Audio
Oral History Interview with Richard Hite
Transcript
Abstract: Richard “Dick” Hite was superintendent of De Soto National Memorial from 1972 to 1992. In this interview, Hite speaks about the frustration he felt having to coordinate the goals of the memorial, with the Conquistador Society’s annual events re-enacting De Soto’s expedition. Furthermore, he discusses the controversy surrounding the park’s creation and maintenance. For several years in the 1990s, Hite explains that a Native American activist group out of Tampa consistently protested at the memorial against the re-enacted landing performed annually. Finally, Hite discusses the administrative issues he dealt with throughout his superintendency, including planning for hurricanes and managing legal matters. This interview exhibits the complex and wide-reaching nature that the superintendency comes with, especially at a small, controversial memorial.
DAVID WHISNANT: Okay. This is an interview with former superintendent, Richard Hite. Uh, at De Soto National Memorial on May 6, 1906—uh, 20—2006, not 1906. So um, you understand that my wife and I are doing the administrative history?
RICHARD HITE: Yes.
WHISNANT: There was one sort of done.
HITE: Well, that’s—.
WHISNANT: It was a disaster. There was—
HITE: To put it mildly.
WHISNANT: Yeah, to put it mildly. I mean, we just want to stay clear of that. We had nothing to do with it and what we’re supposed to do is just part of the job.
HITE: Okay.
WHISNANT: And that’s what we’re trying to do. Okay? And we just had the startup meeting for it on Wednesday—Tuesday—Wednesday of this week where the park people were there and the contracting people were there and so on. And we talked, Charlie Van Luke was here and the current acting superintendent and so on. And we went through the whole rigamarole about what they want us to do. There was a kind of contracting document that lays all that out. And what we’ve done so far, actually I was working on this before that meeting ever occurred trying to get some sense of what the archival situation is.
HITE: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: So, I have either been on the phone or been to—or been to the website of um, NARA and Washington, both of those, Harper’s Ferry, Philadelphia, the NARA office in Philadelphia, still trying to get in touch with the NPS people there. There was Tommy Jones from Atlanta, if you know him. He probably—he probably retired before.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: He’s [Inaudible] historical architectural consultant and he is sort of the NPS Atlanta office—
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: Person on this thing. And he has assured us that as far as he knows there are no records in Atlanta. Um, apparently someone—before they built the new building, somebody just wholesale threw stuff away.
HITE: In Atlanta?
WHISNANT: In Atlanta, yeah.
HITE: Wow.
WHISNANT: And apparently some people kind of rescued some from the dumpster and so on. But it’s, you know, apparently huge amounts of stuff got gone. I have been in touch also with the Denver office um, and they have some stuff. This—this is what the woman sent to me. She’s still searching, but she thinks this is probably it. And there’s really not much of it.
HITE: Uh-huh
WHISNANT: It’s—there’s a few annual reports from the ‘90s, um, you know, this stuff is kind of detailed, which we don’t need. Um, a couple of these things I’ve already seen. But then the rest of it is just drawings, you know—
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: —of various things. So, this is—I mean, some of this will be useful in some of these.
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: But it’s really not—
HITE: Right.
WHISNANT: —not that detailed. And there is—I have been on the—been on the phone and also um, went to see—there’s a woman in—at NARA office in their installation in College Park who is doing the—a new inventory of all the record group 79 materials which is NPS materials since 1966.
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: There was an inventory in ’66. She’s updating that. And um, she sent me on a disk her draft—I want to do this record stuff right away and—
HITE: Sure.
WHISNANT: —and then we’ll talk about this next.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: But since we kind of started this way. She sent me on disc her inventory as of now, which is 1,300 pages long.
HITE: Wow.
WHISNANT: It’s searchable and so I—I searched it, you know, and I’m making a list of the De Soto stuff that’s there. And there really isn’t much. There’s a—there’s two folders, the superintendent’s monthly narrative reports from the ‘50s and ‘60s. But you know, those—this thing has been in existence for what—
HITE: Well—
WHISNANT: —60 years almost.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: Right? It’s—
HITE: Well, it was—the first people came on site in 1950.
WHISNANT: ’50, so nearly 60 years.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: So, 60 years’ worth of monthly reports would be 700 narrative reports.
HITE: Well, actually the monthly reports—superintendent’s monthly narrative ended, uh, I think it was along about I want to say ’74, ’75.
WHISNANT: Oh, they didn’t do them after that?
HITE: No. We didn’t have to do those. Now, we still had to do an annual as I remember.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: For quite a number of years, but it seems to me that those superintendent’s monthly narratives ended along in the—about the mid ‘70s.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: But that was always a—when I came here, of course, I still had about three years of them or so and then I did—
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: —um.
WHISNANT: But annual reports obviously—
HITE: It seems to me that there was—there was an annual report.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: Uh, that we used to do.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh. HITE: And uh,—.
WHISNANT: But see a lot of this stuff that is actually at College Park in the National Archives is stuff that’s not going to be useful, you know, like water and sewer things, and road things and you know.
HITE: Where maintenance contracts.
WHISNANT: Yes. Accidents, injuries.
HITE: Yeah, that’s—
WHISNANT: Visitor complaints, you know, that—that kind of stuff, which is uh, just completely useless for—for our purposes. So um, the—the librarian at Harper’s Ferry is still supposed to get back to me because they had electrical problems up there. But—but unless there’s a little bit of stuff there, which people here don’t think there is, but I’m going to check it anyway, the archival situation is dire.
HITE: Oh.
WHISNANT: I mean, you know, we don’t have anything like what one ought to have in order to do this. We’re asking—
HITE: It’s a shame you don’t have all those old reports.
WHISNANT: Here onsite I have been through the—what’s called the central files. You know—
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: —they may have been called that when you were here. They are now out there in the shop in about nine filing cabinets. I have been through that and that is—again, for my purposes mostly junk. It’s, you know, NPS to Southeast Regional Policy circulars and its law enforcement and it’s—
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: —you know that kind of stuff, which—which again is not helpful to us.
HITE: What you really need is uh, the kind of what happened administratively.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: And personnel wise, key personnel things.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Uh, this type of stuff. There’s one other place that—I don’t know if it would be available would be possibly uh, let’s see—how in the heck would that be listed? It may be in personnel files that you couldn’t get into, but each year, of course, as part of our performance ratings we had to go through and detail how we related to all the goals that we had that year.
WHISNANT: Right, right.
HITE: And uh, the goals would be possibly a source of—
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Some of that too. But I don’t know whether you can get to it, or if it seems to—
WHISNANT: There are some things that are called management reports.
HITE: Well, management—
WHISNANT: Or management plans.
HITE: Management plans. Statement for management.
WHISNANT: Right. There are a few. I have found a few of those.
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: But you know, it’s not like you can open a file drawer and there is a run of them.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: You run across one here and one there and one somewhere else. And all of the ones that I have seen are from the ‘90s.
HITE: I wonder what happened to all that stuff?
WHISNANT: I don’t know. I mean, it is—this room right back here which is locked. Jay. Do you know Jay? He’s the—he is the—what is he? He’s a ranger, but I forget what his specific function is. But anyway, he’s a trained historian and he was here the other day.
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: And there are some records here and we looked through them real quickly. But my impression, again was that it was very spotty and jumbled and, you know, you just—you know, you can’t—it’s not like going into an organized archive and finding what you need. It’s just—
HITE: You know, I’m amazed. Well, I would just relay a little story real quickly to you. My last year here, of course, we had—I had filed a—a—an appeal or whatever against one of the docks that was being proposed every year.
WHISNANT: Right, right.
HITE: And I sent a letter and said well, this is a formal appeal. It went to the solicitor’s office [Inaudible]. It ended up it was settled out of court.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: I don’t know if you’ve seen that.
WHISNANT: I’ve seen a lot of—
HITE: 200.
WHISNANT: —a lot of clippings. And those don’t go back very far.
