Big Bend Administrative History

In anticipation of the discovery of water, the NPS sent a delegation of regional and national officials in early April 1934 to Big Bend. George Nason (later furloughed himself for budgetary reasons) was recommended for supervision of park planning in southern Texas, with sites at Palo Duro Canyon, Fort Davis, and Big Bend. Herbert Maier saw more potential for CCC work at Big Bend than at existing campsites at Stephenville and Lampasas, and made plans to move them once the Army approved the Chisos Mountains proposal. From April 5to 8, 1934, Ben H. Thompson of the NPS's newly formed "Wildlife Division" conducted the first official park service study of the flora and fauna of the Big Bend area. Thompson represented the entering wedge of professionalism in park ecology and natural resource planning emanating from the University of California campus at Berkeley. There, according to Sellars, "the university was becoming a center of Park Service activity that included education, forestry, and landscape architecture," fields of expertise that the NPS would apply to the planning for Big Bend's future. [22]

Thompson's report reiterated the detail and sense of wonder about Big Bend that Roger Toll found in the area. The NPS wildlife biologist noted that southern Brewster County had endured "a period of perhaps forty or fifty years of domestic stock raising." Cattle, sheep and goats had predominated, and "needless to say, over-grazing is characteristic of the entire area." Thompson lamented that "most of the grass is gone and the more palatable species of browse have been greatly depleted." The biologist wrote that "with protection from grazing the vegetation of the area would restore itself markedly." Even though aridity marked the landscape, "springs are numerous, providing abundant water for the native wild life." One side effect of this combination of grazing and dryness was the abundance of exotic vegetation, as "only the thorny varieties could persist in the face of fifty years of grazing." Thompson identified some 33 forms of grass, cactus, and brush, with the "weeping juniper" (Juniperus flaccida) as a species "found only in the Chisos Mountains [of] Texas." [23]

Once Thompson had examined the extent and complexity of plants and grasses, he reported to his superiors about the conditions of animal life. Sellars contended that "biologists were gaining an increased comprehension of the role of habitat in the survival of species," a phenomenon not mentioned by park promoters and landowners (whose concerns gravitated towards economic relief and recovery). In addition, "the biologists [in 1933] proposed to perpetuate existing natural conditions and, where necessary and feasible, to restore park fauna to a 'pristine state.'" While Thompson did not resort to such dramatic terms, nonetheless his coverage of mammals indicated their endangered status in the face of land-use practices of local ranchers. One example was his focus on the species of peccary, which local residents claimed devoured a considerable amount of lechuguilla. If this were the case, said Thompson, Big Bend could become "the most suitable preserve for the peccary and a type of area which is not included in any other national park." [24]

In addition to threats to the javelina, Thompson also wrote about the presence of three types of deer in the Chisos Mountains: mule deer, which he said were "commonly hunted," "Arizona white-tailed deer," which Thompson believed "finds it eastern limits of range in the Chisos Mountains" and fan-tailed deer. The NPS biologist had inquired of locals about the presence of "Mexican Bighorn" sheep, as Vernon Bailey in 1905 wrote that "they have been killed on the north slope of the Chisos and may still be found in the Santa Helena Canyon." Thompson wondered if pronghorn antelope had ever inhabited the area, in that "the range looks suitable," and "it is possible that they were once native." Local residents, however, could not remember sightings of the pronghorn. Black bears, said the locals, still existed in "the upper regions of the Chisos," although they "are no longer abundant." Before 1920, wolves had been targeted for special eradication, as they "once were common in the region." Coyotes and foxes continued to inhabit the area, as did bobcats and cougars. Thompson noted that gray foxes had been trapped and penned at a gas station some 20 miles north of the Chisos Mountains, a facility owned by W.A. Cooper. Many species of small game could be found throughout the Big Bend country, from raccoons to skunks to jackrabbits. Of these, perhaps the most intriguing to Thompson were the brown bats and Mexican free-tail bats. "Numerous bats were flying around," he reported, "when it was too late for visual identification and no specimens were collected." [25]

