Glimpses of National Parks and Monuments of New Mexico, ca. 1938-1942

Descriptive Transcript

Descriptive Transcript

Seal of the US Department of the Interior on a field of blue.

Title: Photography by Natt N. Dodge

American and New Mexican flags fly on a flagpole on a windy day.

Flowering banana yucca plants with lots of white flowers.

Close up of a brown, wooden, shield-shaped sign like a National Park Service (NPS) badge that reads, “Entering Carlsbad Caverns National Park” in yellow letters.

View of a road in front of a large parking area filled with cars and a bus. Behind the parking lot are a series of square, squat buildings perched on a hillside.

A desert scene with yucca and other plants. A man walks in from the right and squats down to inspect a plant. He gets up and walks towards a tall soapstone yucca which he then inspects.

A large crowd file down a winding s-shape ramp. Although not identified in the film, this is the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns.

A park ranger escorts a woman in a long red coat and hat through a cavern filled with stalactites and other formations. They look around and up and the ranger points out features. Close up scenes of the pair as the ranger point to stalactites and other formations.

A round white light approached through a pitch-black gap in cave formations revealing a park ranger with a flashlight leading a tour group.

Close up of crystalline cave formations.

The woman with the long red coat stands between a group of stalagmites and other cave formations.

A silhouetted ranger and tourists are backlit by a spotlit cave formation. The ranger uses his flashlight to point out other features.

A wooden entrance since with an arrow pointing to the left reads, “Entrance White Sands National Monument United States Department of the Interior National Park Service”.

View across large sand dunes.

Five small children run towards large sand dunes. When they reach them, they climb up and roll or slide down. The group runs together and jumps off the edge of a dune, landing in the sand. The children continue to play.

A pickup truck runs across the sand, leaving wheel tracks behind it.

A group of seven women sit with their backs to the camera, looking out across the dunes to a ranger standing next to a pickup truck.

A park ranger with a tour of a dozen women jog down a dune looking towards a vast sea of undulating sand dunes and mountains in the distance.

A park ranger walks towards a plant (probably a skunkbush sumac) growing high on a pedestal of sand left standing tall above the dune. He stops and looks up at it. Undulating sand fills the background.

Two rangers walk towards the pedestal base of the plant and stand looking up at it. They walk towards it from another direction. A cloudy sky fills the background.

A flowering soapstone yucca blooms beneath a light pink and blue sky dotted with clouds. Scenes of flowering yucca growing among the white gypsum sand dunes.

Close up views of the red flowers on the claret cup cactus.

A large wooden sign reading, “Capulin Mountain National Monument” beneath a blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds.

A distant view of Capulin Mountain, a cinder cone volcano. A closer view of the volcano across a body of water and trees. Another view shows tire tracks in the dirt leading to the volcano. The view over the top of a small clump of trees and another across a rocky outcrop.

A man stands photographing inclined solidified layers of volcanic rock and ash. He walks over and touches them.

Close up of 5 unidentified objects but which may be volcanic bombs or other debris collected from the lava flows.

View across the landscape to a distant blue sky with a horizon line of white fluffy clouds.

Peeking through trees to see a trail up the side of the volcano.

Close up of hundreds of red seeds or insects on plants.

Clouds rush past the branches of a leafless and seemingly lifeless tree.

A large wooden sign reads “U.S. Department of the Interior Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument National Park Service”.

A view from a ridge down across a canyon.

A beam sticking out from a signpost reads, “Aztec Ruins National Monument”.

Many changing views of the remains of stone structures built by the ancestral Pueblo people. The quality of the stonework in the remaining walls is visible, as are door and window openings. Other features such as wooden beams and ladders are seen.

A large rock chiseled with the words, “Chaco Canyon National Monument Headquarters”.

The stone walls that remain from a pueblo. Large stone pueblo structures seen across autumnal trees.

Closer views of the structures revealing details of the stonework, doorways, and other features reveal the scale of the community. Remnants of wooden beams stick out from stone walls.

Two park rangers man climb stairs etched into a large sandstone boulder.  One reaches the top and the other remains near the bottom of the stairs.

Pottery sherds on the ground as a hand reaches in, picks a couple up, and shows them to the camera.

A view across the pueblo to hills or mesas in the distance. Trees with bright orange leaves dot the landscape. The camera pans to show the extent of the site, followed by more views of the pueblo.

A large sign made of three horizontal wooden panels placed between large rocks. The signs read, “National Park Service Entrance Bandelier National Monument (Frijoles Canyon) United States Department of Interior”.

A boy and a ranger walk through a shallow area between two rock outcrops to an open rocky area. They walk in deep indentations in the rock, pathways carved into the soft rock by centuries of foot traffic.  

Views of the low rock walls of Tyuonyi. People can be seen walking through the site.

A view across the canyon of Long House showing the tall cliff and the structures below, as well as the holes that once supported wooden poles in the cliff face. Rangers and visitors at Long House.

Large wooden sign that reads, “Entrance Gran Quivira National Monument Parking Area ¼ mile U.S. Department of Interior National Park Service”

A view of the pueblo with flowering walking stick cholla in the foreground. Changing views of the pueblo structures revealing walls and other features as well as the landscape vegetation.

A wooden sign with a jagged outline on one side reads, “El Morro National Monument”.

A view of a rock bluff. Close up of names carved into the rock. Names that can be read are John K. Bauth, Joseph Kern, and Pablo Castillo but others are present.

Rock carving of a high arch made to look like rope.

A panning view across a Spanish inscription. The inscription in full translates to "Year of 1716 on the 26th of August passed by here Don Feliz Martinez, Governor and Captain General of this realm to the reduction and conquest of the Moqui (Hopi) and [with him] the reverend Father Friar Antonio Camargo, Custodian and ecclesiastical judge."

A succession of inscriptions by Spaniards, Zuni, and Anglo visitors dating from the 16^th through 19^th centuries.  They are primarily in Spanish, but English is also present.

A small yellow metal sign with an arrow pointing left reads “Fort Union Natl Monument” and the number 7 (indicating 7 miles).

A view of a ruts going up a dry, brown hill.

Scene across a large field of green grass to the remains of Fort Union standing against a bright blue sky. A park ranger squats down pointing to something in a low ruin as three visitors look on. The ranger and visitors walk in front of the adobe walls of a ruined building. The stone base and window lintels can still be seen. The tour stops at the end of a row of buildings where a large pile of adobe and bricks suggest the collapse of part of the building. A small wooden sign marks the building as “Quartermaster Storehouses”.

Close up of the ranger squatting to pick up a ball and chain from the ground.

Distant view across the ruins of the site to the mountains beyond.

Description

Silent color film featuring photography by NPS Naturalist Natt N. Dodge who created many of the earliest NPS color films. Park signs serve to identify Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, Capulin Volcano, Gila Cliff Dwellings, Aztec Ruins, Chaco Canyon, Bandelier, Gran Quivira, El Morro, and Fort Union scenes. Subjects include flowering plants, visitors, rangers, buildings, pueblos, geology, and historic graffiti. Date estimated from Dodge's similar films and time at NPS Southwest National Monuments.

Duration

17 minutes, 5 seconds

Credit

NPS History Collection film by Natt N. Dodge (HFCA 2486)

Date Created

08/28/2023

Copyright and Usage Info

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