HITE: Yeah. This would be back into about—it started in about ’90.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Of course, I retired at the end of ’92. But the settlement was for $250.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: They were going to plant trees to screen for $250.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Well, to make a long story short uh, I—I guess it was a couple years, maybe a year and a half after I retired, I got a call from the superintendent here. And she was asking me well, what about that and I said, well the files are there. She said we can’t find anything, and I said what do you mean? There—there was a whole box full of stuff on this. You could see the whole picture. And apparently the box turned up a year or two later. I don’t know where it had been hid or what. But I do think there was a whole bunch of records that were—
WHISNANT: Tossed?
HITE: —were tossed. I don’t know why. I’m not going to speculate on that, I don’t know. But for some reason I think there was a bunch of files got purged. And for what reason I have no idea. But—
WHISNANT: Well, I have not come across any such thing as that. What I have been through the clipping files that are here and there are a number of clippings on that.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: So you know, we’re going to have to—large parts of this are going to be written out of the newspaper clippings, even if we can find those. Because the primary records has near—
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: —as I can tell do not exist. I’ve been through every place here where they say there were any—you know, any records. I’ve been through the superintendent’s office.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: And through all those over there. Some of those file drawers are just empty. There’s one that’s full of old telephones. You know, I mean, it’s just—it’s just chaos really.
HITE: You got your job cut out for you.
WHISNANT: You know, I mean, what we have to say we will have to say there are no records in certain periods.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: We’ll just have to piece it together the best we can. And both of us have been, you know, writ providing for years.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: And—and I’ve written a bunch of books. My wife by the way has this fall, her—the first serious history of the Blue Ridge Parkway is coming out in the UNC Press.
HITE: Oh.
WHISNANT: And she—she’s been working on that for 15 years. But I mean, we’re very careful workers.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: And—and I don’t know, you know, this is—this is, uh, it’s a mess.
HITE: Well.
WHISNANT: I’ve got a list of former superintendents and I’m going to call them and, you know, try to get as much that way.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: But people forget details.
HITE: Had I—had I known you were in Tuesday I would have seen if we couldn’t connect you with Arthur Graham. He was over fishing with me Monday and Tuesday.
WHISNANT: Oh, huh.
HITE: He’s going back to Daytona now.
WHISNANT: Is he a former superintendent?
HITE: He was before me.
WHISNANT: Uh, let—let me uh, I’ve got a list here of those—of those people.
HITE: Well, I can give you his telephone number too if you need it.
WHISNANT: Arthur Graham. I’ve got a phone number. [Note: Phone numbers deleted in subsequent conversation and in recording provided to the public.]
HITE: Let’s see here, let me check this. Oh, come on here. Let’s see. Oh, I didn’t want to dial him, I wanted to look at the telephone number here. Ah! I’ve been carrying this thing around for long—I never use it very much. Well, let’s see. Does he have a cell phone?
HITE: Yeah, let me make sure that wasn’t the cell. That was his cell.
WHISNANT: Oh.
HITE: It was his cell.
WHISNANT: Okay. Wait—wait a minute, let me just indicate that and—okay and then we’ll put a home phone number in there too. Okay. Okay. And um, presumably if I call him he would be willing to talk to me?
HITE: Oh, I—I’m sure he probably would.
WHISNANT: Okay. Do you—where does he live?
HITE: He lives in Daytona.
WHISNANT: In Daytona.
HITE: He’s two or three miles from the speedway over there.
WHISNANT: Okay. Well, I wish I’d have known he was here because I would have liked to have talked to him.
HITE: Well, I don’t know if he’d have given up fishing, but he might have stayed around Tuesday or Wednesday morning before he went back.
WHISNANT: Yeah.
HITE: And been able to talk with you.
WHISNANT: You didn’t—um, on other projects I’ve worked on that sometimes it turns out that people who have been involved in things have their own little cache of files of some sort.
HITE: Really, I don’t.
WHISNANT: [Inaudible] everything.
HITE: The only thing I did have a copy of that legal settlement on the dock work.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Where they muzzled me and what have you. But—and that’s really the only thing I have kept.
WHISNANT: All right.
HITE: Because of the fact that it was a legal deal.
WHISNANT: Right, right.
HITE: Or else I’d have just thrown the damn thing away. I get aggravated every time I look at it.
WHISNANT: I guess [Inaudible], right. Well, um, I didn’t mean to start off with the archives thing, but that’s where we were.
HITE: Yep, okay. No problem.
WHISNANT: So, um, we’re just going to cover every possibility that we can think of.
HITE: Okay.
WHISNANT: And see what we can do. I did get a box of stuff from the former people who did the bad job from this administrative history. But at least they had a box of documents that they sent back, and I’ve got those. And there are a few things in there, but again, I mean, it’s like a little—less than one file box full of stuff.
HITE: It was just a review of the De Soto story, not administrative history.
WHISNANT: But it had no—there was—I taught in the university for years and, you know, I look at a page of that and I think, oh my God! This is freshman writing, you know. This is—
HITE: It’s worse, trust me.
WHISNANT: It’s worse.
HITE: It’s worse.
WHISNANT: It’s just completely hopeless in every possible way it’s hopeless.
HITE: I thought Charlie was going to have apoplexy on it. I about did too and so did Arthur Graham.
WHISNANT: Well, let’s—let’s get to some of the questions that I wanted to ask you.
HITE: Okay.
WHISNANT: Specifically. Tell me what year you were born.
HITE: Uh, [REDACTED]
WHISNANT: [REDACTED] And where had you been with the park service before. I don’t need any long narrative of that, but just kind of to get you into this.
HITE: Well, just real quickly I started in Yellowstone as a fire control aide. Uh, in 1960 I went that winter season down to the Everglades as a fire control aide. Back to Yellowstone, went to school that year, the coming year, went back to Yellowstone. Back to the Everglades, and back to Yellowstone and back to the Everglades. Then um, uh, instead of coming back to Yellowstone in ’64 I went to Fort Jefferson and about eight or nine months out there accepted a permanent position with the National Park Service and went to the Grand Canyon to the first ranger in tech trainee group. From there I was assigned to Blue Ridge Parkway in Ashville.
WHISNANT: Oh, how long were you on the parkway?
HITE: Two years. I lived at the Denton Creek area right up in there.
WHISNANT: Oh, yeah. My father worked for American AMCO.
HITE: Oh.
WHISNANT: And I grew up in the village there.
HITE: Okay.
WHISNANT: That’s—that’s where I—
HITE: Well, if you remember where the old honeymoon cottage up in the Denton Creek area a lady that worked for Lowe’s Hardware bought it and moved it in on that road as you come off 191 about—
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: —a quarter of a mile up the road there was an old log cabin on the right—hand side, that’s where we lived.
WHISNANT: Huh.
HITE: And then from there went to Harper’s Ferry, was up the park for three years. Went to Fort _________[file 1 10:05] for two years and then came over here.
WHISNANT: So, you got here specifically when?
HITE: July of ’72.
WHISNANT: July of ’72.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: So, the park had been actually open at that time about 22 years. I think it was—
HITE: Yeah, about 22. I think Hopper was the first superintendent onsite. And I believe he was onsite uh, I want to say a year—in 1950.
WHISNANT: He was there—
HITE: March.
WHISNANT: March of ’50 to April of ’61.
HITE: Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. Richard Hopper.
WHISNANT: Right. Do you—do you know, he’s deceased this this says.
HITE: Yes. He’s—in fact he was deceased when I came here. His widow, I think is deceased now too. But she used to live about seven or eight blocks away from where I live and that—I think she’s deceased too.
WHISNANT: So you—you came in ’72 and could you describe kind of what condition you found the park in and what facilities were here? I know the visitor’s center had been built in ’65 or something.
HITE: Right. In fact, that’s when Arthur Graham came. He came here and they built the visitor center right after he came. They started building the visitor’s center.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: When I got here, of course the visitor’s center was there and we had the old maintenance—
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: —structure down here which was pretty bad. And—and of course, I lived with it for 27 years, 20 years. But the uh, nature trail was quite different then. It’s been since then a lot of erosion. We built the—the boardwalk in there. They didn’t have—there was one exhibit there around the—the cement area just on the beach that overlooks the beach. And the flagpole was at that location. We eventually got new exhibits put in. I think it’s the same ones that are out there now, those gold wing things. They were put in and then about in ‘7—’73 I believe we got the living history camp open. And that really was—the person who really gets the credit for that really is Anne Castellina who was my interpreter at that time. And she’s the one who did most all the research and got the thing up and running.
