CIrhapteronic Golden T Yhreeears -
The s at Grand Canyon National Park witnessed a seamless progression of building pro- grams begun in the mid-s.The two decades were linked as well by persistence with earlier efforts to enhance visitors’experiences and protect the landscape through educational programs,bound- ary extensions, and the elimination of private and state inholdings. The continuity seems odd at first glance, as it accompanied the deepest economic depression the nation has yet endured. This cyclical malady of world capitalism might have resulted in reduced federal spending, a return to traditional extraction of resources, or a nonstructural approach to park management. Instead, it triggered federal subsidies in the form of emergency building funds and a ready supply of desperate low-wage laborers.Under Miner Tillotson,one of the better park superintendents by NPS standards,a mature administration took full and efficient advantage of national economic woes to complete structural improvements that,given World War and subsequent financial scrimping, might never have been built. In contrast to the misery of national unemployment,homelessness,dust bowls,and bread lines,financial circumstances com- bined with a visitational respite to produce a few golden years at many of the West’s national parks,including Grand Canyon.
From an administrative perspective, staffing and base fund- $, annually. Normal road and trail funds diminished, ing remained at late-s levels through , as if there causing several new projects to be delayed, but deficits were had been no stock market crash and deepening financial offset by modest emergency funds of the Hoover collapse. Permanent employees in consisted of the Administration that allowed those projects already in superintendent, an assistant superintendent, chief ranger, progress to continue unabated. assistant chief ranger, six rangers, two permanent natural- The park fared even better after mid-, as work-relief ists, and half a dozen clerks. Tillotson hired eleven seasonal and emergency funding programs of the Roosevelt rangers and naturalists, as well as day-wage laborers as vari- Administration supplied all the workers that managers ous projects required. By , at the depression’s depths could reasonably employ and all the money they could and immediately before the onset of New Deal programs, spend for the remainder of the decade. Tillotson wrote in permanent staff numbered between forty-two and forty- that four, a slight increase over , consisting of the superin- tendent, assistant superintendent, chief ranger, two assistant from a purely mercenary point ofview the park chief rangers, and six rangers among the “protection” ranks, [will] gain more in the form ofphysical improve - two naturalists, a clerical staff of six, and sixteen workers ments by the National Recovery Act than would within the engineering department. While visitation have transpired for a number ofyears—in some declined each year from , in to , in , instances not at all—under a normalr endt of easing administrative demands, base appropriations park affairs. remained at late s amounts, ranging from $, to His insight proved correct. While NPS base appropriations only got bigger in and . Capital outlays by the servicewide rose from $. million in to $ million in Utah Parks Company in - that had been gambled on , Congress injected another $ million during the the immediate promise of North Rim tourism could not same years into emergency relief projects within the parks have been made at a worse time.The $, loss of the and monuments. Of the handful of work-relief agencies Grand Canyon Lodge to fire in September only sharp- created to spend this money, the Public Works ened their financial problems. Recognizing the importance Administration (PWA) of their private partners, administrators responded quickly and Civilian by acceding to the postponement or cancellation of planned Conservation Corps capital investments and taking a more flexible posture con- (CCC) figured most cerning rates, the extent of services, and hours of prominently at Grand operation. Canyon. Beyond immediate assistance, the nation’s comptroller general ruled in April that the NPS could renegotiate Figure 13.Park rangers R. concession agreements before their expiration. At Grand Redburn and George Collins in front ofthe new adminis- Canyon, administrators chose to relieve financial burdens of tration building (today’s the Fred Harvey Company by executing a new twenty-year ranger operations),September 1931.Collins was an avid, contract, effective January , that required payment of capable photographer who recorded many ofthe con- . percent of profitsafter allowing percent for capital struction projects taking place in the early 1930s. investment. Contractually, nothing could be done for the GRCA 64. Utah Parks Company whose agreement already stipulated a franchise fee based on profits and included the capital Administrators considered PWA workers, who labored for investment clause. Still, the company’s pact allowed private contractors on dozens of projects like the East losses to be carried forward, and the difficult depression Approach Road and West Rim Drive, to be bonuses since years ensured that it would never pay franchise fees. they did not require park service management.The quasi- Verkamp’s store remained profitable through the s and military CCC, on the other hand, relied on NPS managers began to pay a percentage of earnings when John Verkamp to select camp sites within the park, supply equipment and signed his first ten-year contract in January . Emery transportation, assign rangers, engineers, and landscape Kolb, who appeared unaffected by the depression, contin- architects for technical planning and supervision, and per- ued to pay percent of gross receipts for the remainder of form associated clerical duties in order to benefit from the the decade. Babbitt Brothers Trading Company wrote let- workers and funds. The first two contingents arrived on ters to NPS managers and Arizona’s congressmen com- May , when Company under command of Capt. plaining of financial hardship in hopes of securing a new L.C. Dill settled in at a former contractor’s camp near contract based on profitability, but could convince no one Avenue A (Apache Street), and Company under Capt. to renegotiate since their income statements remained in W.O.Poindexter occupied the former Cape Royal Road the black. construction camp at Neal Spring. From mid- Figure 14.Uniformed per- until the last enlistee left in mid-, six perma- sonnel,ca.1934.Left to right,top:Dale S.King, nent camps labeled NP-A- through NP-A- were Arthur L.Brown,Joseph established at Grand Canyon National Park. On Bryan, Ranger Lund, Elliot Betts,Ranger Sturgill. any given day for nearly a decade, two to three Middle:Louis Schellbach, companies numbering - young men sallied James P. Brooks,Miner R. Tillotson,Edwin D. McKee, forth from these camps to undertake construction, Perry Brown.Bottom: Ranger Hawkins, Russell maintenance, conservation, and educational pro- Grater, Ranger Disher, jects of every sort other than management and Hubert R. Lauzon,Albert Turner. GRCA 1077. major road construction. The park’s concessioners fared worse than their administrative partners in light of customer downturns and Concessioners’ financial difficulties and plummeting vis- an understandable trend among visitors to economize. itation played decisive roles in arresting early plans to Smaller operators offering low-cost goods and services with decentralize Grand Canyon’s facilities and services. In minimal investments lost volume but remained slightly park managers agreed to a five-year, $. million Santa Fe profitable. However, with rail travel down 30 percent in Railroad building program that would have replaced the El , the Fred Harvey Company posted “big losses” that Tovar and Bright Angel Hotels with a grand hotel in the
an adm i n i strati ve history of grand ca nyon nati onal pa r k Creek included two -horsepower turbines that delivered three-phase, sixty-cycle current at , volts three quarters of a mile up to the pump house below the springs. Here it was stepped up to , volts for transmission, then stepped down to and volts for administrative and concessioner use. Construction required a ,-foot-long temporary tramway to supply materials and machinery to the base of Roaring Springs, and a ,-foot-long, red- wood-stave penstock down to the power plant. The Utah Parks Company’s effort probably inspired the Santa Fe Railroad to get on with a resolution to the more serious water problem at Grand Canyon Village. same location and added a Appropriating the ample springs at Indian Garden for rim- Figure 15.October 1936 side use had been considered since , but the railroad view ofthe North Rim camp “subsidiary” hotel at Desert for Civilian Conservation View, a “development” within thought it economically unfeasible until alarming trends in Corps Company 818,which water consumption and experience gained from the worked on road, trail,and Havasu Canyon, and lesser landscape projects at the rim facilities at Bass Camp.At the Roaring Springs system prompted construction to begin in during summers and on the . Completed in August , the new system consisted Colorado River, Clear Creek, same time, the Utah Parks of a pumping plant with two sets of two turbine pumps, and North KaibabTr ails, Company seriously considered and at Phantom Ranch dur- a hotel complex at Cape Royal together capable of delivering eighty-five gallons per ing winters,1933-38. minute (gpm) from a ,-gallon concrete reservoir GRCA 294. similar to their Grand Canyon Lodge.These remote through , feet of six-inch pipe against a static head of overnight facilities would have required more roads than , vertical feet. Some of its more sophisticated features already scheduled and