Aztec Ruins Administrative History

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface

Chapter 1. An Anasazi Village Misnamed Aztec

The Setting
Spanish Knowledge Of The Ruins
Euro-Americans Become Acquainted With The Ruins

Chapter 2. Earl Halstead Morris And The Aztec Ruins

Chapter 3. Peeling Away Prehistory

1916: Exploratory Season
1917: First Full-Scale Excavation
1918: The Big Thrust
1919: The Season Aztec Ruin Dating Studies Began
1920: Dendrochronological Promise And Limited Digging
1921: Year Of Substantiated Cultural Theories And The Great Kiva
1922: Winding Down
1923-1928: Wrapping Up

Chapter 4. A House In Ruins

Chapter 5. A National Monument, Stillborn

Chapter 6. The Decade Of Dissention, 1923-1933

Joint Custody Of Aztec Ruin
The Boundey Era, April 1927-October 1929
Museum Property Adjacent To The Monument
Second Enlargement Of Aztec Ruin National Monument
The Archeological Specimens And Their Exhibition In The First Two Museums
The Monument Faces Economic Exploitation
Aztec Ruins National Monument Grows For The Third Time

Chapter 7. The Great Depression And Capital Improvements

Civil Works Administration Program
      Cleaning Up The Monument
      Excavations
Public Works Administration Program
      Ruin Repair
      Great Kiva
      Administration Building And Third Museum
Civilian Conservation Corps

Chapter 8. The Miller Administration, 1937-1944

Personnel
Physical Plant
Ruin Repair And Archeology
Relationship With The Public

Chapter 9. Satellite Attractions

Hubbard Mound
Acquisition
Excavation And Interpretation
East Ruin
Earl Morris Ruin

Chapter 10. The Mission Of Mission 66

For Users
      The Fourth Museum
      Research
      Interpretation And A Self-Guiding System
For Managers
      Work Space And Utilities
      Residential/Maintenance Area

Chapter 11. The Last Quarter Century And Beyond

General Management Plan (1988) Recommendations
The Masau Trail

Chapter 12. Stabilization: The High Cost Of Water

1916-1922
1923-1933
1934-1936
1937-1942
1943-1947
1949-1956
1956-1969
1970-1980
1981-1988
Instructive Or Destructive Archeology, Or Both?

Chapter 13. Specimen Collections: Recent Assessments And Their Significance For Future Research

American Museum Of Natural History Collection
National Park Service Collections

Bibliographic Resources

Administrative Appendixes

Appendix A: Legislation

Appendix B: Legal Compliance

Appendix C: Excavation Concession

Appendix D: Considerations Of 1918 Attendant To Purchase Of The Aztec Ruin

Appendix E: Proposed Purchase Agreement Of 1918

Appendix F: Proposed Purchase Agreement Of 1919

Appendix G: Proposed Conveyance Of Ruins Property, 1919

Appendix H: National Park Service Management Guidelines, 1921

Appendix I: Aztec Chamber Of Commerce Resolution, 1931

Appendix J: Custodians And Superintendents

Appendix K: Visitation Records (Minus 1923-1929)