WHISNANT: Now, not to contradict anybody, but I—I need to sort these stories out.
HITE: Yeah, okay.
WHISNANT: The best—the best I can.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: I talked to Bernie Harris yesterday.
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: And Bernie Harris says it was all his idea. He brought it up, he did the whole thing. You just said go ahead, Bernie do whatever you want to.
HITE: Well, Bernie—Bernie worked a lot on it, but Anne Castellina was the one who really took it forward and uh—and, uh, shaped it and made—literally made costumes.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: And Bernie was active.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: But Bernie—as much as I love him, he wasn’t the one that really did all the work. He did some.
WHISNANT: Anne Castellina, what was her—?
HITE: She was uh, I guess my historian at that time. She was—she was my historian.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: She came in—I believe it was ’73 when she came here. And she was here a couple of years, maybe 2 and a half—2 and a half years. And she is really the one who got that thing off and running. And then as I had successive people in that position, they worked on it and I think everybody after that added a little bit and, you know, refined certain areas of it. And if things were working, we’d chuck it and go to something else.
WHISNANT: Is she still around or what?
HITE: No, I think Anne retired. It was in the last year. She had been up at, um, oh on the Alaska Peninsula that comes down going south where all the cruise ships go into.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: One of the bays or—she’d been—went up there and was superintendent up there I think for about 14, 15 years or better. And then the last year or two she was brought back in and was in Washington. And I don’t remember just what her job was there. But I think she was working closely with one of the division heads up in the Washington Office, his assistant. Or maybe she was the division head, I don’t know.
WHISNANT: C—A—S—T—E—L—L—I—N—O, is that?
HITE: I—N—A, I believe it was.
WHISNANT: Castellina.
HITE: C—A—S—T—E—L—L—I—N—A. Castellina, I think.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: Um, and I don’t know where she retired to, if she stayed up there or if she’s moved someplace. I think her folks still live here.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh. Oh, so she was a local person?
HITE: Well, uh, she came actually—she’d only been in the park service about a year and a half or two years when she came down here. She had gone in through the ranger intake train—intake trainee program. Didn’t know anything about the park service and got—she’d take a civil service exam and passed the test and lo and behold her name showed up on a register and she got a call from the park service to see if she would be interested in being a park ranger.
WHISNANT: Huh.
HITE: And she was selected and went to Grand Canyon and then for her—her first assignment was I believe in New York City Group there. And she worked in New York City and was there for about nine months or so and then uh, she came down here to work for me.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: I was called by region and asked if I would take her down there. She was still in her training program. I thought, sure. She was a very intelligent young lady, and I probably gave her a lot of grey hairs being a young, dumb superintendent myself. That’s back in the days where I think when the new—new superintendents, but most all of us were very much micromanagers.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: Until we got a few years under our belt and learned it, you know. Just get out of the way and let the people work.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Instead of trying to look over everybody’s shoulder and watch everything.
WHISNANT: Sure, right, right.
HITE: But no, Anne is the one who really got the living history program off and running.
WHISNANT: I want to—there’s some other things that I want to get to. But I want to kind of probe around on this.
HITE: Sure.
WHISNANT: A little bit here in two directions. As I said my wife, Ann, has finished the Blue Ridge Parkway and in the process she and I read a lot about living history stuff.
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: You know, I mean there’s huge discussion of that as you well know.
HITE: Yeah, right.
WHISNANT: From the time it sort of first appears. You know, big arguments in favor of it and big arguments against it.
HITE: Exactly.
WHISNANT: You know, all that. Um, so I kind of what to know your view of that. Whether—whether you were happy with it, pleased with it, in favor of it. Had reservations about it or whatever. The other thing is the De Soto Historical Society, which is obviously—
HITE: Long, long story.
WHISNANT: Inseparable from this whole thing. And I’m slowing building that out here. But—but clearly when you talk about living history here those two kind of come as close as they ever do.
HITE: Well, I think really the—the living history program and going in that direction was already set before I came. That was one of the things that they were working toward and uh, it was kind of on the path, moving when I came here.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Although very slowly at that time.
WHISNANT: Can I just—
HITE: Sure.
WHISNANT: —I want to let you go ahead, but I want to just ask you one question about that. I’ve gotten the impression, and I think a couple people have actually said to me that in the early years the De Soto society kind of ran the park.
HITE: Well—
WHISNANT: Do you think that’s an overstatement or is there—are there [Inaudible]? I know you weren’t here in the earliest years.
HITE: Well, I’d even back up just a little farther than that. Really, you know, Dr. Sugg and—
WHISNANT: The other doctor, who is that?
HITE: Dr. Blake.
WHISNANT: Blake, yeah.
HITE: Were the ones who donated the property.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: But I’m convinced in my mind and from everything that I’ve read over the years and in talking with Dr. Sugg over the years that they had in mind. He thought really that this was going to turn into a museum where he could put a lot of his artifact things that he wanted to—to have open for public in that respect. And I think he thought he was really going to have pretty much control of this park.
WHISNANT: Okay.
HITE: But of course, I think he quickly found out—.
WHISNANT: Incidentally he would have preferred to do that seems to be what you’re implying.
HITE: He would have been a very controlling person. Well, as a consequence of course, the National Park Service wouldn’t put up with that.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: Of course. And he opened up the—and really got the South Florida Museum down here established.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: And—
WHISNANT: So, is that where his stuff?
HITE: Well, a lot of his stuff. And you know, he could get in there and do those things that he wanted to do.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: I think there was a lot of—way too much influence from the De Soto Historical Society back in those days and I think really it came to a head I believe back with the superintendent that was there just before Art, who was Gannon, I think. Vince Gannon.
WHISNANT: Yeah, he was there ’65 to ’67.
HITE: Yeah. Vince is gone. He was—
WHISNANT: Here we go. So, do you remember where you were?
HITE: Yeah, oh we were talking about Vince.
WHISNANT: This is a continuation of the Dick Hite interview. Okay.
HITE: Vince had left, and Art came down and as I said he worked closely with the De Soto Celebration on scripts and beach landing reenactments and things like that. And Art left—oh, I think it was in about March or April somewhere along in there of 1972 and I came here. And I can tell you that my marching orders from the original director were that I want everything with the De Soto Celebration to be kept on an even keel.
WHISNANT: Huh.
HITE: And there were times over the years that uh, I did not agree with what they wanted to do. But they went over my head.
WHISNANT: Really?
HITE: To the regional people and I don’t need to name names there, but that’s some of the—the influence that we have there.
WHISNANT: So, they were well connected.
HITE: Oh yes, very well connected. They are all the key business people in the community and the movers and the shakers.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: And of course, had access to politicians at all levels.
WHISNANT: Right. So, Dick, what was it that they were doing that you didn’t agree with? What kind of things?
HITE: I don’t really think that at times they—their scripts and stuff were what the park service would have proven. Sometimes I would edit them intentionally and even at that they put stuff back in when it came time for the landing they would just go ahead and do it.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: You know, what are you going to do to me.
WHISNANT: Right, right.
HITE: Like I say it was beneficial at times to have that association in that that time about the beach sand I was able to call Senator Pat Neill and he was in charge of the Ways and Means Committee then for the state. I can’t remember if he was a Senator then or a Representative for the—for the state. A very powerful individual and he’s a big developer here now in Manatee and Sarasota Counties. And a very astute businessman. Well, I got him on the phone, and he called real quickly over to the director of that division in Tallahassee and the next morning I had a phone call from him saying, well, I believe there’s a way we can hang our hat on this particular part of the law and you can get that sand. It was because of Pat Neill and I got it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have gotten that beach renourishment.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: It had its benefits in those ways. And sometimes when issues would come up that would negatively affect the park. Uh, once—not always, sometimes I’d get help from people within the De Soto Celebration. But oftentimes my pleas for their help to counter something that was going on fell on deaf ears. They wouldn’t—because of their interconnections with all politics and politicians and the business community and what have you, they wouldn’t do it.
