Big Bend Administrative History

The wet spring that year allowed McDougall to compare his earlier studies and examine the effects of what he called "excessive" overgrazing. "Homer Wilson had about 1500 goats in the mountains last summer," reported the biologist, '"and probably will have a comparable number in there this year." By contrast, "Pine Canyon, which is owned by Lloyd Wade has not been pastured at all for nearly five years." Once "one passes through the gate onto the Wade property," wrote McDougall, one realized that "it would probably take 50 years and possibly twice that time for the vegetation in this area to fully recover its normal condition." Yet the NPS biologist could cite evidence from three years of experimental plots that "if all domestic animals could be removed from the area the natural recovery of the vegetation would be rapid enough to take care of the natural increase of deer and other native animals." McDougall hoped that "five years, under such conditions, would bring about a sufficient recovery to make food conditions for deer nearly ideal and might even make possible the reintroduction of antelope on a small scale." [28]

This reference to resource protection in Big Bend prompted McDougall to elaborate on the changes in fauna since his last observations in 1937. "All local men consulted agree," wrote the biologist, "that the fantail deer are increasing 'by leaps and bounds.'" Unfortunately, McDougall's contacts claimed that mule deer were in decline, "undoubtedly due, in part, to excessive hunting." The NPS biologist called mule deer "the largest deer in Texas and is much sought after by hunters." Adding to the problems of protection was "the lateness of the hunting season," which would begin on November 15; a time that coincided with "the normal date for the beginning of the rutting season." By disrupting the cycle of reproduction for mule deer, "the fawns are thus dropped late in the spring after hot weather has set in and are much more subject to 'worms' than they would be in cooler weather." Texas officials had delayed the start of deer hunting season so that "the weather might be cool enough so that the venison could be kept without spoiling until consumed." Yet "modern methods of refrigeration" rendered "this excuse for a late hunting season . . . no longer potent." McDougall recommended that "placing the hunting season 30 or 45 days earlier would result in much benefit to the deer herds." [29]

McDougall then offered insight into an unusual threat to wildlife in the Big Bend: "the pets at the CCC camp." The biologist reported seeing "three or four adult dogs and nine pups about three weeks old in camp," as well as "one adult male cat." McDougall learned that "when the previous camp moved out in 1937, one male cat was left behind and that it has become feral and is still occasionally seen." As Big Bend had yet to receive federal status, wrote McDougall, "I assume that nothing can be done about these domestic animals in camp." He asked that "the Administrative Inspector make sure that the Project Superintendent understands that dogs and cats must not be allowed to run wild in the area." McDougall further warned that "when the camp moves out of the area none of these domestic animals must be left behind," and that once Big Bend entered the NPS system, "all dogs and cats will have to be removed." [30]

Three years' absence from Big Bend also prompted McDougall to comment on public use of the future national park. "The circle at the end of the road that extends to the proposed lodge site in the Basin," wrote the biologist, "is evidently being used as a campground by the visiting public." McDougall estimated that "two or three cars per day throughout the year . . . bring camping parties to this place." Without NPS supervision, the area "is exceedingly dirty and unsightly, . . . littered with beer cans and other tin cans." Campers also had "cut down a number of trees for firewood and have destroyed other vegetation." McDougall "strongly recommended" that "this place be cleaned up and that a temporary campground, with refuse containers and possibly fireplaces, be constructed either at this same place or elsewhere." He also believed that "the Regional Forester should be asked to make recommendations concerning firewood for such a campground." McDougall doubted if the Chisos basin had enough firewood "that can be used without detriment to the forests and to wildlife." The biologist then asked that "nothing should be done to invite or encourage visitors to the area until it has been developed." Yet "the visitors are coming anyway and I don't know how we can prevent their destructive activities unless we provide a camping place." [31]

Local promotion of Big Bend's federal status had contributed to the increase in unsupervised visitation to the Chisos basin. This eagerness to make the area attractive to the traveling public (and private donors to the land-acquisition campaign) extended to another feature that irritated McDougall that spring: "the series of road signs directing the way to 'Grand Canyon.'" The biologist believed that "Santa Helena Canyon is a perfectly good name and it seems unfortunate that the State Department of Roads, or whoever put these signs, should have disregarded this distinctive name in favor of one that has been made famous elsewhere." Yet another problem that this designation posed for McDougall was that it would "automatically serve to place the Santa Helena Canyon in a secondary position in the mind of anyone who has ever seen the real Grand Canyon." [32]

