Pipestone NM: Administrative History Pipestone Administrative History MANAGING THE SACRED AND THE SECULAR: An Administrative History Of Pipestone National Monument by Hal K. Rothman Daniel J. Holder, Research Associate Final History September 10, 1992 National Park Service Midwest Region MWR-1-0015-002 Hal K. Rothman and Associates 2809 Barrel Cactus Henderson, NV 89014 (702) 896-6475 (702) 739-1012 TABLE OF CONTENTS pipe/adhi/adhi.htm Last Updated: 21-Aug-2004 http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/pipe/adhi.htm[8/30/2013 2:34:16 PM] Pipestone NM: Administrative History (Table of Contents) Pipestone Administrative History TABLE OF CONTENTS Cover Executive Summary Chapter I: The Coteau Setting Chapter II: Clearing Federal Title 1858-1928 Chapter III: Founding Pipestone National Monument Chapter IV: "This National Park Service Outpost" 1938-1956 Chapter V: MISSION 66 and the Modern Era Chapter VI: "An Indian-Oriented Park:" Native Americans and the Monument Chapter VII: Cultural and Natural Resources Management Chapter VIII: The Park and Its Neighbors: The Hiawatha Club Chapter IX: Threats to the Park Endnotes Bibliographic Essay Appendix A: Important Events in the History of Pipestone National Monument Appendix B: Custodians and Superintendents and Their Tenure Appendix C: Visitation (1948-1991) Please note: This report is a NPS publication, which is normally considered to be in the public domain. However, this report may contain illustrations that are copies of materials NOT in the public domain, for which one-time reprint permission was obtained prior to publication. Persons wishing to use these illustrations of non-NPS origin for any purpose beyond educational perusal must obtain their own permissions from the owners of the original materials. <<< Previous <<< Contents >>> Next >>> http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/pipe/adhit.htm[8/30/2013 2:35:28 PM] Pipestone NM: Administrative History (Table of Contents) pipe/adhi/adhit.htm Last Updated: 21-Aug-2004 http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/pipe/adhit.htm[8/30/2013 2:35:28 PM] Pipestone NM: Administrative History Pipestone Administrative History MANAGING THE SACRED AND THE SECULAR: An Administrative History Of Pipestone National Monument by Hal K. Rothman Daniel J. Holder, Research Associate Final History September 10, 1992 National Park Service Midwest Region MWR-1-0015-002 Hal K. Rothman and Associates 2809 Barrel Cactus Henderson, NV 89014 (702) 896-6475 (702) 739-1012 TABLE OF CONTENTS pipe/adhi/adhi.htm Last Updated: 21-Aug-2004 http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/pipe/adhi.htm[8/30/2013 2:35:38 PM] Pipestone NM: Administrative History (Executive Summary ) Pipestone Administrative History EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Located in southwestern Minnesota, Pipestone National Monument is anomalous among national park areas. Containing the famed pipestone quarries of Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha," Pipestone National Monument is one of the few places in the United States that has deep spiritual meaning to more than one culture. Native Americans revere the site for the soft stone found there, while Euro-Americans have cast the quarries within the bounds of their romantic consciousness of a lost natural and cultural history of the continent. Decisions made about the administration of the quarries expand out from Pipestone in overlapping series of concentric rings. Since the establishment of the monument, administration has required tact, sensitivity, and creativity. As did much other American Indian land, the pipestone quarries passed to the federal government as a result of treaties. After 1858, the only area of Minnesota to which the Yankton Sioux or Lakota people retained any claim was the 640-acre reservation that included the quarries. In 1928, after more than 30 years of legal maneuvering over the nature of that right, the Yankton received a monetary settlement. The quarry passed to the undisputed control of the federal government. With clear title, efforts to utilize the quarries for other purposes proceeded. In 1932, a group of local citizens, led by a local woman named Winifred Bartlett, began to push for a national park area. Five years later, Pipestone National Monument was established, one of the first national monuments proclaimed by legislative action rather than executive fiat. The National Park Service faced typical problems at Pipestone. Initially, there was no budget for management and upkeep and only a volunteer to watch the monument. After the Second World War, a permanent superintendent came to the monument. Despite the commitment of personnel resources, the monument required much more before it achieved the standards the National Park Service established for its units. The arrival of the first full-time employee in 1948 was the beginning of a 24-year period of growth and expansion at Pipestone. MISSION 66, the largest capital development program in history of the park system, built the physical plant at the monument. A new visitor center was the highlight of the program, which included housing, facilities, and