Future travelers to Big Bend National Park would be most excited about the "great variety of bird life" that Thompson noted on his four-day excursion to the desert, mountain, and canyon country of the Rio Grande. "Many species of subtropical birds not found elsewhere in the United States," said the NPS biologist, "would be seen by the visitor to the Big Bend, and in the winter months it is a great highway for migrating birds." In his brief tour of the vast Big Bend country, Thompson identified no fewer than 33 types of birds, from blue herons to the "White-rumped Shrike." Visitors also would appreciate Thompson's statement that few poisonous snakes inhabited the area, with garter snakes most common along the Rio Grande. [24]

When Ben Thompson contemplated the future of Big Bend National Park, he echoed policies already forming within George Wright's wildlife division. "Of all their proposed solutions," said Sellars, Wright's "survey team most frequently emphasized the need to expand boundaries to include year-round habitats for protection of wildlife." Thompson saw in Big Bend an excellent opportunity to apply this logic. "The flora and fauna of the Big Bend area," he concluded in April 1934, "is varied and abundant." He warned his superiors in Berkeley that "to draw up any sort of proposed boundary which would follow natural barriers and faunal zones is impossible because of the nature of the terrain." He recommended that the NPS "reserve a sufficient chunk of territory to provide adequate habitat for the species involved" as "the next best possibility." This corresponded with Toll's boundary suggestion of the northern parallel of 29 degrees 20 minutes, "excluding of course the town of Terlingua and the adjacent mercury mines." Thompson then concluded: "It is suggested from the wild life point of view that the area is of national parks caliber," with Toll's demarcation "adequate to protect the wild life of the area." [25]

George Wright's wildlife division (in the person of Ben Thompson) had defined the essence of Big Bend's appeal to future visitors worldwide. Yet the immediate concerns of the park service and the CCC were more pragmatic: claiming public land for the Chisos Basin camps, constructing facilities that could become part of either a state or national park, and easing the twin burdens of economic hardship and ecological ruin in southern Brewster County. To that end, a host of federal officials came to Big Bend in the spring of 1934 with goals other than those of Ben Thompson. Even as the wildlife biologist circled the future park site in April of that year, W.C. Carnes, the assistant chief engineer of the NPS for its Western Division in San Francisco, met with Conrad Wirth to discuss facilities and road planning. Wirth asked Carnes "to review the geological conditions and flora to determine in general the probable highway development [that] would be needed for the area to attain National Park status." This in turn would allow the CCC to focus its resources on "development of water resources, camp sites, possible truck trails or parking areas at points which would fit with an ultimate National Park development." The NPS engineer noted that Big Bend's isolation and distance from a transportation hub "is not dissimilar to that of Grand Canyon, Zion, or Bryce [Canyon]" national parks on the Colorado Plateau. He decided to send the assistant landscape architect at the Grand Canyon, Harry Langley, to join with a Phoenix-based engineer from the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads to inspect the Big Bend. "It is so seldom," Carnes told Dr. L.I. Hewes, deputy chief engineer of the Bureau of Public Roads in San Francisco, that "we have a chance to influence the development of areas before they become National Parks." Thus the reconnaissance would help the NPS avoid mistakes of the past, where poorly coordinated transportation planning hindered park service operations. [26]

For the boosters of Big Bend, the key figures in the area that spring were George Nason of the ECW program and Robert D. Morgan, superintendent of CCC camp "SP-33-T." They came to the Chisos on May 21, 1934, with the first installment of the 200-member work crew (80 percent of whom were Hispanic). The CCC bought the original camp acreage from ranchers Ira Hector and Waddy Burnham, using money provided by the Alpine chamber of commerce. That organization then had to recapture their investment through a bond election. The Texas state parks board "owned" the property occupied bys the first and second CCC camps (the latter designated as "SP-34-T"). The board then informed the Army that "the United States is authorized to use this property for camp sites for one year or as much longer as camps are retained on the Big Bend State Park, said occupancy to be without cost to the Federal Government." D.E. Colp then told the commanding general of the CCC, stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, that "any and all buildings, structures or installations erected on these camp sites by the Government shall be and remain the property of the Government." Should the government decide to abandon the CCC camps, "the land shall be disposed of by the Government in any manner it may deem to be [in] its best interest." [27]

