Aztec Ruins Administrative History

AZTEC RUINS NATIONAL MONUMENT GROWS FOR THE THIRD TIME

The remaining parcel of Abrams land the American Museum once intended to acquire in its original purchase was a strip of what was then a cornfield between the major ruin complex and a road running in an easterly direction from the monument entrance along the south property line toward the Animas River. Since there were no extant ruins on this plot, its acquisition was not pursued. With the monument established, this plot allowed more open ground around the prehistoric zone on which administrative necessities, such as a museum-office building and a custodian's house, a more adequate parking area, and an appropriate entrance could be erected. The idea of a National Park Service campground there gained support. However, the government could not purchase the property. The Abrams tentative deed carried the obligation to maintain a lateral irrigation ditch from the 1892 Farmers Ditch, across the museum land, to bring water to seasonal crops generally planted there and to pay its annual assessment fees. [107] Consequently, that little ditch, less than a foot deep and eight to 10 inches wide, and the encumbrances it entailed held up the rounding out of the monument boundaries for a decade.

Preliminary negotiations determined that the Abrams estate would sell Tract 3, as this section was designated, for $1,500. Family members wanted assurance that either they be given a concession to operate tourist-related businesses on the land or that no such enterprise would be allowed there to compete with those they were planning to the west of the monument. [108] There was no formalized agreement on these points, but there was sufficient tacit understanding to satisfy the sellers. [109]

With this Abrams offer in hand and on behalf of the Department of the Interior, Nusbaum approached Madison Grant, of New York City, about buying the desired Tract 3 to contribute it to the government. Grant previously made a smaller gift for purchase of some land in Chaco Canyon. Since that was set aside permanently, Nusbaum suggested that his gift, plus a bit more, be applied to Aztec. [110] Soon afterwards, Grant agreed to put up half of the cost of Tract 3 as his gift to the government. A ruling came down that water ditch maintenance and assessments as appurtenant to land gifts were interpreted as charges for routine services necessary to the monument's operation for the benefit of the American people and that National Park Service representatives were authorized to participate in the affairs of stockholders in a private company, such as the Farmers Ditch Company. [111]

Until the question of the museum property, or Tract 4, was resolved, the National Park Service could not proceed with the monument's full development. It was the long-standing plan of the American Museum to present this holding to the National Park Service whenever that branch of government was in a position to accept it and whenever its own plans for future work in the Southwest, Aztec Ruins in particular, did not require a field station. [112] By 1930, the American Museum decided to withdraw from the Southwest archeological field. With that decision and the federal title to the adjoining Tract 3, that institution forwarded to Horace M. Albright, then director of the National Park Service, the deed to its Tract 4 Aztec property with interest in the Farmers Ditch Company as appurtenance. [113]

An era of scientific accomplishment and public-spirited attitudes on the part of the American Museum of Natural History and one of its foremost supporters, Archer M. Huntington, ended. On December 19, 1930, President Herbert Clark Hoover signed the third proclamation enlarging the Aztec Ruins National Monument by another 8.68 acres, to a size it retained for the next 18 years (see Figure 5.1). [114]

Johnwill Faris, whose father had served in the Southwest for many years as an agent for the Indian Service, became acting and then full custodian from October 1, 1929, through November 1936. Faris came to the job with great energy and enthusiasm and seemingly with more tact and humility than his predecessor. One of his first assignments, which he took on with relish, was to put out old fires. Forthwith, he set about making friends with the Morris family and the citizenry of the town of Aztec. He profusely thanked everyone for past favors and cooperation. After a trip to Folsom, New Mexico, to view the first finds of manmade projectile points associated with extinct bison, Morris wrote Wissler, "I found the new custodian installed here. He seems to be a first class sort with none of the objectionable features of the previous one, and I look forward to most pleasant relations with him." [115]

During his administration, Faris continued to display an effusiveness that caused him to overstep bounds of propriety. One incident of this sort was when he sent the director of the National Park Service and the Secretary of the Department of the Interior paper weights made from chunks of aboriginal beams taken from Aztec Ruins. The officials in Washington politely acknowledged the gifts but soon afterward sent Faris a memorandum concerning the official policy against giving away archeological artifacts from national monuments. [116]

Faris took advertisements in the local papers wishing the community seasons greetings at Christmas time and for several years sent a flurry of Christmas cards bearing a picture of the ruins to visitors who signed the register and to national officers of the National Park Service. [117] Harmony returned to Aztec Ruins.

Faris arrived at a time when the Aztec Ruins National Monument finally was being rounded out to a workable entity and government budgets permitted some basic improvements. Faris proved himself capable of the demanding jobs ahead.

