FORT DAVIS Administrative History

As the CCC work unfolded in west Texas, the NPS learned lessons about the political and economic power of the Jeff Davis County elite. One dimension that Jacobsen and Nored recounted was the eagerness of Hispanic youth to seek work on the Scenic Loop crews and at the CCC camp. They especially appreciated the higher wage scales (the NPS paid the national minimum wage of 25 cents per hour), the job training in construction, carpentry, and mechanics, and the opportunity to learn the English language; all skills that might lead to a better standard of living than currently available on local ranches. Less appealing to the park service were the expectations of the locals for inclusion of "extras" like a man-made lake. Harry L. Dunham, district inspector for the ECW (Emergency Conservation Work) program, which included the CCC, wrote to Herbert Maier in the Denver offices of the NPS in February 1934: "There has been an insistent demand by the natives of the Fort Davis District that they be provided with a lake." They claimed that the state and federal officials who negotiated the agreement to build the Davis Mountains state park had included such a lake, and "they expressed a great deal of disappointment that this promise has not been fulfilled, although they donated land for the park on the strength of this promise." Dunham agreed that construction of a dam at the Indian Lodge "will add greatly to the value of the property," as it was "very fine game country." But the lack of proximity to clay deposits would require construction of "either a masonry or a concrete dam; either one of which will be extremely expensive in time and material." Yet he believed the NPS should promote such an expenditure, given that the Davis Mountains "could very easily be one of the out-standing Texas Parks, ranking closely with Palo Duro and Bastrop, and probably next to the Chisos Mountains [the future Big Bend National Park]." [51]

Maier agreed with Dunham's analysis of the potential of the Davis Mountains, and wrote to Conrad Wirth, now director of the NPS "Office of Buildings and Reservations," that "this is without question one of our best state projects in Texas." The Colorado official wanted not only to start the Indian Lodge dam at once, but to experiment with a "two or three shift" schedule to improve employee performance. "It is much better for the morale of the men if the work and the camp is humming," said Maier, "and when especially they can see themselves getting someplace, than is the case where these large projects are forced to move along so slowly." The Washington office, however, did not add CCC monies to Davis Mountain for a dam, and thus Maier and R.O. Whiteaker, chief engineer of the NPS State Park Division in Austin, had to reassess the work schedule for the site. Whiteaker suggested that in order to keep the camp occupied, "it is desired to construct one look-out house on top of a high mountain, reached by trails already constructed and over-looking the town of Fort Davis, Keesey Canyon and the Indian Village," the future connecting trail between the park service site in town and the state park. To compensate for the lack of a large dam, Whiteaker called instead for two small dams in front of the Indian Lodge. The total cost of this expanded work would be $2,360.00, which could employ the crew for 1,400 "man-months" (the amount of time per worker needed to complete the job). [52]

The expectations of the locals were met and exceeded by the demands of Texas state officials, who taught the park service lessons about regional politics that would affect later decisions about the inclusion of Fort Davis in the park system. D.E. Colp, chairman of the state parks board, wondered why the NPS would need 12 months of money for a dam at Indian Lodge, when the state believed that it could do so in 30 to 60 days. "I think there should be 25 or 30 dams built in the Big Bend project," said Colp, and he rejected the idea that it was Texas' fault for the design problems. Colp pleaded with Maier to push for more money so that Texas had "an opportunity to demonstrate to you and the NPS that a large dam can be built at a reasonable cost and reasonable time." George Nason, district inspector for the Oklahoma City-based NPS State Parks Division, disagreed, telling Herbert Maier (now also in Oklahoma City) that "the Lodge at Fort Davis was a larger project than should have been attempted." Nason claimed that "it was started under the control of the Texas Relief Commission at time when the approval of a [park service] District Officer was not required to start a building." Nason suggested that the NPS agree to continue the Indian Lodge camp for another 90-day period, and learn from the fact that "this is simply one of the holdovers from the super-ambitions of the first period of CCC." [53]

The more that Herbert Maier contemplated the costs of completing the work at Indian Lodge, the more he wished to be rid of the task. Writing on January 31, 1935, to his superiors in the ECW office in Washington, the regional office director defined the park as "another case of unreliable estimates in Texas." The Texas state parks board seemed to have "[i]nspectors [who] are not trained as building contractors," while materials purchases were billed to the wrong accounts. The NPS thus had no funds to complete the light plant, painting of the stucco and interior plastered walls, and the "painting or staining [of] all interior and exterior wood work." The extensive flagstone terracing also would have to come from a quarry 17 miles away. "We are exceedingly anxious to get finished at Fort Davis and get out," Maier reported, and concluded: "We certainly know now what is beyond our scope and of course this sort of thing cannot occur in the future under the new method of submitting individual projects." [54]