D.E. Colp's optimism, and that of the Alpine chamber, soon faded as the economic realities of New Deal programming took hold in the Big Bend. On June 1, 1934, George Nason wrote to Maier asking that the NPS limit its work to the Chisos Basin proper, and not expand down the mountain. Early plans had called for "an open air pavilion in Boot Spring Canyon." Nason agreed that Boot Spring "is a magnificent setting for such a structure." Yet he had to limit the scope of CCC work, and contended that the pavilion "would not add to the magnificence of the superbly wooded area." The CCC also could not release its workers from the Stephenville camp as early as it had hoped, leaving Big Bend short of time and money for the planned second camp (the budget for all CCC work in the Chisos in the summer of 1934 had shrunk by nearly half). Ironically, the state parks board and the Alpine boosters managed to secure a special type of CCC camp that summer: DSP-1, a "drought relief camp." No one could explain why the temperate Chisos Basin qualified for this program, but it promised to give the NPS the additional manpower and funds to create the "class A" facility that so many park planners had envisioned. [28]

New Deal work relief programs often faced criticism from politicians and conservative commentators in the media for their wastefulness of money and human resources. W.G. Carnes expressed some surprise in July when resident NPS architect Harry Langley informed him that the first weeks of the Chisos basin CCC programs had not gone well. "No member of the personnel in charge of development there," said Carnes, "is at all familiar with development on National Park standards." Langley responded: "I am somewhat concerned as to the results that will be obtained." Langley did not blame Nason, whom he described as "a very capable man" who "has too much territory to cover to devote the time needed for proper study of the problems." Compounding Nason's situation was the success of local park boosters in acquiring promises of CCC labor. "Within another month," Langley warned Carnes, there will be four camps established in the area (approximately 1000 men)." The Grand Canyon architect could find only one architect and "Landscape Foreman" on site in July 1934, and called for "more Landscape Architects [to] be engaged immediately to prepare the necessary development plans at once and supervise the work;" people whom Langley pointedly described as familiar with Park Service methods and personnel. [29]

Discontent with the NPS-CCC partnership, the haste with which these programs unfolded, and the lack of professional staff to manage the growing workload affected many park service sites in the 1930s. Langley's critique of Big Bend's CCC camps prompted Carnes to visit him at the Grand Canyon to explore the issue further. In a "Personal and Confidential Air Mail" message on August 8 to Herbert Maier, Carnes admitted to be "somewhat alarmed at the fact that the camp superintendent [R.D. Morgan] is entrusted with so many duties." Beyond his usual tasks, which Carnes identified as "organizing the crews and equipment and direct charge of the work," Morgan "also submits the projects to be initiated and prepares whatever drawings are necessary." George Nason, nominally in charge of the CCC operations, could only make "infrequent trips to Big Bend." Thus Morgan undertook "a wide range of work which would ordinarily be performed by architects and landscape architects." Langley voiced particular displeasure with Morgan's plans for several highway bridges, at least one of which had a 50-foot span. Carnes advised Maier that "in our own work a full fledged highway engineer is not entrusted with the preparation of bridge plans, particularly for masonry bridges which have to be very well done or the result is terrible." Even a bridge specialist would require five to six weeks to design such an important structure, as well as "administrative facilities such as office, shops, etc." He also had to determine the location of "future camp grounds, housekeeping camps and hotels in areas suitable for their ultimate needs." This would require a "development plan . . . to be made before working drawings, on any particular building." If not, warned Carnes, "buildings would be planned, one at a time, without any definite relation to one another." [30]

