Whtie Sands Administrative History

An educated, articulate midwesterner like Tom Charles knew that economic survival in the Tularosa basin required flexibility in matters of economics. Rather than hewing to the public version of Calvin Coolidge's conservatism (tax cuts, budget reductions, and veneration of the free market), the insurance agent and his chamber of commerce realized that federal funds remained New Mexico's best guarantor of financial health. Dietmar Schneider-Hector characterized Charles' efforts in the 1920s to create White Sands National Monument as "Arcadian Boosterism," a reference to local novelist Eugene Manlove Rhodes' Bransford of Rainbow Range (1920). In this work Rhodes called Alamogordo "Arcadia," and claimed that among its major assets were "the railroad, two large modern sawmills, the climate and printer's ink." While witty and colorful, such descriptors disguise the sense of urgency felt by promoters of growth everywhere in the West, especially when the nation's fiscal health declined as precipitously as it did in the late 1920s and early 1930s. [31]

Tom Charles devoted a good portion of his time in the decade of the Twenties to alerting state and national leaders of the impending collapse of the Otero County economy. In 1923 he wrote to John Morrow, congressman from New Mexico , complaining of the unfairness of public land ownership in the county. Only five percent of the land (269,337 acres) belonged to private taxpayers, and only six percent of that (16,000 acres) was not classified as "arid" or "semi-arid." Local farmers had but 4,509 acres under irrigation. In contrast, the Lincoln National Forest and the Mescalero reservation received federal payments, which met some of Otero County's obligations for provision of public services. Unfortunately, said Charles, local residents could no longer finance basic services and road construction "because we are broke." Far from describing the county in the glowing terms of a Miguel Otero or an Albert Fall, Tom Charles begged the congressman for help because "we have a denuded range, eroded watersheds, silted reservoirs, flooded farms and busted stockmen." [32]

Charles' correspondence is filled with similar letters to prominent officials like U.S. Senator Sam Bratton, H.L. Kent, president of the New Mexico State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts (later New Mexico State University), and regional directors of the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. His message at all times was the same: the need for less federal control of public lands (so as to increase local tax revenues), while expanding federal investment in the transportation and communications infrastructure. Charles and his wife, Bula, also began writing a series of travel articles for publications like the New Mexico Highway Journal (later the New Mexico Magazine), extolling not the hardships of Otero County but its blessings, most prominently the Lincoln National Forest, the Mescalero reservation, and the White Sands. [33]

These activities indicate that Tom Charles had more on his mind than merely shepherding a Park Service unit through Congress. Yet his energy, commitment, and acquired political network would be essential to the success of the monument, a condition recognized by local and national leaders alike. Charles also learned from the mistakes of Albert Fall, as he avoided the appearance of self-promotion or benefit in his pursuit of NPS status for the dunes. Dietmar Schneider-Hector contended that Charles merely mimicked the efforts of his mentor (Fall), and that Charles' "admiration" for the discredited Interior secretary somehow tainted his success. Schneider-Hector also took pains to separate Charles from the moniker "The Father of White Sands," crediting instead one Numa Frenger of Las Cruces, who wrote Charles in 1926 suggesting that "a large part of [the dunes] should be saved as a Government monument." Charles graciously acknowledged the concept, but reminded Frenger: "It has been a pretty hard fight to put the idea over. We are making progress however and such letters as yours will help us materially." [34]

For Charles and his contemporaries, a better transportation network would ensue only if they collaborated closely with state highway officials. Thus by the late 1920s (when forty percent of the New Mexico state budget came from federal highway construction), Charles and the local chamber of commerce had convinced state planners to build the future U.S. Highway 70 from Las Cruces to Alamogordo, and past the dunes. Charles by 1928 would call this the "White Sands road," which upon completion was only gravel. At that point he felt ready to promote Numa Frenger's suggestion more forcefully. As a courtesy to Albert Fall, Charles wrote asking the former Cabinet secretary's advice. "We drove out over the new road to the White Sands last night," said Charles, "and are certainly delighted with it." The future monument custodian called the road "one of the prettiest that I have ever seen in New Mexico, or any place else for that matter." Charles then asked Fall for his "judgment of the possibilities along the line of having a section of the sands set aside," and confessed "my total ignorance of the first steps in the matter." [35]