ancillary developments that may included remote operation from the village power plant, have approached the dimensions of Grand Canyon Village. auxiliary pumps at lower springs that fed the upstream Worsening financial conditions derailed these intentions. reservoir, a photoelectric cell that automatically diverted The park service had the money, manpower, and willing- silty water before reaching the pumps, thermostats that ness to proceed, but given the already entrenched NPS- warned plant operators to start idle pumps to keep pipes concession relationship, it made little sense if their partners from freezing, water softeners, and chlorinators. Despite could not follow up with tourist services. conservation measures, consumption during the s The Great Depression ended immediate thoughts of required the Santa Fe Railroad to upgrade the pump house decentralization but by no means inhibited structural to one set of eighty-gpm and two sets of -gpm pumps. enhancements within the central corridor. The Utah Parks The improved system delivered water to rimside tanks Company continued to improve the state-of-the-art water totaling one million gallons, eliminated the steady stream of water trains, and reduced rates from $. to $. per and power system it had built on the North Rim in - . Given fewer than , annual North Rim visitors in , gallons. those years, this half-mil- lion-dollar project repre- sented a remarkable Figure 16.Aerial view ofthe investment.The system, South Rim,facing east,1932. Kolb Studio is at center left, which still satisfies water the Brown Building and Bright Angel Hotel tent cab- and power needs at Bright ins at center top, and the post Angel Point, tapped the office (former Cameron Hotel) in the center.This plentiful flow of Roaring photograph was taken three Springs to power water years before demolition ofthe Bright Angel Hotel and tent through a . inch pipe cabins,construction ofthe Bright Angel Lodge and nearly , vertical feet wood-frame cabins,and to a ,-gallon water reconstruction ofthe Hermit Rim Road.The power house, tank at the rim.The laundry building,and waste- water settling ponds are visi- hydroelectric plant built ble at upper right. beside Bright Angel GRCA 9543;Fred Harvey Company photo. ch a pter three i ronic gol den ye a r s : - Aside from water and hydroelectric projects, concession- E. Webb Construction Company finished a new post office ers expanded, improved, and maintained other utilities and and postal quarters and CCC crews built a new community services to meet demands of visitors whose number building. In CCC and PWA workmen completed a increased each year from , in to , in . three-room school with an auditorium southeast of the At Grand Canyon Village, the Santa Fe Railroad bore the Fred Harvey Garage. Other NPS buildings erected within expense of producing, metering, and delivering electricity; the village during the s included several dozen laborers’ pumping, distributing, and metering fresh water; improving cabins and permanent-personnel bungalows in the residen- the reclamation system as well as treating, metering, and tial area east of Center Road, a gasoline station and oil distributing reclaimed water; extending and maintaining house beside the central warehouse, and a few minor utility sewer and fire-suppression lines; and building homes for its structures. key personnel within the residential area west of Center Road. It also spent tens of thousands of dollars on seasonal employee quarters, including men’s and women’s dormito- ries in and , respectively, and nearly one million dollars in capital improvements during - on utilities alone, excluding labor costs. At the North Rim, the Utah Parks Company built a ,-square-foot building in atop the ashes of the original lodge to function as a tem- porarily business office, post office, curio store, and enter- tainment center. They also built more cabins and by had finished a motor lodge with housekeeping cabins and cafeteria (named the Grand Canyon Inn) beside the NPS campground, an “industrial” complex consisting of a service station, garage, and utility buildings, and an employee dor- mitory. They opened the new Grand Canyon Lodge in July
and fifteen-bedroom men’s and women’s dormitories in Figure 17.Twenty 10,000- November of the same year. Aside from these investments, Administrators continued gallon tankers deliver water from the ChinoV alley to the Utah Parks Company extended water, sewer, and elec- limited development outside South Rim storage tanks, 1961.The Santa Fe supplied trical lines to its developed areas and supplied most utilities the village as they had since water in this manner from to NPS administrative buildings free of charge. , finishing natural history 1901 until the late 1960s— daily until 1932 and as Superintendent Tillotson characterized the year as exhibits at Yavapai Point in needed thereafter. the “biggest building construction program in the history of - and the MacCurdy GRCA 3605. the park,” alluding to concessioner investments but also to Wayside Museum of the number of NPS structures built or begun in that year. Archeology at Tusayan Ruin in . CCC recruits He could well have made the same claim in succeeding cleaned up the tiny community called Supai Camp west of years as emergency resources poured into the park and Rowe Well Road in and , demolishing shacks and efforts were efficiently guided by the administration’s first building fourteen- by twenty-foot, two-room cabins to all-inclusive master plans. Prompted by the depression’s house Havasupais with regular village jobs. Caretakers’ cab- onset and the Employment Stabilization Act, Horace ins and utility buildings sprouted annually at Indian Albright had ordered superintendents to develop six-year Garden and at the mouth of Bright Angel Creek. NPS plans encompassing parks’ “entire development scheme” to laborers strung a cable across the river at the latter location include road and trail systems, general layouts of all tourist, in to acquire driftwood fuel for Phantom Ranch. parking, and administrative areas, utility plans, relocation Construction at Bright Angel Point on the North Rim also and rearrangement of buildings, and other aspects of con- proceeded apace at the NPS “industrial-residential” area, struction. Grand Canyon’s plan, begun in and revised where employees’ quarters and a bunkhouse, mess hall, oil periodically as money and manpower arrived, retained the shack, equipment shed, and ranger cabin were added in village blueprint as an integral component. With com- and . pletion of the new administration building in , NPS Other than substantial water, power, and building pro- laborers renovated the earlier () office into a larger jects undertaken by the Utah Parks Company, Santa Fe superintendent’s residence and museum of natural history. Railroad, and NPS civilian contractors, most of Grand The park’s first hospital was completed in ear ly and a Canyon’s physical infrastructure during the s came ten-year contract let to Dr. B.G. Carson. In the Del about through emergency relief funds and labor. CCC
an adm i n i strati ve history of grand ca nyon nati onal pa r k forces built and/or maintained nearly all administrative with workmen completing the Bright Angel Lodge. West buildings in these years and strung the park’s new, two- Rim Drive’s scenic segment ascended Hopi Hill in reduced wire, transcanyon telephone line in . They extended grades, then curved sharply north to snugly parallel the rim, sewer, water, steam, and electrical lines to reach all public providing access to new overlooks at Trailview I, Trailview buildings at Grand Canyon Village, Bright Angel Point, II, and Maricopa Point. After making a wide detour around and Desert View, and during the late s relocated over- the Orphan Mine, the new alignment rejoined the old at head utilities underground.They built, expanded, rehabili- Hopi Point and continued to the Great Mohave Wall (the tated, and maintained village residences, laborers’ cabins, Abyss) where it again left the rim until reaching Hermits and housekeeping units, as well as mess halls, paint and Rest. West Rim Drive was the last major inner-park road machine shops, mule and equipment sheds, the first village constructed at Grand Canyon. NPS engineers and land- jail, the second community center, and cabins at Supai scape architects designed it as a compromise between high- Camp. In addition to new construction, they furthered speed highways like East Rim Drive and slower-going, administrators’ goals to beautify developed areas by razing meandering byways like the Hermit Road it replaced. many old structures, removing debris, obliterating old road The village plan also delineated several curvilinear and trail alignments, and reseeding or replanting previously residential and service streets south of the industrial and disturbed areas. administrative zones. Construction began with NPS and concessioner forces grubbing and rough-grading Avenue A ■ ■ ■ (Apache Street) in , then going to work on Avenue B Entrance roads and all scenic drives envisioned in but (Boulder Street) and Avenue C (southwest of the recre- one were completed by , but administrators were far ational field) until all three streets were finished in . from finished directing traffic to and through the national After May , CCC Company enlistees built Tonto park.The village plan relied upon a south entrance and Juniper Streets to NPS residences and service build- road (completed in ) to separate concessioner housing ings; regraded and surfaced Avenues A, B, and C; built from NPS residential and service districts and a village loop most of their masonry features; prepared residential sites; road that would separate the tourist zone along the rim and laid utilities to individual homes. Bungalows, cabins, from the railroad’s industrial zone south of the tracks.The and