FORT DAVIS Administrative History

As if money were not enough of an obstacle at Fort Davis, Allen reported to Washington headquarters that the study group, even though it spent only a short time in the "rather remote west Texas town of Fort Davis," learned that "no great or overwhelming amount of public interest in, or support of, the Fort Davis National Historic Site proposal was detected among the local population." Utley and his colleagues had heard rumors that "some confusion existed among some of the Fort Davis Historical Society members as whether they favored Federal or private ownership of the fort area." While there were proponents like Barry Scobee, failure to achieve strong community backing would make the high cost and duplicative historical nature of the site hard to sell to Congress, unless changes occurred in Washington in the elections that November. [54]

One resident of Fort Davis who was not "confused" about the merits of federal spending in his adopted hometown was Barry Scobee, who pressed on with plans to promote the park with any means at his disposal. This extended in August 1960 to assisting Congressman Rutherford in preparing remarks on Fort Davis to a civic group in Odessa. Scobee had decided that his 40-page pamphlet on Fort Davis needed updating, and began the process that summer, which led him to reminisce about his work with Carl Raht and development of the legends of the Davis Mountains. The judge suggested that Rutherford speak about writing history in the area, especially since he had learned that Raht, now 80-years old, was "haunting the library" in Odessa in his efforts to revise his 1917 study of the region. This in turn led Scobee to speak of the Indian Emily story, as Rutherford wanted to recount the tale to the Odessa audience. "It was [Raht] who first put Indian Emily into print, so far as known," said Scobee, and "where he got it I have no idea. " But the criticism of Robert Utley rankled the old history buff, and he claimed: "I have found material that gives the tale, apparently, sound backing." Yet Scobee had been chastened by the NPS skepticism towards his most cherished memory, and he confided in Rutherford: "If I ever see [Raht] again . . . I'll hold him down on the sidewalk with my foot till he tells me the truth about the story." [55]

Barry Scobee had more on his mind in the fall of 1960 than revenge upon Carl Raht for the Indian Emily story. As a longtime activist in the Jeff Davis County Democratic party, Scobee worked with others in the community to support the re-election of J.T. Rutherford to the U.S. Congress, and the national victory of John F. Kennedy as president, and Texas's own Lyndon B. Johnson as his vice-president. The Kennedy-Johnson ticket promised to "get the country moving again;" a reference to the quiescence that had set in during the latter years of the Eisenhower administration. Kennedy also had campaigned on a promise to restore American military prestige, supposedly "lost" as the United States and the Soviet Union bickered over who had more virtue in world affairs. All of this contentiousness led to a razor-thin margin of victory for Kennedy (a mere one-tenth of one percent), but Democratic control of both houses of Congress made Scobee and local sponsors of Fort Davis believe that their long-desire park could become part of Kennedy's "New Frontier."

In the intervening months between the election and the Kennedy inauguration, the Eisenhower Interior department decided to move the Fort Davis issue forward, but in a form that dissatisfied the incoming chairman of the House subcommittee on national parks, J.T. Rutherford. Fred Seaton informed the Odessa Democrat that Fort Davis was only "eligible for Registered National Historic Landmark status," not inclusion in the NPS system. "This is contrary to what I had been led to believe was the purpose of your investigation," the new chairman told Seaton on December 19, 1960, "and it seems to me that the time, money and effort spent in studying the project is simply wasted if the action of the Government is to be limited to the issuance of a certificate [standard procedure with landmark designations only] with no provision for improving or owning the site." Suggesting the Democrats' newfound clout in Washington, Rutherford told the outgoing secretary: "This is to notify you that I shall, immediately upon the convening of the 87th Congress, again introduce a bill on this subject." He reminded Seaton: "I withheld action on the [1960] bill . . . at the Department's request until the study could be completed by your organization." The "lame-duck" decision by Interior rankled Rutherford, who warned Seaton: "This time I shall push for prompt enactment." [56]

Within two weeks, the Eisenhower appointees had vacated their offices in Washington, and the new Interior secretary, former Arizona Representative Stewart Udall, changed direction for the park service in general and Fort Davis in particular. Rutherford and Udall had been members of the House Interior committee, and the Texas congressman received on January 9, 1961, a notice from Interior that apologized for the "confusion" surrounding park status for the fort. In its haste to release names of potential sites to the public, the department had included Fort Davis in the category of national landmarks, but had not specified that "there is a very small number of these sites that are being considered for Federal ownership but are not publicized and announced as such in the press release." Landmark status "does not adversely affect in any way our desire to consider [Fort Davis] for Federal ownership," wrote assistant secretary George W. Abbott, who promised that park status "will be the subject of the Department's report on your bill." [57]

