Walking in Credence: an Administrative History of George

Walking in Credence An Administrative History of George Washington Carver National Monument Diane L. Krahe and Theodore Catton National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 2014 Contents Timeline of Key Management Decisions vi Chapter 1 Introduction: The Man and the Place 1 Chapter 2 The Origins of Carver National Monument, 1941-1952 29 Chapter 3 Administration and Development 77 Chapter 4 Maintenance and Redevelopment 137 Chapter 5 Interpretation, Education, and Visitor Services 157 Chapter 6 Resource Management to 1980 203 Chapter 7 Resource Management since 1980 225 Conclusion 281 Appendices Legislation Relating to George Washington Carver National Monument 285 Superintendents at George Washington Carver National Monument 287 Annual Visitation to George Washington Carver National Monument 288 “Pattern of Visitor Use” from Master Plan for the Preservation and Use of George Washington Carver National Monument, August 1963 289 Interpretation Staffing, 1990-2013 292 Bibliography 293 Index 305 Walking in Credence Timeline of Key Management Decisions 1943. Following Carver’s death on January 5, the National Park Service recommends that the government acquire the entire Stratton Shartel estate, not just the presumed birthplace cabin site, to make a national monument to commemorate the life and legacy of George Washington Carver. 1943. July 14. Congress authorizes establishment of George Washington Carver National Monument. 1950. September 9. Congress amends the 1943 act to allow up to $150,000 for establishment of the national monument. 1951. After the land becomes federal property, the Park Service leases it to the George Washington Carver National Monument Foundation to manage until the Park Service can staff the area. 1952. Regional historian Merrill Mattes suggests that the national monument be developed around the natural features that inspired the young Carver, and that the marker for the birthplace cabin site be “at once, simple, dignified, and impressive.” Mattes calls for the preservation of the later-period Carver dwelling and the eventual removal of all the Shartel structures. He articulates these ideas in the Master Plan Development Outline. 1952. The regional director appoints Arthur Jacobson, a ranger at Yellowstone, as the first superintendent of Carver National Monument and hires Robert Fuller, an African American schoolteacher, as monument historian. Fuller is the first African American to occupy a professional-grade position in the Park Service. With these two appointments, the Park Service creates a racially integrated national monument staff of two. 1952/ Superintendent Jacobson removes most of the unit’s agricultural structures, citing 1953. public safety as his primary motivation. Two stone residences are rehabilitated to house the Jacobson and Fuller families and to provide temporary administrative space. 1953. With the assistance of local organizations, the National Park Service plans a racially integrated public event for the dedication of Carver National Monument. The dedication address by Secretary Douglas McKay references the Department of the Interior’s commitment to making progress on civil rights. 1953. Leading up to the dedication, the Park Service accepts a Carver bust from the George Washington Carver Memorial Institute and a memorial plaque from the George Washington Carver National Monument Foundation as gifts to the American people. Both of these African-American-led non-profit organizations were involved in the campaign to establish Carver National Monument. Together vi An Administrative History of George Washington Carver National Monument with the Robert Amendola sculpture of the boy Carver that will be erected seven years later, the bust and the plaque anchor a “memorial ground” in the heart of the national monument. 1954. Superintendent Clarence Schultz decides to rehabilitate gravestones in the Carver family cemetery and restore the dry stone wall around it. Historian Fuller features the cemetery in his guided tours for visitors. 1956. Mission 66 planners choose to place the visitor center near the memorial ground and to place employee residences at a distance removed from the central visitor- use area. 1963. The Carver Birthplace Association is formed. 1963. Departing from a wait-and-see position on preservation of the later-period Carver dwelling, Superintendent Joseph Rumburg decides to save the structure from deteriorating beyond repair. Following the emergency restoration work, the Park Service completes a Historic Structure Report on the building. 1976. Superintendent Eugene Colbert oversees a more thorough restoration of the later- period Carver dwelling, including its interior. He does this after getting the Statement for Management amended so that it supports preservation and interpretation of the interior as well as the exterior of the building. 1984. The National Park Service adopts a Prairie Restoration Action Plan for Carver National Monument. 1994. The Midwest Region selects Carver National Monument for a pilot project to develop an Integrated Resource Management Plan for the unit’s natural and cultural resources. This project will culminate five years later in the report Springs of Genius. 1996. Superintendent William Jackson and chief of interpretation Lana Henry begin efforts to expand education outreach through various initiatives under the Parks as Classrooms program. The Carver Discovery Center is established the following year. 1997. The General Management Plan is completed and approved. Through the GMP planning process, the Park Service hones the idea that the national monument is neither a cultural site nor a natural site, but a memorial site where cultural and natural resources contribute equally to the unit’s commemorative purpose. 1999. The Park Service rejects management recommendations in Springs of Genius, which call for restoration of a historic vernacular landscape. Instead, the Park Service looks to its own Cultural Landscapes Program for assistance. vii Walking in Credence 2002. The National Park Service accepts help from Missouri’s Senator Kit Bond and Representative Roy Blunt to secure earmarked congressional appropriations for expansion of the visitor center facility. The project is scaled up to take advantage of increased funding levels. Superintendent Jackson justifies the larger expansion on the basis of a projected increase in the number of visiting school groups. 2005. The Park Service works with the Carver Birthplace Association to secure the last 30 acres of the original Moses Carver farm for Carver National Monument. Property owner Evelyn Taylor donates the land, a defunct mining site, to the cooperating association, which gives it to the Park Service after remediation is complete. 2007. The expanded visitor center is opened on August 8. 2007. Superintendent Reginald Tiller supports the Long-Range Interpretive Plan, providing the final push and necessary seal of approval to cap an effort by regional and park staff that had been in progress since the mid-1990s. The plan identifies principal interpretive themes and integrates them with park resources. 2010. The Park Service completes a Cultural Landscape Inventory for Carver National Monument, finding that it has significance as an “intentionally minimally designed” public memorial site. viii Chapter 1 Introduction: The Man and the Place Along the Carver Branch of Shoal Creek in rural southwestern Missouri, a bronze statue commemorates the childhood of a scientist, educator, and humanitarian who became one of the most celebrated Americans of the first half of the twentieth century. Barefoot and shirtless, the likeness of this slender African American youth is seated casually on a tall limestone base. He looks pensively into the surrounding woodlands, cradling a small plant in his hand. Nearby is the spring from which the boy would fetch water, often pausing at the water’s edge to take respite from his household chores and to commune with nature. A nearby National Park Service interpretive plaque explains that the boy’s “private encounters” with the flora and fauna of these woods helped boost his confidence and instilled in him the belief that his future was bright. The Boy Carver statue is the symbolic centerpiece of George Washington Carver National Monument, located outside the small town of Diamond in the rolling farmland of Newton County. Under management of the Park Service since 1952, this birthplace memorial to George Washington Carver, the famous agricultural scientist and Tuskegee professor, has focused on the natural environment of the Moses Carver farm where the African American icon spent his earliest formative years in the 1860s and 1870s. The only surviving cultural element of the farm dating from this era is the Carver family cemetery. Details of George Washington Carver’s life here are not well documented. Most accounts, including Carver’s own recollections, portray a difficult but not joyless childhood. George was born in a small, one-room log structure above the spring, most likely in the waning months of the Civil War, although his birth date is unknown. If indeed George arrived before January 11, 1865, when Missouri slaves were emancipated, he briefly became the third slave owned by Moses and Susan Carver, in addition to George’s mother Mary and his older brother James (or Jim). Orphaned while still an infant, George remained with Jim on the Carver farm under the care of Moses and Susan. At the approximate age of eleven, George’s longing for education effectively

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