Big Bend Administrative History

Big Bend had many issues to address in the 1970s that limited an aggressive campaign for natural and cultural resource management. Cross-border traffic in narcotics, contraband, and immigration occupied much staff time, and augmented the image of the park as a "Wild West" site. Frank Deckert came to the park in 1975 as chief naturalist, and saw how visitors avoided the desert environment in favor of the mountains and Rio Grande. Deckert spoke in a 1996 interview of his efforts to create the "Three-Parks-in-One" concept, with visitors encouraged to experience the triangle of river, desert, and mountain terrain. During his five-year tenure as chief naturalist (1975-1980), Deckert also witnessed the return of peregrine falcons to the Chisos Mountains, and visitor confrontations with bears and mountain lions. One facet of park ecology that occupied Deckert's time was research on the history of fires in the Big Bend area. "The basin had a major fire once every 100 years," said Deckert, "and minor ones every 25 years." He took special note of the 1980 "Laguna Meadows" fire. Even as it scorched many of the native grasses, both landscape and animals returned after several years of absence. [17]

Deckert also worked to bring to the park dedicated young ranger-naturalists who would implement the new federal policies on natural resource management, as well as inspire visitors with innovative programs and activities keyed to an appreciation of Big Bend's complexity and richness. Vidal Davila would arrive at the park in 1977 to work in the naturalist division, which he recalled 20 years later as having one natural resource specialist. Davila, a graduate of Texas A&M University and one of the few Spanish-speaking NPS staff, "participated in the first controlled burn in the park." He also conducted in his seven years at the park (1977-1984) "a survey of springs, vegetation and wildlife, and peregrine falcons along the Rio Grande." Davila also accepted in 1982 an assignment to conduct "the first baseline survey of cultural resource structures" at the park. Because of his other obligations (among them service as an interpreter of Spanish for the law enforcement division), Davila devoted many of his off-duty hours to the site inspections and document research. "Management was surprised at the extent of cultural resources," Davila recalled in 1997 (not long after his return to the park as its chief of the division of sciences and resource management). He had identified 428 structures that had survived the ravages of time and the NPS policy of destruction. "San Vicente and Boquillas had ruins," Davila remembered, "but the areas were devoid of vegetation." He also remarked about the "many sites along the River Road [that had been] bulldozed." He concluded that, according to NPS policy at the time, "the old jacales and buildings had no place in the early setting of Big Bend National Park." The result was the loss of awareness that "various groups had lived a hard life, and did as well as they could." Davila especially admired the remnants of the Mariscal mine, which taught him of "the hard life for miners." The company had "hired many Mexicans, and was very isolated." [18]

Davila shared a commitment to promotion of ecological and cultural awareness at Big Bend with another of Frank Deckert's employees, Rick Lobello. First as a student of Barton Warnock at Sul Ross State College, then as a park ranger-naturalist from 1979-1981, Lobello and "the rangers were very enthusiastic about teaching protection of nature." During his time at the park, Big Bend won the Garrison Gold award one year for the best interpretative staff in the Southwest Region, an honor named for former Big Bend superintendent Lon Garrison and highly prized for its recognition of excellence among the 40-plus park units within the region. "Older rangers had shown slides with their talks," Lobello remembered, but "the younger rangers wanted to reach the visitors." Visitors found this level of enthusiasm appealing, as "Big Bend had fan clubs of regulars who stayed a week." Certain staff members became so visible that the interpretative programs "included the name of the ranger [giving the talk or tour] because of their popularity." Lobello credited much of this improvement to the work of Frank Deckert, who "created a family atmosphere and gave staff opportunities to try new things." Lobello would leave Big Bend in 1981, only to return five years later as the director of the Big Bend Natural History Association (1986-1992). In this capacity, Lobello would champion the restoration of the Mexican wolf to the park premises; a program that engendered much controversy when a similar effort was undertaken in 1995 in Yellowstone National Park (and which upon review was not instituted at Big Bend). [19]