The success of the New Deal hinged upon public acceptance not only of the expenditure of funds on work relief, but also of the quality of their labors. Richard Sellars, viewing the CCC from the perspective of the 1990s, wrote that "in both state and national park construction, the Service's architects and landscape architects of the 1930s directed CCC craftsmen toward a harmonious blending of new construction with the surrounding park landscapes." Carnes had that legacy in mind when he informed Herbert Maier: "If you State Park people are forced to depend upon either the camp superintendents or the landscape foremen for the preparation of all your plans, I feel that you are being seriously handicapped." The San Francisco engineer thus wrote to Maier "principally to inform you that the National Park camps are not on a similar starvation diet so far as designers and supervisors are concerned." He cautioned Maier that "inasmuch as in the future any one viewing the work done in the State Parks may say 'well, this work was done under the supervision of the National Park Service, why didn't they get it done just the way they wanted.'" Carnes warned that such critics would not know "that your set-up contained no man who could devote his whole time to the preparation of plans." In addition. "the inspectors had so many camps to cover, that their trips were necessarily hurried and none too frequent." [31]

The Carnes-Langley review of Big Bend's early CCC days struck a nerve with Herbert Maier, who knew from other camps of the strain of supervision and the limits of staffing. An indication of this condition came in Maier's response to Carnes, in which the ECW district officer reminded the NPS engineer: "I am very busy at the present moment and have not read your letter over as carefully as I will presently." He then spoke personally with George Nason at the state park division office in Oklahoma City, and his reply of August 24 was both defensive and critical of Carnes' judgment. "Yes, our set-up is quite different from yours," Maier responded, as "we do not have anything that corresponds to a central drafting office." Maier admitted the problem when he conceded, "except of course that here at my office I try to help out all I can with plans that are sent in for approval and revision." Maier then moved to the heart of the matter (at least from his perspective), revealing the burden that New Deal economic recovery placed on the NPS. "In some of the eastern states," he told Carnes, "where the state parks may have been a going concern for a number of years, where they have a state park board with perhaps a consulting architect, and one or two landscape architects," Maier would agree that "the matter of design is quite simple." Western conditions, however, had affected Maier more than he realized. "Out here in the wilds," he told his San Francisco colleague, "where the State Governments have perhaps never heard of a landscape architect, and where State Parks Boards have been very recently set up in order to take advantage of our program," the NPS found it "necessary . . . to carry on our design work at the camps under the jurisdiction of the Inspectors as the work progresses." All they could do, Maier declared, was to "try wherever possible to keep the plans ahead of the work." Alternately apologetic and irritated, Maier admitted that "since as a rule no work may be undertaken before the camp moves in, this does not always work out as satisfactorily as it should." Thus his judgment differed from Carnes: "We have gotten along very well and are now finally getting the horse before the cart." [32]

When Maier turned to the particular details of the Big Bend CCC program, he took pride in the obstacles overcome. "We have in the original camp," he told Carnes, "two graduate landscape architects, one graduate architect and three graduate engineers." Maier admitted that "this may not be as satisfactory as a central drafting office where standards are established and ability is concentrated." Yet he believed that "it has the good point of placing the designer right on the job." In particular, Maier took issue with Harry Langley's criticisms of Robert Morgan, whom he described as "a Civil Engineer with twenty years experience." Instead of dismissing his abilities in bridge design and construction, Maier judged Morgan as "capable of designing a highway bridge as far as the structural efficiency is concerned." Other NPS staff would draw the plans, and George Nason would review the final product. More troubling for Maier was Langley's claim that the Big Bend camp did not follow a master plan carefully for facilities construction. He agreed that, "as you know, while a general plan is at first agreed upon, this is kept in a flexible state and cannot be entirely completed before the draftsmen take hold of other things to keep ahead of the work." Maier cautioned Carnes that "this does not mean that these items are out of sympathy with the general plan;" a situation exacerbated by the CCC's rule that "camps are approved for a six months period only," meaning that "drafting frequently cannot be concentrated on one item at a time." Big Bend in particular posed a serious design-build problem, in that "it is difficult for us to make a final general plan in an area that has never been surveyed." The CCC crews "must carry on topographical work a considerable length of time before any final master plan may be drafted." [33]