As Rutherford pushed Interior to revise its thinking on Fort Davis, he continued to lay the groundwork for his bill, HR 566, to make the post a national historic site. In late December he informed Barry Scobee confidentially that he would speak personally with Kennedy and Johnson about the measure in the days prior to the start of Congress. To that end, Rutherford needed from Scobee "letters from the [county] tax assessor that he has no objection to the fort being taken off the tax rolls, and the same from the [county] commissioners and judge." All this action stimulated Scobee to complete his "Old Fort Davis" manuscript, and select a publisher to have the volume ready if and when Rutherford met with success in Washington. The judge also organized a meeting of the local historical society in early January to discuss the project, and they invited the superintendent of Big Bend, Stanley C. Joseph, to offer advice. As his predecessor, Lon Garrison, had done with the same group eight years earlier, Joseph spoke to "general legislative and budgetary processes" about the park service. The society then asked specifically "how application is made for registration of Fort Davis and who should make the application." Society members also wondered about the timing of such an application, in light of Rutherford's plans for legislation that month. Inspiring this inquiry, said Joseph to the SWR director, were "several recent newspaper articles, "one of which in the Alpine Avalanche included the cryptic comment from the congressman that "the Old Fort can be operated in such a manner by Department of Interior as 'to be financially self-sustaining.'" Rutherford did not elaborate on how this might be accomplished, nor whether this promise was critical to passage of HR 566. [58]

Perhaps one reason for the congressman's reference to the profitability of Fort Davis (in spite of the local historical society's failure to raise enough monies to purchase it, let alone maintain the property) was the reaction in west Texas and other parts of the country to the election of perceived "liberals" like Kennedy and Johnson, and the sweep of the Congress by like-minded individuals. Rutherford became concerned by April 1961 that the person hired to manage the grounds for Mrs. Jackson, a Mr. George Westfall of California, belonged to the John Birch Society, an organization that opposed the expansion of federal power and taxation. The congressman asked Barry Scobee to investigate, and the judge told Rutherford: "It was news to me . . . that he was openly soliciting members." Upon reflection, Scobee conceded that Westfall was "just the type who would be doing that sort of thing," but also admitted: "There was no other person to hire . . . [since] nobody wants [the caretaker's job] who can be satisfactory." The judge regretted that so soon after Kennedy's victory local suspicion of government had reared its head. "A strange angle of things here," warned Scobee, "is that a lot of people supposed to be Democratic are voting GOP [Republican] . . . even some of my Demo committeemen." For the sake of local harmony (something that Rutherford needed as HR 566 wended its way through committee), Scobee asked him not to mail brochures condemning the "Birchers," as "it could react against you, and me too." [59]

Once Barry Scobee had begun to wonder about the propriety of Mrs. Jackson's employee, he believed that he should inform Congressman Rutherford of the peculiarities of the managers of the tourist facilities of the society, Mr. and Mrs. Rodolfo Guzzardi. In an article in the San Angelo Standard Times (March 12), Scobee described them as artists (he from Florence, Italy, she from Georgia) "who have been here two years specializing in painting pictures of early-day transportation, specifically stagecoaches and wagons." One of the paintings done by Mrs. Guzzardi was of Indian Emily's grave, which Scobee described as "a creation of breath-taking beauty, with its granite and bronze marker, its pile of rocks and a lone mesquite sapling . . . all against a backdrop of colorful stone cliffs that shield the ancient post cemetery from the wailing winds. "To the congressman, Scobee narrated a slightly different image (more akin to that of Robert Utley). "He [Rodolfo] is a crabbed, foreign, maestro, with national standing in his art work," said the judge, who "had offended so many people by his ungracious crabbedness that the executive committee of the Society wrangled a lot about giving the lease on the Post." Yet like the Westfalls, "there was no one else for the job," and the Guzzardis did "lend an important, inviting atmosphere," as "outsiders, cultured people interested in Art, from Odessa and Midland, etc., rave over him." [60]