The work of Deckert, Davila, Lobello, and their colleagues was augmented in 1976 by the designation of Big Bend as part of the "Man in the Biosphere" program of the United Nations. Robert Haraden, superintendent from 1978-1980, recalled in 1996 that "this was to show the link of man to nature." There would be a "core area of totally protected land [the park itself]," then "a buffer zone where man uses land so as not to harm the core part." This effort was problematic, given the uses of the park and the surrounding area in the past. Haraden noted "trespass from cattle and horses" from Mexico and neighboring American ranches. "Several days a month," Haraden continued, "a plume of smoke drifted down from Carlsbad." There had been a professor from the University of Texas at Austin who had found "a pterodactyl fossil with a 42-foot wing span at the western edge of the park," prompting Haraden to request a paleontology study. He also found trappers on park land taking thousands of animals for their skins. The Adams ranch was reported to be a central clearinghouse for such activity; a condition that Haraden verified when he visited there. The superintendent found between 3,000 and 5,000 animal skins drying on fences at the ranch, and asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to investigate. Their officers discovered that Mexican hunters brought pelts from inside the park to the Adams ranch, and USFWS agents confiscated some 17,000 skins in a raid. [20]

Coincident with Haraden's work in resource management was publication of former Big Bend naturalist Roland Wauer's "State of the Parks-1980: A Report to Congress." Wauer, who served at the time as the NPS's chief naturalist in Washington, claimed, in the words of Richard Sellars, that "although many threats resulted from activities within the parks, more than half come from external sources, such as commercial and industrial development and air and water pollution." Wauer asked Congress for "a comprehensive inventory of natural resources, programs to monitor changes in the park's ecology, individual park plans for managing the resources, and increased staffing and training in science and natural resource management." But the political climate for expanded park studies changed in the fall of 1980 with the presidential election of Ronald Reagan. Committed to a reduced role for government in people's lives, fewer taxes, and an end to 1960s-era programs of social welfare and environmental regulation, the Republican Reagan replaced the Democratic administration of Jimmy Carter with officials like James Watt as secretary of the Interior. Watt, founder in 1979 of the Mountain States Legal Foundation (a Denver-based advocate for more usage of the West's natural resources), called quickly for a moratorium on new park lands, preferring to spend the limited funds at the NPS's disposal on what Sellars called "the upgrading of existing park facilities." [21]

This rapid reversal of fortunes for the park service had its effects on Big Bend. Keith Yarborough, professor of geography at Sul Ross State University, recalled how the "Man-in-the-Biosphere" program suffered from a lack of focus and funding. Yarborough, who had first visited Big Bend in 1957 as a student at Texas Western College (later to become the University of Texas at El Paso), called the program "very important, and little-understood." Created by the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), its goal was "to have a central core of research, a buffer to protect it, and the outside world beyond." If the biosphere project worked, "research filters out to create a wisely run economy." Big Bend always was to be its "core area, but has never spread its research." Yarborough did note that Mike Fleming, who came to Big Bend in 1981 to work in the sciences and resource management division, did create a "science research data base" to account for the fact that "the park gets 80 to 100 researchers annually, but has never had a research center." [22]

Robert Haraden's successor as park superintendent, Gilbert Lusk, would devote a good portion of his five-year tenure at Big Bend to improving management and research functions in science. He also became determined to elevate the status of cultural resources in the park, as evidenced by his commitment to better relations along the border between the United States and Mexico. Tom Alex came to Big Bend in 1981 as part of this new initiative, working as the staff archaeologist. Alex learned quickly that "no archaeology studies had occurred between the 1930s and late 1960s and early 1970s." Until passage of the National Historic Preservation Act, said Alex, "there was no concerted effort . . . to stop artifact-hunting, or to save buildings." At first, Alex worked on surveys of park power lines and highway construction. Yet his travels around Big Bend revealed that "the Chisos infrastructure sits on one of the most important archaeological sites in the park." Earlier examinations of Big Bend's archaeological resources focused on caves (Erik Reed in the 1930s), or open sites in the desert (T.N. Campbell in 1965). Alex would build upon their research by examining sites with carbon-dating techniques, concluding that human habitation in the Chisos Basin stretched back some 9,000 years. "Repeated occupation of the same site is unusual for west Texas," Alex remarked in 1996. The Big Bend archaeologist further noted: "This site is unusual in that only two or three other sites in west Texas exhibit repeated occupation spanning from Paleo-Indian to the Historic Periods." [23]

