Mancos is a statutory town in Montezuma County, Colorado, United States. The population was 1,196 at the 2020 census, down from 1,336 in 2010. The town is in southwestern Colorado, at the base of Mesa Verde National Park, and holds the trademark for "Gateway to Mesa Verde". Surrounded by rangeland and mountains, Mancos offers a variety of outdoor recreational activities. The town was founded in 1894, near the site where early Spanish explorers first crossed the Mancos River. It is the commercial center for east Montezuma County, and was considered at one time as a county seat. It is served by U.S. Highway 160 and State Highway 184. History Ancient Pueblo People The Mancos Valley has been settled since at least the 10th century AD, although various severe conditions in the mid to late 13th century saw the area and its multitude of small villages abandoned by the Ancient Pueblo People (Anasazi). The Mancos area is dotted with inventoried and uninventoried archeological sites, including both isolated houses and shelters and small village complexes. Mancos Valley residents were probably among those who withdrew to the cliff dwellings on Mesa Verde, perhaps for defensive purposes, due to climate change, or as part of concentration policy of possible invaders and occupiers of the region. Archaeological sites of the Ancient Pueblo period include: Bement site, a Colorado State Register of Historic Properties site, representing the first and second Pueblo periods. Between AD 750-850 there was one shelter on the site. About 150 years later, a group of six structures were inhabited from 1000 to 1150. Lost Canyon Archeological District, on the National Register of Historic Places, which may have been the northernmost boundary of the Mesa Verde Ancient Pueblo People from about AD 1000-1300. Native American tribes Control of the area was contested by nomadic Navajo and Ute people for centuries. Spanish friars and military passed through the area as part of the Old Spanish Trail connecting New Mexico and California in the 18th century. The name "Mancos" comes from the Domínguez–Escalante expedition of 1776, though the reason for the name remains unclear (see below). By some unverified accounts, the name Mancos refers to the crippled nature of the Spanish explorers' horses after they crossed the San Juan Mountains. According to unverified lore, the horses were rejuvenated by the lush green grass in the Mancos Valley. Somewhere in the town is the point at