Bandelier, a 19th-century anthropologist. Proclaimed on February 11, 1916. Acreage: 32,737, all federal. Wilderness area: 23,267.