WHISNANT: Was that because they didn’t perceive it to be in their interest to ruffle the feathers of the wrong people?
HITE: Well, I think—yes, on all those. I think yes on all those accounts. But uh, certainly, uh, it was my feeling that—that we should not have uh, so much influence exerted on the park service from that group. But remember what I told you about what my marching orders were. And—
WHISNANT: And why—why do you think the park service gave you those orders? I mean, why would they have proceeded in their interest to do that?
HITE: I think because of the influence probably that these people had on federal level politicians, meaning representatives and senators.
WHISNANT: Which ultimately means appropriations to the park service.
HITE: You got it. You got it. It all bounces back down to money line and it comes right on down through the committees and what have you. That’s exact—a lot of people don’t want to believe that there is so much politics involved in the National Park Service.
WHISNANT: Oh, my goodness.
HITE: And it’s gotten—I’m so glad I’m out. I don’t have to put up with that stuff now. But it was bad enough when I was working. But you never saw it in the public much, but it was always there.
WHISNANT: You know, just as an aside, the Blue Ridge Parkway is in dire straits. I don’t know if you know that.
HITE: No, I didn’t know that.
WHISNANT: They’ve got 40 positions vacant.
HITE: Oh, my word.
WHISNANT: And they don’t have the money to—literally don’t have the money to fix the potholes. This year, you know they print this long map every year. They didn’t have money to print the map. The friend’s association came up with $35,000 for them to print the maps. And Representative Charles Taylor, who is a Republican in Western North Carolina, super conservative is on the appropriations committee. And he wouldn’t go to bat for them.
HITE: He’s a republican?
WHISNANT: He’s republican. And so, some of the friends groups and others were beginning to say what’s going on here? Charles Taylor is on the appropriation committee, this things goes through his district. Why is he not? And the regional superintendent got all over them for that. And said, the line is, the park service has more money than it’s ever had.
HITE: That’s the line for the public.
WHISNANT: Which is—which is technically true, but they’ve also got, you know, five times the visitors and you know.
HITE: Exactly right.
WHISNANT: And all of that.
HITE: But see, that’s—
WHISNANT: But they cannot say a word about it.
HITE: I know. And that’s why from the things I hear, morale is at an all—time low in the National Park Service.
WHISNANT: Absolutely.
HITE: It’s absolutely just gone to pot. And people are leaving as quickly as they possibly can.
WHISNANT: Anne and I went to the organization of the American Historians Meeting in Washington a week and a half ago. And we had a long talk with a woman who has been in the park service forever. And she’s about to retire. And she said, you know, they said her—her sector, they’ve got positions, positions, positions vacant. And all of these people are retiring, and they are not being replaced and so one of the things that’s happening is that all the knowledge, you know, that they carried—
HITE: Exactly.
WHISNANT: —is going to be just cut off. They are not going to be training these new people. And so there’s a huge loss.
HITE: Well, it’s pervading the whole government system. And the political appointees that are going in really don’t know a damn thing about what their—their job really is when they go into these fields. Well, witness FEMA—I won’t put all the blame on Brown, but he certainly shoulders a big bunch of it. But you know, so oftentimes we get people that shift in from other agencies as our director in the regional offices and even in Washington. I think Fran Manella was a prime—of course, she was a Florida girl before she went up there. I don’t think she really qualified. She come from a background of recreation and sports games and what have you. That’s her background. It’s not in preservation and conservation.
WHISNANT: Right, right.
HITE: But—
WHISNANT: So—so back on the living history thing a minute. It occurred to me last night. I was trying to think about the parkway and this and The Great Smoky Mountains, and you know, the different parks. And it occurred to me that this park, if you don’t do living history what are you going to do? Because you don’t have 469 miles long and you don’t have 500,000 acres. You don’t have the geyser. You know, you don’t have those things.
HITE: Yeah, exactly.
WHISNANT: And you have a tiny park and it’s not really a destination park like the huge ones are.
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: So, what else are you going to do?
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: If you don’t do living history.
HITE: Living history is—is the key function here as far as I’m concerned and uh, of course in the off months you’ve got the movie, you’ve got the exhibits, you’ve got the nature trail. Uh, things like that and what have you. There’s always—I would just say in most of my time it seemed like was—of course, as any superintendent you’ve got a heck of a lot of paperwork to do. But I didn’t get to be what I call a park ranger. I was more of a politician. I was always having to go to council meetings or city, county commission meetings or a meeting here and a meeting—it just seemed like I was meetinged to death.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: And I spent more time I think down at the county courthouse and—but that’s—that was just the way it worked. And uh, there always seemed to be enough to stay busy. Never seemed to be a dull moment. There was always something on the plate and the back burner.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: And even back in those days it seemed like our deadlines were just always a deadline here and a deadline there. But now a days it’s ten times worse.
WHISNANT: Just going through these records, the records are really not useful for our purposes as I said. But it is—and so much of it has disappeared, but what’s still here it’s overwhelming to look how much paper comes in here.
HITE: Oh.
WHISNANT: It’s just astounding if everybody could read it.
HITE: It would take me I bet you an average of four to five hours a day if this—I mean, reading fast and really skimming to cover all the crap that came through here.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: And you have to read it.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Because if something goes through, well, Dick, you got that, why didn’t you get it.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: You should have seen that.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: But no, I—the last few years the—let’s see, let me think back here. It must have been about ’80—I’m going to say around ’87, ’88 somewhere along in there, the landing reenactment when it was done the county would bring in bleachers and set them up and everything. Excuse me. And they would have a certified engineer come in and certify them as safe.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: Well, in that year, they refused to—none of the engineers would come in. They said well, it’s too much liability we can’t do it anymore. It’s—it would cost us too much on our insurance.
WHISNANT: Funny.
HITE: And I said well, in that case you ain’t going to have the bleachers up. Well, again, the call went into region and uh, the—let me just put it this way so won’t name any names. But the caller and the regional director had been roommates in college.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: So, region sent an—an engineer down and he checked the bleachers and certified them. But that was the last year we had bleachers out on the beach where they didn’t have some bleachers later out here on the parking or the median that they used. But from then on, the—the level of the reenactment activities or whatever went on a downhill slide. Which didn’t hurt my feelings at all.
WHISNANT: Right. Mainly because of—you couldn’t provide the place for people to sit, is that what you’re saying?
HITE: Well, they—the bleachers were available. They could get them, but the county would not have their engineer come out and certify them nor would any of the members of the society who were engineers they would—they wouldn’t do it. And the park service fortunately somebody said no. This one time and that’s all. And then the last couple of years uh, the Indian thing was starting to come into focus.
WHISNANT: Which I want to talk about.
HITE: Okay. Maybe we can save that for one big subject there.
WHISNANT: Yeah.
HITE: Or do you want to cover it now?
WHISNANT: No. Let’s—let’s finish this up and then we’ll get to that.
HITE: Eventually I think it must have been a couple years after I was here—or after I retired then the De Soto Celebration really didn’t have much to do out here at all. They—there were hardly any activities.
WHISNANT: So, if—does that imply that if they couldn’t do their big landing thing, they just basically didn’t think it was worth it?
HITE: Well, that was part of it. And also, it had to do with the Indian thing too because it was coming. And I told the powers in that organization that, you know, you better wise up. You’ve got a—literally a lily—white organization here.
WHISNANT: Yeah, right.
HITE: And the only females involved were uh, uh, wives or widows of prior members and what have you.
WHISNANT: Right, right.
HITE: And I told them particularly on the Indian thing, you guys are really going to get hammered and nailed up on the wall if you don’t—
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: —get with it.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: And the last—in fact, the last year I was superintendent here they uh—they had a—I should back up, the year before I returned, they came down and wanted to do a little oh, handing out literature and what have you. I said nope, I don’t do it unless you’re under permit. Under a special use permit. Well, I’m—I said, I’ll waive the fee, but you’re not going to do it unless you agree to the terms of the special use permit.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Well, they didn’t like—I said otherwise you don’t set up then.
WHISNANT: Huh.