New accountability procedures notwithstanding, the park service had to salvage what it could at the Indian Lodge before the removal of the CCC camp in the spring of 1935. George Nason decided to convert the garage at the site into an employees' dormitory, which Herbert Maier agreed was necessary, saying: "It most certainly spoils the general appearance of a park to have trucks and old cars standing around with no place to house them." Despite the presence of two hundred laborers, the NPS had not been able to complete a road around the lodge, and the flagstone would have to be laid by "a transient camp or some sort of an FERA [Federal Emergency Relief Administration] project at this point." Nason agreed, and tried at first to put a positive spin on the closure of the camp. "I feel quite confident," he told Maier on February 13, 1935, "that while you may find some error in detail in the solution of the Indian Lodge problem, yet when completed, it is going to be one of the most effective things we have done in a structure so far in Texas." Unfortunately, Nason did not maintain this optimism as the date for camp removal arrived, reporting to Maier on March 23: "I am writing this letter so that you might be relieved to know that this white elephant is practically ready for burial." [55]

Closure of the Davis Mountains CCC camp that spring did not relieve the NPS of the burden of completing Indian Lodge to the satisfaction of Texas officials or local interests. Because he did not receive a promised water supply for his grazing stock, lessor J.W. Merrill asked instead to be given a windmill installed at NPS expense on his property. When the state took control of the lodge in the summer of 1935, they petitioned the park service for both a lighting plant and furniture. The Texas park board claimed that it had "only $5,000 with which to buy equipment and furniture for all of its [60] projects in Texas and they have spent quite a bit of this in setting up a plant, and hiring a furniture maker to turn out craftsman furniture." The roof was also deficient, and the lack of fireplaces irritated visitors who equated them with a mountain experience. Then in 1937 John H. Veale, associate engineer for the newly established "Region III" of the park service in Santa Fe (the future Southwest Regional office, or SWR), discovered on a visit to the Indian Lodge that its sewage disposal system was "in serious need of revision," while the water supply "should be investigated and perhaps revised." [56]

Despite these crises, the park service made a calculated decision to replace the CCC crew at Indian Lodge with one completing its tasks in the Big Bend area. There local boosters had waged a similar campaign to have the NPS include the spectacular canyons of the Rio Grande into its system. The crew also came to the Davis Mountains because NPS officials admitted privately that they had larger plans for the region that required them to cooperate with powerful Texas politicians, such as House Speaker John Nance Gamer and U.S. Senator Tom Connally. Herbert Maier told George Nason in February 1935: "I have felt that we could justify the Indian Lodge at Ft. Davis on the basis of the fact that we are considering the whole Ft. Davis area as you yourself have stated as a vacation land." By continuing the work at the lodge, said Maier, "we should regard the whole thing as a chain of parks with the Indian Lodge handy and near the entrance to the mountains and the scenic drives from there going on into the several other parks that might later on be established in the Davis Mountains." Maier had seen a map depicting the Scenic Loop highway, "and it occurred to me that some sort of a map of this kind showing how the Indian Lodge will serve an immense area later on will be a good thing for us to have at hand in case it became necessary for us to justify our efforts in the past." [57]

The NPS evidently had informed Texas officials of this long-term goal of controlling the Davis Mountains recreational sites, because in August 1937 Don Adams, president of the Brewster County chamber of commerce, wrote to El Paso congressman R.E. Thomason to support transfer of the Big Bend CCC camp to Indian Lodge. While the Alpine-based chamber had been a staunch promoter of a national park 110 miles south at Big Bend, it had learned that "it is the desire of both the National Park Service and the Texas State Parks Board to move the CCC camp." Park service personnel had told Adams that the NPS "anticipates that the region will eventually come under its jurisdiction, and is not anxious that further work would be continued under the supervision of the State." The Alpine chamber had opposed the camp transfer, but now was aware that the state board, "realizing that this area is to be made into a national park, prefers to expend monies on State Parks." Adams told Thomason: "We believe, and think that you will agree with us, that the Fort Davis State Park is one of the most potential areas that the State Parks Board has, and that it should be developed." Hence the chamber asked the west Texas representative to support the transfer "with the least possible delay." [58]

