PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

Purpose

This administrative history is primarily intended to provide monument managers with a better understanding of the complex issues underlying both the creation and subsequent administration of Pipe Spring National Monument. The study will also provide support staff working in the areas of resource management, interpretation, and maintenance with useful and accurate information to assist them in understanding how past events and decisions have impacted their areas of responsibility. The assumption underlying all administrative histories of National Park Service units is that through examining the problems their predecessors faced and the courses they followed, officials at all levels can be better informed about current issues and thus bring greater awareness to future management decisions.

The need for this study was identified in mid-November 1994 during an on-site meeting between members of the Rocky Mountain Region's cultural resources management team, led by Historical Architect Rodd Wheaton, and staff of Pipe Spring National Monument and Zion National Park. Superintendent John W. Hiscock had supervised the monument for only six months when the team responded to his request for technical assistance. Hiscock asked those assembled at this meeting to consider the question, what were the monument's most pressing cultural resource management needs and what would it take to address those needs? An ethnographic study of Zion National Park and Pipe Spring National Monument was already in progress. It was agreed at the time that, after a resource management plan, the next two most critical studies needed were a cultural landscape assessment and an administrative history. It was acknowledged that oral histories were also an important "mother lode" of information that had only partly been mined by past monument historians and few of those interviews had ever been transcribed.

Format and Organization

In researching and writing this study, I endeavored to gather and present information that would not only fulfill the requirements of an administrative history but that would also be useful to the monument in future studies, particularly those identified at the 1994 meeting. For example, this history documents the monument's efforts over the years to create a historic house museum, which may be useful to a future historic furnishings report; a chronology of past restoration and rehabilitation work on the monument's historic buildings will be equally essential to a historic structures report. (The drawback to such an approach, of course, is that in trying to create such an "all-purpose" document, far more detail is included than the average reader cares to wade through!) In the same vein, a coordinated approach was taken by monument management both in the timing and requests for funding and in the undertaking of a number of needed studies, contemporaneous with the administrative history project. All of the monument's documents were searched and assessed for pertinence; those determined of historical value were organized and archived. Thirteen oral history interviews (conducted by monument staff between 1973 and 1989) were transcribed in 1996; another 14 interviews were conducted in 1996 and 1997, eight of which were with members of the Kaibab Paiute Tribe. All of these interviews provided much useful information. Moreover, data collected in 1997 to inventory and evaluate the monument's cultural landscape was also used and expanded on in the administrative history. This "layering" of projects was highly effective, both from a standpoint of funding and in increasing the amount of historical data which could be gathered.

While there was initial discussion about writing the monument's history using a thematic framework (having separate issue chapters on interpretation, tribal relations, and water matters, for example), it soon became apparent that a chronological format was a more appropriate and useful way to tell the Pipe Spring story. This is primarily due to the continually overlapping nature and complexity of monument issues. Beginning with Part IV, each chapter has an introductory section; most provide a historical context for the time period along with descriptions of changes in officials from the Washington, D.C., to the local levels. Most introductions offer a quick "snap shot" of the years covered in the chapter, highlighting the most significant events.

No existing historical or ethnographic studies adequately provided a background for the types of research questions being asked in this study. While a small number of articles and booklets have been published about Pipe Spring's early history, my research revealed that a significant amount of error and contradiction existed in these secondary sources. Realizing that some of what I presented in Part I would not be in keeping with some other histories in use at the monument, I took great care to endnote source material. Not all questions about the site's early history have been definitively settled. Additional research into 19th century documents may yield more answers, but was far outside the scope of this administrative history.

One thing became apparent as soon as I delved deeply into the history of the monument, and that is that one could not comprehend its history or appreciate the complexity of controversial matters — particularly about water - without at least a general understanding of the history of the two neighboring communities: the Kaibab Indian Reservation and the Mormon settlement of Moccasin. While it was beyond the scope of this study to chronicle a complete history of either of those communities, references to them continually surfaced in monument documents, some of which is included in this history. Part I contains background information about the Kaibab Indian Reservation and Moccasin to facilitate the reader's understanding of later events. This study provides only scattered references, however, to economic and social conditions among these communities after the Great Depression. As those communities research and compile their own histories, the Pipe Spring story can only grow richer.

The history of the monument's establishment is prefaced with a description of its setting and with historical and ethnographical background on the Arizona Strip. From that point onward, the history is written predominantly in chronological fashion through World War II. Beginning with the chapter on the Cold War (Part VIII) the chronological style is continued, but section headings tend to assume a more predictable format, allowing the reader to target specific information from one chapter to the next with relative ease. This style of organization, along with the index and an electronic version of this document, will enable monument staff to quickly computer-search subject areas and generate comprehensive reports on various sub-topics of the monument's history.

Sources

Research for this administrative history relied heavily on primary federal government documents from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), especially Records of the National Park Service, Record Group 79. Documents were also located in the NARA's Records of the Office of the Secretary of the Interior, Record Group 48, and from Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Record Group 75. Documentation on the Division of Grazing's Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp DG-44 was primarily obtained from NARA's Records of the CCC, Record Group 35, and from monument archives. Other Park Service records and official correspondence were obtained primarily from the archives and administrative files of Pipe Spring National Monument and Zion National Park.

