Travel Back in Time

The Cienegas of Escalante Crossing

What if you could go back in time more than a century and visit the place you live now? Ever wonder what it would look like?

Well we can tell you something about the distant past of your future homesite at St. David Springs!

The key to this “time travel” is a geological feature called a “cienega” — essentially another name for wetlands.

Long ago, the San Pedro River was actually a chain of cienegas maintained by beavers! It only became a river when the abundant beaver population was reduced in the mid 1800s and the waters “channelized” into a steady flow.