Alpine's change of heart about federal control of Davis Mountain land demonstrated the shift of emphasis inspired by the New Deal. The state of Texas decided to join the national consensus about historic celebrations, which had begun in 1931 with the "sesquicentennial" (150th anniversary) of the British Army's surrender to American forces at Yorktown, Virginia. The success of this exercise led other states to promote historic events, whether national or local, with increasing fervor. Texas joined the party in 1934 with plans to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Texas Revolution, which had led in 1836 to formation of the Lone Star Republic. In comparing the Texas experience at historical celebrations to its peers nationwide, Michael Kammen noted that the state developed "a candid dual theme of 'patriotism and commercialism,"' according to minutes of the centennial commission meetings. Enduring evidence of the Texas commemoration in 1936 ranged from staging of a college football bowl game in Dallas on New Year's Day (the Cotton Bowl), to the identification of historic sites and construction of roadside markers to highlight the Texas story for travelers and natives alike. [59]

By 1935, both Texas and the National Park Service had embraced history as a worthy theme for expenditure of public money and time. T.E. Fehrenbach wrote of the balancing act that Texas leaders attempted in the Thirties to bring to the state federal funds that could rescue the economy from the Depression, while keeping the hated "Yankees" at bay, especially their rules and regulations formed in a more urban, industrial society. "With the coming of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," said Fehrenbach, "Texas was able to transfer approximately 70 percent of its social costs to the Federal government." Because of its sizeable voting bloc in Congress, and its southern Democratic tendencies, Texas sent to Washington politicians who "secured to their state, in various ways, money far exceeding its population's proportionate share [27 percent above the national average]." At the same time, the Lone Star state "could not resist longing for the Yankees to let the natives in the hinterlands run things for themselves, whether the Great White Father liked the way they were run or not." This would extend to the park service as it completed work on the Davis Mountains State Park, and cast about for other areas that could be developed at public expense. [60]

This public-private enterprise in far west Texas echoed policy changes in Washington, as in 1935 Congress enacted the "Historic Sites Act." Coupled with the Historic American Buildings Survey (1933), these actions, in Kammen's words, "explicitly confirmed that a central role for the Park Service in historic preservation should be fostered by the federal government." The Historic Sites Act also created an advisory board to screen proposals for park locations. Unfortunately for the NPS, the great volume of requests for survey work forced the agency, said Kammen, "to establish nominating procedures that . . . may have stifled proposals from regional, minority, and relatively uninfluential groups that found it hard to fulfill lofty criteria for 'national significance.'" [61]

Proof of this phenomenon came to the west Texas area quickly in 1935, as H.E. Rothrock, geologic supervisor for the state park division of WASO, wrote to the Oklahoma City office to promote study of a site he had visited while traveling through the Davis Mountains and Big Bend country. Rothrock had come upon the ruins of one of Fort Davis' outposts, Camp Pena Colorado, located six miles southwest of the railroad town of Marathon. "The area appears to be worth preserving," said Rothrock, "because it is said to have constituted an important link in the Indian trails across the country and was later used as an Indian outpost fort." The geologist recognized "the presence of large, cool, sweet water springs which issue from the base of a commanding cliff and are located in [an] otherwise desert country . . . [that] is the last place on the road . . . to Terlingua . . . at which shade or water can be obtained throughout the year." Rothrock saw the presence of humans and cattle, but could not determine land ownership. He then closed his letter to the Oklahoma office with reasoning that had been missing from earlier studies of Fort Davis and the area: "Due to the unique character of [Camp Pena Colorado], the variety of interests represented and its relation to the Big Bend reservation, I thought that you might be interested in considering this area for development and preservation." [62]

Rothrock's letter outlined the latest problem for boosters of Fort Davis as a tourist attraction. The NPS geologist had come to the area not to study military posts, but to respond to congressional passage in 1935 of a bill creating Big Bend National Park. Arthur R. Gomez wrote of the elaborate (and successful) campaign waged in Texas and Washington on behalf of the Rio Grande site in his book, A Most Singular Country: A History of Occupation in the Big Bend (1990). Like Fort Davis, patients recuperating from Texas' malarial conditions in the early twentieth century came to the Boquillas Hot Springs. And like Fort Davis, said Gomez, "community boosters viewed the [NPS] legislation as an opportunity to stimulate a stagnating regional economy through the promotion of tourism." Unlike the Davis Mountains, however, the climate was harsher and grazing in the arid Chisos range more risky. The large ranchers owed back taxes on much of their property, and the park service believed that this would soften resistance to land sales. Roger Toll paid the Big Bend country a visit like he did the Davis Mountains, and in the words of Gomez: "The aesthetic and sometimes mysterious quality of the heralded geologic attractions of the region deeply impressed [the park service surveyor]." [63]