To rectify these issues, McDougall reminded his NPS superiors of the preliminary draft of the master plan for Big Bend. This document "calls for a campground and overnight cabins at the mouth of Pine Canyon and a road leading from the main entrance road between Lone Mountain and the main body of the Chisos Mountains." He understood that "the park headquarters will be located somewhere on this proposed road." Such planning posed no threat to wildlife, as "the Pine Canyon site is a delightful place;" a "sort of basin with mountains on all sides and an exit on the southeast corner through which can be seen, in the distance, the Del Carmen Mountains of Mexico." McDougall believed that "the development will not extend into the [Pine] canyon proper, where they would be detrimental to wildlife, because they cannot." He also noted that "the trail leading from the old ranch site to the head of the canyon is a delightful place to hike," prompting the biologist to suggest that "this trail be maintained as a foot trail only and not as a horse trail." [33]

This issue of access in the basin drew particular attention from McDougall, as he had heard that "there will probably have to be a road of some kind, perhaps part tramway, to the South Rim in order to enable visitors to view the most scenic place in the entire area without resorting to horseback riding." The biologist cautioned his superiors: "While I wish that this were not true, I presume that it is." If so, McDougall recommended that "it should not be a road that is open to the uncontrolled use of the general public." He agreed with NPS landscape architect Harvey Cornell that "there is no real need for a 'loop' road," as he wanted "no road extending east from the southern end of the highway to Santa Helena Canyon, or, at least, none other than the secondary road that already exists." McDougall concurred with the judgment of "everyone concerned with the development of the Big Bend area . . . that the Chisos Mountains came nearer to constituting a natural and complete biological unit than any other area in the entire National Park System, with the single exception of Isle Royal[e]." The future park was "extremely important from the wildlife viewpoint," concluded McDougall, and "as much as possible of the Chisos Mountains and the rough country adjacent to the mountains on the south should be left in an undisturbed condition." [34]

The onset of World War II drew the park service's attention away from scientific research in Big Bend. With the rationing of gasoline, the closure in 1943 of the CCC camp in the Chisos basin, the reduction of NPS staffing, and the resultant loss of scholarly interest in the region, the emphasis in Big Bend shifted to land acquisition and transfer of the acreage to the federal government. Ross Maxwell would return in March 1942 to Big Bend with regional director Minor Tillotson, chief of planning Harvey Cornell, and Paul Brown, chief of the NPS's recreation planning division. Once this entourage departed the park area, Maxwell conducted new tests for water supplies in the Chisos basin, and "revised some of the geological mapping in the Dogie-Little Christmas Mountains area." He reported that "the water from the new well has a good taste, and soap lathers satisfactorily in it." A woman named "Mrs. Leslie, who has been living in one of the cabins and using the water for about one month, states that she likes the water and that to date there had not been any indication that the water would stain the plumbing fixtures." Maxwell estimated that the pumping rate of ten to twelve gallons per minute would satisfy current and future needs. "It probably will be necessary," the regional geologist admitted, "to drill this well deeper or drill more wells when Park usage demands a larger water supply." [35]

Practical considerations like water supplies joined in May 1942 with inquiries from the Abbott Laboratories in Chicago for information about the availability of fraxinus cuspidata, an ash tree that grew in the Chisos basin. O.C. Durham, chief botanist for Abbott Laboratories, wrote to the Texas state parks board "to determine whether a product occurs in the bark of this tree which is effective against malaria." Durham told Bob Hamilton of the state parks board that "certain information has recently come out of China regarding a similar species of which indicates high antimalarial activity of an alkaloid contained therein." Wartime conditions meant that "the problem of control of malaria throughout the world is now a more acute one and is of particular interest from the standpoint of our country's war effort." Abbott was "collaborating with certain governmental agencies on a rather broad front to try to find active antimalarials, either of synthetic or natural origin." Durham thus requested of Hamilton permission "to collect a minimal quantity of bark from the trees in your area." He estimated the need for "at least five pounds of true bark, dry," which meant "at least twenty pounds of bark with the corky layer and the moisture as found in fresh bark." [36]

