Cortez, city, seat (1889) of Montezuma county, southwestern Colorado, U.S., on the Navajo Trail, in the San Juan Basin at an elevation of 6,177 feet (1,883 metres). The Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi), an early Pueblo culture, were the first known inhabitants of the region. After their mysterious disappearance about 1300 ce, the Ute, Navajo, and Arapaho peoples settled the area. The city of Cortez, named for Hernán Cortés (the Spanish conqueror of Mexico), was laid out by the Montezuma Valley Irrigation Company in 1886 on the site of a Navajo Indian seasonal camp called Tseyetoh (Navajo: “Water Rock”). The company also built a diversion canal from the Dolores River to the town centre. This canal enabled agriculture and the raising of livestock. These two activities provided the economic base of the community until the mid-1950s, after which oil and tourism grew in economic importance. Mining (uranium, vanadium, gold, silver, lead, zinc) and manufacturing (animal feeds, plywood, processed foods, leather goods, furniture, industrial gases) supplement the economy.
The Cortez Center, operated by the city of Cortez in association with the University of Colorado, offers interpretive exhibits on the prehistory and history of the Mancos Valley region. Near the city are Yucca House National Monument (archaeological remains), Mesa Verde National Park, Ute Mountain Indian Reservation (including Ute Mountain Tribal Park, a 125,000-acre [50,585-hectare] archaeological preserve), San Juan National Forest, and the Four Corners Monument, where borders of four states (Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah) touch. Inc. 1902. Pop. (2000) 7,977; (2010) 8,482.