Rutherford kept quiet the information provided him by Barry Scobee on the potential for controversy at the fort, pushing instead for his committee to consider the historic site legislation along with 126 similar measures. Senator Yarborough had also introduced a Fort Davis bill that winter (S. 862), which came before the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. The committee chairman, Clinton P. Anderson (D-New Mexico), was like Yarborough a Democrat, a western history buff, and a close personal friend of Vice-President Johnson. Anderson requested of the Interior department information on the cost of purchasing and restoring the site, and learned in April that the NPS would need $115,000 to acquire the property from Mrs. Jackson. The park service then agreed to develop a five-year plan for Fort Davis, with total costs estimated at $1,055,000. This same report went to Wayne Aspinall's House Interior committee, and the Colorado Democrat announced hearings that month on Rutherford's request. Rutherford made one last request of Scobee that the Fort Davis Historical Society provide him with "a simple resolution of support," and then he could proceed with subcommittee action. [61]

That action came quickly, as Rutherford wrote to Scobee in early May to ask that he come to Washington at the end of the month to testify in favor of HR 566. When Senator Yarborough learned that May 25 had been scheduled for House hearings, he prevailed upon Senator Anderson to place the Fort Davis measure on the Senate calendar for the following day. Scobee, who had neither flown in a plane before nor been to the nation's capital, traveled to Washington with Martin Merrill, representing the newly created "Highland Chamber of Commerce," based in Marfa, and Judge Gerald Fugit of Odessa. While in Odessa awaiting departure of their flight, Scobee and Merrill visited with Carl Raht, telling him of the last step on the journey for their dream of a park in the Davis Mountains. Once in Washington, Scobee and the park supporters were called to the House hearing room on the morning of May 25, where the venerable champion of Fort Davis read a twelve-minute prepared statement, along with remarks from NPS Director Conrad Wirth. At both the House and Senate hearings, Scobee reiterated themes and details that he had come to memorize over the years, and closed with an appeal to the nation's lawmakers: "Today people feel that the old fort, because it symbolizes the courage, sacrifices, persistence, and the idealism of brave men and women on a wild frontier, should be perpetuated as a shrine to American history." [62]

After thirty five years of telling the story of Fort Davis, Barry Scobee could take great satisfaction in the treatment he received in Washington, which included a gallery pass from Senator Yarborough allowing the judge to hear President Kennedy deliver a 45-minute speech to a joint session of Congress before his return to west Texas. Scobee put the finishing touches on his manuscript on the post, and learned on July 17 that HR 566 had been approved by the full House. Senator Yarborough then shepherded his measure through the Senate, which on August 29 concurred in the wisdom of the House. Gene Hendryx of radio station KVLF in Alpine then played a taped interview that day that he had conducted with his old Sul Ross college friend, which included several references to the hard work of Barry Scobee. The judge himself was concerned about the next phase of park creation: funding from Washington. He wrote to Rutheford "asking why couldn't the House or Senate pass a resolution . . . to allow the NPS to use funds on hand to make the fort purchase and start work." His fear was that more buildings would collapse before Congress appropriated money from the next fiscal year budget (to begin on July 1, 1963), and he told his close friend Frank Temple from Lubbock: "[The] NPS better hurry if they want to preserve anything." [63]

In the euphoria of Scobee, Rutherford, et al. , consequent to passage of the Fort Davis legislation, they had been able to overlook the undercurrent of opposition in town toward creation of the park. On the day that Scobee testified in Washington before Rutherford's committee, a reporter for the San Angelo Standard Times came to Fort Davis to visit the post, and to interview Rodolfo Guzzardi about the importance of the pending legislation. While the artist approved of the action, he also warned that "the federal government will make too many changes on the post unless residents hold out for certain conditions." He told the reporter that "some government people suggest tearing down many of the old buildings because they are unsafe." Compounding the problem was the provincialism of the townspeople, who in the words of the Italian native "'are blissfully ignorant of what "restoration" means.'" Guzzardi cited as evidence of this the changes at the San Jose Mission in San Antonio, which he claimed to have painted in the 1930s. Fort Davis did need help, as Guzzardi said that "age, weather and vandalism have made a ruin of it." His great fear was the "prospect of tourists 'driving 2,000 miles to see something loused up.'" [64]