HITE: And that’s what I did. And then the next year they came back and were going to do it again. And I said, I’ve told you already last year, same thing applies this year. I’ll waive the fee, but you will be under a special use permit so that you’re legal in doing it. Well, then that year then they did a little demonstration, unfurled some banners and what have you. There was no physical violence or anything, but they made their presence known for sure that year. We had—
WHISNANT: You’re talking about the—what group is doing this?
HITE: This was an—it’s an Indian group.
WHISNANT: It’s not AIM?
HITE: No, it wasn’t AIM. Of course, I think they are affiliated with that AIM.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: But—
WHISNANT: I want to go forward with that AIM discussion. But I want to go back to something you just said.
HITE: Okay.
WHISNANT: Uh, about the historical society being a lily—white organization. Um, as they clearly were. I mean, I spent one afternoon at the society looking through every program book from the beginning to the end. Partly—I mean, not that it changed that much. You know, but partly I wanted to get—to try to understand the sort of social/cultural structure of that organization. And one thing I looked at a bit was the queens. You know, they had the queen candidates every year. Totally white. You know, blonde and white and they could be. Finally, I think it was about 19, um, the first black queen candidate 2004.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: And there was only one.
HITE: They’ve had some Hispanic and that’s because—they were probably doctors’ daughters.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: This type of thing.
WHISNANT: Right, right. So, you know, I wondered if—because I don’t know anything about Bradenton prior to that. I mean, things usually are that way, so it wasn’t that I was hugely—
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: —surprised.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: But—but well, is Bradenton totally white or something?
HITE: No.
WHISNANT: Because I’ve written this book now called Sundown Towns.
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: Which is wonderful it’s about all these towns all across the country that have always been lily white, you know. No niggers in this town after sundown.
HITE: Yeah, yeah.
WHISNANT: And that kind of stuff. And there are hundreds and hundreds of them across the country. And I thought, well, was Bradenton a sundown town? Well, it wasn’t of course. I mean, I saw some statistics on some report this morning, it’s like what, 40 percent?
HITE: There’s a large black population and there’s a very sizable Hispanic population.
WHISNANT: Right. But it’s had a substantial black population for—
HITE: Years and years.
WHISNANT: —many years; right?
HITE: Yeah, yeah.
WHISNANT: Somebody told me blacks could come and—this is one of the few beaches they could swim on, so, they came here somewhere to swim?
HITE: Well, it’s—yeah there is something in my mind about that too. And we used to have people coming out here, some of the black people would come to the park and fish and swim or what have you. We never encouraged swimming because there’s no lifeguards.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: And there are a lot of sharp oysters and stuff like that and what have you around. But there’s something—I don’t remember any details on it, but there’s something in my mind. You triggered something there about it that it used to be kind of the black beach at one time.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: Now, I wish I could remember that. But I don’t remember any more about that.
WHISNANT: The only thing I saw, you know, after the AIM—AIM protest that the society did, obviously they changed the name of the festival to the Florida Heritage Festival.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: But then after like two years they changed it back to De Soto Heritage Festival, which is apparently what it is now.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: But they did for—for all the years, almost all the years, they had the coronation ball or whatever it was, at the country club. But at the time they—I’m thinking about the same time they changed the name of the thing, they moved that to the city auditorium.
HITE: Well, it was actually before that. Uh, they had a number of big coronation balls and things that the city auditorium, back in the ‘80s.
WHISNANT: Let’s see—
HITE: I remember being there quite a few times.
WHISNANT: In the ‘80s?
HITE: I think it was back in the ‘80s. And I can also remember some of them being uh, at the country club. The—it was interesting to watch how the De Soto thing changed over the years because when we first came here there was a lot of really pretty swank parties and what have you then. The—the doctors and lawyer and what have you, they put on some big parties. And they were very nice social events.
WHISNANT: You mean, just in their homes?
HITE: In their homes.
WHISNANT: You’re not talking about the society. You’re just talking about—
HITE: Well, it would be the individuals, but then, of course, some of the individuals would do the thing at the country club.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: But it began to—I think the old money was getting older and not so active and the new boys were coming in and they didn’t have the funds that the old boys had. And so the scope of things kind of slowed down a lot. They still had a lot of parties, but it was never as lavish as it was back in those days. And it slowly I think changed. I really don’t know how it’s going down, but I’ve stayed away from that.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Once I didn’t have to deal with it, I kind of—I still see a lot of the people and I speak to them and visit and what have you, but I don’t have anything to do with it.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: It’s—it’s interesting to watch it change. And—
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: But and they do now, I think they’ve got some black members. They’ve got some women members. So, they have made some changes finally.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: Or that there’s any Indian—I frankly don’t know—I don’t know a single Indian soul here in this county. I’m sure there’s probably some that live here, but I don’t know any.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: The folks who were causing the demonstration—or that put the demonstrations on were out of the Tampa area, I think.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: And other places in Florida. And some of them were coming out from out of state too, I think.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh. So—so what about the protests, Dick, what—?
HITE: Well—
WHISNANT: I’ve read some clippings, that’s all.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: Really.
HITE: Well, I can—they just on the last year I was here there was about probably eight or ten of them. So, I knew something was going to—be going on that year. And I had two or three extra rangers from Everglades come up and then I called the sheriff’s department. Of course, you know, this is a proprietary jurisdiction here in the park. Meaning that the sheriff really is the head law enforcement for the park. We’re not.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: Since it’s proprietary jurisdiction.
WHISNANT: What does that mean?
HITE: Well, there are different levels of jurisdiction. You have exclusive, which means that only the federal government has the power to enforce laws within a—
WHISNANT: And would that be for most big national parks, would that be the case?
HITE: In most big national parks, like Yellowstone, of course, they’re exclusive, unless they’ve changed. But last I knew they were exclusive. Uh, and then there’s a concurrent level where both the federal and local authorities have it. And then there’s proprietary, which means that the local people really have the final say so as to—as to the laws enforced. They are the chief law enforcement office. Let me think, there’s one other one I think, too. And I don’t remember what it is. I’ve been away from it too long. But—but because of that I called the sheriff’s office and told them I wanted some people out here because I think the Indians are going to try and demonstrate. Well, lo and behold also the undersheriff or the second in charge, guess who was queen that year. His daughter was queen.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: So, it didn’t take long before we had some deputies out there and they were pouring through their books and everything trying to figure out a statute that they could use to enforce stuff. And they finally came up with something that we had—we must have had a dozen deputies here. And they were out there. And when the Indians unfurled their protest banner and they chanted a little bit, but there was no encounter or violence or anything. But that—that kind of woke them up a little bit. But we wouldn’t have had that happen if it hadn’t have been for the fact that his daughter was either the queen or the princess. I think she was queen that year. But—it’s strange how things work.
WHISNANT: So, it—it—it went on for some time; right?
HITE: Well, they—
WHISNANT: Again, I’ve only seen the clippings, but my impression is that it—it was a fairly—
HITE: Well, yeah, and it kept going for a few years there, but of course, I’ll tell you from about ’90, the celebration activity level at the park just dropped and dropped and dropped until it was almost absolutely none. I don’t know what they’re doing now, if anything. I think Charlie’s on the historical society board or something. Or he was when he was here. But I don’t know just what they’re doing beyond that. If they have any other functions out here. They used to have Easter egg hunts. We’d have sunrise services.
WHISNANT: Sunrise service.
HITE: Uh, there have been mornings of sunrise service we’d get 2,000, 3,000 people out here. But um, now it’s just—it’s just dropped off. But the Indians went on for oh, three, four or five years there and then they changed the name. And I think they kind of let it go.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: After that.
WHISNANT: Right. Going through those program books, you know, I kept trying to get a hold on exactly what kind of event is this, you know? What are—sort of what—what their design was. I mean, at one level it was clearly sort of socially, cultural elite.
HITE: Yes.
WHISNANT: That was their—
HITE: That’s the prime one.
WHISNANT: But if you look at those program books, Dick, for the first—well, I mean, they had it in—they keep saying ’41, but I think there was something in ’39. But then maybe through ’41 or ’42?
HITE: Well, there was a few war years that they didn’t do anything.