Lusk and his successor, Jim Carrico (1986-1991), also dealt with the initiatives promoted by local landowners to donate land to the park (and the subsequent backlash by other ranchers against these acquisitions). Houston Harte, publisher of the San Angelo Standard-Times, owned a large ranch on the northern boundary of Big Bend (the Harte-Hanks ranch), and he began inquiries in the late 1970s with park officials about a donation or purchase by the NPS. Jim Liles, chief ranger at Big Bend from 1977-1983, recalled in a 1997 telephone interview the delicate nature of these negotiations. The recent debacle over wilderness designation, which Liles recalled was promoted by the Wilderness Society office in Denver, made local ranchers both aware of the benefits of federal acquisition of their ranches (if they were in financial straits), and of the potential for more public "land-grabs," as the Sagebrush Rebellion rhetoric of the era claimed. The Harte-Hanks property (also called "Panther Ranch), recalled Bob Haraden, had been offered to the Nature Conservancy, but the latter "never got back to Harte." Since the 67,000 acres "would be a donation of adjacent land, it didn't need legislation," thought Haraden. Then "Tiny" Phillips, owner of the nearby Rosillos Ranch, approached park officials with an offer to sell his 28,000 acres. He was dying of cancer, and hoped to see resolution of the transaction before his death. Unfortunately for the park, Phillips sold his land for $1.7 million to the Pitcock brothers (Roy and Louis) before Congress could appropriate the monies for purchase. [26]

All throughout the Reagan era (1981-1989), the NPS struggled to accommodate pressures from environmentalists to expand the ecological base of national parks, as well as satisfy budget officials unhappy with plans for increased land purchases. Into this mix of interests in the late 1980s came the Davis Mountains study, which exacerbated public distrust of the federal government in general, and Big Bend National Park in particular. Brewster County magistrate Val Beard noted in a 1998 interview that "the opposition to the Davis Mountains study grew because of the secrecy." Several ranchers in the Davis Mountains north and west of Big Bend had approached U.S. Representative Ronald Coleman (D-TX) in 1988 about the potential for federal purchase of their lands (not unlike the arrangements underway for the Harte-Hanks property). Coleman had the NPS undertake a $100,000 study of the acquisition of ranches in the area as part of a ranching heritage park. "Coleman had no idea of what he was getting into," said Beard, as "he had done no investigations." Public sentiment was stirred by the formation of the "Trans-Pecos Heritage Association," led by Ben Love, whose property adjoined Big Bend on the north. Beard recalled how the Harte-Hanks plan had bothered county officials, as it removed acreage from the property tax rolls and made Brewster County 25 percent federally owned; a striking statistic in a state (Texas) that had entered the Union in 1845 with no federal control of its 256,000 square miles. The outcry at public meetings forced the park service to reject any efforts to establish the Davis Mountains ranching park, but the bitterness and distrust would endure for the remainder of the twentieth century, and affect attempts to add the Christmas Mountains and Chinati Mountains to the park. [27]

Under the cloud of the Davis Mountains study, park superintendents Robert Arnberger (1990-1994) and Jose Cisneros (1994-1999) chose different directions in their efforts at resource management. Arnberger, the son of a prominent NPS official (Leslie Arnberger), devoted a good deal of his time to external affairs, delegating to his staff the operations of the park. Among the more contentious issues facing Arnberger was his decision to remove an "eyesore" from the Chisos Basin: the old gasoline station and store. Arnberger also included law enforcement within the purview of the resource managemet division, spreading the workload among rangers without additions to the staff or budget. The Pitcock brothers, Roy and Louis, would remark in 1997 about the irony of Arnberger wanting an airstrip at K-Bar ranch, so that he could fly out of the park to attend NPS meetings elsewhere in the country (all this while the park service studied limitations on commercial aircraft in national parks). Keith Yarborough also lamented Arnberger's lack of commitment to scientific research, noting that the superintendent had downgraded the "chief scientist" at the park to the rank of "scientist," and how "scientific research has not been fostered as it should." [28]