Stabilization Appendixes

Appendix L: Rooms Or Kivas Where Stabilization Is Indicated As Having Occurred

Appendix M: Stabilization Expenditures (Incomplete), West Ruin

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

1.1. Map showing location of Aztec Ruins.
1.2. West Ruin, ca. 1880.
1.3. East Ruin, ca. 1880.
2.1. Earl Halstead Morris in front of the house he built, ca. 1920.
2.2. Earl Halstead Morris, ca. 1950.
3.1. Eest Ruin after being cleared.
3.2. Chaco cultural traits present at Aztec Ruins.
3.3. Mesa Verde cultural traits present at Aztec Ruins.
3.4. Workers removing fine fill dirt by means of a forge bellows.
3.5. Roofed Kiva B, 1916.
3.6. Exposed first-story roof.
3.7. Morris on an elevated scaffold photographing the ruin.
3.8. North Wing excavations in 1918.
3.9. East Wing excavations in 1916.
3.10. Workers in 1916 screening room fill.
3.11. Excavated units at time of establishment of monument, 1923.
3.12. Interior of Kiva E.
3.13. Overview of West Ruin in 1918.
3.14. Mesa Verde-style wall built on top of Chaco debris.
3.15. Excavated rooms and two roofed kivas of the West Ruin at the end of the field season of 1917.
3.16. Room fill contained many shattered ceramic vessels.
3.17. Two Mesa Verde black-on-white bowls in compacted room fill.
3.18. Three corrugated jars and a stone-lined mealing bin sunk into a room floor.
3.19. Workman sorting pothserds into decorative types.
3.20. A pile of cornhusks.
3.21. Intact aboriginal ceiling.
3.22. Room in southwest corner of the West Ruin.
3.23. Excavation of the Great Kiva, 1921.
3.24a. 3.24b. Excavated Great Kiva in 1921, showing floor features. Above, view to south; below, view to north.
3.25. Partial poles-and-rungs ladder.
4.1. American Museum field station, ca. 1923-1924.
4.2. The Morris living room.
4.3. Three rooms of the southwest corner of the Aztec Ruin revamped by Morris for personal purposes.
5.1. Growth of Aztec Ruins National Monument.
6.1. Map of location of Aztec Ruins National Monument and connecting highways in the Four Corners area.
6.2. Morris house serving as monument entrance.
6.3. Custodian Johnwill Faris.
6.4. Museum in West Ruin rooms.
6.5. West exit from ruin museum rooms.
6.6. Apparatus used to mix adobe mud.
6.7. Truck struck in dirt entrance road.
7.1. Abrams hay barn being dismantled.
7.2. View of 1933 from southwest corner of the West Ruin.
7.3. Parking lot in front of Aztec Ruins National Monument headquarters, ca. 1934.
7.4. Relays of horse-drawn wagons hauling debris from west ruin.
7.5. Removing debris from West Ruin courtyard.
7.6. Dismantling the American Museum storage shed.
7.7. Resetting exterior wall of North Wing.
7.8. Great Kiva after excavation in 1921.
7.9. Deteriorated condition of Great Kiva prior to reconstruction in 1934.
7.10. Erection of roof on restored Great Kiva, 1934.
7.11. Interior of restored Great Kiva.
7.12. Reconstructed Great Kiva, northwest side.
7.13. Lobby being erected, 1934.
9.1. Ground plan of the Hubbard Site.
9.2. Hubbard Mound, ca. 1954.
9.3. The East Ruin.
9.4. Map of East Ruin and Earl Morris Ruin, 1989.
10.1. Evolution of visitor center.
10.2. Sherman S. Howe.
10.3. Visitor center, Aztec Ruins National Monument, 1959.
10.4. Boundary status map, 1959.
10.5. Residence/Maintenance area.
10.6. Buildings 2, 3, and 4.
10.7. Building 8, 1949.
10.8. Building 9, 1958.
11.1. Aztec Ruins National Monument, 1984.
11.2. Aerial view of West Ruin and Hubbard Mound, 1984.
11.3. Expanded boundary, Aztec Ruins National Monument, 1988.
12.1. View over northeast corner of West Ruin, showing cement wall capping.
12.2a. 12.2b. Two views of wall repairs, West Ruin, by American Museum of Natural History crews.
12.3. West Ruin, numbering system of 1988.
12.4. Schematic plan of major drains, West Ruin.
12.5. Dragline digging deep north drainage trench, 1946.
12.6. Routine maintenance stabilization, 1989.
12.7. Routine maintenance stabilization, 1989.
12.8. Routine maintenance stabilization, 1989.
12.9. Routine maintenance stabilization, 1989.
13.1. Model of the West Ruin.

LIST OF TABLES

7.1. Civil Works Administration Program, Aztec Ruins National Monument, December 6, 1933-April 12, 1934. Statistical Summary.
7.2. Public Works Administration Program, Aztec Ruins National Monument, Statistical Summary.
10.1. Mission 66 Expenditures, Aztec Ruins National Monument.
13.1. Animas Valley Sites, other than West Ruin, Yielding Pottery in the American Museum of Natural History Collection.