In early March, Durango resident Miriam Gillow-Wiles attended a business meeting with people from around southwest Colorado. She's the director of the Southwest Council of Governments, which works with local officials from throughout the state.

But sometime after the meeting, she learned from her local health department that another person there had tested positive for COVID-19. 

The six weeks between mid-March and early May leading up to the seasonal closure of The Bridge’s emergency shelter in Cortez were unlike any the organization had ever experienced. When Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced a statewide stay-at-home order would start on March 26, the nonprofit’s executive director, Laurie Knutson, described it as the start of a major shift. 

As it appears today, cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park look desolate and distant from their neighbors. But what is now the national park was just one part of an expansive trade network that stretched from California to the southeastern United States and south into Central America.