WHISNANT: Yeah, the war years.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: And they didn’t come back until ’48, I think. And shortly after they came back that program book begins to look almost indistinguishable from a regular chamber of commerce business tourism promotion.
HITE: Exactly.
WHISNANT: It had their little program in the middle of it.
HITE: You’ve nailed it.
WHISNANT: It had a little queen stuff in it sometimes. But it was basically a chamber of commerce.
HITE: It was a thing to boost the economy here within this county and the town and what have you.
WHISNANT: And more and more for tourism and retirement as I gather.
HITE: A lot that and then, of course, I think the main purpose was the social elite thing. Now, there were a lot of local leaders that never would join and never did join it, but most of the shakers and movers were members.
WHISNANT: So, you had the—you had the social elite thing. You had the chamber of commerce booster thing. And then you had somewhere in there in some form or other, you’ve got De Soto. I mean, De Soto kind—
HITE: Well, when you stretch the imagination, yeah.
WHISNANT: Right, right. I mean, at a certain level it seems like they were really committed to this sort of old line, really conservative reading of American History, where you know, De Soto was one of our great founders or something. I mean, this mural they put up there in the bank in ’65 or ’66 showed De Soto as the founder of Bradenton or something.
HITE: Oh, I—but there’s—
WHISNANT: But it all seemed to me like it had that three part—
HITE: Exactly.
WHISNANT: —buzz to it.
HITE: You have nailed it. Exactly that. And that’s—uh, I’ve had a lot of those people tell me that well, we’re going to try and string out from this year so we keep people here more and they can—
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Uh really fill up the coffers for them. That was the goal.
WHISNANT: Right. Right.
HITE: But now that’s—and that’s one of the reasons why I’ve said that we shouldn’t have had these influences. But because of their—their uh, close association with the powerful politicians and what have you we—the park service was forced to kind of stomach this stuff and go along with a lot of it.
WHISNANT: It was kind of like a tar baby for the—
HITE: There’s been a lot of times I just had to grit my teeth and go along with something that I just despised. It wasn’t had anything to do with park service. And park service would never do anything like that. But always those marching orders were in the back of my mind and I knew that if I didn’t, I’d be on the carpet.
WHISNANT: And that didn’t change from NPS administration to NPS administration that—that basic sort of understanding that you had to keep the peace with these people?
HITE: It changed a little bit, you know, as we’d go through different regional directors. And Washington power people changed a little bit. There was some minor changes, but it wasn’t until in the late ‘80s when the in—it seemed like the influence was lessening. And I frankly was glad to see it disappear. Because I felt like for years and years, that really it shouldn’t have been at that level.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Because there were certain things. They could have put on reenactment landing and what have you that were really good. And I think actually the one that Art helped them work up that time from what I’ve seen was one of the very best that they’ve ever done. And there was one real good one that they put on when I was here.
WHISNANT: It does seem to me—and I was talking to Sandy about this. And I’ve been going around and reading all the signs and reading their literature and you know, their brochures and all these sorts of things. Um, it—it—it does seem to me that the park had done basically a good job of dealing with the sort of scurrilous character that De Soto was. I mean, this—
HITE: Well—
WHISNANT: I mean, this is a terrible wet baby to be handled to be honest.
HITE: It’s—you know, I’ve had many, many discussions with people about that and I always just say I personally don’t think he was any better or any worse than any of the other people of that time period.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: His place is here in history, whether we think it was good or bad. It doesn’t make any difference. It’s history and that’s what we’re portraying.
WHISNANT: Right. Right.
HITE: And I—people would say well, he was a murderous scoundrel, and he did nothing but kill Indians and all this stuff. And yes. That’s true.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: But my reply was always what do you think Indians did to the Indians. Different tribes to different tribes. They went in and slaughtered them, took slaves and what have you. There’s no difference really.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: One’s kill—killing is killing. Whether you—and brutality is brutality. Whether it be being done by a conquistador or by an Indian. And to rationalize out that all the Indians were good, and De Soto was all bad, ah, ah. There—you know, there were good ones and bad ones on both sides and all it is is history is what we’re saying. This is what happened. They key thing as you know, it opened up the exploration of the southeastern United States. And really that’s what started the funneling of the Europeans coming in.
WHISNANT: Right. Right. But it does seem to me like the park did not allow—I don’t know whether it did earlier or not. But—but it—it has not seems to me allowed itself to get trapped in some romantic notion.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: Of De Soto and the, you know, the conquistadors.
HITE: Well, I think most all of the employees and the superintendents that have been here have probably had that feeling that we don’t—this is history. We’re not taking a side; we’re just presenting history. This is a fact, whether you like it or not. And you know, we know facts about the Indians, and you have to—that’s fact. It’s—it’s history.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: And you can’t rewrite it. It’s—that’s what it is. And if you rewrite it you have not told history, you’ve made up your own story.
WHISNANT: Right. I want to switch to one other topic at least. And that is the sort of physical environment, the geophysical environment because, I mean, basically this thing is on a shifting, eroding point of land. I’m very aware of that because of the North Carolina coast.
HITE: Sure.
WHISNANT: You know, there’s huge arguments about the [Inaudible] jetties, do you not, do you—you know.
HITE: Yeah, yeah.
WHISNANT: Do you try and harden it, you know.
HITE: You don’t mess with Mother Nature.
WHISNANT: I mean, the great advocate of that position is Warren Pilkey. Did you ever hear his name? He’s a—he’s a marine scientist I think at Duke and he is—I mean, he just basically says you can try whatever you want to but you’re going to lose because this is the dynamic system.
HITE: Okay.
WHISNANT: And it’s going to be dynamic, and you can’t stop it from being dynamic and you might as well let it be what it is.
HITE: That’s right.
WHISNANT: But of course, all the developers and the high—rise owners and all that are getting one of the—
HITE: Oh yeah.
WHISNANT: Replenish the beach.
HITE: That’s what we have here.
WHISNANT: So—so I—I mean, I—since you were here for 20 years you had to fight that for 20 years and they built the berm and so on.
HITE: Well, of course the berm came after I left.
WHISNANT: Oh, it came after you?
HITE: Yeah, yeah, we didn’t have that in there then. We renourished the beach one time, and that was that sand story I told you about.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: I think that’s all we ever did on that.
WHISNANT: Now, they did one in ’98, I think. At some point they got a bunch of sand from Holmes beach that they wanted to get rid of or something and they hauled in a bunch of sand. But anyway, I think it’s been done several times.
HITE: Well, yeah. I did it back in—I believe it was back in the early ‘80s when I got that sand brought in from Holmes beach. We did back in about ’73, the maintenance people and myself, we built a little cypress sea wall. We put down pilings and nailed—well, screwed on heavy cypress planks. We kept that going and that east shoreline intact for all those years that I was here with that little simple thing and I doubt if we had $1,000 in it.
WHISNANT: Huh.
HITE: And it worked. It wasn’t the most sightly thing, but it generally—it worked.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: But now we’ve got all this riff raff and everything and I don’t think it’s very sightly. It’s not the natural thing that was there. And they’ve poured thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars into it. But I’m like you, it’s a never—ending battle. Frankly we should have never put a visitor’s center up on only two or three feet above sea level.
WHISNANT: Yeah, that doesn’t seem—
HITE: Why wasn’t it put up on the second story up on stilts or something, at least that much.
WHISNANT: Right. Right.
HITE: For years I tried to get them to at least do a second story over the visitor’s center and move the offices and stuff up there and—and have it so that at least if we had a storm we could take out the artifacts real quick and put it—but as it was we had to rent trucks and, you know, two or three days ahead of the storm um, pack everything up, load it up, get it out of here. A damn nightmare.
WHISNANT: I was going through this Riverview Point thing this morning. There’s this huge notebook up there on that project. And some of the best maps I’ve seen are in that thing.
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: And part of what’s in there is some FEMA maps of, you know, hurricanes that threatened everything. I mean, it just looks like a total disaster waiting to happen. Category 1 you’ve got to evacuate this. Even Category 2 you have to [Inaudible].
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: Not to speak of Category 4 or 5.
