© Kathryn Retzler for San Juan Publishing Group, Inc.

It’s a surprise, a tiny town nestled beneath the bluffs that gave thetown its name and bordered by tribal lands of the Ute and Navajo.

Beside it, the San Juan River, wending its leisurely way toward Mexican Hat and Lake Powell, cuts a lush green swath through buff and red sandstone. Above and beyond, long panels of petroglyphs tell an ancient story. The area was a center of prehistoric life centuries before Mormon pioneers founded a town here in the late 1800s.

There are many rock art sites nearby, some within walking or easy driving distance—Sand Island Petroglyphs and the Wolfman Panel are within five minutes of town. Others are more remote and accessible from the river or a comfortable hike into the surrounding bluffs. Miles of prehistoric panels include incised and pecked anthromorphs, deer or bighorn sheep, hoof and hand prints, long serpentine lines and a variety of abstract designs. Navajo rock art panels adjoin, depicting animals and hunters and date to the 1800s. Numerous, too, are ancestral pueblo sites, many of them remarkably intact. These sites reveal an interesting blend of Chacoan, Mesa Verde and more primitive architectural styles, suggesting the area was continuously inhabited for several hundred years. Here are multi-roomed pueblos, Great Houses and Great Kivas, indicative of a high level of architectural sophistication and more primitive sites and remnants of pit houses and hunting camps. Artifacts abound, many just lying on the ground in or near the sites. (Don’t touch, though. And don’t even think of taking one as a souvenir. Artifacts, protected by the National Antiquities Act, must remain as and where they are found.)

More recent history is visible with a walking tour of the town and its old brick homes. Bluff was settled by Mormon pioneers in the late 1800s. On their way to found a town further east, after struggling to cross the rugged terrain by wagon, a small group called “Halt!” at the town’s present site. The first dwellings were mostly log cabins. Only one, the Barton cabin which was part of the old fort established by the settlers, still remains. Within short order, however, the townsfolk had established a brickyard. Through industry and determination, they soon built a city of neat stone and pink brick buildings (pink from the red in the region’s sandstone) decorated in intricate Victorian style with porches, wood moldings and ornamental hardware. The stone mason who built many of these houses also built houses in nearby McElmo Canyon, Colo. 

By the mid to late 1890s, the focus of the pioneers had shifted to Blanding and Monticello—where they were originally headed—and construction slowed. In 1893, the county seat was moved to Monticello and construction of a county courthouse was abandoned. 

Today, industrious Bluff citizens (now a mix of ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds) has led to restoration of many of the old homes, which date to the late 1880s. These make for a fascinating walking tour of the old town.