utility buildings went up along these service and resi- loop would also enable a smoother passage around and dential streets, beginning with Avenue A, from through the tourist and administrative zones. A wagon road through the s as funds became available. of sorts followed the desired path prior to . Contractors National work-relief programs also benefited regional began to realign and upgrade it to automotive standards in approach highways. Grading and subgrading of the long- by continuing the new South Entrance Road to meet anticipated South Approach Road began the day after the with the new East Rim Drive at the Fred Harvey Garage. county ceded the Bright Angel Trail to the park, but In - the park road crew reconstruct- bridges, surfacing, and fin- ed and realigned the wagon path south of ishing touches were com- the mule barns to facilitate passage from pleted with men and the South Entrance Road to the new money of the first emer- headquarters campground and Motor gency employment acts of Lodge, and continued the new road north across the tracks to end at Hermit Rim Figure 18.Civilian Conserv ation Corps recruits Road. constructing today’s wall and walkway across from the Fred The final segment of the village loop Harvey Company garage, was rebuilt as the eastern leg of West Rim September 1937,following completion ofWest Rim Drive, a $, emergency-works pro- Drive. GRCA 336. ject completed by the G.R. Daley, Vinson and Pringle Company of Phoenix in . Beginning at the -. The fifty-three-mile-long highway began several Fred Harvey Garage, the ,-foot-long village segment miles east of the old road and town of Williams at the was built immediately above the railroad tracks as a National Old Trails Highway, wound its way through vol- through road, bypassing the earlier alignment of Hermit canic hills beyond Red Lake, then made a beeline across Rim Road that is used today as a service driveway on the the Coconino Plateau to meet the South Entrance Road at south edge of the El Tovar. From a point just below Colter Moqui Lodge, cutting travel time from Williams from Hall, the new road was built atop Hermit Rim Road to the nearly a full day to less than two hours. Although desig- west end of the village where road crews rubbed shoulders nated Arizona State Route No. soon after completion, ch a pter three i ronic gol den ye a r s : - Superintendent Tillotson had an embarrassing time con- Although the forest service, BIA, and state were vincing the Arizona Road Commission to assume mainte- ambivalent at best to the eastern approach, they gave per- nance. After meeting with commissioners in Phoenix in mission for construction, which began with funds appropri- February , he wrote that the ated in Fiscal Year .During the next four years, BPR engineers, NPS landscape architects, and private contractors Highway Department continued to hold, as they have completed the highway in nine related phases costing always held, that our checking station is a “toll gate”and they state that it is their unalterable policy not to build or Figure 19.The bridge span- maintain roads leading to a “toll gate.” I explained in ning Dead Indian Canyon along the original East great detail the manner in which the one dollar rentance Approach Road from fee is charged, what the camper gets in the way offree Cameron,ca.1935. Today’s approach road from Cameron campground service, etc.,and although they conceded that was rebuilt to the north (left) ofthis bridge in the 1960s, the auto visitor got his dollar’s worth,they continued to although the bridge still insist that...we were charging a “toll” and operating a “toll stands.GRCA 2920. gate.”
No doubt the state brought up the irony of the park’s long $,,. As the only “mountain road” within or battle to eliminate the Bright Angel Trail toll, only to approaching the park, rising from an elevation of , feet impose its own fee of an equal amount, but Tillotson man- at Cameron to , feet at Desert View, the sinuous high- aged to iron out the disagreement by May when the way completed in offered majestic vistas comparable to state assumed maintenance of the South Rim’s first auto- those obtained from canyon overlooks. A walk today along motive approach highway. the original alignment down Waterloo Hill reveals the Plans to build a new East Approach Road from intent of NPS Landscape Architect Thomas Carpenter to Cameron originated with the Santa Fe Railroad’s ire at afford the best panoramas. National Park Service architects maintaining the Navahopi Road.The railroad spent $, also designed or approved plans for the extant Dead Indian to build the latter in and another $, for Canyon Bridge, completed in but later bypassed by a improvements by , when percent of visitors used it to highway realignment. Although the park erected another reach the South Rim.The existing road and proposed path “toll gate” at Desert View in , the state assumed main- of a replacement ran through lands administered by the tenance for the entire approach as far as the park boundary National Park Service,State of Arizona, U.S.Forest in . It immediately became a segment of the half-loop Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Officials of State Highway —an important link in regional tourist each refused to spend a dime on the concessioner’s road, travel, convenient connection between South and North but did ante up $, in to survey a .-mile-long Rims, and entryway to the park’s South Rim that was dri- automotive highway across difficult terrain connecting the ven by nearly , visitors in . Painted Desert to the Coconino Plateau. Superintendent On the North Rim, concessioner improvements at Tillotson personally worked harder making this road hap- Bright Angel Point were closely tied not only to the immi- pen than any other, garnering varied agencies’ support, nent promise of a North Entrance Road within the park arguing its financial benefit to each (particularly to resi- (completed in ), but to certain knowledge that state dents of the Navajo Reservation), and finding funds for road agencies with federal money and expertise planned to construction in years when the NPS juggled a dozen such construct automotive highways throughout southwestern projects throughout the West. He was assisted by a Utah and northwestern Arizona. The Bureau of Public amendment to the National Park Approach Roads Act that Roads and U.S.Forest Service built the North Approach allowed the Department of the Interior to build roads and Road (replacing the old Grand Canyon Highway) from bridges to national parks on the “seven-percent system”( Jacob Lake in the early s, then rebuilt it in - to percent matching federal funds) if the distance from the the approximate alignment of today’s State Highway . nearest public road was thirty miles or less and if per- While the Utah Road Commission fulfilled its promise to cent of the land traversed was managed by a public agency. build highways linking Zion, Bryce, and Cedar Breaks to The latter condition was made to order, and Tillotson cir- the Arizona Strip, the Arizona Road Commission under- cumvented the former requirement by cannily arguing that took construction of Navajo Bridge spanning Marble the final . miles of the proposed highway actually ran Canyon. Its completion in January prompted the com- within park boundaries and therefore constituted an missioners to replace the old Mormon emigrant road with “entrance” road. U.S. Highway in a thirteen-year-long series of uninter-
an adm i n i strati ve history of grand ca nyon nati onal pa r k rupted projects that connected Kanab to U.S. east of the Colorado River Trail in . CCC Company , sta- Flagstaff just prior to the outbreak of World War II. tioned at Camp NP--A (Bright Angel Campground) dur- In support of Navajo Bridge and U.S. ing winter months, began construction in December Superintendent Eakin wrote in that “the tourist crop with experienced foremen and hard-rock miners guiding never fails and we should cultivate this crop in order to enlistees in techniques perfected on the South Kaibab Trail. secure the greatest yield possible.” By Grand Although only two miles in length and relatively level, the Canyon’s administrators could delight in the fulfillment of work proved anything but simple. Inexperienced youths Eakin’s dream as all regional, approach, and inner-park found themselves wielding jackhammers while dangling roads had been rebuilt to exacting federal standards, com- from granite cliffs to plant powder charges that frequently pleting the intricate highway network originally envisioned placed crews below in jeopardy of landslides. Difficulties by Stephen Mather. Reconstruction of U.S. from Gallup working the granite of the Inner Gorge added to the dan- to Needles in the s facilitated transcontinental access to ger and the project’s duration, but safety measures limited the Grand Canyon region.The South Approach Road from serious injuries to only three. Completion coincided with Williams and East Approach Road from Cameron, in com- improvements to the Bright Angel Trail, thereafter afford- bination with the South Entrance Road, East Rim Drive, ing a popular south side loop when combined with the and the East Entrance Road, ensured that motorists along South Kaibab Trail and an alternate path from Phantom the southern edge of the National Park-to-Park Highway Ranch to Indian Garden. would visit Grand Canyon National Park.These roads While three CCC crews concentrated each winter on joined with U.S. to open a new circle tour connecting the river trail, others of Company worked on North the canyon with Wupatki National Monument, the Painted Kaibab spur trails to upper Ribbon Falls and Clear Creek. Desert, and national forests of the southwestern Colorado A.T. Sevey, with the assistance of Lloyd Davis and Harry Moulton, supervised construction of the nine-mile-long Clear Creek