Whether this latter remark was sincere or disingenuous, Charles knew of the problems facing Alamogordo as the Great Depression rolled over New Mexico, and may have requested the advice of Fall to determine the best technique for maneuvering the monument through the federal government. President Herbert Hoover in 1932 had granted Fall an early release from prison for reasons of health, and Charles also knew of Hoover's desire to expand the holdings of the NPS. This shift of emphasis heartened Charles, who also pressed the case for White Sands because homesteaders had been attracted to the dunes with the grading of the federal highway. The Alamogordo area needed another economic boost, as private enterprise had failed to provide the Las Cruces road with amenities for travelers (no gasoline stations the length of the highway from downtown Las Cruces to Alamogordo, a distance of eighty miles) . Visitors thus had few incentives to return, and Tom Charles would have fewer customers for his insurance agency. [36]

One other factor influencing the campaign for creation of White Sands National Monument was passage in 1929 by the New Mexico legislature of "Joint Memorial No. 4." This measure asked Congress to lift the twenty-acre restriction on mining claims in the dunes, as this amount was not cost-effective for investors. The aging William Hawkins had read a feature story in the Alamogordo News late in 1929 where Senator Bratton had informed Tom Charles of his support for the monument. Hawkins complained to Bratton that such a facility would deprive the area of the resource potential at the dunes. The former railroad attorney also mentioned the possibility of transferring ownership of White Sands to the state, which could then lease or sell the lands and deposit the proceeds in the public school fund (at that time a major source of educational monies). "We have enough things locked up in New Mexico now," claimed Hawkins. If Bratton felt compelled to accede to Tom Charles' wishes, he said, "for God's sake cut it [the monument] down to a thousand or two thousand acres" from the total of 270 square miles of gypsum. [37]

Hawkins' opposition to creation of the NPS unit developed momentum in February 1930, when Park Service director Horace Albright asked President Hoover to withdraw nine townships (a total of 354 square miles) in the White Sands area for study. Both New Mexico senators, Sam Bratton and Bronson M. Cutting, supported Hoover's action, as did the El Paso and Alamogordo "boards of trade." Hawkins, a veteran of Albert Fall's AYNP deliberations, suddenly found the process of withdrawal highly offensive, and begged Governor Richard C. Dillon to intercede. Hawkins considered especially outrageous the idea that the Interior secretary (Ray Lyman Wilbur) need not "depend upon what is agreed upon in New Mexico, but very largely upon the experts to whom [Wilbur] may commit the [White Sands] question for examination." Dillon complied with Hawkins' request, and prevailed upon Secretary Wilbur not to act as capriciously as Albert Fall had planned a decade earlier when he coveted access to Mescalero lands. [38]

Two problems arose for Tom Charles and the park service after William Hawkins' intervention. The NPS did not have a qualified staff member available to visit White Sands and write a report before the close of the summer tourist season. Director Albright had asked Thomas Boles, superintendent of the nearby Carlsbad Caverns National Park, to examine the dunes as the official observer for the park service. Boles could not make the journey to White Sands, but wrote to Albright stating his belief that the dunes, in the words of Dietmar Schneider-Hector, "did not constitute an interest for the National Park Service." Local businesses also worried, as had William Hawkins, about the precedent of removing the entire dune field from economic development. But Tom Charles wrote to all public officials concerned of the volume of tourist traffic that would stop at White Sands should the monument be created. [39]

Correspondence in 1931 between Charles and parties interested in White Sands revealed the power of Hawkins, Fall, and other business leaders to shape the destiny of White Sands. Arno Cammerer, acting director of the NPS , came to the nearby town of Roswell in July of that year to gauge regional support for the monument. He informed the Roswell chamber of commerce president, J.S.B. Woolford, that the Park Service "had some one hundred twenty projects to inspect, but they were going to give the White Sands some priority." Tom Charles then informed Claude Simpson of Roswell that he would accept a monument reduced greatly in size; some 43 sections, or 27,000 acres. "It would give us some of the best of the sand," said Charles, "and still leave the main body intact for commercial use should the state [of New Mexico] ever get it and use it." Charles would be satisfied also with two miles of the dunes facing U.S. Highway 70. All that remained, he thought, was favorable treatment from Thomas Boles and from Roger Toll, superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, whom the NPS considered its premier authority on park feasibility. [40]