a physical plant. In the late 1960s, another development began. Directed toward creating a climate of inclusion, a cultural center was constructed. Called the Upper Midwest American Indian Cultural Craft Center, the structure created an environment in which American Indians could practice their craftmaking skills and display their work. The construction of the center was the last large capital project at Pipestone. Since the 1970s, issues such as relations with Native Americans, cultural and natural resources management, the annual Hiawatha Club pageant, and threat to the park have dominated planning at Pipestone. As elsewhere in the park system, Pipestone has been hampered by the changing emphases of park policy, usually dictated from outside the agency, as well as a growing dearth of resources to support programs. With an important piece of the cultural heritage of the continent and the concomitant natural resources management issues, the monument had a http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/pipe/adhi0.htm[8/30/2013 2:35:47 PM] Pipestone NM: Administrative History (Executive Summary ) complicated and sometimes expensive mission to fulfill. With the resources at the disposal of park administrators, attaining such goals will require foresight, planning, and careful management. <<< Previous <<< Contents >>> Next >>> pipe/adhi/adhi0.htm Last Updated: 21-Aug-2004 http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/pipe/adhi0.htm[8/30/2013 2:35:47 PM] Pipestone NM: Administrative History (Chapter 1) Pipestone Administrative History CHAPTER I: THE COTEAU SETTING The roads of southwestern Minnesota wind their way through endless acres of cultivated fields. This land, once covered with a range of native grasses, has yielded to the insistent technology of the twentieth century. It seems tamed, a part of the ordered world Americans have made. Yet this land has been different, less subservient, only marginally harnessed for humanity. Its historic name, the Couteau des Prairies, the Highland of the Prairies, reflected a different, more unruly past. Given by some unnamed "coureur de bois"—the term French officials used for the traders who illegally went west—the name hints at the many cultures and peoples who have interacted in this place. Today, amid the ordered fields of crops and the grazing animals, this historic name seems anachronistic, a relic of a time gone by. Only in a very few places does any remnant of the prehistoric and historic coteau setting persist. Pipestone National Monument is one of the most important of those places. Its 282 acres are mostly prairie, managed to recreate as much of an historic vista as possible. Its grasses resemble more the tallgrass prairies of historic time than the lands around them, and its cultural significance adds a measure of history to an environment transformed by human action. The quarries there hold one of the largest and most important deposits of Catlinite, the soft red stone used to make the famed calumet—peace pipe—of legend. Native Americans from many tribes come to the monument to quarry the stone. They are mandated by National Park Service regulations to use only historic kinds of tools and methods. The presence of American Indians lends authenticity to the park, adding a dimension that the mere static quarries could not alone provide. The quarries and their prehistoric and historic context are the reason for the existence of the monument. Before the arrival of Europeans and their descendants in what is now Minnesota, these unique natural features had tremendous religious and symbolic importance for Native Americans. The pipes they fashioned from the stone were integral parts of Native American religion and custom. Across the Upper Midwest, every important ceremony involving Native Americans utilized pipes, most made from the stone of the quarries. The area acquired significance as well. Ritual use of the stone from the quarries made the source a place to be revered. Through art and literature, Europeans and Americans attached their own-meaning to the place, adding mythological significance to the activities of Native Americans. Like many such places, the quarries at Pipestone National Monument acquired a meaning that became as much a reflection of the values of the observer as of any historic reality. Pipestone National Monument sits astride cultural, geographic, and topographic divisions that have influenced the way in which the stone from its quarries has been distributed and used. Geology and natural history created the conditions that formed the layers of the soft rock. The location of the quarry between different types of physyiographic regions added complexity to its prehistory and history. In this setting, natural and human factors have combined to create an area of cultural and natural significance. The flatiron-shaped plateau that is the Coteau des Prairies stretches across southwestern http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/pipe/adhi1.htm[8/30/2013 2:35:56 PM] Pipestone NM: Administrative History (Chapter 1) Minnesota into South Dakota, with the land elevated by the remains of an ancient mountain range.