Casa Grande Ruins Administrative History

B. The First Years as a National Monument

On August 3, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Casa Grande to be a national monument. This change in status, with its inclusion in the national park system, did not produce the results that Pinkley had, no doubt, hoped. It did not bring him any substantial financial aid. He found that Casa Grande shared the same fate as all the other poorly funded national monuments. Consequently, his 1918 annual report reflected his discouragement. He wrote that "nothing" had been done at Casa Grande. There were no funds. Pinkley ended his account by stating that "this report is intended to arouse some interest in the Casa Grande with anyone who may read it." Horace Albright responded that it was a "good report." [5]

Pinkley's plea brought a $500 budget for fiscal year 1919 and more work. Mather notified Pinkley on September 10, 1918, that he had placed him in charge of a second national monument. Two months previously, Mather had advised Pinkley that he might ask him to oversee Tumacacori National Monument. Having a second monument to administer, however, did not seemingly cause Pinkley any deeper distress. He worked tirelessly to operate both national monuments. Pinkley's wife worked as an unpaid aid who ran Casa Grande during his absences at Tumacacori. Pinkley proved to be such a successful administrator that Mather further increased his responsibilities in succeeding years. [6]

Even though Pinkley received a skimpy annual budget, he began to make some improvements at the new national monument. The old well was beyond improving, so, in September 1918, he began to dig a new one. He encountered water at forty feet. While digging the well, Pinkley began to think of improvements in general. He wrote to Mather that his immediate desire was the topographical survey of the monument showing one-foot contours. Pinkley also asked Mather to send Charles Punchard, a National Park Service landscape engineer, to Casa Grande that winter so that a monument improvement plan could be developed. In the following month Pinkley hired a man to clear the brush from Compounds A and B. After that shrubbery had been cleared, Pinkley had his hired man remove the underbrush from an area between Compounds A and B and trim some mesquite trees so that a campground and picnic area could be provided for visitors. [7]

Although Punchard came to Casa Grande in January 1919 to assess development needs, more money for improvements was not forthcoming. Stephen Mather, the National Park Service Director, paid little attention to the national monuments. His focus was directed toward national parks. He considered national monuments no more than "interesting accents" to national parks. Nearly all of Mather's energy was spent in improving access to existing national parks or acquiring additional national parks. Consequently, an overwhelming proportion of the National Park Service budget was spent on these natural scenic areas. National monuments received so little money that even maintaining the status quo was difficult. In 1921 the regular budget for all twenty-four national monuments for repair, protection, and salaries came to only $8,000. It was an insignificant amount when compared to the $60,000 received by the Grand Canyon National Park or the triple figure budget of Yellowstone. Mather had his reasons for concentrating on the national parks. He wished to increase visitation and create a national constituency to support his new agency. The vast, scenic grandeur of national parks, he felt, provided the foundation on which to build a national following. To Mather, the smaller, mostly culturally oriented national monuments, though interesting, lacked glamour. Mather carried this separate and unequal approach to the two entities into administrative titles. The head of a national park was designated a superintendent, while the manager of a national monument was merely a custodian. [8]

Mather's disinterest in national monuments resulted in an increased workload and salary for Pinkley. By 1920 Pinkley was not just custodian for Casa Grande and Tumacacori, for in that year the Park Service leadership found it convenient to unload its responsibilities for a number of Southwestern monuments onto him. Pinkley accepted the new assignment which was for "review of administrative and other conditions in Southwestern Monuments." This fit in well with his ambitions that reached back as early as 1906. Perhaps he also thought that there was strength in numbers; that he could command more attention for budget purposes as representative of a number of monuments as opposed to two entities. The review of "other conditions" brought such duties as inspecting various monuments and even helping with repair work. Renovation work took him to Montezuma Castle National Monument in 1920. Pinkley even filed an annual report for Montezuma Castle in that year. Soon he was traveling to inspect Chaco Canyon, El Moro, Petrified Forest, and Pipe Spring. On occasion, this extra work was considered confidential. Pinkley also had contact with the custodian at Aztec and had suggested a custodian for Gran Quivira. For this new responsibility, his salary increased in 1920 to $1,320. [9]

Pinkley performed his assignments with such efficiency that the National Park Service's leadership decided to officially recognize his work by establishing a field headquarters at Casa Grande from which national monuments in a four-state area of the Southwest would be managed. While he attended the annual National Park Service conference in Yellowstone National Park in October 1923, the announcement was made that Pinkley had been appointed as superintendent of the Southwestern National Monuments. He had twelve monuments to manage with a thirteenth created the following month. Pinkley also retained the custodianship of Casa Grande which he kept until July 1, 1931. With this increased workload, Arno Cammerer, the assistant director, recognized that Pinkley needed help, so he allotted Pinkley a $300 budget for an individual who would work part time at Casa Grande while he traveled. Pinkley hired George L. Boundey because he had "previous experience" in mound excavation. By the start of fiscal year 1925 on July 1, 1924, Pinkley had created a full time position at Casa Grande for Boundey. [10]