Big Bend NP: Administrative History Big Bend Administrative History Landscape of Ghosts, River of Dreams: A History of Big Bend National Park by Michael Welsh University of Northern Colorado January 2002 National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior TABLE OF CONTENTS bibe/adhi/adhi.htm Last Updated: 03-Mar-2003 http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/bibe/adhi/adhi.htm[9/4/2012 3:16:50 PM] Big Bend NP: Administrative History (Table of Contents) Big Bend Administrative History TABLE OF CONTENTS Cover Foreword Author's Preface Acknowledgments List of Illustrations Chapter 1: Creating a Border: The Cultural Landscape of the Big Bend Chapter 2: Saving the Last Frontier: Texas, Mexico, and the Big Bend National Park Initiative, 1930-1935 Chapter 3: First Impressions: A Critical Year of Park Planning, 1935 Chapter 4: A Dream in Waiting: Promotion of a Land Base for Big Bend National Park, 1936 Chapter 5: A Dream Delayed: Failure to Secure Public Funding for Big Bend National Park, 1937 Chapter 6: Keeping the Faith: The Struggle to Sustain Momentum for Big Bend National Park, 1938 Chapter 7: Clouds of War, Pleas for Help: The Big Bend Land-Acquisition Campaign, 1939 Chapter 8: A Brighter Day: Improved Prospects for Big Bend National Park, 1940 Chapter 9: "Doing Pioneer Work": The Civilian Conservation Corps and Facility Planning, 1936-1941 Chapter 10: A Different Frontier: Mexico, the United States, And the Dream of an International Park, 1935-1940 Chapter 11: Discovering Nature's Way: Scientific Research and Resource Protection, 1936 Chapter 12: Redrawing the Boundaries of Science: 1937-1944 Chapter 13: A Park at Last: Land Acquisition, Facilities Development, And Border Issues in Big Bend, 1940-1944 Chapter 14: Facilities and Operations At Texas's First National Park, 1944-1960 http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/bibe/adhi/adhit.htm[9/4/2012 3:16:52 PM] Big Bend NP: Administrative History (Table of Contents) Chapter 15: Maintaining Big Bend: Operations, Planning, and Personnel Issues, 1960-2001 Chapter 16: "What a Beautiful Laboratory Big Bend Was!": Resource Protection and Management At Big Bend National Park, 1944-2000 Chapter 17: From Good Neighbors to Armed Camps: Mexico, the United States, and Big Bend National Park, 1944-1980 Chapter 18: Ghosts and Dreams: Big Bend and the Rio Grande, 1980-2001 Bibliography Index (omitted from the on-line edition) LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. 6th Cavalry Uniform Button Figure 2. Conrad L. Wirth, Supervisor, Recreation, Land Planning, National Park Service, Santa Fe (date) Figure 3. Early Ranchers, Chisos Mountains (1933) Figure 4. CCC Quarters, Chisos Mountains Figure 5. Residence Area, Chisos Mountains (1956) Figure 6. Adobe and Stone Cottages Built by the CCC (1940-1941) Figure 7. Chisos Basin Store (late 1940s) Figure 8. Congressman Thomason, Chisos Mountains (1933) Figure 9. Chisos Basin "Dallas Huts" (late 1940s) (omitted from online edition) Figure 10. Chisos Basin Store and Gas Station Figure 11. Chisos Basin Service Station (c. 1950) Figure 12. Chisos Basin Store and Dining Room (c. 1950) Figure 13. Adobe Cottage #103, Chisos Basin Figure 14. "Dallas Hut" Guest Room, Chisos Basin (c. 1950) Figure 15. E. E. Townsend and W. B. Hamilton, Green Gulch (c. 1935) Figure 16. Superintendent Ross Maxwell, Leading a Geology Trip Figure 17. First Visitor Dining Facility, Chisos Basin Figure 18. Castolon Cotton Fields Figure 19. Rio Grand Village Store Figure 20. Chisos Mountain Lodge, Coffee Shop (1960s) Figure 21. Chisos Basin Store and Registration Office (1950s) Figure 22. NPCI Chisos Mountains Lodge Lobby (NPCI Photo, 1960s) Figure 23. NPCI Castolon Store (1961) Figure 24. Panther Junction Headquarters Area and Service Station (1958) http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/bibe/adhi/adhit.htm[9/4/2012 3:16:52 PM] Big Bend NP: Administrative History (Table of Contents) Figure 1: 6th Cavalry Button <<< Previous <<< Contents >>> Next >>> bibe/adhi/adhit.htm Last Updated: 03-Mar-2003 http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/bibe/adhi/adhit.htm[9/4/2012 3:16:52 PM] Big Bend NP: Administrative History (Foreword) Big Bend Administrative History FOREWORD The written Administrative History of a park serves several purposes, not the least of which is to inform park managers of the present and future about the events, actions and decisions in the past that have influenced our current status. Without that information we might have a difficult time understanding our present circumstances. As parks age, another purpose of the history is to provide accurate historical information for interpreting park history to our visitors who are often fascinated by the people and events of the early years. Michael Welsh has produced an exemplary Administrative History of Big Bend National Park that will long serve as an important management document and as an interpretive