Given the preceding half-century of resource management issues and controversies, it was nonetheless surprising in 1994 when the new superintendent, Jose Cisneros, came to Big Bend with a desire to elevate cultural resource issues to the plane of nature and science. A native Texan and fluent speaker of Spanish, Cisneros had spent his early career in human resource management for the NPS's Southwest region, and later as superintendent at such cultural parks as Bandelier National Monument, San Antonio Missions National Cultural Park, and Gettysburg National Historical Park. His own love of history and culture, combined with his assignments over the preceding two decades, had instilled in Cisneros the realization that Big Bend had much cultural history and tradition. Monies were not available in 1994 for a wide range of cultural resource studies, so Cisneros instructed his staff "to find ways to do this ourselves." Using funds saved from salaries, and by campaigning with regional and national NPS offices, Cisneros and his division chiefs began a process of studies in archaeology (in conjunction with Sul Ross State University), historic preservation, and interpretative programming that told the tale of Big Bend's many uses.

As Cisneros looked back in 1999 on his five years of management at Big Bend, he recalled how he found that "the Barker lodge was run down, as was K-Bar and the Hot Springs." He had "no problem with how natural resource programs were run," and reallocated funds to hire a wildlife biologist and vegetation specialist. By 1998, the park had acquired its first-ever grants for rehabilitation of historic structures, with the first task being the motel units at Hot Springs, and the second target the store at Castolon. Work also was accomplished at K-Bar ranch (which was used for student research housing), the Alvino House at Castolon, and the Daniels Ranch along the Rio Grande near Boquillas. Cisneros also worked with Sul Ross to expedite funding for the seven-year, $1 million archaeological survey overseen by Tom Alex and Bob Mallouf (the latter the director of the SRSU program). Alex noted how the monies allowed survey crews to work on what he called a "predictive capability" strategy. Given the park's 804,000 acres, and the lack of any definitive assessment of cultural resources, Alex and Mallouf (formerly the director of the Texas office of archaeology in Austin) used Global Informational System (GIS) mapping to identify fifteen percent of park lands suggestive of the larger whole. The survey crews then worked over these sites carefully, seeking "environmental stratification, and how soils, geology, and hydrology influenced habitation." When completed, the crews would have walked over every inch of 5,000 acres, and could suggest the scale and scope of land use from that sample. [29]

Of all the cultural resource work accomplished under the Cisneros superintendency, perhaps none symbolized more the new directions that the park would take than the $40,000 study of the Mariscal Mine. Cisneros continued the efforts of superintendent Jim Carrico to raise the funds necessary to hire specialists in architectural preservation, historical research, and cultural resource management. Eric Delony, director of the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), a partner with the Historic American Building Survey (HABS) in the study of structures and their uses, organized a team of graduate students from around the country. They assisted park staff from Big Bend and the Southwest Support Office (SSO), one of whom was Arthur Gomez, chief of historical programs for the SSO. In the mid-1980s Gomez had been hired by park superintendent Gilbert Lusk as part of the latter's efforts to expand cultural resource awareness. Gomez produced from that research initiative A Most Singular Country: A History of Occupation in the Big Bend (1990). One tale told by Gomez was the scale and scope of mining for quicksilver at the Mariscal facility, and Gomez would join the research team in the late 1990s to bring to light the importance of the massive structure astride the River Road. [30]

When Jose Cisneros departed from Big Bend in the spring of 1999, he noted that continuation of the momentum for cultural resource management would depend as always on the willingness of the superintendent and staff to give this dimension of park operations their due. Yet Cisneros's vision of stories told about human use of the park already had their effect on the interpretation that visitors received. Programs by the interpretive staff included historic structures, important figures, and key controversies in park resource management. In this manner, Big Bend National Park could thus serve as a reminder of the journey of understanding taken by the NPS since the 1940s to determine whether scenery, ecology, or cultural landscapes would be the window through which the public saw the land. Research on that story, begun with such foreboding in the depths of the 1930s depression and Dust Bowl, would vacillate throughout the second half of the twentieth century between the extremes of preservation and development, and the shortchanging of basic science in the nation's parks. Few superintendents had tried to bring cultural resources to the forefront at one of the NPS's "nature" parks as had Jose Cisneros. Yet the door had been opened for future superintendents and staffs to examine the reasons why Edward Abbey would consider Big Bend one of his "objects of desire," and how nature and culture combined for a new vision of America's national parks.

Figure 21: Chisos Basin Store and Registration Office (1950s)