Big Bend Administrative History

¹ "An Act To Establish A National Park Service, And For Other Purposes," Approved August 25, 1916 (39 Stat. 535)," cited in Lary M. Dilsaver, ed, America's National Park System: The Critical Documents (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1994), 46.

² Arthur R. Gomez, A Most Singular Country: A History of Occupation in the Big Bend (Provo, UT: Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, Brigham Young University, 1990), 1; Frank Deckert, Big Bend: Three Steps to the Sky (Big Bend National Park, TX: Big Bend Natural History Association, 1981), 4, 7.

³ William N. Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983); Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 2; Deckert, Big Bend, 13.

⁴ Deckert, Big Bend, 13, 15-16, 26, 33-34. For a discussion of the mercury mines in the Big Bend area, see Kenneth B. Ragsdale, Quicksilver: Terlingua and the Chisos Mining Company (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1995, third printing).

⁵ Interview with Tom and Betty Alex, Big Bend National Park, Texas (hereafter cited as BIBE), June 6, 1997; Deckert, Big Bend, 14.

⁶ For an analysis of the folk tales of the Chisos, see Ron C. Tyler, The Big Bend: A History of the Last Texas Frontier (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1996, first printing of 1975 edition by the National Park Service),1-20.

⁷ Max L. Moorhead, The Apache Frontier: Jacobo Ugarte and Spanish-Indian Relations in Northern New Spain, 1769-1791 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), 214; Deckert, Big Bend, 14.

⁸ Memorandum of Ross Maxwell, Superintendent, Big Bend National Park, Texas (BIBE), to the Regional Director, NPS, Region Three, Santa Fe, NM, February 18, 1948, Record Group (RG) 79, National Park Service (NPS), Southwest Region Office (SWRO), Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to National Parks, Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1927-1953, Box 20, Folder: 731.01 Place Names, National Archives and Records Administration, Rocky Mountain Region, Denver, Colorado (DEN NARA).

⁹ Ibid.; Memoranda of Erik K. Reed, Regional Archaeologists, NPS, Santa Fe, for the Superintendent, BIBE, March 4, 25, 1948, RG79, NPS, SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to National Parks, Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1927-1953, Box 20, Folder: 731.01 Place Names, DEN NARA.

¹⁰ A good source using recent scholarship about the Spanish in the Southwest is David J. Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America, 1513-1821 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992). For analysis of the complexity and challenge of Indian-Spanish relations, see Ramon A. Gutierrez, When Jesus Came, The Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991).

¹¹ Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 10-11; Deckert, Big Bend, 33.

¹² Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 11-12.

¹³ Ibid., 12-13.

¹⁴ Ibid., 14, 16-17, 19.

¹⁵ Ibid., 19-20; Michael Welsh, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Albuquerque District, 1935-1985 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), 4-5. For a good discussion of the Royal Corps of Engineers, see Janet R. Fireman, The Spanish Royal Corps of Engineers in the Western Borderlands, 1764-1815 (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1970).

¹⁶ Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 27-29.

¹⁷ Ibid., 34-36.

¹⁸ Ibid., 37-40; Moorhead, The Apache Frontier, 200-234.

¹⁹ A good introduction to the issues pertaining to the War with Mexico is Robert W. Johannsen, To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).

²⁰ Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 46, 67. Also see "The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848," in Richard N. Ellis, ed., Historic Documents of New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1975), 10-20.

²¹ For an analysis of the Gold Rush and its impact upon the West, see Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1910 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973).

²² Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 48-51, 53, 55. For a discussion of the early journeys of the U.S. Army into the Davis Mountains, see Michael Welsh, A Special Place, A Sacred Trust: Preserving the Fort Davis Story (Santa Fe: National Park Service, 1996), 1-10. Also valuable is Robert M. Utley, Fort Davis National Historic Site, Texas (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1965).

²³ Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 42-43, 56-58.

²⁴ Ibid., 58-59, 61.

²⁵ Ibid., 63-64.

²⁶ Ibid., 68-69, 71; Welsh, A Special Place, A Sacred Trust, 4-5.

²⁷ Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 72-75, 77. A good treatment of the black Seminoles is Kevin Mulroy, Freedom on the Border: The Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1993).

²⁸ Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 96-99.

²⁹ Ibid.; Raht, The Romance of Davis Mountains, 300-311.

³⁰ Raht, The Romance of Davis Mountains, 300-311.

³¹ Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 100-10.

³² T.E. Fehrenback, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans (New York: MacMillan Company, 1985), 614, 622, 641.

³³ Eleventh Census of the United States, 1890. For a discussion of Frederick Jackson Turner and his "frontier thesis," see William N. Cronon, "Turner's First Stand: The Significance of Significance in American History," in Richard W. Etualin, ed., Writing Western History: Essays on Major Western Historians (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991), 73-101.

³⁴ Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900; 1900 Manuscript Census, Microfilm Roll 1615, National Archives and Records Administration, Rocky Mountain Branch, Denver, CO (cited as Denver NARA).

³⁵ Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910.

³⁶ Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 103, 106-107.

³⁷ Ibid., 115-16.

³⁸ Ibid., 117,121-23, 125.

³⁹ Ibid., 133, 135-37, 139.

⁴⁰ Ibid., 143-46, 148-49, 151, 153-54.

⁴¹ Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920.

⁴² Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 158, 160,-61, 163, 165-67.

⁴³ Ibid., 172-73.

⁴⁴ Arthur R. Gomez, "Mariscal Quicksilver Mine and Reduction Works," Historic American Engineering Record, HAER No. TX-72, August 1997, Office of History, Southwest Support Office, National Park Service, Santa Fe (cited as SSO History Office); Interview with Jose A. Cisneros, Superintendent, Big Bend National Park, Texas, April 23, 1998.

⁴⁵ Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930.

⁴⁶ Raht, Romance of Davis Mountains and Big Bend Country, 380-81.