As the summer tourist season neared its end, Charles became concerned when neither Boles nor Toll had paid a visit to Alamogordo or the dunes. He then contacted George L. Boundey, custodian at Tumacacori National Monument in southern Arizona. A former resident of Alamogordo who had lived one summer in a cabin at the dunes , Boundey worked for Frank Pinkley, superintendent of the NPS's division of southwestern monuments. Pinkley, who would be instrumental in guiding Charles once White Sands joined the park system, could offer critical support if he favored the dunes' application. Charles had learned by late September 1931 that Carlsbad's Boles had recommended a unit two miles wide and "seventeen or eighteen miles long," covering a "cross-section of the Sands and the old lake bed to the west [Lake Lucero]." Pinkley demurred, preferring that Charles proceed through channels with the Boles and Toll reports. By November the latter review had been completed, but Charles still worried about the obstructionism in Alamogordo. He thus informed Roger Toll: "There is a prevailing notion here that there is a great commercial value out there in the Sands." The local chamber had promised monument detractors not to seek the entire dune ecosystem. "We will appreciate your cooperation to that end," Charles wrote to the Yellowstone superintendent, concluding that "that promise not only has been made to Mr. Hawkins and his friends but to Governor [Arthur] Seligman and the Chambers of Commerce at our adjoining towns." [41]

Late twentieth century historians of the park service, like Alfred Runte, would note that incidents like the reduction of White Sands' acreage typified the failure of the NPS to ensure protection of natural ecosystems within park boundaries. The park service itself declared in 1933 that "the enduring obstacle to sound ecological management in the national parks was the prior emphasis on setting aside purely scenic wonders." Roger Toll's report did expand Tom Charles' idea of a more modest park from 27,000 acres to nearly 150,000 acres; yet this constituted less than half of the dune field. Given the variables at work in the Tularosa basin, however, Tom Charles had managed no small feat when in the fall of 1932 Senator Cutting promised in a private meeting in Alamogordo: "I will do everything I can for you but suggest that you be satisfied with a National Monument instead of an National Park, it will be much easier to get." [42]

The promise of Senator Cutting convinced Tom Charles that establishment of the monument lay close at hand. Cutting's biographer, Richard Lowitt, wrote that Cutting had great influence with President Hoover, sharing with him the Progressive faith in "wise use" of western lands. As 1932 was an election year, with Hoover facing a strong challenge from the charismatic Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president accelerated the pace of park review and selection. White Sands would benefit from Hoover's decision to expand the NPS with nine new units that year, and from the forty percent increase in park holdings by the time Hoover left the White House the following March. [43]

Hoover's ignominious defeat at the polls in November 1932 has been described as the nadir of his administration. Yet the president exercised his executive authority in the waning days of his term to accept the judgments of the NPS staff, and of Bronson Cutting, to establish White Sands National Monument. Acting under the auspices of the Antiquities Act of 1906, Hoover issued on January 18, 1933, a proclamation designating 142,987 acres of the White Sands dune fields as the nation s newest National Park Service facility. In recognition of the sands' distinctiveness and multifaceted appeal, Hoover wrote that the NPS should manage the unit not only for the generic purpose of preservation, but also for its "additional features of scenic, scientific, and educational interest." Bronson Cutting then congratulated Tom Charles by telegraph, and the thirty-five-year journey of dune preservation had reached a satisfactory conclusion. O. Fred Arthur, supervisor of the Lincoln National Forest from 1918-1934, spoke for many when he wrote upon retirement: "Tom Charles always worked best when confronted with opposition." Arthur, the veteran of many collaborative efforts with the Kansas insurance agent, concluded of Charles: "As everyone knows it was mainly through his persistence and efforts that the Monument became an actuality." [44]