HITE: Well, I wrote really the first hurricane plan here and um, most all the other plans too. That’s another thing the superintendent does is always writing plans.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Geeminy Christmas. Uh, but uh, the highest water that I ever remember was uh, no named storm of June 18th, 1982 I believe it was. And I came in at about a quarter of 8:00 and I parked up the closest space to the visitor’s center and it was just a little bit of water up to the edge of the parking lot. And by about 9:00 I would say you couldn’t drive around the loop without driving in water.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: The tide was up that high. It almost covered the whole median strip, median in there.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: And that was just a little low—pressure cell.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: That developed overnight and came busting in in the early hours of the morning. We had one other hurricane that laid up to the north here around Clearwater. It had circled back and just kind of laid in there for about three days, but we didn’t get water that high. There was water on that no name storm walking around the nature trail at about 11:00 that day I went through waist deep water on the nature trail even.
WHISNANT: Wow.
HITE: And then there was another storm that came in after—right after I retired. It was in March of ’93. That actually knocked a lot of boards off the boardwalk and floated some of it up.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: And that was quite a chore, building that thing. That was a real project.
WHISNANT: It just—I mean, I don’t know much about it, but it just looks to me like it’s almost a lost battle. I wonder what the geologists.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: Or the marine people say about the long—term stability of that—that area.
HITE: Yeah. It ain’t going to change, we’re just going to get flooded that’s all there is to it.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: Do you have a question, Bruce?
BRUCE: I’m out of here.
HITE: Okay.
WHISNANT: Okay.
HITE: See you later. Good to see you, Bruce.
BRUCE: Make sure it’s locked.
WHISNANT: Okay.
BRUCE: Thank you. The back house is locked.
WHISNANT: Okay. Good, thank you.
HITE: Just don’t lock the chain across.
BRUCE: No.
WHISNANT: I think we may have covered mostly um, oh, one other little thing about living history, if you don’t mind going back to that for just a second.
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: Given that, you know, what we say about the park is true, it’s kind of the only option we’ve got, really. And given that it seems it me like the park does a pretty good job with it. I mean, if things are done obviously very badly—but it doesn’t seem like it’s done badly here. It seems like it’s done quite well. I haven’t seen any of the presentations, but I’ve seen photographs and all of that.
HITE: Uh-huh.
WHISNANT: Given all of that are there any reservations that you have about it?
HITE: About the history, living history? Not that I’m familiar with. Now, they’ve made some changes in the 13 years I’ve been retired and to be honest with you I rarely come out to the park.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: That was a chapter early in my book.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: I’m into other chapters.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: But no, I don’t have too much reservation. I—sometimes think maybe they’ve got volunteers in there that aren’t trained well enough on the few occasions that I have seen. And uh, like I said I think they tend to get their own story going sometimes and they are not—they just haven’t been trained enough and maybe supervised and audited enough to get—keep them going on the right track all the time. But overall, I think it’s very good. And I think that it was the way to go, living— Of course, living history was uh, back in the uh, late ‘60s, early ‘70s that was becoming a very, very popular interpretive tool and that—of course almost every park, if they didn’t go to a living history program then you were left out in the cold and it was one of the ways that you got your funding and your programs and things going.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: But I think it was a good thing. And I would say that it—it’s the integral part of the interpretive program here.
WHISNANT: Right, right.
HITE: I don’t—I know a lot of parks spend an awful lot of time going out on different programs off site and what have you. My personal philosophy is that this is a limited thing, and I don’t think we should spend—have people doing full time off site work all the time. That’s not what the park service is about. I think that should be done by a different method, certainly kids need programs in school. But I don’t think it’s the park ranger’s job to go off to every school and try to educate the kids on that particular aspect of history. I think the schools have an obligation to bring people into the park and it be done there. But uh, it just depends on what is the—what’s the buzz word this year as to what programs are really going. And I think, frankly we spend way too much time on these special programs off site and I’ve always said that the park service. I’ve kept kind of—I say it quickly. I said it quietly when I was in because I was in the vast minority.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: Everybody would jump on the bandwagon. Well, if the director or somebody thought—picked up and thought that this was a great program, you know, you kind of cut your throat if you opened your mouth too much.
WHISNANT: Right, right. When were you on the parkway? When were you assigned the parkway?
HITE: Let’s see, I went there in—I got there in May in 1965 and left in early July of ’67.
WHISNANT: So, you were there at the sort of the tail end of mission ’66?
HITE: Yeah.
WHISNANT: All right.
HITE: But of course, I didn’t have quarters then. I was over in the Bend Creek area. I had to rent. I rented. I wasn’t in government quarters there.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: And from there I went up to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia at the park there.
WHISNANT: Yeah, yeah.
HITE: I spent three years there. And during that time period they built the Harper’s Ferry design center. Design and interpretive center. We moved the old John Brown Fort from up by where the college dormitory is there and down the hill. Up the hill, down—up over the hill and back down the valley and down around through. Never dropped a brick on it.
WHISNANT: Wow.
HITE: That was an amazing.
WHISNANT: How big was the thing?
HITE: Well, have you been to Harper’s Ferry?
WHISNANT: I’ve been, but years ago. I haven’t been in a few years.
HITE: Well, the old John Brown Fort was a huge, big ol’ cement, or brick. It was like a fire house; I believe is what it was originally designed for. At one time it was there close to where the Harper’s Ferry railroad station is. And then they disassembled it and took it to the Chicago World’s Fair and it was reassembled, and it was brought back. I think it was assembled up on Maryland Heights. Back on a farm back in there and then disassembled and brought back over by the store, college grounds and put back together. And they finally said well, we’re going to get it back down in lower town at least where more people can see it and it’s closer to the original site. So, they got this guy to come in with his moving apparatus, which was a very interesting thing to watch. I mean, you could almost make a 90 degree turn with that thing.
WHISNANT: Wow.
HITE: It was a fascinating engineering feat to me. And I don’t know, it wasn’t long. He started about 4:00 in the morning and finished about 6:00 in the evening.
WHISNANT: Amazing, amazing.
HITE: Uh—
WHISNANT: Well, I think that’s kind of um, what I—
HITE: One of the biggest challenges as far as the view shed and the ambiance here was at one time there was a huge condo proposed right across the—
WHISNANT: That was during your time?
HITE: I—frankly, I feel like that was one of my biggest accomplishments was getting attention to that and finally seeing it defeated and finally being turned into a—
WHISNANT: But the point that that was on—?
HITE: Right. It’s called Emerson Point.
WHISNANT: Emerson Point. Right, right.
HITE: And it was right straight across from the visitor’s center.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: They had I believe there were seven or nine story condominium proposed there. And they had—that’s where they—well, actually they had uh, uh, support columns that they jackhammered in. There were a lot of them over there. And they finally built that big observation mound over there that you see now. But—and it turned into a county park finally.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: But, uh, uh, I personally—my own personal satisfaction was seeing that thing finally defeated.
WHISNANT: And how did you help engineer that?
HITE: Well, I’ll basically go through that story real quick. I was heading—a friend of mine, you know, I can’t remember who it was now, but he said Dick, I overheard an interesting conversation the other day. He said I was down in Fort Myers and eating in a little restaurant. And I was in a booth and there was a couple of guys behind me and all of a sudden, I’m listening to their conversation. And well, I’ve found a spot for development that you can’t believe. He said it suddenly dawned on me they are talking about Emerson Point.
WHISNANT: Huh.