Despite these clear differences of opinion on NPS-CCC policy, Maier appreciated the gravity of the Big Bend case, and of the need for firm oversight of the planning process. The NPS's Oklahoma City office needed closer contact with Denver and San Francisco personnel, and all should visit Big Bend on a regular basis. "There is too much at stake," said Maier, "in working in an area that may later become a National Park." He also confided in Carnes that "you know that my own knowledge of park development is really quite limited." It did not help that Langley and Nason now disliked each other, and that Maier had to recommend Charles Ritchey, who "covers New Mexico and gets down to Carlsbad," as an alternative to the staff member assigned to landscape architecture oversight (Langley). "I realize," concluded Maier, "that Mr. Ritchey probably has a mighty full program as it is," but he could not allow Big Bend to fail because of personality conflicts and planning disputes. [34]

As the NPS and CCC moved into the first fall season of work at Big Bend, the issue of oversight and budgetary constraints did not ease. By mid-September, Carnes had acknowledged his inability to provide Maier with sufficient staff time for supervision. Carnes conceded that "I have not even seen the place," and had written Maier only "as an inquiry concerning the type of overhead personnel and how the different phases of the work are handled." Carnes then gave Maier more disheartening news: "As to the making of periodic inspections, this is becoming more and more difficult." Carnes lost one of his top landscape architects to the NPS office in Washington, and "our resident landscape architect at Yosemite was made Assistant Superintendent." Such personnel changes "necessitate our older field men taking on larger and larger territories," said Carnes, "and it is getting to a point where their services are spread pretty thin." Then in a statement typical of the erratic nature of New Deal budgeting, Carnes advised Maier that if he could wait until winter, he would have "eight or ten capable and experienced men available by transfer from the Northern parks." The CCC expected a reduction of camps in the fourth quarter (October-December) from 58 to 29, forcing Carnes "to let quite a few good men go." [35]

Given this situation, Maier in late October revised plans for Big Bend's "drought relief" funding, with hopes that he would receive twelve months of support. He informed the national ECW office that "the beauty and grandeur" of the area "is unsurpassed in Texas, and has been said by park authorities to be the equal of any other like area in the United States." Original plans for two CCC camps had not materialized, and now Maier had word that Big Bend would lose the one camp established that May. Thus the drought relief unit of the CCC would have to "embrace those essential projects for this park;" a factor in the high budget estimate that Maier had calculated. He hoped to use "native rock and timber," but it would have to be carried from the Marathon railhead to the site. The Texas state parks board had agreed to "furnish all building stone and such sand, gravel and timber as are available on the [105,000-acre] property as its contribution to the development of this park." Then Maier itemized the facilities needed at Big Bend for the year 1935: a "lookout house" in the Chisos, "six miles of truck trails . . . to open up the mountainous areas and make accessible the lookout house . . . as well as the Boot Springs Canyon area and South rim mesa of the Chisos Range." With an eye toward the day when tourists would converge on Big Bend, Maier then asked for $2,200 to build "a combined concession house and lodge, to be known as the Hacienda de los Chisos." His rationale was that "being located 90 miles from a railroad, practically all visitors to this park will of necessity spend one or more nights therein, and housing facilities must be made available for their comfort." An additional $1,000 would permit construction of "5 native stone cottages for use of park patrons." Yet the most expensive detail of park construction was purchase of seven trucks (for $4,000), as employees would have to be transported throughout the Basin daily, and materials hauled down the long dirt road from Marathon to the campsite. [36]

As much as the NPS wished to endorse Maier's request, Big Bend received authority to operate only until the end of the fiscal year (June 30, 1935). In the estimation of Herbert Evison, the NPS state park division supervisor in Washington, Big Bend was lucky. He informed Maier on November 27 that the normal authorization of CCC units expired on March 31, 1935. "With that in mind," said Evison, "work at Big Bend should be so scheduled that everything undertaken before March 31 will be in a fair state of completion in the event the camp is discontinued on that date." Evison further suggested that Big Bend add "fireplaces, tables or other desirable small equipment" to the Chisos campgrounds, and to "undertake erection of more than the five cabins approved." Evison's logic was that "since this area is so isolated from any town and, presumably, from any place offering satisfactory overnight accommodation," Big Bend needed facilities more elaborate than the rustic arrangement offered by Maier. [37]