Big Bend attracted the attention of the park service and Congress where Fort Davis did not because of the prominent opinion-makers who stood strongly for its inclusion in the NPS system. The Alpine chamber of commerce created a separate group to promote the park at all levels of government. One stroke of public-relations genius was their hiring as a consultant Walter Prescott Webb, the dean of Texas historians. The University of Texas history professor took a highly visible raft trip in 1937 down the Rio Grande through the Big Bend, writing about the wonders of Boquillas Canyon, the romance of the Mexican border, and of the need for public investment to preserve these unique resources. The president of Sul Ross State College in Alpine also approached Amon Carter, publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, for his assistance in both publicity and fundraising. Carter helped create the "Texas Big Bend Park Association," and sold his readers on "the advantages of a tourist industry to the Lone Star State." The Fort Worth publisher also leveraged his power with political leaders, and when Texas Governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel received correspondence from FDR asking his support for Big Bend, the governor and Texas legislature agreed to a $1 million appropriation to purchase the land that became in 1944 Texas' first national park. [64]

Fort Davis boosters knew of these efforts on behalf of Big Bend through their business connections in Alpine, and the conversations they had in 1935 with both state and federal officials swarming over the Davis Mountains. While they expressed no jealousy in public over the success of the Brewster County park, nonetheless their commitment to the old military post faced challenges of competition for federal money. To that end Barry Scobee and his friends in Fort Davis asked the Texas Centennial Commission to build several highway markers in the area. In November 1935, the historical board of the commission agreed to allocate to Jeff Davis County four such markers: one at Wild Rose Pass, one at the adobe ruins of the Manuel Musquiz ranch, one at the ruins of the fort, and one at the "gravesite" of "Indian Emily." It was the latter story that Scobee used effectively to promote the romance and glamour of life at Fort Davis, in the process publicizing a story that would haunt the park service a generation later when it came to the Davis Mountains to conduct its own historical research. [65]

It is ironic that the Indian Emily story would garner more notoriety than any other feature of Fort Davis' history prior to creation of the park. What gripped the imagination of the Texas Centennial Commission was a sentimental piece written by Scobee in the May 31, 1935 issue of the Alpine Avalanche. Scobee, who had learned of the local legend of Indian Emily from area ranchers while assisting Carl Raht with his book, entitled the article: "Indian Squaw Who Betrayed Her People And Gave Her Life Out Of Love For Young Officer Is Paid Honor By Fort Davis Citizens On Memorial Day." Scobee recounted the tale of the young "Apache maid" whom soldiers had brought to the post after defeating her people in a skirmish in nearby Limpia Canyon. Nursed back to health by the mother of a young officer, Emily (so the story went) developed an infatuation with Lieutenant Thomas Easton, only to be heartbroken when he chose to wed an Anglo woman. She fled the fort, found her people, whom Scobee described as "the fierce and warring Apaches," only to return one night to warn the fort of an impending attack. A sentry fired into the darkness upon her arrival, and she died in the arms of Mrs. Easton saying (in Scobee's words): "My people - they come - kill, they must not kill TOM!" [66]

This story fit well with the nation's understanding in the 1930s of the "noble" savage, as Indians were depicted in film, literature, and song. The story echoes what one scholar of Indian history, Rayna Green (herself of Indian descent), called the "Pocahontas Perplex;" a reference to the story of the young Indian girl who pleaded with her father, Powhatan, to spare the life of Captain John Smith, and by extension the Jamestown colony of 1607. Scobee, needing evidence of the Indian Emily story for the commission's marker program, asked old timers about the location of her grave, walked the grounds of the fort, and fashioned a tale of lost love and tragedy that transcended the bounds of race and gender, if not memory. Unfortunately, this did not convince the commission to purchase the fort as part of its centennial program. Supposedly the James estate of San Antonio, still owning the fort grounds, asked too much money for its sale. In October 1935, the commission decided to submit the Fort Davis proposal to the newly created "Federal Centennial Commission," which had received funding from Congress to expand the work of the state historical board. At that time the state commission agreed to spend $25,000 for a "Historical and Scientific Society Museum" in Alpine, one more reminder to Scobee and his associates of the awkward status of Fort Davis in the minds of historical agencies. Yet another blow came in January 1936, when the federal commission ruled that it could not spend money on "permanent structures." News stories in the town did not mention the supposed opposition to the post by John Nance Gamer, Vice-President of the United States and a longtime Texas congressman. Nor did they comment on the locals' decision to promote the park as "a memorial to Jefferson Davis," whose name evoked different responses in west Texas and Washington, DC. Even the entreaties of J. Frank Dobie, a member of the historical board, went unheeded as he pleaded for use of leftover monies in the commission budget to purchase Fort Davis. [67]