HITE: So, he said I don’t know what’s going on. But he said you might want ot just nose around and see what you can find. Well, I got to checking and sure enough, the guy he had owned this three acres or three and a half acres right on the point up in Tennessee just had sold, I think, for $70,000, $80,000, $90,000 to some local people. And it changed hands in the next year or two probably three or four times. And each party would pull off their $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 profit or what have you. Well, then it got to this guy who uh, I don’t know whether he owned this company called Hyatt Com Development Corporation or if he was just the shell for it or what. But anyway, he got a hold of it and I don’t know—I don’t remember how much he paid for it. But he got that, and he was able to buy a couple more acres so that he would have the minimum of acreage, although most of it was mangroves and he couldn’t do anything with it anyway. But he had that minimum acreage so he could get the necessary units to make a big profit and have parking and everything. Well, uh, I was screaming bloody murder all the time, and nobody would listen to me. In fact, I even went down to the planning department and at one time I got a—a set of plans for that condo and I got—called a report out and I was holding them up like this standing there on the beach with the area in the background of Emerson Point. Well, the next day I get a call, Dick, you’ve got to bring those plans back down here those aren’t public property or anything. They were public property because they had been turned into the planning department.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: As part of their records. So, I took them back down. And it wasn’t too long after that I wanted to see those plans again or something. I went down and went up to this desk and this lady—I said, I want to see the plans and the permits, the file on that particular development. And she went right across to this little office and there was a telephone, and I heard her call and talk to somebody. I stood there for about 20 minutes. She came out of the office, went over and pulled the file drawer out and gave it to me. And I said who did you have to call to see if I can see public records. Wouldn’t answer me.
WHISNANT: Huh.
HITE: Well, later there were some people that were dismissed out of the planning department. I think because of their close association with uh, some people that were involved in these things and what have you. But they got dismissed.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: And uh, I’m still screaming bloody murder. Well—
WHISNANT: Did you know the developers?
HITE: Oh, I met them. Yeah, I had met them, and I met this one guy at least who was the front man. I don’t know if he owned it or if he was really the front man. I—I never really found out. But one morning, Monday morning I came in and here’s three gentlemen from over in Palmetto. And they said, Dick, what’s going on over here and they seen—I think it’s when they’d seen the article in the paper. And I said well, I told them the story and they said well, God damn. We haven’t heard a thing about this. And of course, they all had nice homes over across the cut out towards that area and they could see increase traffic problems and all kinds of stuff and what have you. And they said okay, so they got on it. And anything that I’d find out I’d tell them and of course, they were keeping me informed of what was going on. They were also able to get the then mayor of Palmetto interested in it and he saw this as a good thing and so he started going after it. And we were able to uh, get a referendum passed on the county ballot to—for a special taxing thing to help defray the cost of purchasing another 150 acres or so. This one guy that owned it all was going to donate some, but he wanted—I don’t know, $7 or $8 million for the rest of it or something like that. But we got the referendum passed on a 78 percent [Inaudible]. We got 78 plus percent in favor of it.
WHISNANT: Wow.
HITE: But we all worked hard on it. I mean, I went to every club you could think of and made presentations and what have you. And a lot of other people were doing it too. But eventually, and I mean, there were a lot of court battles went on over this too. Because the guy would only do enough work to keep his permit active. He would go in about a week before the permit would expire and he would just enough to—eventually he lost his court battles and what have you. And the state and county were able to buy it and turn it into a county park, which it’s a nice park over there.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: They even—I got subpoenaed once to go down and give a deposition to this guy’s lawyers. The high com development lawyer and this high com development guy. And so I went down and I think I gave the subpoena—or the deposition about 4:30 or 5:00 and I just of course, wore my uniform down. And they said why are you in uniform? I said what do you mean why am I in uniform? This is government business. No, we’re—we’ve got you—I said, uh-huh. I want to tell you right now anything that’s ever been done that I’ve done on Emerson Point has been in my capacity as superintendent in the interest of protecting the park. And also, it was during all this that I found out that that was not part of the proposed park lands. And I’ll tell you that—the rest of that story in a second here. Anyway, they were going on about they were like, have you ever heard of this? And they named some group of high—powered individuals and they had some name like the Bradenton 5 Club or something. I don’t know it was real powerful people, supposedly.
WHISNANT: Uh-huh.
HITE: And I said I’ve heard of it, but—I said, and I think I know a few people that are in it. But that’s all I can you about it. Are you sure you’re not a member of that? I said, are you kidding? You’ve got to be kidding me. I don’t know, maybe I should be honor or insulted, I’m not sure which. And so, we went back and forth a while and I said, that’s all I can tell you gentlemen. You put your money out on the line, and it looks to me like you may be going to lose. I said I can’t feel sorry for you at all. And they said well, we don’t have any other questions. I said well, feel free to subpoena me any time. I’ll give you a deposition whatever you want.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: And but, uh, as I say I found out as a result of that that this wasn’t really within the park’s master plan what have you. Vince Gannon back in the ‘60s had set plans in and revised master plans and what have you. And that three—or four—acre piece over on the top of Emerson Point had been included in that. And it was on all of our plans.
WHISNANT: Huh.
HITE: I’d always been under the belief that that was part of the proposed boundaries for the park. Lo and behold I get a call from Tom Field who was the—I think Chief of Lands. And he said, Dick, that’s not in the park plans. I looked at him and I said, I’m looking at master plans right here and it showed it. And he said what’s the date on that? I said it was never followed through with. It died. And here all those years Art had been operating under that assumption. And I’d been operating for probably 15 years or better that that was the part of the proposal to include into De Soto National Memorial and it wasn’t.
WHISNANT: Oh.
HITE: But there’s one other—
WHISNANT: But that’s across the river?
HITE: Yeah. But—
WHISNANT: There was a plan for the park boundary to reach across the river?
HITE: Yeah, to take that Fort. And it was to protect the view shed.
WHISNANT: Right, right.
HITE: As we call it.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: That was, I’m sure the real reasoning behind it.
WHISNANT: Right.
HITE: Vince was right in his thinking that way, I think. But poor old Vince got cross wise I think with the regional people and they pulled him out.
WHISNANT: So, it eventually got settled through—
HITE: Well, through the efforts of the—they mayor of Palmetto, he was the one that really pushed hard. And he had the political clout to do it. He was very active in state politics and had been a representative of ours, a senator and he knew the people to get on and in fact, even the county commissioners, most of them got on the bandwagon.
WHISNANT: Why couldn’t they just condemn it and take it?
HITE: Well, I think they could have eventually, but I remember one meeting early on in the process of something after the meeting I was standing around talking with the mayor and some other people and somebody said, well, that will never fly. And I said well, there’s always eminent domain. And the mayor, oh, don’t even say that word around. He really got hot, and I said, well, that’s always an alternative and you know it as well as I do. He says, I know it, but don’t say that around here. Don’t say that word eminent domain.
WHISNANT: That’s how North Carolina got all the parkway land.
HITE: Yeah, oh yeah, I know it. I know. But no, the Emerson Point thing was one of the things that I take a lot of pride in and—
WHISNANT: So, they eventually got how much land over there?
HITE: Oh gosh, they must have I’m going to guess 150 to 200 acres over there.
WHISNANT: But how is that since the developers only had three or four acres?
HITE: Well, the—the family that owned that he eventually agreed to donate a portion of it as part of the deal and then they would pay him so much for the rest of it. Pay him and his family and the heirs and what have you. And so, he made a good piece of change—well, more than change. He made quite a few million dollars off of it. And a lot of it was just mangrove, of course, you never could really do anything. But it—they’ve gone in there and they’ve cleaned out a lot of the exotic vegetation and a lot of nature trails, lookout towers. It’s a very pleasant little park.
WHISNANT: How—how would you get to that? You’d have to—maybe from Palmetto?
HITE: Yeah, you go over to Palmetto and uh, let me just see which stop light it would be. What store is there? It’s the same street that if you were—instead of going west to go out to the point, if you were to go east you would go right straight on to 301 Ellington and go on right on through Ellington and the parish out that way. It’s that main thorough faire that goes east/west through Palmetto. I wonder if Mike’s got a map up in here.
WHISNANT: I don’t know. I’ve got one in the car.
HITE: I’ll show you. I’ll show you. I might have one out in my truck even that I could show you how to get there.
WHISNANT: Okay.
HITE: But it’s an interesting little park.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
Description
Richard “Dick” Hite was superintendent of De Soto National Memorial from 1972 to 1992. In this interview, Hite speaks about the frustration he felt having to coordinate the goals of the memorial. He also discusses the controversy surrounding the park’s creation and maintenance. This interview exhibits the complex and wide-reaching nature that the superintendency comes with, especially at a small, controversial memorial. Interviewed by David Whisnant on May 6, 2006.
Credit
De Soto National Memorial
Date Created
05/06/2006
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