Aztec Ruins Administrative History

PUBLIC WORKS ADMINISTRATION PROGRAM

As the Civil Works Administration program was phased out, funding on a broader scale came from another new agency, the Public Works Administration. Ruins repair, the restoration of the Great Kiva, and the construction of an administration and museum building were under its jurisdiction. The parking lot was carried over from the Civil Works Administration program. After basic construction, it was paved with an extra allotment of $6,000. [46]

Ruin Repair

In 1916, it was not expected that the West Ruin would be eaten away by waters from an upslope irrigation ditch. This situation was exacerbated by a naturally high water table in the valley. Apparently, a threatening condition did not exist prior to excavation, as the wealth of dry perishables retrieved from some rooms attested. Other parts of the great house also were moisture free. Morris noted, "When the roofed kiva at Aztec [Kiva E] was excavated the earth was as dry as earth could be." [47] But that changed. Exposure, saturation of the subsoil, and expanded farming caused underground water to work through capillary action up into a foot or more of walls, weakening them at their foundations and leading to exfoliation of the lower masonry courses. Although repair work was done in tandem with excavation, by the 1930s, it was proving to be impermanent, ineffectual, even destructive.

In early 1933, Engineer James B. Hamilton came to Aztec to appraise the situation for the National Park Service. While he felt that earlier repair efforts halted or slowed some damage, the cement used was not reinforced nor provided with expansion joints. As it aged, it cracked extensively, thus permitting water to reach into cores of walls or soak ceiling wood. Up to that time, no means of coping with the irrigation water were tried.

Because protection or repair of Southwestern ruins was something new to the National Park Service, it was a time of experimentation. Hamilton only suggested a few obvious ways to attempt control of these ills. These measures were replacing old wall cappings with more effective materials, redoing cement covers over intact ceilings or remodeling those in fair shape, installing tile-lined drainage trenches to lead water away from weak walls, putting fans or sump pumps in damp kivas, and experimenting with substances that could be sprayed or painted onto wall surfaces to waterproof them. [48]

By 1925, Morris already recognized that reroofed Kiva E was a special problem. [49] In the Anasazi manner, he had covered the steeply pitched, cribbed, cedar poles of the superstructure with packed earth. To protect that layer, he had added a heavy concrete slab topping. Above that as further protection, carpenters erected a shell of lumber and tar paper. Over time, the concrete slab beneath the uppermost roof sagged and cracked. Further, seepage encroached on the chamber. Morris reported, "...a damp spot appeared at the foot of the north wall and in the course of two years it spread entirely across the kiva floor southward and rose up on the side walls." [50] The National Park Service managers considered the kiva an eyesore and a hazard. Because they wanted to use the structure as a possible lecture room, they felt something had to be done to make Kiva E safe and attractive. As often was the case, there was no money.

In 1934, Hamilton recommended that the cement and tar paper roofs of Kiva E be stripped down to the cribbed logs. A new watertight roof should be raised over the logs, leaving an air space between roof and logs to prevent dry rot. Then, the whole construction should be covered with earth so that it would resemble the original model. He asked that an objectionable wooden railing leading to the kiva hatchway be eliminated. [51] Hamilton thought a drainage system or sump pump would take care of unwanted moisture that was sure to increase because test holes showed water about three feet below the kiva floor. [52]

Using Hamilton's proposals as a plan of attack and Morris's archeological advice, a Public Works Administration repair crew started work in March 1934. Their first priority was digging a drainage ditch across the courtyard of the West Ruin. In places, they trenched as much as 17 feet below the surface in order to take the drain at least three feet below the floor of Kiva E. A large tile tubing was put in the trench. This was covered with gravel hauled by two teams and a wagon. [53] The tubing was connected with drains from the roof of the Great Kiva and edges of Kivas E and I and was extended some distance southeasterly out of the courtyard to emerge at ground level. There, collected water was allowed to soak into the earth. The planners hoped the small opening would prevent animals from entering the system. [54] To complete the job, workers filled the trench with the excavated dirt and straw. The tendency of these materials to hold water and work into the lines made this action a mistake. Kiva E did dry more than it had for several years, but that was only a temporary condition.

