Bandelier Administrative History

The first eight years of NPS administration at Bandelier transformed the monument. The Park Service acquired a monument with untapped potential in 1932. When the CCC camp closed in 1941, the excavated ruins in Frijoles Canyon had been stabilized, and Bandelier had become an important interpretive showplace. Besides building interpretive facilities such as the museum and administration building, the CCC presence freed some uniformed agency personnel from maintenance work. Custodians like Earl Jackson had the time to concentrate on resource management and interpretation. By the end of the decade, they had developed a program equal to any in the Southwest.

But the termination of the CCC project and the impending involvement of the U. S. in the growing European war slowed the development of cultural resource management programs at Bandelier. The exquisite structures the CCC built required maintenance. Without 200 pairs of hands to take care of details, Custodian Art Thomas spent his time fixing leaky roofs, unplugging drains, and working on electrical malfunctions. Throughout the tense year that preceded American intervention in World War II, Federal policies that limited travel, and gasoline and rubber consumption, meant a decrease in tourism all over the nation. The dismal condition of roads on the plateau further impeded travel. Cultural resource development seemed futile in the face of diminishing visitation and a leaking, crumbling physical plant.

The war itself and the coming of the Project "Y" division of the Manhattan Project also hampered the development of Bandelier. A "hold-the-fort" mentality developed. Custodian Thomas tried to minimize Park Service losses in response to the demands of the Los Alamos project. Representatives of the Los Alamos project leased Mrs. Frey's Frijoles Canyon Lodge to house physicists, further inhibiting visitation at the monument. In the face of restrictions from the Government and the war abroad, the Park Service retrenched and sought to hold its ground for better times. [11]

Yet J. W. Hendron continued his excavations at the monument. In 1943, he excavated five masonry rooms and cavate dwellings in Group M and a large cavate pueblo on the north wall of Frijoles Canyon. In 1945, Hendron excavated Potsui'i II, a ten-room one-kiva site in the Otowi section. [12] During the war, these piecemeal efforts were the extent of archeological investigation.

After the end of the war, the removal of travel restrictions and the massive influx of visitors that followed changed the role of cultural resource development at Bandelier. In 1946, visitation totals were five times those of 1940, and throughout the late 1940s, the numbers grew. The number of staff members remained constant, and the seemingly endless stream of cars entering Frijoles Canyon kept park rangers busy. The new realities at Bandelier seemed insurmountable. The ruins required intermittent stabilization, but the Park Service had little money for such programs. Maintaining the physical plant in the face of dramatically increased usage took considerable energy. Since most Park Service areas faced postwar visitation levels with prewar staffing, there was little time for innovation. Rangers told visitors the same story they had a decade earlier.

In order to keep pace, the agency needed the support of scientific and educational institutions. The preservation vs. use balance that characterized the prewar era at Bandelier had slipped away. To fulfill their objectives, Park Service officials looked outside the agency. At Bandelier, this led to a new excavation, conceived and directed outside of the Park Service.

In 1948, Frederick C. V. Worman of Adams State College in Alamosa, Colorado, received permission to excavate ruins in Frijoles Canyon. In 1947, Worman had proposed a plan for the unexcavated mounds southeast of the administrative compound in the canyon. He planned a field school that would ascertain the boundaries of occupation in the area, determine the distribution of different groups, assist the Park Service with interpretation, and train students. During the excavation, Romalo Cordero, a Cochiti Indian on the NPS staff, named the ruins "Rainbow House."

The actual excavation at Rainbow House did not equal Worman's plans, and in 1950, after two seasons, it ceased. Only eighteen rooms had been excavated. A hired crew continued that summer, excavating thirty-six rooms and one kiva. Nor did the Park Service acquire much new knowledge from the project. The site map, notes, and other documentation disappeared. For unrelated reasons, Worman lost his job at Adams State. He moved to Los Alamos to work as the archeologist for the Atomic Energy Commission.

The excavation of Rainbow House solved none of the cultural resource management issues that faced the monument, and in fact increased the responsibilities of the Park Service. Its location outside the main compound area made it difficult to administer, and the public perceived it as less interesting than the ruins beyond the visitor center. Few visitors stopped to inspect it. Despite the lack of public interest, the newly excavated ruin required stabilization and constant maintenance.

The Rainbow House excavation revealed that the strict management policies of the 1930s would not work in the postwar era. Under the strain of new responsibilities, the rigid distinctions upon which Pinkley insisted began to blur. Changes in the way the agency regarded the monument were the result. Frank Pinkley would never have permitted the Rainbow House excavation. Located east of the main parking area, it was outside the barrier between the prehistoric and modern worlds that Pinkley so consciously erected. It violated his premise about controlled access. [13]