Hamilton's response on behalf of the state parks board revealed the priority that wartime research had placed upon Big Bend. Study of the tree fraxinus cuspidata revealed that it grew in Fresno Canyon to the southwest of the future park site. This would benefit the malaria research of Abbott Laboratories, while protecting the few ash trees remaining in the Chisos basin. Hamilton also reported that "there is an abundant stand of ash trees in the mountain country south of the Fresno Canyon - this being in Mexico." If Abbott Laboratories concluded that it needed large quantities of bark for its anti-malarial work, said Hamilton, "we shall be happy to give you additional information about the trees in Mexico." [37]

From the spring of 1942 until the months prior to the opening of Big Bend National Park (June 1944), the park service conducted no formal scientific surveys of the future NPS unit. Then in September 1943, James O. Stevenson, a former park service official, sent to chief naturalist Victor Cahalane "a few comments - the personal opinions of the writer," on the NPS's plans for "the development of Big Bend International Park." Stevenson conceded that the plan for facilities and visitors services development in the Chisos basin "was o.k., but we must guard against overdevelopment and spread of structures, roads, etc., throughout the northern two-fifths of the Chisos Mountains." To do otherwise, said Stevenson, meant that "the whole wilderness flavor of the area will be dissipated." He argued that "the view from the South Rim should not be denied to anyone willing to make the trip the way it should be made - on foot or on horseback." Stevenson recalled the comment of the NPS's Hermon C. Bumpus that "'one should earn his way from the bowl (the Basin) to the rim either by a hard ride on horseback or a harder hike through a virgin country.'" Bumpus had contended that "'the achievement will consume a day, but a day never to be forgotten.'" Stevenson then commented on the rumor of a "cog railway" to the South Rim, quoting an unnamed scientist "who has a thorough knowledge and appreciation of the Chisos," as "'fantastic.'" Harvey Cornell would add to Stevenson's remarks the marginal note that "the cog railway was never a popular idea - and was made only as a substitute for a road, if [through] public demand it was found that a road or an equivalent would be unavailable." Stevenson then argued that "those who insist on viewing the Chisos wilderness from a car window will never find it." Instead, "those unwilling to walk or ride on horseback through the mountains will be better off elsewhere seeking other types of entertainment or recreation." [38]

Stevenson then offered to Cahalane his thoughts on the relationship of Big Bend to Mexico. "The Big Bend will not be a true International Park," he warned, "until Mexico acquires a sizeable tract of land south of the Rio Grande and provision is made for an interchange of travel by the people of both nations to both sections of the park." Stevenson agreed with the NPS's Tillotson and Brown that "developments should be so planned that each section complements the other rather than competes with it." Yet "until such time as the Mexican authorities give assurances that an adequate tract will be acquired in Chihuahua and Coahuila," said Stevenson, "park planning will necessarily be limited to the Texas portion of the area." Nonetheless, the former NPS official hoped that plans for a thorough biological survey would proceed. "No detailed investigation of the wildlife of the Mexican border area has been made," claimed Stevenson, citing a brief list of studies on the Sierra del Carmen (including the survey by Ernest Marsh). "The choicest area opposite the park in Texas," wrote Stevenson, "is the Fronteriza and Carmen Mountains regions." He admitted that "since the Carmen Mountain Hunting Club, owned by Americans, controls some 100,000 acres in the Carmens, acquisition of this important range may be delayed indefinitely." Then in a statement that presaged calls in the 1970s for creation of a "wild and scenic river" designation for Big Bend, the park service should press for inclusion of "the entire river region opposite the park in Texas, including sizeable tracts bordering the three canyons." Stevenson believed that this would "reduce the possibilities of pollution and poaching, give increased protection to beavers and fish life, and provide necessary range (in Mexico) for any bighorns which may be re-established in the park." [39]