Even though engineers saw that the length of the drainage excavation was cribbed, its construction was hazardous. Unknown, unstable, subterranean kiva and room walls beneath the modern surface sometimes unexpectedly gave way. One near-tragedy occurred when a man standing in the bottom of the trench was engulfed in a thundering cloud of earth crashing down upon him. His fellow workers furiously pushed off the dirt to free his head. They put a large wooden box over him to shield him from additional fall until they could get the lower body free. Morris explained, "They had been digging a continuous trench. I suggested that instead of doing this they sink pits just long enough to give plenty of room to work in, timbering them well as they went down, about ten feet apart. Then when bottom had been reached to tunnel through from one to the other. This they did and no more cave-ins occurred." [55]

Public Works Administration repairs concentrated on the northwest part of the village. The outer north wall was in such deplorable shape that water worked its way into rooms used as a museum, dampening lower stones and dirt floors. Exterior veneer loosened from the wall core or fell. As a flood control measure, workers scraped earth and debris well back from this corner and then hauled it away. They removed the facing stones for 117 feet of the north facade from the northwest corner, working vertically from a height of nine feet down to the foundation (see Figure 7.7). The stones were reset in cement. [56] The exterior base of the wall remained six to eight feet above the level of floors of first-story rooms inside the building. The men installed a drain system with vitrified tile to the north of the ruin after auger holes confirmed the soil's heavy moisture content at about a depth of 12 feet. [57] The drain ceased to function properly and was abandoned after several months.

Figure 7.7. Resetting exterior wall of North Wing, 1934. Rubble core and shaped sandstone veneer evident.

For 97 feet from the northwest corner, the west village wall at a height of about seven feet was dismantled and redone in similar fashion. [58] In that case, the men banked earth against the lower part because rooms inside had not been cleared. This helped direct water away from the house. Faris reported that matching the green stone bands along the west wall was tedious and slowed the effort. [59]

Morris's report on the 1934 ruin repair work described other important accomplishments. He estimated that 2,100 square feet of wall face was repaired or rebuilt at a cost of $1.16 per square foot. In a slow effort to duplicate the fine aboriginal masonry, the northeast arc of Kiva L was refaced for a length of 20 feet to a height of three feet. Veneer of half of Room 249 was replaced. [60]

Hamilton tried a new technique to preserve ceilings. He installed a reinforced concrete evaporation basin in second-story Room 202² in the North Wing and remodeled the previously existent concrete floor of Room 196², also to serve as an evaporation basin, by the removal of wall stones and the casting of a reinforced rim around the edge of the older concrete slab. This was an experiment in order to avoid having to remove damaged concrete slabs installed by the American Museum crews. To Morris, the experiment was unsuccessful. The new basins did not remain watertight. [61]

Nonetheless, two years later Faris requested a sum of $4,700 to cover 20 rooms with the reinforced concrete roofs of the catchment type designed by Hamilton. He disagreed with Morris regarding the success of the earlier experiment. [62] No record that this work was carried out has been found.

Although Hamilton was in charge of daily repair work, a visiting National Park Service engineer wrote the director, "I am very impressed with the thorough, commonsense, and cooperative way in which Mr. Morris is proceeding with this work. We as engineers are looking forward to learning much in the coordination of engineering methods with archeological preservation and restoration from him." [63]

The repair task at Aztec Ruins was so enormous that six weeks into the project it was obvious more money was needed. Morris appealed for an additional $24,600. He cited the need to cap 4,500 linear feet of wall, to protect 6,000 linear feet of wall bases, to patch and chink 15,000 square feet of walls, and to remove 12,500 yards of earth from around exterior walls. He further argued that repair measures being tested at Aztec Ruins would provide a future model for all National Park Service monuments with antiquities. [64] Knowing that an appropriation bill for additional Public Works programs was then before Congress, Faris fired off his own request for $25,000. [65] After personally inspecting Aztec Ruins National Monument, Assistant Director Demaray agreed that Morris easily could invest from $5,000 to $18,000 in its immediate repair. [66] However, the top project was to be the restoration of the Great Kiva, for which $10,000 of the original $17,175 allotment was earmarked. Otherwise, $7,000 already had been expended on the various aspects of the over-all program. That left little to complete the other things that Morris felt were necessary. His request was denied. [67] Thus, repairs that were essential to the ruin's preservation were not done. That caused a good deal of resentment among those given this responsibility. Cement, reinforcing steel for the roof of Kiva E, and other supplies were stockpiled. What was lacking was money for labor. [68]

Because Morris was in charge of repairs going on at Mesa Verde at the same time he was overseeing similar projects at Aztec Ruins, he succumbed to the temptation of sharing materials between the two areas. The most questionable instance of this happened when Al Lancaster noted in his field notes for work being done at Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde, "In afternoon helped Mr. Morris mud around beams in Speaker Chief Tower. Beams brot [sic] from Aztec." [69] Very probably the beams in question were recovered during the clean-up or excavation jobs under way at Aztec and were unprovenienced. However, their transfer out of context to a different Anasazi region compromised their usefulness for dating purposes.