Trail. Beginning at a point just north of Phantom Ranch in November , the young recruits moved up the solid schist with compressors, jackhammers, and , pounds of black powder, building trail as they blasted their way up to and across the relatively level Tonto Platform. Rangers stocked Clear Creek with rainbow trout even before the trail’s completion in April . Advertisements in promoted mule trips from Phantom Ranch, “excellent trout fishing,” and visits to Indian ruins beside the now easily accessed side canyon. During their three-year stint at Camp NP--A, Company and others working along the central corridor were supplied by the U.S. Army’s th Pack Train, headquar- Figure 20.A 1937 Civilian Conservation Corps crew Plateau. New highways reach- tered at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, but stationed at Yaki Point rounding slopes alongW est ing Utah’s southwestern year-round.The train consisted of army as well as civilian Rim Drive. GRCA 281. national parks and monu- packers, fifty pack mules, and ten saddle stock divided into ments joined U.S. from sections of twenty mules and four packers each. Packers Kanab to Jacob Lake, the North Approach Road (State were responsible for making one trip per day, five days per Highway ), and the North Entrance Road to capture the week, hauling coal, mail, and foodstuffs averaging six thou- North Rim in another popular circle tour promoted by the sand pounds. In winter, when snow drifted as high as five Union Pacific Railroad since .Sixty years later, with feet on the upper trail, men preceded the pack animals to only minor realignments and replacement of U.S. by clear the way. In the event of landslides blocking the upper Interstate , these highways still form the backbone of trail, the train descended the Bright Angel, Tonto, and regional travel. lower South Kaibab Trails to reach the river. In three years The s also witnessed completion of the park’s inner- of operation,“the th,” as proud and disciplined as the men canyon trail system. Reconstruction of the pre-park corridor they supported, never missed a scheduled delivery. had been advanced during - with the building of the The centralization of tourist services was advanced in South Kaibab Trail and Kaibab Suspension Bridge and August when the park service authorized abandon- realignment of the North Kaibab and Bright Angel Trails, ment of the Hermit Trail and Hermit Camp.Permission but additional flexibility was achieved with completion of came from the NPS Washington office but seems puzzling, ch a pter three i ronic gol den ye a r s : - Figure 21.Map ofGrand Canyon National Park road system pre-1940.Prior to 1919 all maintained. C: North Entrance Road, 1931. D:Cape Royal Road and Point Imperial roads approaching and alongside Grand Canyon had been built or worn by cattlemen,pio- spur, 1931. E:East Approach Road, 1935. F:East Rim Drive, 1931. G:South neer entrepreneurs,and the Santa Fe Railroad for horse-drawn conveyances. With creation Approach Road, 1932. H:South Entrance Road, 1928. I: West Rim Drive, 1935. J: ofthe national park,the federal government undertook reconstruction ofthese roads to Road toT opocoba Hilltop and Havasupai Point,built by Bill Bass and others beginning in automotive standards,relying on the expertise ofthe Bureau ofPublic Roads (today’s the 1880s;never rebuilt to full automotive standards but occasionally realigned and main- Federal Highway Administration). A:North Approach Road, 1937. B: Original align- tained by the park service and forest service. ment ofthe Point Sublime Road, 1924-25,never rebuilt to full automotive standards,but
given construction of West Rim Drive a few years later, the s, occasionally making his way down to the springs to engineering excellence of the trail and four associated rest plant trout. It was only in October that the park ser- houses, and the camp’s profitability at a time when the vice hired a crew of Arizona Strip residents to finish the Santa Fe Railroad and Fred Harvey Company were losing trail from the springs to Tapeats Creek. After arguments money on overall operations. Nevertheless, in , and over the creation of Grand Canyon National Monument without recompense, the concessioner abandoned the trail, abated, administrators once again abandoned the area to camp, tram, and other developments that had cost more cattlemen and a trickle of adventurous tourists led by post- than $,. In the park service ordered the railroad season hunting-camp guides. to dismantle and salvage what it could, and on a cold win- ■ ■ ■ ter night village residents gathered at the rim to watch the spectacle of the torch applied to what remained. Fortuitous emergency funds and cheap labor accounted for Park managers briefly deviated from centralist plans the completion of park infrastructure envisioned in the with minor developments near Swamp Point and Thunder s but did not ensure that consumers, feeling the pinch River in the mid-s and s. Since they had already of the Great Depression, would continue to buy the begun to consider park expansion to the west and were sen- scenery. As it turned out, the National Park System did not sitive to criticisms that they had never opened the park’s suffer as greatly as private enterprise.The depression struck northwest lands to recreational use, administrators under- harder at the poor than those of the middle and upper- took a few projects aimed at limited access, including the middle economic classes who, by the s, had supplanted bridle path to Swamp Point and the Muav Saddle snow- the wealthy as the parks’ principal clientele. Although belt- shoe cabin in . In -, coincident with develop- tightening might preclude expensive trips, a supposition ment of a private hunting camp at Big Saddle, Ed Laws supported by the headlong decline in rail travel and hotel and several other rangers built a rough trail from the rim at patrons, Americans by owned thirty million automo- Indian Hollow down to Thunder Springs. Laws retained an biles and, with cheap gasoline and camping equipment, did interest in the area as a backcountry ranger through the not need to forego vacations entirely. NPS administrators
an adm i n i strati ve history of grand ca nyon nati onal pa r k and concessioners astutely analyzed the depressed economy, the Interior published voluminous circulars of general improved upon marketing strategies, and enhanced the information for the major parks including Grand Canyon, park experience according to reduced consumer demands. and the park service continued to issue press releases and Success in selling the economic value of parks to diligently respond to individual requests for information. Congress and presidents since the s was evidenced by As one of the better known jewels of the park system, federal money invested in park infrastructure during the Grand Canyon naturally benefited from these national pro- depressed s, but Horace Albright found additional motions. arguments for continuing federal support. Recognizing Local administrators also answered all inquiries of social unrest during this period of economic decline, he potential visitors and maintained contacts with chambers of wrote that “in a time of anxiety and restlessness [the parks] commerce and tourism offices in the gateway communities, were immensely useful to large numbers of our people” and but concentrated on enhancing, or “adding value,” to the were “a strong influence for stabilization and good citizen- visitor’s experience while leaving most regional advertising ship.” He observed that many people were extending their to their concession partners.Roads, trails, convenient traffic stays because “simple camp life offers [greater] economy flow, and aesthetic constructions, of course, were all part of that oftentimes can be found at home.” Albright made it the strategy to attract and please as well as accommodate clear that this new use of the parks, “particularly to people customers. Recognizing that the depression increased the in financial difficulty, gave us unusual satisfaction.” ratio of motorists over rail arrivals and stimulated visitors’ Although it cannot be known how many of the depression’s interest in cheaper, motorist-friendly accommodations, dispossessed took up residence at Grand Canyon National managers persisted with their policy to develop camp- Park while searching for work, NPS policy allowed unlim- grounds and roadside picnic areas according to demand, ited campground stays for the price of admission, and adding primitive campgrounds at Point Sublime and Cape Miner Tillotson expressed his personal satisfaction at Royal and a picnic area at Shoshone Point in . employing an average - day laborers during summer Throughout the decade, CCC crews added sites, utility months prior to . lines, parking spaces, and walkways to campgrounds at The National Park Service, though it welcomed the Bright Angel Point, Desert View, and Grand Canyon new class of visitors, did not market the parks as retreats Village. NPS landscape architects in designed two for the homeless; rather, attractive housekeeping cabins—a two-bedroom with it continued with its kitchen separated by wood partitions and a one-bedroom partners to promote with kitchen and optional partition—that would hence- western travel to the forth be added by concessioners at park motor lodges and middle class. Successful gain in popularity as moderately priced alternatives to arrangements were made camp sites and hotel rooms. with chambers of com- While administrators left most services to concession- merce and other tourism ers, they considered education within their purview and an offices to distribute park important park enhancement. Since assuming his director- literature printed by the ship,Stephen Mather had been keenly interested in the Department of the parks as classrooms for the humanities and