With funding in hand for at least 120 days, the NPS turned to an issue that arose in December 1934 that threatened continued work. Texas attorney-general James Allred declared as "unconstitutional" the state parks board's plan to pay one cent per acre to the school fund for all mineral rights on school lands in the Big Bend area, and five cents per acre for the "Big Bend District" (the 105,000 acres in the Chisos Basin). Nason warned Maier that "we probably do not have clear title to the section where the Army Camp is constructed, and have recently obtained a clear title to the section containing a lodge location, subject to a tax of $970.00 to the State." Nason planned to request a rehearing on the matter with Allred, who played an important role three years later as governor when he vetoed legislation that would pay landowners $1.5 million for their lands and donate the acreage to the NPS. Yet the park service and CCC had to proceed in hopes of resolution, with a new round of studies and surveys triggered by the stabilized funding of the "drought-relief" program. [38]

Simultaneous with Allred's objections to Texas' gift to the CCC and NPS, Everett Townsend and W.D. Smithers advanced the cause of the international park between Mexico and the United States. John Jameson noted that the first person to draft a plan for such an initiative was Alfred Dorgan of Castolon, a concept that he called the "Friendly Nations Park." By December 1934, Townsend and Smithers saw the emerging sentiment in Mexico for natural resource conservation aligning with NPS plans for the Rio Grande canyons, and the Roosevelt administration's call for a "Good Neighbor Policy" between the United States and Latin America. Smithers, an experienced photographer, asked Herbert Maier if the NPS would fund his travel across the river to document the wonders of the Mexican north. Smithers commented on the cost in time and money of acquiring permits from the Mexican government to explore the area, and the rigors of travel south of the border. "I know how to get around in Mexico," said Smithers, "as I have been all over it, and I will go into the very best areas, no matter how rough it is." He mentioned in particular an area some eight miles south of the Elmo Johnson ranch, which he had been told had "the largest groups of pectographs [pictographs] in America." Smithers claimed that "with the exception of two other men, I know of no other white men that has [sic] been to this Canyon." He surmised that "if the park is ever made, this will be one of the main attractions," as Mexicans had told Smithers that the canyon's name was "the Salado, also . . . the El Boquillas de los Muertos," which he translated as "the Canyon of the Dead." [39]

Townsend also contributed his share of historical knowledge to the momentum in Brewster County for designation of an international park. In December 1934, he submitted to the NPS a narrative entitled, "Adjoining Area in Mexico." Since his days as a U.S. Customs agent and later a Texas Ranger, Townsend had found the Mexican side of the Rio Grande fascinating for its environment and cultural complexity. "The truth of the matter," said Townsend, "is that, in our grandest and most striking views, the greater values seem to lie beyond the Rio Grande," and "to reap the full value of their own scenery, the Mexicans must come to our side to see it." Townsend considered the "flora [as] almost identical on both sides of the River with an occasional rare and beautiful exception." The Mexican mountainsides, like the Chisos, boasted plentiful varieties of plants and trees. He spoke most movingly, however, of what he called the "Hechereros or Palomas Mountains." These Townsend identified as "about thirty miles from the western part of our State Park." "Hechereros [the proper spelling of which was Hechiceros]," said the advocate of an international park, "means enchanting, bewitching, and in this instance, the term is no misnomer." The area had "considerable water . . . and a sprinkle of trees, but no forests." There the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa "had a stronghold for years, a great remount and resting station, from which his enemies never succeeded in driving him." Other topographical features that Townsend praised were the "Noche Buena Peaks" and "El Pino Mountain." He had never visited the Fronteriza Mountains (another local term for the Sierra del Carmen), but had it on good authority that "vegetation is quite extensive, that there are forests of great trees, also that water is frequently found in their canyons." [40]

