Cortez Historic Preservation Week activities that started Tuesday and end Saturday range from guided tours of Montezuma Avenue homes to a panel discussion about the Montezuma Valleys early development.
The week also provides a good time to celebrate Cortezs 125th anniversary. City officials and local historians have not declared any one time as the communitys founding date, but its generally considered to be between late 1886 and early 1887. About a dozen key dates exist in Cortezs formation, starting with the communitys platting on Dec. 15, 1886, moving on to the first post offices establishment on June 21, 1887, and extending as far as the formation of a home rule charter in October 1957.
As Cortez residents text on their cell phones, surf the Internet, hustle to work in their sport utility vehicles or turn to a new chapter in their ebooks, they might want to think back 125 years to Montezuma Valleys pioneers. Using primitive tools, our predecessors built this community on a sagebrush hill, a monumental irrigation project and the dream of turning a desert valley into a thriving Garden of Eden.