natural sciences and as laboratories for scientific investigations, delegating Figure 22.Off-duty Civilian the latter responsibility to the nation’s scientists but taking Conservation Corps recruits meet Harvey Girls,1936. an aggressive posture toward visitor education.The Le GRCA 12148;photo by Conte Memorial Lectures and Nature Guide Service at Ernest Lee Burns. Yosemite, ethnological and archaeological lectures at Grand Interior. Mather’s NPS travel division did not materialize Canyon, campfire talks at Yellowstone, a museum at Mesa until , but the railroads’ Bureau of Service continued to Verde, and natural history publications at a number of solicit tourist travel from around the world. Given global western parks had all appeared by . Each of these areas economic conditions, it was unnecessary to highlight the of public education flourished in the succeeding decade. See America First campaign, which, nonetheless, continued At Grand Canyon, as at other western parks, rangers were as a marketing undercurrent appealing to citizens’ patrio- expected to be conversant in the natural sciences and to tism as well as their pocketbooks. NPS directors encour- impart their knowledge to curious visitors on demand. aged new editions of the National Parks Portfolio, a bound Formal attention to education began in , when money collection of Western landscape art that had helped secure donated by the Brooklyn Daily Eaglefunded the park’s first a National Park Service in the s.The Department of museum: an information room consisting of natural history ch a pter three i ronic gol den ye a r s : - plied as economic conditions improved after . In March park residents organized the Grand Canyon Natural History Association (GCNHA, today’s Grand Canyon Association) to help offset decreased NPS appropriations for visitor education, interpretation, and research. Although the organization’s immediate goal was to continue publication of Nature Notes(discontinued in ), aspirations of the first executive secretary, Eddie McKee, and charter members matched the objectives of those who had created the Branch of Research and Education two years earlier. In GCNHA’s first year the association’s members began to build the park’s nascent museum collection, research library, and scientific publica- tions through wildlife observations, bird-banding programs, specimen collections, collecting books, subscribing to schol- Figure 23.Early naturalists exhibits and a reference arly journals, granting funds for research, and publishing (left to right) Fred Wright, library within the old admin- Eddie McKee, Vernon Bailey, and selling natural history monographs. By the outbreak of and Glen Sturdevant at istration building. In the fol- World War II, the GCNHA had also funded the park’s Grand Canyon,1929. GRCA 17577. lowing year, the nature guide first botanist (Rose Collom), mycologist (Inez Haring), and service begun at Yosemite historical researcher (Edwin Austin); supplied a part-time and Yellowstone reached librarian and clerk-typist for the interpretive program; pur- Grand Canyon on an experimental basis and was formally chased shop and laboratory equipment; and taken on the adopted in . In the same year, the park began to dis- formidable task of answering public inquiries for park tribute a monthly periodical called Nature Notes,and for the information. first time assigned a ranger to conduct nature hikes, present campfire talks, and collect natural histor y exhibits. In the observation station at Yavapai Figure 24.Pauline “Polly” Point was completed, and the park’s first ranger-natu- Mead Patraw (1904-),first woman ranger-naturalist at ralist, Glen E. Sturdevant, began daily lectures with GCNP.Polly may have worked for the NPS at the the help of two summer seasonals. North Rim as early as 1927 The National Park Service took public education while earning her M.S.in botany from the University of to a higher level with a formal survey of educational Chicago.She is dressed here in the standard NPS uniform, opportunities and creation of the NPS Branch of but with a “more feminine” Research and Education under Harold C. Bryant in Fred Harvey courier hat cho- sen by Miner Tillotson. . In its first year, the new branch hired additional GRCA 176. ranger-naturalists and furthered their training at the University of California at Berkeley, added educational Along with educational programs that helped sell the activities to the first formal master plans, and accelerated parks during the depression, NPS officials paid closer museum construction. It also developed a wide range of attention than ever to pricing. Congressional arguments of programs consisting of guided hikes and automobile cara- the s had led to legislative approval of modest entrance vans, lecture series, exhibits and signs along nature trails, fees (automobile permits), but to a prohibition of camp- and training of concessioner guides to better interpret park ground fees. With the economy’s slump, Congress contin- resources. At Grand Canyon in the same year, seven per- ued to argue the nature of fees while Horace Albright manent and seasonal ranger-naturalists staffed museums at equivocated. He acknowledged in that those who Yavapai Point, the old administration building, and within entered the parks and stayed in concessioner accommoda- Grand Canyon Lodge; initiated evening programs at the tions had a right to complain about those who paid the North Rim; guided nature hikes and auto caravans along same amount then stayed at free campgrounds, yet wrote both rims; conducted daily lectures and nightly campfire later in the year that the NPS “should seek primarily the talks; and enlarged natural history collections and exhibits. benefit and enjoyment of the people rather than financial Administrators continued to expand facilities,exhibits, and gain and such enjoyment should be free to the people with- programs, reporting , educational contacts in , out vexatious admission charges and other fees.” , in , and , in . These numbers multi- Arguments for and against federal charges persisted
an adm i n i strat i ve history of grand ca nyon nati onal pa r k through the s, yet policy at Grand Canyon remained towing ($./hour) were available, as were guided trips unchanged.The one dollar admission for motorists, no ranging from $.-. for a mule ride to Plateau Point to charge for others, entitled visitors to road and trail usage, $. for a -mile automotive trip to Moenkopi. By unlimited campground stays and amenities, and attendance a room at the El Tovar could be had for only $., at all educational facilities and programs. with three meals adding another $.. A room at the Major concessioners suffered financially through the Bright Angel Lodge rented for $.-., with cafeteria mid-s despite NPS efforts to ease their losses, yet meals as low as forty-five cents. A housekeeping cabin cost adjusted well enough with centralized investments, vigorous $.-., with a ten percent discount for stays of four days marketing, and affordable pricing. By the Fred Harvey or more. A Phantom Ranch cabin went for $., Company’s tourist facilities had been concentrated at American plan. Guided trips by trail or road also remained Grand Canyon Village, Hermits Rest, Hermit Camp, at or slightly lower than rates with a variety of mule Desert View, and Phantom Ranch. In the ensuing decade, tours available for $. per day. The all-day adventure to major changes outside the village entailed abandonment of Moenkopi had been reduced to $., including lunch. Hermit Camp, improvements at Phantom Ranch including The Union Pacific Railroad proved no less demanding a swimming pool built by CCC crews in , completion than the Santa Fe Railroad in pressing for improved roads of the Watchtower at Desert View with its first-floor curio during the s, and it was equally aggressive in selling the shop in , and construction of a one-pump gasoline sta- scenic wonders of southwestern Utah, the Arizona Strip, tion at Desert View in . Rimside overnight facilities and its facilities at Bright Angel Point.The Union Pacific’s and formal dining services remained in the village.The passenger agent, Douglas White, ran into some opposition Santa Fe Railroad continued to add cabins at the Motor when arguing for improved regional access, illustrated by Lodge where it also opened a cafeteria with inexpensive Utah Governor Simon Bamberger’s response to his and meals in and completed the Bright Angel Lodge in Horace Albright’s lobbying in the late s: “Doug Vite,I June that replaced the old Bright Angel Hotel and build no more roads to rocks!” But despite such difficul- adjacent tent cabins.The new lodge included a central ser- ties, the Union Pacific, with NPS assistance, BPR expertise, vices building with restaurant, curio shop, and entertain- and the Utah Road Commission’s cooperation, managed to ment rooms; a renovated and expanded Buckey O’Neill coerce and cajole construction of modern highways among Cabin; a reconverted dormitory immediately to the west southern Utah’s parks during the s and s. It also (today’s Powell Lodge) that became seventeen-room and built a rail spur from Lund to Cedar City in specifical- twenty-five-room guest houses; and new, all-wood cabins. ly to stage its tourism ventures. Conversion of the El Tovar music room into four suites in Strategically, from the s until the s, the Union represented the only new, higher-priced accommoda- Pacific Railroad tied North Rim investments, advertising, tions. and pricing into what it had named its “circle tourism Advertising to a regional audience consisted of the route.”This Stephen Mather concept included, with a few National Park Service’s annual circulars of general informa- variations, Cedar City, Zion and Bryce National Parks, tion, which emphasized park rules, facilities, and services, Cedar Breaks and Pipe Springs National Monuments, and and an annual series of Santa Fe Railroad brochures detail- other scenic attractions along its -mile path. ing railroad timetables, tourist facilities, services, guided Investments at Bright Angel Point followed more than trips, and rates. Both types of marketing literature briefly $ million that the railroad had poured into Zion and sold the beauty of Grand Canyon but focused primarily on Bryce in -. Like the Fred Harvey Company, the Utah the convenience afforded by roads, trails, overlooks, utili- Parks Company profited from the National Parks Portfolio, ties, lodging, restaurants, and similar amenities. Rates See America First campaigns and publications, and other remained at or below s levels, the most significant national promotions, and advertised heavily on its own.The allowance to hard times being the introduction of the circle tour and parks it touched also received considerable European Plan (rooms without meals) when, in the prior exposure in the tourism periodical, the Union Pacific decade, rooms and most cabins had been available only on Magazine. In the railroad added its “Red Book,” a the American Plan. In one could stay at the El Tovar, glossy annual similar to Santa Fe Railroad brochures cele- American plan, for $.; at a Bright Angel cottage for brating the route and detailing its facilities, services, tours, $.