The 1938 Revival

For three years the Guadalupe park proposal received little attention. Then, in April 1938, at the request of Director Cammerer, Herbert Maier, Acting Regional Director of Region III in Santa Fe, and a team of four resource specialists investigated the entire Guadalupe range, to its southern extremity in Texas. Maier and the survey team concluded that except for the southern extremity of the range, the mountains provided little in the way of scenic or wildlife values. They recommended against extending the boundaries of Carlsbad Caverns to include the mountainous area.

Shortly after 1934, Judge Hunter had acquired sole title to the Guadalupe Mountain lands formerly owned by the Grisham-Hunter Corporation. During the period of corporate ownership, and subsequently during Hunter's individual ownership, the ranch was managed with an eye to conservation. Although the land was open to deer hunting (by invitation) each fall, much of the land remained undisturbed throughout the rest of the year. McKittrick Canyon was protected from grazing and hunting. Hunter continued to believe the canyon land should be a park.

During 1938 Hunter proposed to donate a 1,000-acre site in McKittrick Canyon to the State of Texas. He included several stipulations with his offer. Access to the park was a prime consideration. Hunter asked (1) that the state build an 8-mile access road to the canyon, and (2) that development must begin immediately, preferably through the use of Civilian Conservation Corps personnel. E.H. Simons convinced the members of the State Parks Board to tour the proposed park site on October 5 and 6, 1938. He invited Herbert Maier to accompany the group.

Maintaining the enthusiasm of earlier boosters and recognizing the potential economic and civic advantages of the project, the writers for the El Paso Times covered the tour with considerable optimism even though no official decisions had been made. A week later, the Sunday edition of the paper contained a full page of photographs taken during the McKittrick tour. Three weeks after the McKittrick photo essay, the Times ran another full page of photographs of the white sand dunes, which were located on the west side of the Texas Guadalupes.

D. D. Obert, Assistant Landscape Architect for the Park Service, prepared a report for the Texas State Parks Board about the proposed Hunter donation in McKittrick Canyon. Obert considered the landscape value of the Guadalupes "unexcelled in Texas and. . . superb scenery anywhere." He also attributed the beauty of the area to private ownership that had precluded public exploitation. In addition to scenery, the report covered forestry and wildlife, which Obert considered equally important. Obert's conclusions brought new issues about park development to light. Some sound surprisingly modern. He suggested that if the canyon were to be accepted for state park purposes, four points needed careful consideration: location, size, accessibility, and type of development. He suggested that an open area near the mouth of the canyon would be needed to provide service facilities for the park. Obert believed that the 1,000 acres proposed for the park were not sufficient, that at least 2,500 to 3,000 acres were necessary for proper development of the canyon resources. He emphasized that 150 acres of the additional acreage should be at the canyon mouth. He believed that because the canyon was isolated from centers of population, its primary users would be tourists and vacationers, not picnickers. Given those users, Obert suggested that the park should offer enough diversions to occupy people for at least two weeks, not half a day. After evaluating the proposed land donation, Obert advised against establishing a park in the canyon. He recommended leaving the area in private ownership rather than mar it with overdevelopment.

Obert's recommendations apparently were not made public and enthusiasm for the project mounted. In early November 1938, Texas highway commission officials visited McKittrick. They expressed their desire to cooperate to get the road issue worked out. The El Paso Times continued its support for the park. On November 4 an article and an editorial discussed the fact that Hunter's entire ranch was for sale. The newspaper reported that E.H. Simons had negotiated a deal to purchase the 44,000 acres for $6 per acre, providing the land was used as a state park and the purchase was not made with funds appropriated by the legislature. During negotiations, Hunter had suggested that a purchase could be accomplished by long-term notes, to be paid through user fees obtained from the park. Two weeks later, Texas Governor-elect W. Lee "Pass the Biscuits Pappy" O'Daniel toured McKittrick with Hunter and Simons and pledged to do everything he could to establish a park there.

By August 1939 Texas still had taken no positive moves to acquire either the McKittrick donation or the entire ranch. At that time Acting Regional Director Herbert Maier responded to another request to assess the appropriateness of extending the boundaries of Carlsbad Caverns to include portions of the Guadalupe Mountains in Texas and New Mexico. As a result of changes to the boundaries of Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which had been accomplished by Presidential Proclamation in February 1939, Maier reversed the stand he had taken in 1938. The new park boundary lay immediately adjacent to the most desirable park land in the Guadalupes. Maier agreed with technicians from the regional office who recommended extending the present boundaries to the southernmost point of the Guadalupe Mountains. He also emphasized the wildlife values present in the lands of the proposed expansion since he believed the lands surrounding Carlsbad Caverns contained little in the way of wildlife.

A year later, the Park Service was still debating the extension to Carlsbad Caverns. Planning Coordinator Wendell Little of the Washington office of the Park Service wrote to Director Newton Drury, describing his trip to Carlsbad and the Guadalupes in July 1940. Little recognized the scenic value of El Capitan and Guadalupe Peak, but also knew the problems involved in the Park Service acquiring privately owned land. He presented a suggestion proffered by Ben Thompson: that profits from the operation of Carlsbad Caverns could be used to purchase the private land in Texas. Since that idea required Congressional approval to become reality, Little recommended that legislation to extend the boundaries to El Capitan be drafted and submitted to the Interior Department for consideration.

Within the Park Service during the 1930s, ideas of what constituted a park and how park lands should be acquired were changing. Two new parks authorized in the mid-1920s, Shenandoah and Great Smoky, could be considered transitional. While these parks contained scenic mountains and fit the visual standards of the great parks in the West, they also contained the ecological qualities of later-twentieth century parks. Also, both of these parks required private philanthropy to be purchased. The Everglades National Park, established in 1934, established a precedent for parks created purely for conservation purposes. Cape Hatteras National Seashore (1937) confirmed that precedent.

Both issues--park values and acquisition by purchase--were involved in the Park Service considerations of the Guadalupe Mountain lands. None of the people who assessed the proposed Texas park lands denied the scenic value of the mountainous area at the southernmost tip of the Guadalupe Mountains. Most were doubtful, however, that the scenic quality of the rest of the Guadalupe range bordering on Carlsbad Caverns was of monumental value. Interests in ecological values prompted the biologists to recommend establishment of the Texas park for the rare and endemic plant and animal species they found in the proposed park lands. Finally, the preservation ethic of one evaluator caused him to suggest that McKittrick Canyon be left in private hands rather than ruin it with development. Most of the evaluators seemed to assume that the State of Texas would take the lead in establishing the park, then would turn it over to the national system. While Texas had done little to give credence to this position, it provided a comfortable starting point from which administrators could deal with boosters like Simon. More realistic points of view, such as Little's suggestion that legislation be drafted to permit spending excess funds from Carlsbad Caverns to acquire the land in Texas, apparently fell on deaf ears. No one considered purchase of the park lands by Congressional appropriation. That approach would not be used for another twenty years.


Content adapted from Judith K. Fabry's "Guadalupe Mountains National Park: An Administrative History," published in 1988.