One of the first considerations in the monument's development was the American Museum stone house. Prior to the transfer of Tract 4 to the National Park Service, Superintendent Pinkley and Director Albright wrote to Morris asking if, since the lease he held with the American Museum was due to expire on November 30, 1931, would he be willing to renegotiate a new lease issued by the National Park Service. [118] Providing that the new lease be made for an additional five years, Morris responded that he would accept the change. He was not yet in a position to move away from Aztec. However, should the museum house be desired as part of a headquarters unit, he would give it up in exchange for a new building. He understood one was being planned. [119] Pinkley advised Thomas Vint, chief landscape architect of the National Park Service, of that possibility. [120] After considerable review, the National Park Service decided to let Morris remain where he was for the duration of his lease. That was extended to November 30, 1936, at $1.00 per year. [121]

A month after the American Museum plot was incorporated into Aztec Ruins National Monument, Director Albright recommended to New Mexico Senator Sam G. Bratton a budget of $6,900 to cover cost of the four most needed improvements for the benefit of staff and visitors. [122] With apparent approval, by June 1931 a 73-foot-deep well for drinking water was drilled to replace the cistern, a pumphouse built, two rest rooms served by a septic tank to the east of the house installed, and the first telephone brought the monument in ready contact with the outside world. [123] Rest rooms (or "comfort stations" in the National Park Service terminology of the time) were planned for the west side of the stone house, but to meet objections from Morris, they were put in a small building constructed in the east yard (see Figure 7.2). [124]

Contracts were let for a custodian's residence and a multipurpose building to be used as a shop, tool shed, and one-car garage. These structures (buildings 2 and 3) faced on to the southern county road at the eastern end of Tract 3 (see Figure 10.5). When completed, the house was three rooms, a bath, and a porch. Its cost was $3,200. Workers mixed adobe for it and the garage in an ageless contraption consisting of a large wooden box in which was a lever attached to an upright pole that was turned by horsepower (see Figure 6.6). Water was dumped into the box. It mixed with earth to emerge at the base of the box at the proper consistency to be poured into brick-shaped molds.

Figure 6.6. Apparatus used to mix adobe mud for sun-dried bricks needed for construction
of a custodian's residence, 1931. Bricks drying in the background.

Faris was pleased with his new quarters, which echoed the Puebloan style popular in New Mexico in the 1930s. "Two foot adobe walls insure permanency and comfort in both winter and summer. Equipped with hot and cold water, automatic water heater, bath and shower bath, fire place, and many built in features, it is indeed a pleasure to occupy such a place," he enthused. [125] Because of destructive physical characteristics inherent in the chosen location, the "permanency" was only 18 years.

An enlarged parking area in front of the stone house and a rearranged entrance accommodated more vehicles and offered a better first impression. The new arrangement provided easy access to rest rooms and a preliminary space for introductory explanatory remarks to visitors. [126]

The custodian granted the unused part of Tract 3 in a short-term lease to a local farmer for a vegetable garden.

One of Faris's crusades was over the deplorable mile-long entry road, which he called a cowpath. It was impassable in the worst of winter and the worst of summer (see Figure 6.7). [127] He failed to persuade the New Mexico Highway Commission to grade and gravel it. He was no more successful in a letter written for the Aztec Chamber of Commerce to the director of the National Park Service asking him to use his influence to have a proposed Park to Park Highway from Mesa Verde to Carlsbad come through Aztec. That surely would force improvements of the secondary monument road. [128]

Figure 6.7. Truck stuck in the dirt entrance road to Aztec Ruins National Monument, 1930s.

The bad roads could not be blamed for much of the drop in visitation. In 1929, some 18,193 persons were tabulated as having visited Aztec Ruins; in 1932, this number fell to 8,322. [129] The Depression and lack of money for pleasure travel were responsible.

In the area of archeological attractions at Aztec Ruins, Faris left the makeshift museum in the ruin. A wood stove heated two rooms during coldest weather. New locks increasing security were installed after a human skull was taken. [130] In 1931, Morris selected 250 additional specimens from those still stored in his cellar. This required Faris to redo some exhibits. The newly-loaned specimens were things awkward or too heavy for shipment, such as time-stiffened matting, manos, metates, mauls, rubbing stones, or mortars. [131] A seasonal ranger helped guide summer visitors through the ruin. As for himself, Faris was eager to reassure his superiors that he was not straying from his assigned duties as administrator and contracting officer for the new improvements. [132]

When it released its Aztec property, the American Museum requested permission for the specimen collection to remain in storage at least until it was certain that Morris had completed all the reports he was likely to do involving them or until his lease expired at the end of 1931. [133] Wissler suspected that few further papers would be written. Although Morris had left the Carnegie Mexican project, he continued to devote himself to Southwestern studies. [134] Regretfully he told Wissler, "I certainly hope to publish further on the Aztec Ruin, but see no way of doing it within the next few years. To round the thing out properly, I have thought of one paper on general architecture, one on kivas, and a third -- a big one -- on specimens." [135] None of these reports was written.

So much time had elapsed since the artifacts came from the ground and the boxes containing them periodically had been sorted to withdraw specimens to loan to the National Park Service, to return to the Abrams claimants, or to send to New York that the objects and their records were confused. Wissler wanted a full accounting. He felt the entire ruin was not fully represented in the run of specimens housed in the American Museum. Also, he needed a complete record for the National Park Service files. Despite discrepancies in several lists, Morris was confident that all specimens at Aztec could be accounted for, and further, that sending additional examples to New York was not worthwhile. [136] A suggestion that, should the government need the cellar space, the collection be sent to the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe was rejected.

During this period of consideration of the future of the collection, the assistant director of the National Park Service sent a memorandum to his superior in which he made the unequivocal statement that the American Museum would be glad to donate it to the National Park Service. Assurance that it would be properly preserved and exhibited was implicit in this understanding. Nusbaum agreed about the prospects of such a gift from the American Museum to the government. [137] No documentation has been found to confirm that such a gift either was contemplated by the museum or forthcoming.