-.; in a housekeeping cabin for $.; in a tent and prices. cabin at Hermit Camp for $.,American plan; or In circle tour schedules offered by the Parry Phantom Ranch for $.,American plan. Meals at the El brothers included six packages beginning at the railroad’s Tovar ranged from $.-..Automotive services like El Escalante Hotel in Cedar City, including an all-expense- storage ($.), wash ($.), repair ($.-./hour), and paid, two-day excursion to Zion and Grand Canyon’s ch a pter three i ronic gol den ye a r s : - North Rim and an all-expense-paid, five-day tour of the INITIAL BOUNDARIES AND INHOLDINGS entire circle for $.. By the cost of the latter trip Physical boundaries for national parks and monuments had been reduced to $.. In the same year, visitors not have usually been drawn from the political agendas of con- associated with multi-day packaged tours could rent a gressmen,land managers, and an assortment of private sec- Grand Canyon Lodge deluxe cabin for $. and standard tor allies. Prior to World War II, NPS administrators cabin for $.,American plan, or choose the latter with- fought tooth and nail to carve new parks and expand exist- out meals for $.. Overflow tents were available for $. ing ones from lands managed typically by U.S.Forest and meals ranged from $. to $..Guided auto-stage Service administrators, who battled equally hard to retain trips were offered along newly reconstructed roads from the forests for traditional economic uses. Both agencies Bright Angel Point to Point Imperial ($.), Cape Royal ($.), or both Figure 25.The temporary ranger staffof1939.Left to scenic overlooks ($.). right: Shirley Allen,Frank Regular guided trail trips Bynam,Charles Hurst,Perry Brown (Chief Ranger),Glen ran to Point McKinnon Harmon,Ralph White, John Carlock,Harold Barrow, ($.) on the west (today Freddie Gillum.Seasonal and known as Widforss Point) “temporary” rangers made their appearance at Grand and to Natchi Point ($.) Canyon in the mid-1920s and have been hired verye and Point Imperial ($.) year since to meet demands of on the east. Saddle horses the peak summer season. GRCA 1223. rented for $. per day, and the concessioner would outfit visitors for adventures along the rim for as little as masked their bureaucratic struggles with ostensibly logical, $. per day in groups of seven or more. By less high-minded arguments for one agency’s management over costly housekeeping cabins had been built at the Grand the other’s. Forest administrators relied principally on utili- Canyon Inn, while prices for lodge cabins had been dis- tarian aspects of conservationism. As aggressive newcomers, counted and services unbundled. Deluxe cabins dropped to NPS managers proved somewhat more creative, building $. per day or $. for three persons, standard cabins to credibility for the economic value of western tourism, $., and housekeeping cabins (sleeping three) to $.. which aided in the creation of new parks, but more often Cheap cafeteria meals had been introduced, and guests citing the protection of game animals, inclusion of out- could opt to buy their own groceries at the store adjacent to standing facets of local scenery, and efficient management the housekeeping complex.The railroad had reduced the of administrative units to fight for enlarged boundaries. price of the all-expense-paid circle tour (extended to six Determining the original boundaries of Grand Canyon days) to $..Sightseeing rides to Cape Royal, which National Park involved a smattering of each of these politi- included Point Imperial and stops at Farview and Vista cal, economic, and administrative arguments. Benjamin Encantada, had been reduced to $., while the cost of Harrison’s Senate Bill , introduced in , identified an guided saddle trips and stock rental remained the same. arbitrary, ,-square-mile rectangle extending fifty-six Advertising, reduced prices, better roads, and improved miles from the Little Colorado River to the vicinity of economic conditions after combined to generate an Havasu Canyon and sixty-nine miles north and south to even steeper spurt in visitation than had been experienced envelop much of the Coconino and Kaibab Plateaus. in the s. Concessioners added affordable accommoda- Harrison’s inclusion of valuable timber and grazing lands tions each year and administrators responded with new and accounted in large part for northern Arizona’s early resis- expanded campgrounds, but the boom outpaced infrastruc- tance to park designation. Resistance persisted into the ture as had visitation upturns of the mid-s and late- s as interest groups like the American Scenic and s. In summer Superintendent Tillotson began to Historic Preservation Society countered no-park advocates recognize that South Rim accommodations of all types by suggesting a preserve that would extend from Lees Ferry were full by early evening, and on July of that year, a new to the Arizona-Nevada border, encompassing the entire one-day record was set when , people entered the park. canyon as well as the Coconino,Kaibab, and Dixie Additional records were set with , arrivals in August National Forests, , square miles in all. Adjudicated (, on August) and on July when , boundaries,however, were owed to land managers, especial- showed up in , automobiles. Clearly the village and ly the forest service, which delineated the original ,- park roads had once again begun to clog. square-mile national monument in , then negotiated
an adm i n i strati ve history of grand ca nyon nati onal pa r k with the Department of the Interior to formulate bound- park would not seriously impinge upon grazing lands.The aries for a national park. Chief Forester Henry S. Graves, forest service agreed to redraw lines at the South Rim but though generally in favor of a park, argued with the enlisted the aid of Senator Hayden, representing Coconino Department of the Interior’s E.C. Finney throughout - County’s cattle and timber interests, to limit changes to and with Stephen Mather thereafter to exclude grazing slight administrative adjustments. A compromise brokered and timber lands and USFS administrative sites along both by Hayden resulted in new boundaries that included repre- rims, resulting in Henry Ashurst’s bill that settled on a total sentative portions of the Kaibab forest, lands north of of square miles (, acres). Understandably, there Bright Angel Point as far as Little Park, the mouth of was little debate with the new park’s east-west extent, the Havasu Canyon, and eight sections at the park’s southeast forest service conjuring no economic value for a mile-deep corner to facilitate a road to Cape Solitude. It rejected canyon and easily accepting the breadth proposed by additions desired for wildlife habitat and scenic views, how- Harrison thirty-three years earlier. But irregular north and ever, and removed Beaver Canyon and the area north and south boundaries drawn primarily along sectional lines east of the Little Colorado River confluence from the park. tightly squeezed both rims, reflecting political victories for All in all, House Bill , enacted on February , the forest service and local extractive users. added a net fifty-one square miles to the national park, The park had no sooner been created than Mather bringing the total land area to , square miles (, renewed his arguments to expand boundaries, contending acres). that additions were necessary on the North Rim to protect In and Chief Field Naturalist Vernon Bailey the Kaibab deer herd, to include springs necessary for of the U.S. Biological Survey resurrected debates to expand tourist developments, and to provide for new roads. In boundaries to add range for regional mule deer, mountain Superintendent Crosby argued the necessity of bringing sheep, antelope, and buffalo. Writing at NPS request, east-west roads beside the South Rim within park bound- Bailey couched his pleas in terms of saving what remained aries to create an identifiable straight line separating of the region’s native vegetation and wildlife, advocating the hunters in the adjacent forest from park developments. In addition of square miles of ponderosa pine and pinyon- the same year, Mather asked U.S. Geological Survey engi- juniper forest at the South Rim as well as substantial por- neer R.T. Evans, who was mapping the park, to recom- tions of House Rock Valley and the Kaibab Plateau. Based mend new boundaries. Evans’s report to the President’s on Bailey’s conclusions, the NPS lobbied for an additional Committee on Outdoor Recreation in March suggest- two