Bandelier Administrative History

With their options limited by the series of failures, the Park Service moved in a new direction. The Pajarito Plateau also contained the Valles Caldera, one of the largest collapsed volcanic summits in the world. The Park Service had greater success developing natural national parks. As scenic, natural, and geological attributes became the primary features of post- 1932 efforts, archeology became a secondary value on the Pajarito Plateau. All subsequent efforts to create a Pajarito Plateau national park focused on the Valles Caldera. The geological concept meant that the Baca Location #1, which contained the Valles Caldera, became the most important acquisition for the agency.

The first of the attempts to create a geologic national park occurred at the end of the 1930s. In 1938, H. E. Rothrock, Assistant Chief of the Naturalist Division in Washington, D. C., proposed an evaluation of the Jemez region for inclusion as a geologic national park. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducted investigations of the area. Based on the findings of Dr. Clarence S. Ross of the USGS and his own cursory inspection of the documents, Rothrock thought the resources warranted park status.

Rothrock's proposal differed from all the previous attempts to create a national park in the region. Aware of the failure of the agency to acquire the area on the basis of its prehistoric value, Rothrock redirected the focus of the Park Service to its natural attributes. He proposed the Jemez Crater National Park as a geologic reserve. In his scheme, archeology took second place to natural values. Instead of comparing the Pajarito to Mesa Verde, the Park Service would now try to compare it to the likes of Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon.

Other issues complicated the evaluation of the area as a geologic region. Rothrock's suggested boundaries included over 1,000,000 acres of north central New Mexico, making the Jemez Crater proposal more than four times as large as the largest of the earlier proposals. It would have encompassed the entire Valles Caldera, as well as archeological areas both to the north and south of the crater. The Ramon Vigil grant, which the Soil Conservation Service acquired from cattleman Frank Bond in 1932, and the Canada de Cochiti grant were also included. Rothrock's rough boundaries would have required the purchase of almost 400,000 acres from private grants as well as the transfer of nearly 530,000 acres from the USFS, less than a decade after the Forest Service had fought the establishment of a 150,000-acre park in the region. The agency had to overcome major obstacles to land acquisition before a national park could be established.

In essence, the Jemez Crater idea was a proposal for a theoretical national park. Under the best of circumstances, the Jemez Crater proposal represented the "pipe dreams" of the NPS for the Pajarito Plateau. Created in Washington, the proposal took no account of the realities of interagency and agency-community relations. Outside of the Washington Office, no one in the Park Service believed that the proposal would become reality. It was sheer fantasy.

Nevertheless, from September 13-15, 1938, Southwest Region personnel explored the area and reported on the suitability of its geological, archeological, forestry, and wildlife attributes. Charles Gould, the Regional Geologist, believed the extinct volcanic crater was nationally significant enough for park status. Forestry and wildlife were secondary values in considering the merits of a national park. Regional Archeologist Erik K. Reed initially supported the Jemez Crater proposal, but changed his mind after consulting agency documents concerning the establishment of the Pajarito and Cliff Cities proposals. Reed decided that any of the many earlier proposals were more feasible than the Jemez Crater National Park. [5]

The major stumbling block for regional personnel was the fact that the agency had to acquire 95 per cent of the land from sources other than the public domain. There were nine Spanish land grants of which at least a portion was proposed for inclusion in the park. Small communities, including Coyote, Gallina, Youngsville, and Jemez Springs were also to be within the boundaries of the park.

Fortunately for the NPS, regional personnel realized that the park proposal was not politically realistic. Gould quite correctly viewed the transfer of large national forest areas as extremely unlikely. Moreover, funds for the purchase of the privately owned land were virtually non-existent. The NPS would have been on the offensive against both the Forest Service and the Soil Conservation Service, and all the old USFS arguments against the establishment of national parks would have been revived. Local residents would claim that the whims of the Federal Government intruded upon their lives, and area Native Americans would have felt their lifestyles limited.

The Washington office quickly became aware of the problems with the proposal. Arthur E. Demaray arranged conferences with officials of the Smithsonian Institution, and the participants decided that the old Pajarito National Park ought to be the agency's "real objective" on the plateau. [6] With that, the Park Service set aside its plans for the inclusion of Valles Caldera in the Park System.

In accordance with the old Pajarito Park idea, the Park Service made one final attempt to acquire the Ramon Vigil grant. During the 1930s, Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) money financed the purchase of the grant from Frank Bond and the Soil Conservation Service assumed administration. In 1939, U. S. Senator Dennis Chavez introduced a bill to add the Ramon Vigil Grant and other lands in New Mexico to the Santa Fe National Forest. Dr. Arthur R. Kelly, Chief of the Archeological Sites Branch of the Division of Historic Sites, believed that because the grant included two important archeological sites, Tschirege and Navawi, NPS claims on the tract outweighed those of the USFS.

Although the rivalry between the NPS and the USFS again accelerated after 1933, the terms of the conflict changed. As a result of the reorganization of 1933, the Park Service held the upper hand. It controlled Federal preservation, including the national monuments that the Forest Service had previously administered. But the proposal to add large sections of the Pajarito Plateau to the national forest would have altered the existing balance of power in the region. Responding to the threat of an enlarged USFS domain, the NPS asserted its right to the places of archeological value within the area. Even if acquisition of the tract seemed unlikely, there was a chance that NPS opposition might thwart USFS plans.

Navawi and Tschirege were sacred places to the area pueblos. Thus, Bureau of Indian Affairs Commissioner John Collier believed his agency should be responsible for them. He was more powerful than anyone in the NPS or the USFS, and he opposed transferring the archeological sites to either agency. While the NPS and USFS squabbled, Collier worked behind the scenes. On September 18, 1939, Executive Order 8255 transferred the sacred areas to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Undaunted, the Park Service still had ideas about acquiring land on the Pajarito. As a basis for converting the monument into a national park, NPS Director Arno B. Cammerer proposed adding to the monument 76,960 acres, including the remaining part of the Vigil grant, the Pajarito Division of the Santa Fe National Forest, north and west of the detached Otowi section, and the entire Baca location. Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes disliked Cammerer immensely and did not approve of the idea. The proposal to extend the monument went no further. [7]

After the demise of the Jemez Crater and expanded monument proposals, there were no further attempts to acquire additional land in the Bandelier region for more than a decade and a half. The appearance of the Manhattan project, which developed the atomic bomb, the town of Los Alamos and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) forced park managers to respond to differing conditions. The system-wide influx of tourists that followed the Second World War also affected the administration of Bandelier. Such drastic changes meant that park managers had to serve an increasingly larger and more demanding constituency with pre-war staff and facilities. Acquisition of new land meant spreading already inadequate resources even more thinly. Even if the agency leadership in Washington wanted to acquire land, staff at many of the smaller parks were too busy with day-to-day responsibilities to get excited about the idea. Charged with a primary responsibility to preserve archeological resources, Fred Binnewies, the superintendent of Bandelier from 1947 to 1954, decided to concentrate on more efficient management of the resources already within the monument.

Binnewies recognized the beginning of development in northern New Mexico as a potential threat to the integrity of the Bandelier National Monument. Others had also foreseen the problem. After the Second World War, both Jesse Nusbaum and Acting Custodian Chester A. (Art) Thomas began to awaken the regional office to the problems that extensive development of the Bandelier vicinity might present. [8] The monument went from being a remote, rural park to one surrounded by Los Alamos, a dynamically growing community that briefly captured the international spotlight.