Guzzardi's remarks were not as disturbing to Scobee and Rutherford as were those of Martin Merrill, who began a campaign disparaging the efforts of the Odessa Democrat even before President Kennedy had an opportunity to sign the legislation. Merrill, a Republican whom local residents marvelled would testify on behalf of the bill as he did, complained to his friends that Rutherford was "'hell bent' on spending federal money for the Fort." The congressman wrote confidentially to Scobee that the state's Republican senator, the newly elected John Tower, had shown no interest in the measure. Rutherford also reminded the judge that Merrill had offered to donate toward the purchase price the $2,500 raised by the historical society. "Now," said the congressman, "if [Merrill] wants to accept the responsibility of raising the funds by donation he is certainly at liberty to do so," given the language of the bill that "allows the raising of all funds to acquire the property without any federal monies being spent." Rutherford then hinted that Merrill's change of heart signalled the Republicans' strategy to oppose him in the 1962 elections, and he told Scobee: "I certainly appreciate your so completely filling me in on Merrill's political outlook and background so that I will know more about what to expect from him as the race approaches." [65]

Even as Rutherford and Scobee commiserated about the perennial nature of politics in Fort Davis's journey to park status, President Kennedy on September 8 signed Public Law 87-213, "An Act Authorizing the establishment of a national historic site at Fort Davis, Jeff Davis County, Texas." Citing the authority of Congress in 1916 that created the National Park Service, and the 1935 Historic Sites Act, the law called for "the Secretary of the Interior . . . to construct and maintain therein such markers , buildings, and other improvements and facilities for the care and accommodation of visitors, as he may deem necessary." Congress authorized the $115,000 purchase price sought by Mrs. Jackson, and limited the NPS to acquisition of no more than 460 acres of land, "together with any improvements thereon." This latter condition posed problems for early action on rehabilitation work, as Congress would not appropriate the funds prior to fiscal year 1963. Unless other means of acquisition surfaced, the site would be in legal abeyance until then. [66]

For the local sponsors of Fort Davis, the fall of 1961 was a time to give thanks, especially to those who fought so long for creation of the park. Martin Merrill wrote ten days after Kennedy's signing to Bish and Sally Tweedy, now in Rector, Pennsylvania, to thank them for their efforts a decade earlier. "Because it was due to your inspiration and energy that the Fort Davis Historical Society was founded," said the Tweedy's friend, "I am writing you to offer our sincerest regards." But plans for a celebratory picnic in October, concurrent with the 107th anniversary of the founding of the post in 1854, drew more political heat than Scobee had anticipated. Merrill, as society president, and R.D. McCready offered strong opposition at a meeting in September of the group planning the event. Scobee informed Rutherford: "They maintained that it would be better to wait until the post is dedicated as a National Historic Site to invite you and the Senator [Yarborough]." Making matters worse was a letter from Gene Hendryx to George Enloe of the society (whom Scobee identified as most likely a Republican) that offered Alpine's participation in any celebration, along with a warning that "it might not be wise to have both you and Mr. Yarborough at the same time, as 'politicians do not like to have their light dimmed by two being present at the same time.'" Scobee himself expressed some dissatisfaction with Hendryx, whom the judge suspected of "becoming politically interested in a state Rep. [representative] job," and with the community of Alpine, which "has done nothing, beyond well wishing, in the fort project. [67]

Embarrassed by the political skirmishing at the historical society meeting (Scobee called it "a little war out in the sticks"), Mrs. Lucy Miller expressed her own displeasure at the partisan stance taken by Merrill, and called for a picnic on October 24. At that time, she said, "'It is right and a must that public acknowledgement be extended to Mr. Rutherford in person.'" Some 200 hundred guests arrived that evening at the Prude Guest Ranch, with none other than Martin Merrill as master of ceremonies. Big Bend Superintendent Stanley Joseph represented the park service at the picnic. Congressman Rutherford was in attendance, while Senator Yarborough had to decline the invitation to appear because he was in Africa on military reserve duty. Rutherford gave Scobee a copy of the original Fort Davis bill, along with "the pen used by President Kennedy in signing the bill into law." The judge then presented to Rutherford a plaque, made from a piece of board found on the post grounds, and adorned with iron nails used in "'the last structure erected on the post, a quartermaster warehouse put up by the 3rd Cavalry in 1885.'" The guests then dined on barbecue, and left with a sense that the history of their town and its surroundings would change once again with the arrival of the National Park Service in their midst. [68]