to ten miles southward and five to fifteen miles north- ed a northern boundary that would include scenic features ward, a total of square miles, arguing that “every and deer habitat in the Tapeats Basin, Indian Hollow, and national park should be and is a game preserve.”These rec- the Big Saddle area to the west; part of Dry Park and all of ommendations went nowhere. Bailey’s superiors and USFS VT Park to facilitate administration and road construction; administrators disagreed with the presumption that parks and the East Rim, Pagump Valley, South Canyon, and thir- should be complete game preser ves, arguing that the prece- teen miles of Marble Canyon for its tourism potential and dent would require park expansions throughout the West. deer range. At the South Rim, Evans suggested only mod- Sportsmen feared that hunting would be curtailed, and one est expansion, arguing for a straighter boundary about a can safely surmise that local cattlemen and lumber compa- mile south of the existing line to facilitate administration, nies protested as they had in every prior effort to create and road building, and maintenance; to more effectively fence expand the park. Arguments favoring the parks as natural cattle out; to increase the deer range; and to afford a preserves had been raised but had not yet acquired the boundary facade of virgin ponderosa pine forest. vitality necessary to overcome politically drawn The forest service preempted Evans’s suggestions with boundaries. its own report to the president’s committee in April , Debates surrounding creation of Grand Canyon advocating the addition of , acres to the park’s north- National Monument in and its reduction in size in ern boundary but opposing other extensions. Forest man- further elucidate early NPS philosophy concerning agers maintained that the park should be only as large as park creation and expansion. In , when Arizona required to “provide for public use and enjoyment of the Governor George H. Dern visited the Toroweap Valley and canyon,” that the Kaibab Plateau was not of national park suggested that its scenic wonders be preserved for recre- caliber, and that its best use lay in a nonexistent, but ational use, it would have been difficult to locate a more promising, million-dollar-per-year lumber industry. They remote area in the United States.The land remained unas- also argued that jurisdiction over the Kaibab deer herd signed public domain and certainly did not appear on should not be split between the two agencies and that resi- tourists’ itineraries. E. T. Scoyen, superintendent of Zion dents of the Arizona Strip had been led to believe that the National Park, visited the area in and hailed its scenic ch a pter thr ee i ronic g ol den ye a r s : - wonders, but the NPS did not consider adding any part of protect such areas only in proportion to visitation. Arizona it to the park until President Hoover forced the issue in Strip cattlemen were a bit tardy in raising objections to the when he added lower Grand Canyon to a tract with- monument’s creation, but afterward enlisted the aid of the drawn to facilitate creation of Hoover Dam and its reser- Arizona Cattle Growers Association and Carl Hayden to voir. abolish it. After eight years of on-and-off deliberations, In May a party composed of Miner Tillotson; Pat Tillotson, who never showed great enthusiasm for the Patraw, superintendent at Zion; Roger Toll, superintendent monument, negotiated the return of a three-mile strip at Yellowstone; L.C. Crampton, special attorney to the along the northern boundary and upper Toroweap Valley secretary of the interior; and highway engineer W.R.F. (, acres) to the U.S. Grazing Service.This was effected Wallace visited the canyon portion of Hoover’s ,- by President Roosevelt’s proclamation of April . In square-mile withdrawal to assess recreational opportunities the following year, NPS administrators expressed their will- and suggest disposition. Toll’s report revealed the group’s ingness to change the designation of what remained to antipathy for the larger area, based on the region’s lack of “national recreation area” to accommodate “the new uses “national interest” and their assessment that the lower and values which the Bridge Canyon developments would canyon’s scenery was of the “same type” existing in Grand bring about.” Canyon National Park. The party agreed that the entire Administrators were unconcerned for monument lower canyon would make a suitable park addition, but it boundary reductions and prospects for a dam, power plant, was not necessary and most of it was “not readily accessible and reservoir along the river because they expected few and would be expensive to make accessible.” Still, they sug- visitors and planned little construction of their own. Most gested that square miles consisting of the Toroweap developments of the s were, in fact, effected by a Valley and a segment south of the river from the existing surplus of men and funds afforded by emergency works park boundary to the Hualapai Reservation would be worth programs. They built and maintained drift fences, cisterns, preserving. Because the Bureau of Reclamation planned to game tanks, and a telephone line from Fredonia prior to build a -foot-high dam and power plant at Bridge , and worked annually to improve these minimal Canyon, creating a seventy-eight-mile-long reservoir that features through .Olds Brothers of Winslow, Arizona, would flood the river as far upstream as Havasu Canyon, completed today’s ranger station, combination barn/garage, and because the NPS abhorred such water projects within and water catchment system under contract in August the National Park System (but supported them elsewhere), . Rangers from the South Rim occasionally made the the group recommended a national monument rather than long trip around the canyon to inspect the monument, not- park expansion. But Toll also wrote that should the state ing appalling range conditions and the ineffectiveness of oppose the additions, “it would seem to be in the public partial drift fences oft-vandalized by local cattlemen. No interest to cancel the withdrawal of this portion of the concession was ever awarded for visitor services, and no area.” ranger took up residence until William and Gertrude Following Toll’s report, Tillotson delineated specific Bowen reported for work in October 1940. John Riffey boundaries to include the Toroweap Valley and south side replaced Bowen and began an illustrious thirty-eight-year of the river but exclude most patented lands and cattle career as caretaker in 1942. No services of any kind were range to the north. Horace Albright defended the bound- offered (then or now) other than information gladly given aries as they allowed automotive access, once a road could by Riffey, a small undeveloped campground, and occasional be built, to Grand Canyon’s Esplanade with easily accessi- maintenance of the sixty-two-mile dirt road from Pipe ble views of the Inner Gorge. He also favored inclusion of Springs. Funds for administration, protection, maintenance, nearby volcanic cones beside the rim and lava flows exposed repairs, and equipment in totaled $. Only nineteen along the river, geologic features not present within the tourists visited the monument in May and June , and park. So defined, Conrad Wirth forwarded Toll’s, annual visitation did not top , until the s. Tillotson’s, and Albright’s recommendations to President The National Park Service considered the eradication of Hoover, who proclaimed the .-square mile (,- private lands and rights-of-way within its units of higher acre) Grand Canyon National Monument on December priority than boundary extensions, since they struck at the . The monument would remain a separate NPS unit heart of management control. In order to obtain revenue under park supervision until . from concessions, manage physical developments, prevent Creation of the national monument revealed NPS obnoxious or destructive uses, harmonize structures with ambivalence toward creating parks or adjusting boundaries natural environments, enforce rules and regulations, and if the land in question did not promise tourist access. The generally clean up developed areas, administrators believed ensuing decade offered proof of the agency’s willingness to that they had to eliminate these interests that were
an adm i n i strati ve history of grand ca nyon nati onal pa r k protected to some extent by each park’s enabling act. in the heart of the village caused little trepidation.The rail- Congress passed many laws during the s and s to road held these lands, in fact, until , long after passen- exchange private for public lands to the benefit of ger trains had ceased to roll into Grand Canyon Depot. individual parks and sometimes reduced boundaries to School lands comprised the largest inholdings, but eliminate concentrated groups of inholdings. Generic legis- administrators did not consider this a threat since the state lation toward this end began with the Sundry Civil Act of could not develop them and proved amenable to trades for June , allowing the secretary of the interior to accept public lands elsewhere. gifts of land, rights-of-way, buildings, and money that The National Park Service and General Land Office could be used to purchase properties and rights. Securing worked aggressively to invalidate all bogus and unpatented title to private inholdings moved up to number eight on the mining properties within the park during the s. George director’s list of priorities in , but by the parks still McCormick’s claims near the Little Colorado River were enclosed more than , acres of private and state lands abandoned by . Ralph Cameron’s had been discredit- servicewide, about percent of the system’s total area. In ed by the U.S.Supreme Court in Ralph H.Cameron et al vs. Congress adopted a specific policy to eliminate