tool, as well. His love for the Bit Bend and its people is evident in his writing. The workload of travel, interviewing, organizing and writing was immense. From Washington, D.C. to Chihuahua City, Mexico Dr. Welsh ferreted out important, but often obscure, information. However, he has brought it all together into an accurate and readable history. I thank Dr. Welsh for producing this invaluable history. I’m sure he would support my dedication of this document to the men and women of the past and present who have worked to preserve, protect and provide for the enjoyment of this magical place we know as Big Bend National Park. Frank J. Deckert Superintendent, 2002 http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/bibe/adhi/adhi0a.htm[9/4/2012 3:16:52 PM] Big Bend NP: Administrative History (Foreword) Figure 2: Conrad L. Wirth, Supervisor, Recreation and Land Planning, National Park Service Santa Fe, New Mexico <<< Previous <<< Contents >>> Next >>> http://www.nps.gov/bibe/adhi/adhi0a.htm Last Updated: 03-Mar-2003 http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/bibe/adhi/adhi0a.htm[9/4/2012 3:16:52 PM] Big Bend NP: Administrative History (Author's Preface) Big Bend Administrative History AUTHOR'S PREFACE National parks join the system for a variety of reasons: great natural beauty, the need to preserve wilderness in the face of development, historic resources that the nation needs to remember, and the like. For Texas's first unit of the NPS system, Big Bend National Park, all of the above features applied. In addition, the distinctive ecology of a mountain, desert, and riverine landscape compelled NPS officials and local sponsors alike in the 1930s and 1940s to plead with private donors and elected representatives to make Big Bend in 1944 the 28th unit of the NPS organization (at the time its sixth-largest park in the nation). Were these dimensions of Big Bend National Park all that claimed the attention of park sponsors, its story might not unfold in quite the dramatic fashion that it did. Located along a 129-mile stretch of the border with Mexico, Big Bend National Park offered a glimpse of the cultural and diplomatic history that Americans shared (but little understood) with their neighbors to the south. Park officials could not decide whether to promote Big Bend as a wilderness or as a refuge. In like measure, they could not agree on whether to emphasize the otherworldliness of border culture, with its mixture of romance and violence, or to ignore the differences that a shared environment masked. Big Bend National Park followed the standard cycle of its peers throughout the NPS system in its six decades of history. The struggle to create a park unit over 100 miles from the nearest transportation center required avid champions, and also encountered spirited resistance from local ranchers and absentee landowners. The depths of the Great Depression stimulated interest in donating over 1,200 square miles of southwest Texas to the federal government, and to create a tourist attraction in the most unlikely of places. Nine years of campaigning for private and state funds resulted in a frantic land-acquisition program in the early years of World War II, even as the NPS had applied every available dollar from the Civilian Conservation Corps. This money not only allowed for facility construction, but also underwrote much of the early scientific research of the Big Bend area. When Big Bend opened for business in the summer of 1944, the task of building a park while entertaining visitors fell to Ross Maxwell, a geologist who had studied the area and advised on many details of park development. Maxwell and his successors would confront the perennial challenge of securing adequate funding for operations and maintenance, even as the forces of nature wore down park infrastructure. The vaunted MISSION 66 initiative brought the completion of the park's physical plant, not to be replaced for at least a generation. Park staff from the 1950s to the 1970s, then, addressed the tasks of interpretative programming, border relations, and the isolation that accompanied many NPS units. Of these, the most intractable would be Big Bend's relationship to its Mexican neighbors, which became strained in the 1970s with increases in illegal immigration, drug smuggling, and the resultant anxieties that accompanied federal agency operations in the area. With facility and community relations at a nadir in the late 1970s, the NPS decided to promote a new generation of management at Big Bend. From the engineering skills of superintendent Robert Haraden, through the cultural sensitivity of his successors Gilbert Lusk http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/bibe/adhi/adhi0b.htm[9/4/2012 3:16:53 PM] Big Bend NP: Administrative History (Author's Preface) and Jim Carrico, the park labored in the face of limited financial resources to become better neighbors to Mexico, and a better host to visitors.