With the opening of Big Bend National Park looming in the spring of 1944, NPS officials decided to conduct a "faunal survey" in preparation for future interpretative and protection programs. Hillory Tolson, acting NPS director, decided to send the best team available to prepare the data. Tolson, former director of the NPS's Region III, asked Minor Tillotson for advice on the composition of the survey team. Tillotson voiced his approval for Dr. Walter P. Taylor, senior biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), as leader, and of William B. Davis, acting head of the department of instruction, fish and game at Texas A&M College. The regional director then expressed concern about the inclusion of Walter McDougall on the survey. While Tillotson considered the former regional biologist (now working for USFWS) "quite well acquainted with the Big Bend country," the director feared that "as a result of his attitude and activities on previous trips there, he is decidedly 'persona non grata' with the local people." Tillotson told the NPS director that "if Region Four [McDougall's new home at Death Valley National Monument] should be unable to release Dr. McDougall and it would be necessary to select someone else as a member of this particular party, it would suit us just as well." Tillotson further advised the NPS director: "I would certainly object to any arrangement by which he would head up the party." Taylor should be "advised of the situation" that confined McDougall "solely to technical investigations, completely disassociated from public contacts or administrative matters of any kind." Tillotson explained that McDougall was "not to assume a dictatorial manner in telling local people what they may or must not do." The regional director cautioned that "it is not the function of this fact-finding party to serve as missionaries in educating local old time Texans as to National Park Service wildlife policies," and he believed that "Dr. Taylor would have such an understanding and that Dr. McDougall would not." [40]

Tillotson's warnings about offending local sensibilities would be a feature of NPS management at Big Bend for decades to come. Thus it fell to Ross Maxwell, named in the fall of 1943 as superintendent of the new park unit, to determine the best mixture of park service policy, advanced scientific research, and community involvement. On March 22, 1944, he prepared for his role in the faunal survey by corresponding with Walter P. Taylor. Maxwell, still in Santa Fe at the NPS's regional office, had access to the draft master plan and road system plan for Big Bend. "Most of the physical development will be in the Basin of the Chisos Mountains," wrote Maxwell, but he noted that "there will be secondary physical improvements at several other points." These could be reached "only by foot or horseback parties." As for Taylor's ideas about wildlife studies, Maxwell advised that "the more accurate information we have on wildlife conditions within the park, however, the more intelligently we can plan for future welfare of the wildlife and the part that it will play in the administration and interpretation of the area." He then outlined several categories of concern, among these the plan to restock bighorn sheep in the park, the number and variety of deer, the presence of javelina, and the development of water supplies for wildlife. Maxwell asked in particular about recording the presence of beaver in the Rio Grande, along with waterfowl. Then the future park superintendent solicited Taylor's opinion on "the practicability of establishing a small herd of longhorn cattle on the park, without regard to the advisability of doing so from the standpoint of National Park Service policy, but with regard to the availability of food, water, and the welfare of the cattle." Finally, Maxwell asked for details on "correlation of wildlife management plans as between the United States and Mexico." [41]

When the Taylor survey reached Big Bend in March 1944, they marveled at the complexity and richness of the future park service unit. In a preliminary report exceeding 60 pages, the survey team paid tribute to the many researchers who had examined the area since the start of the twentieth century. "The list of these," wrote Taylor, "reads like a roster of some of the best American naturalists." He singled out the work of Vernon Bailey and Harry C. Oberholser, members of the United States Biological Survey, who in 1901 had visited Big Bend to study life zones and plant-animal communities. Their conclusions, wrote Taylor over four decades later, "are of a pioneering character and will stand for all time as a model of excellent work done at an early period." In like manner, the Texas A&M professor praised Ardrey Borrell and Monroe Bryant, "whose work advanced knowledge of mammalian fauna of the Park far and away beyond anything which had gone before." Taylor then outlined the tasks facing the survey crew. "In course of the work," he wrote, "every formation in the Park was visited and studied, although time was lacking for as thorough a coverage as would have been desirable of the northwestern part of the Park (Rough Run, Onion Flat, Smallpox Spring)." Taylor and his associates also could not investigate the foothills of the Chisos Basin below the South Rim, nor could they spend time in the Dead Horse Mountains, or the proposed international park area in Mexico. [42]