inhold- United Stateson April , and although Cameron ings, and in it authorized the power of condemnation defied the court for the following few years and resisted (the “taking” of private lands) and a fund of $ million to efforts of the U.S.Attorney General to dispossess his care- match private donations to purchase properties. takers in , his interests evaporated after his senatorial Appropriations for this fund peaked at $. million in , defeat in .Without Cameron’s goading, the county then abruptly dropped to nothing for , another casualty yielded its trail rights two years later.Administrators took a of the national depression. gentler approach to the Bass family, Stephen Mather con- Grand Canyon National Park’s enabling act in most vincing the Santa Fe Land Development Company to buy ways resembled those of other western parks. Sections Two out the aging pioneer and his wife Ada in . The prop- through Nine granted the secretary of the interior broad erties passed to the government by donation immediately latitude in allowing varied uses and grandfathered particular following railroad divestitures in December . rights in place at the time of creation. Circumscribed inter- In their quest to acquire valid mining claims and ests of the Havasupai people were protected, as were “any patented lands, park officials generally exercised a great deal valid existing claim, location, or entry...whether for home- of patience and used most legal, persuasive, and coercive stead, mineral, right of way, or any other purpose whatsoev- means at their disposal. Johnson’s claims within Havasu er.” The act also acknowledged Coconino County’s right to Canyon were actually desirable adjacent lands that the park the Bright Angel Trail and permitted the secretary to would acquire through purchase in . John Hance’s authorize irrigation and reclamation projects, easements for patented parcels south of the river and homestead beside railroads, and the development of mineral resources. the rim had passed to James Thurber and Lyman Tolfree in During the s-s, NPS administrators in Washington and to Martin Buggeln in . Buggeln had become a D.C.fought successfully to preclude new railroad rights-of- potent force among private residents at the South Rim by way as well as private irrigation and reclamation proposals the time the park service arrived, and he was an impedi- from Grand Canyon, while local managers concentrated on ment to development thereafter as his homestead and gathering data to invalidate mining claims, acquire patented refusal to grant a right-of-way delayed construction of East lands, and limit the commercial use of private parcels. Rim Drive. He also ran cattle on the inholding and In interests not altogether under control of the adjacent forest lands until his death in when his National Park Service at Grand Canyon, in approximate widow, Eva Moss Buggeln, initiated negotiations to sell the order of priority, consisted of Ralph Cameron’s invalid min- property. The park service took out an option in and ing claims; the Bright Angel Trail; mineral claims or home- effected the purchase in , eliminating the last rimside steads patented by Dan Hogan, Sanford Rowe,Pete Berry, inholding east of Grand Canyon Village. Hance sold his and John Hance; unpatented but valid mining claims held patented asbestos claims along the north side of the river, by W.I. Johnson, George McCormick, and William Bass; totaling . acres, to the Hance Asbestos Mining two unpatented homestead entries totaling acres in the Company in , and administrators did not learn of their process of reconveyance to the federal government; state existence until .Subsequently the property came into school sections totaling about , acres; and the linear possession of the Hearst family. Limited mining activity rights-of-way and depot grounds of the Grand Canyon took place at these claims into the s; thereafter, owners Railway. Since administrators considered the railroad a occasionally revealed resort or residential plans for the financial and philosophical ally in the orderly development inholding that is accessible only by trail, raft, and, since the of Grand Canyon Village, their control of about thirty acres s, by helicopter. Known as the Hearst Tract today, it ch a pter three i ronic gol den ye a r s : - remains the only private inholding within the park’s origi- he sold the property to Madeleine Jacobs,who reopened nal boundaries. the facility as the Kachina Lodge. Jacobs then leased the While administrators feared Buggeln’s development of property in to Will Rogers, Jr. and John Bonnell, who an independent tourist business, they found it easy to sup- renamed it Rogers’ Place. Rogers left the following year and press his plans with a few well-placed threats. William the facilities were purchased by James D. Barrington and Randolph Hearst’s acquisition of Pete Berry’s and the renamed the Kachina Lodge by . Barrington and his Canyon Copper Company’s patented lands in , totaling brother operated the facility (in renamed the Grand . acres, posed a much greater threat, as the newspaper Canyon Inn) until . As if uncontrolled rimside tourist magnate clearly had the political clout to disregard informal facilities were not enough, the site—highly visible from the pressure and the capital to develop anything he wished. Powell Memorial—witnessed some of the most intensive Hearst did taunt the NPS with rumors of grand develop- uranium mining in the Southwest during -. An mental schemes but generally cooperated with authorities, ,-foot-long cable tram added in did nothing to agreeing to exchange . acres at Grandview Point for . improve the eyesore. In , when the mine’s operator, acres elsewhere in , and occasionally discussed the gift Western Equities, threatened to build an -room grand or sale of his lands to the government. Cooperation van- hotel that would spill “down the side of the precipitous cliff ished, however, when Hearst’s attorneys once again like a concrete waterfall,” Congress stepped in with a law broached the subject of a sale and the NPS responded with prohibiting tourist operations after and mining after a Declaration of Taking in September .Park officials , when the property passed to the United States. sustained criticism from the regional press, chambers of Mining ended earlier, in , only because of a declining commerce, local residents, and the county board of supervi- uranium market and prohibitive costs to ship ore. sors for employing condemnation, the only time it has done ■ ■ ■ so in park history, and for offering only $, for the prime real estate. Hearst’s appraisers estimated its value at From today’s perspective, it is easy enough to criticize park $,, and his lawyers fought for the higher figure until administrators’ consistent management philosophy of - October , when federal judge David W. Ling ordered , their anthropocentric motivations and priorities, their the payment of $,. The taking, however, was legally emphasis on mass marketing, services, and structures aimed effected in July . at attracting ever more visitors. But from the viewpoint of Administrators might well have taken the same early twentieth-century NPS managers and their myriad approach to acquiring Sanford Rowe’s and Ed Hamilton’s allies, as well as those who continue to believe that national properties at Rowe Well and Dan Hogan’s Orphan Mine parks are principally for the people’s enjoyment, they did had they the same tourist visibility as Grandview Point. nearly everything right. Some visitors and businessmen Many visitors to the South Rim did pass Hamilton’s motor would have appreciated still more developments at Bass camp until completion of the South Approach Road, but in Camp and Grandview, at Cape Royal, and at the heads of the s administrators were just as happy that he stayed the Thunder River and North Bass Trails. Admittedly, in business to accommodate growing numbers of visitors. remote areas were saved primarily through concessioners’ After Hamilton and a succession of owners, lessees, economic equations influenced by the depression, but cen- and managers including Jack and Gladys Harbin, Walter tralization also resulted in part from the notion that most Wilkes, and the Barrington Brothers added a motel, dance of the park should remain undeveloped, if only to protect hall, bowling alley, and saloon to create an alternative to game animals—a hazy, incomplete, yet emerging sense of more staid village services and a favored “watering hole” for the value of wild ecosystems. By construction had sub- residents.The park service kept a wary eye on the Rowe sided along the rims and central corridor with the comple- Well properties throughout the s and s, but did not tion of planned administrative, concessioner, utility, and come up with the sale price, $,, until . residential buildings, as well as approach and inner-park Given its subsequent history, later administrators might highways, scenic drives, and inner-canyon trails. A calm, well have wished that Miner Tillotson had offered more comfortable, economical interlude prevailed for the several than $, to buy Dan Hogan’s -acre Orphan Mine in hundred thousand who visited each year for the following . There seemed no reason to suggest that it was worth decade. Reveling in the resort atmosphere of easy access, more until , when Hogan began to develop the site for ample accommodations, breathtaking scenery, and profit, tourism. He called his initial developments the Grand no one cared to consider the ephemeral nature of such an Canyon Trading Post, and over time it unfolded along lines experience, given the inevitable outcome of managing the similar to Rowe Well with cabins, store, and a saloon. park as an inexhaustible scenic commodity. World War II ended Hogan’s modest business, but in
an adm i n i strati ve history of grand ca nyon nati onal pa r k