In addition to these sources, documents critical to the understanding of the history of the Kaibab Indian Reservation and its relations to the monument came from one regional office and two field stations of the BIA, listed below. Most documents related to the history of the Union Pacific's tours of and development in southern Utah and northern Arizona parks came from the Union Pacific Museum's archives in Omaha, Nebraska. Oral histories were also an important source of information. Oral history interviews were conducted with former superintendents (both of Pipe Spring and Zion), former interpreters and other monument staff, local cattlemen, Kaibab Paiute, and others. Maps, plans, and construction drawings were particularly helpful in reconstructing the history of monument developments and changes to the landscape (see Appendix XII for a list of these documents). Historical photographs were also useful in that regard.

The following is a comprehensive list by state of archives and libraries visited by either Historian Mary S. Culpin and/or myself in the course of research:

Arizona: Bureau of Indian Affairs, Western Regional Office, Branch of Real Estate Services and Branch of Land and Water Resources (Water Rights Protection Section), Phoenix; Hayden Library, Archives and Manuscripts, Arizona State University, Tempe; Northern Arizona University, Cline Library, Special Collections and Archives Department, Flagstaff; Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff; Pipe Spring National Monument archives and administrative files, Fredonia

California: Bancroft Library, Manuscript Collections, University of California, Berkeley; National Archives and Records Administration, San Bruno and Laguna Nigel

Colorado: National Archives and Records Administration, Lakewood; National Park Service, Water Resources Division files, Ft. Collins; National Park Service, Intermountain Region, Denver Support Office, administrative files; National Park Service, Denver Service Center, Technical Information Center and Library; Denver Public Library, Western History Collection

Maryland: National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

Nebraska: Union Pacific Museum, Omaha

New Mexico: National Park Service, Intermountain Region, Santa Fe Support Office, library, Santa Fe

Utah: Harold B. Lee Library, Special Collections, Brigham Young University, Provo; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church Library and Archives, Salt Lake City; Zion National Park archives and administrative files, Springdale; Bureau of Indian Affairs, Southern Paiute Field Station, St. George and Uintah and Ouray Field Station, Ft. Duschene

Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration

The following is a list of the most important series of official reports utilized during the course of research:

Annual Reports (Pipe Spring National Monument and Zion National Park)
Annual Statements for Interpretation and Visitor Services (Pipe Spring National Monument)
Custodian's/Park Manager's/Superintendent's Monthly Reports (Pipe Spring National Monument)
Camp Inspection Reports for Pipe Spring National Monument (Emergency Conservation Work/Civilian Conservation Corps)
Field Reports for Pipe Spring National Monument (Branch of Plans and Design)
Historian's Monthly Reports (Pipe Spring National Monument)
Inspection Reports (Pipe Spring National Monument)
"Notes of C. Leonard Heaton on Pipe Springs National Monument" (Heaton Journal)
Log of Significant Events (Pipe Spring National Monument)
Log of Significant Events and Important Contacts (Zion National Park)
Monthly Reports to Chief Architect (Branch of Plans and Design)
Monthly Reports to Chief of Planning (Regional Landscape Architect)
Project Completion Reports (Pipe Spring National Monument)
Reports of the Secretary of the Interior
Reports of the Director of the National Park Service
Reports of Park Engineer on Civil Works Projects
Southwestern Monuments Monthly Reports
Staff Meeting Minutes (Zion National Park)
Superintendent's Monthly Reports (Zion National Park)

The Heaton Journal, referenced above, is a particularly valuable document. Leonard Heaton, the monument's custodian from 1926-1963, kept a daily journal at the monument, faithfully recording much of what took place during those years (this was in addition to his monthly reports to superiors). While the Heaton family retains the original hand-written journal, the monument has a typed transcription, made some years later. The latter contains numerous typographic and factual errors, however, and required considerable analysis and comparison with other documents to correct. It would be very useful to the monument to have a photocopy of the original.

Citations and Research Collection

As a point of clarification, early monthly reports were dated in endnotes according to when they were written (for example, a report for August might be dated September 5, when it was prepared). In later years, the date of preparation is unknown and reports are cited for the month they were written about ("monthly report, April 1964"). Over the years titles and positions of officials often changed. In the narrative, I referred to each official by the title that was current for the period I was writing about. It is customary in official government correspondence for memorandums to use titles only, rather than names. Whenever I could determine the name of an official, I used it in the endnote in lieu of title. In a few instances, it was not possible to locate the name of the official, in which case only the title was used. Finally, whenever I provided information that came from a secondary source, I referenced the primary document in the endnote, but did not list it in the bibliography, where only the secondary source it came from was listed. With few exceptions then, the bibliography contains only those documents that I had direct access to.

With the exception of books and works cited by other authors, copies of all documents reviewed and analyzed during the course of this study now form an administrative history research collection, which will become part of the monument's permanent archives. The exact location where each document was found is referenced in pencil on the individual copy of the document. This information is not included in endnotes for several reasons. First, most of the documents obtained from the monument's archives were in process of being re-archived when copies were made for this study. In many cases, the file and location codes later changed and it was not possible for researchers to re-identify the thousands of pages of data copied and hand-labeled. Second, adding locational information to endnotes would have increased the length of these notes significantly. Third, most people who have additional questions about a document will most likely seek out the document copy in the monument's administrative history research collection, not go directly to the original archives or library. Finally, the locational information does exist on the copied document, should the reader still require it.

Within the administrative history research collection, documents from Park Service records have been filed chronologically; documents from other agencies or repositories (such as the BIA or Union Pacific) are also filed chronologically but separately, with other ix.documents from that location. Particularly lengthy or significant reports - deemed critical to the monument's administrative history - were filed in individually-labeled files and kept together to facilitate future reference. This overall organization should facilitate future use of the documents.