Taylor's crew also turned to historical accounts of land use in the Big Bend area in preparation for their research. "Soon after the Americans began to come into the country," wrote Taylor, "the entire Big Bend range was apparently administered by a single large cow outfit." This lent itself to open-range grazing until the first decade of the twentieth century, "when fencing was initiated in the region." Lured by the presence of cattle, "mountain lions interfered with the raising of colts, particularly on the north side of the Chisos Mountains and along the Dead Horse Range." The surveyors also learned that "along the old Boquillas ore road there was a concentration of grazing by the numerous mules and burros engaged in hauling ore to the railroad." Then "Mexicans cut the chino grass and sold it to the mule skinners." From this Taylor and his colleagues speculated that "the effects of the overgrazing which took place are still obvious." Then the introduction of goats and sheep added to the burden on the grasses, with some 3,000 sheep on the Homer Wilson ranch when the surveyors arrived. "This has entailed competition for the choicest plants," wrote Taylor, "some of which are used by several classes of livestock and big game." A particular problem was the drought of 1916-1919, when "many cattle died of starvation." Local ranchers "harvested a great deal of sotol (Dasylirion leiophyllum) at this time, as cattle feed, particularly between Green Gulch and Government Spring." In several places, reported Taylor, "the sotol was so completely eradicated that it shows very little recovery up to the present time." [43]

The aridity of the Big Bend would influence many decisions at which Taylor and his ecological survey arrived. Among the suggestions that they made were more accurate records of weather and climate, which had been collected intermittently at Johnson's ranch and Government Spring. Water supplies also concerned the surveyors, as they recommended that "location of the Park Service and concessionaire headquarters at the Graham or Daniels ranch sites should encourage greater attention to the resources of this interesting stream and heightened appreciation of its values." Taylor claimed that "already the general public (July 1944), due very largely to the fishing in the Rio Grande, regularly pass by the Chisos Mountains and go to the river, even in the hot weather of late spring and summer." Taylor also noted that "the hot springs at intervals along the river, especially between Hot Springs and Boquillas, form an added tourist attraction." One problem facing the NPS was reduced stream-flow "as the Mexicans take more and more water for irrigation above the Big Bend and as additional water is used for the same purpose by Americans in New Mexico and West Texas." The surveyors identified 70 permanent springs in the park area, "which may be depended upon to afford sufficient water for wildlife." Yet some of these springs suffered from cattle grazing, as "an abundance of manure and urine of domestic stock and rotten animals or scattered remains, either in or near the water, are all too characteristic." Taylor believed that the park service should clean out the springs damaged by stockraising, leaving the sites "the way Nature made them." The same policy would apply to the rock bowls or tinajas in the Dead Horse Mountains, Mariscal Mountain, and the Mesa de Anguila, and the "tanks" built by ranchers. "While these tanks are unnatural," said Taylor, "they may as well be left alone," as "they will disappear in short order if they are not sedulously maintained." As for dams and reservoirs, the surveyors conceded that these might "increase the amount of water available for mule deer and other animals." Yet "such developments," concluded Taylor, "would not be natural and cannot be recommended." [44]

When the ecological surveyors addressed issues of plant destruction, they expressed resignation at the scale of overuse. "It is very doubtful," reported Taylor, "whether man can assist to any great extent in the restoration of the depleted natural vegetation and animal life." The surveyors believed that "man has turned out to be a bungler at the best, and it is well to leave this area for Nature to take care of and restore as best she can." A well-qualified park naturalist could monitor such conditions as the tobosa grass, and recommend the reintroduction of antelope if forage returned. "But if the present retrogressive trend continues," wrote Taylor, "it will be better to postpone or to eliminate altogether any attempted restoration of these large animal forms which are so dependent on a proper grassy association." [45]

Taylor and his colleagues determined that the plant and animal species of Big Bend lived in what they called five principal communities: forest, woodland, sotol grass, desert scrub, and river floodplain. The trees of the Chisos Basin comprised "a relic of a formerly much more extensive forest which has decreased in extent with increasing aridity since Pleistocene times." The woodland biome occurred above 4,800 feet in the Chisos Mountains, while the sotol-grass biome could be found in the desert. The surveyors speculated that "the entire Park area, aside from that occupied by the forest and woodland formations, was formerly occupied by a grassland formation." While overgrazing for 50 to 75 years had denuded the landscape, "the Sotol-Grass Community has retained a sufficient amount of grass so it can be recognized as belonging to the plains grass formation." Taylor doubted whether "they will ever return to real grassland type even with the full protection that the National Park Service can give." He also stated that "it is quite certain no one who is now alive will ever see them as grassland in the sense that they were grassland 100 years ago." This Taylor ascribed to the fact that "any reversion to grassland, involving the elimination of the desert shrubs, will be an exceedingly slow process." [46]