With such natural beauty available so close to Big Bend, Townsend encouraged the NPS to consider an aggressive campaign with the government of Mexico to join the two nations in an international park. "The territory on the south bank of the River is scantily populated," Townsend reported, "and much of it is said to be public land." Like south Brewster County, Mexico's share of the international park would be "of no great commercial value." Then Townsend echoed the sentiments of FDR's Latin American policy, an attitude not shared by some of his own neighbors. "Undoubtedly such a great recreational area," he wrote late in 1934, "would go far toward bringing the two races closer together." Townsend hoped that such a park "would tend to solidify more securely the friendship that has been forming for some years." Visitors from both nations could find in the Big Bend country "a zona libre, in which the tourist upon entering the gate of the Park on either side would find himself free from all customs and immigration regulations so long as he stayed within its bounds." This bold plan, the source of much debate between the two nations (and within Texas) for the next 60 years, "would create ties of kindly sentiment that would multiply and become stronger between the Mexican and American peoples," said Townsend prophetically, "now almost unknown to each other, as the future years roll by." [41]

The touching sentiments of Townsend, and the eagerness of Smithers to catalogue the wonders of the Mexican frontera, caught the park service off-guard. Focused as it was on the politics of the New Deal, the peripatetic nature of federal budgeting, and the delicate negotiations with the Lone Star state's congressional delegation to achieve park status in 1935, Herbert Maier had to caution both Brewster County residents about the hazards of ambitious promotion and private entanglement in diplomatic relations with Mexico. Maier wrote to Smithers on December 14 to deny federal funding for his Mexican photographic survey. He also warned Smithers, as he would Townsend, to "be careful in the future in giving out any information as to our work that has come to your attention." Experience had taught Maier that "local publicity is of little value since the procedure of the government is based entirely on the native calibre of an area." Adding to the NPS's concerns was the fact that "local landowners, et cetera, thereby frequently get a distored and overambitious picture of a project in which the government has indicated an interest." [42]

To Townsend Maier was more candid: "There is one thing I should like to request of you in regard to the Big Bend project and that is you appoint yourself a committee of one to see that absolutely no publicity of any kind gets out on it." Maier had seen all over the country where the NPS "had one project after another killed as a result of publicity." Maier had learned a hard lesson in Alpine itself, when his offhand comment to the unnamed "President" of the chamber of commerce led to an Alpine Avalanche story "describing an 'International park of two million acres.'" Instead, Maier counseled Townsend to appreciate the fact that "the Big Bend area is at present receiving all of the attention that it is possible for the Federal Government to give it." The park service's major problem at Big Bend, now that the CCC had begun facilities construction, remained acquisition of private property. "I have felt," said Maier, "that the best way to organize the property ownership part of the program is to have a project manager, such as yourself, who is thoroughly familiar with local conditions, appointed." The park service could take advantage of the "sub-marginal program" that allowed for the "purchase [of] large tracts of sub-marginal land." If the NPS would accept the area as a sub-marginal project, "it will probably materially hasten the matter of land acquisition." Maier compared the Big Bend property issue to a similar situation in southern Florida, where the original legislation to create the Everglades National Park had passed Congress in 1926, but land purchases had yet to be completed. Maier's determination to include Townsend in the Big Bend process had led to his candor, and the ECW director predicted: "I should not be at all surprised but what unless the matter is very carefully, vigorously and intelligently handled it will take ten years to make a National park out of the Big Bend area, if ever." [43]

Maier's judgment of the next phase of park planning proved eerily prophetic, as it would be June 12, 1944, before the NPS could open the park for visitors. In the meantime, careful attention to detail by the park service and the CCC coexisted with obstacles of land acquisition and reductions in federal spending as the New Deal faced growing criticism in Congress. Then the imperative of global conflict from 1941 to 1945 would halt most plans for expanding the NPS system. Yet the determination of local sponsors to convince the Texas legislature to appropriate funds for land purchases, and their aggressive campaign to acquire the properties for the nearly 800,000-acre park, proceeded with the same energy and enthusiasm that the new partnership between Texas, Mexico and the NPS had demonstrated in their quest to save the Southwest's "last frontier."

Figure 6: Adobe and Stone Cottages Built by the CCC (1940-1941)