Aztec Ruins Administrative History

In December 1936, Thomas C. (Cal) Miller succeeded Johnwill Faris as custodian of Aztec Ruins National Monument. After a youthful experience as a working cowboy in central Arizona, Miller came into the National Park Service in the early 1930s. Like so many others in the southwestern branch of the Service, he got his training as a seasonal ranger at Carlsbad Caverns National Monument. From there, he moved on to be custodian at Chaco Canyon for two years prior to being transferred to Aztec.

Miller's seven year stint at Aztec Ruins National Monument focused on four principal administrative areas: personnel, physical plant, ruin repair and archeology, and relationship with the public. In addition, for several years he made periodic inspections of Yucca House and Hovenweep, two archeological zones to the northwest of Aztec, to oversee the work of Roving Ranger Roland Richert.

Since there was neither housing nor other facilities at either of these detached holdings, Richert lived out of the back of his pick-up truck as he tended to his duties in virtual isolation. This prolonged solitary existence may have let him cultivate an almost psychopathic fear that his middle Germanic name of von Steen would cause associates to regard him as a Nazi sympathizer. Thereafter, he carefully avoided use of that name in the several reports he was destined to write about Aztec Ruins. [1]

PERSONNEL

For the first several seasons of National Park Service administration of the enlarged Aztec Ruins National Monument, Faris worked alone. His wife took his place during times when he was away or ill in a role known in the Service as HCWP (honorary custodian without pay). Because Service policy mandated personal interpretation, he hired seasonal guides to take over some responsibilities when traffic was heaviest.

With the new facilities completed under the government relief program, Aztec Ruins National Monument was mature enough to warrant the second position of a permanent park ranger, Grade 8. This position first was filled by Robert W. Hart in August 1935. He served for a year. [2] At the time Miller assumed custodianship, the position was vacant. Therefore, when the spring tourist season of 1937 began, Miller hired Mr. and Mrs. Charles Turner at a $3.50 daily wage to be temporary guides until the Civil Service provided an eligibility list for the permanent post. Shortly, complaints were lodged with the director by several individuals. They claimed that the Turners, not being archeologists, were incompetent. Oscar Tatman also worked for Miller as a temporary guide, but his knowledge of the ruins was unquestioned. While the protests may have been another example of the personal interest of townfolks in "their ruin," Miller was inclined to disregard them. The names used on the letters to Washington were not known in the Animas valley area to those to whom he spoke.

Regardless, the matter was resolved in June, when Herbert S. (Pete) Day filled the permanent position. Day appeared to like his assignment and took to writing a weekly column for the Aztec Independent entitled "Rumblings from the Aztec Ruins National Monument." [3] Because the job did not allow him archeological research time, he soon grew dissatisfied and resigned after six months. Miller once again had to find an assistant. [4]

To avoid this sort of misunderstanding, Superintendent Pinkley wrote a formal job description for the position of park ranger. Ideally, the duties were divided into four categories. All of them dovetailed with the custodian's role. Since an understanding of the Anasazi was the primary reason for the monument, 60 percent of the person's time was to be devoted to conducting groups of visitors through the museum and ruin. Twenty percent of the ranger's time was to be given to checking, policing, and maintaining the physical plant and grounds. Ten percent was to be spent in general museum housekeeping by cataloging specimens, preparing exhibits, and compiling visitor statistics. The remaining 10 percent of time was to be taking charge of the monument during absences of the custodian. [5] Although an archeological background was desirable for interpretive authority, scientific research was not part of the position design. The designation of archeologist was dropped from the job title.

In these early decades of the National Park Service operations in the Southwest, relatively few individuals were involved in administration. They enjoyed a clubby relationship as they frequently crossed paths from job to job at the various monuments. Such was the case with the next two rangers at Aztec Ruins National Monument, who had taken their entrance examinations together. James A. Brewer, Jr., became park ranger in April 1938 at an annual salary of $1,860. In November, he was transferred to become custodian at Navajo National Monument.

Two months later, Brewer was replaced at Aztec Ruins National Monument by Homer Hastings. Hastings had attended Fort Lewis College and Western State College in Colorado, where he minored in anthropology. After a season at Carlsbad Caverns and three summers at Chaco Canyon, he decided to make the National Park Service his career. The assignment at Aztec Ruins launched that on a permanent basis. Hasting's duties were outlined as 80 percent registering and guiding visitors and 20 percent as general maintenance of museum, comfort stations, and trails. [6] He carried out these tasks until March 1942, when he was named custodian at Montezuma Castle National Monument, Arizona.

PHYSICAL PLANT

As Miller moved into the custodian's residence, natural gas heat was put into all the modern monument buildings. A gas burner was positioned in the old coal-burning furnace of the administration building. [7] The next year an underground phone line replaced former conspicuous poles and wires.

Almost coincident with Faris's departure, he requested $6,500 for a new house for the custodian. Since plans to erect a park ranger's house were scrapped during the Civilian Conservation Corps program, the old custodian's residence could fill the need. In March 1937, the request was approved. Detailed specifications under a Public Works Administration project were completed a month later. [8] Again, action on the construction was postponed.

Otherwise, routine maintenance work was done on leaking roofs at the administration building, Great Kiva, and custodian's residence. New linoleum was laid in two modern buildings, rooms were repainted, water pipes were repaired. Cracked plaster on the residence was touched up and repainted. Its cement floor was waterproofed. [9]

A study was made of the monument's water rights because of Farmers Ditch adjudication proceedings. [10]

At the outset of Miller's administration, the museum arrangement was not settled. The proposed doorway to the west room, which got Faris in trouble, was not authorized nor had display or storage shelving been built. After Miller secured permission to proceed with the doorway, he appealed for prompt action in equipping the museum in three rooms of the administration building. [11] "The past winter has been a hard one on our artifacts stored in the underground rooms in the Ruins," Miller reported. "The rooms have been wet from snow and rain for more than sixty days now. Some of the artifacts have been removed from the Ruins and stored in the Administration building to keep from ruining them." [12] The estimated cost of new cases and the work of preparing them came to $645.55. [13]

By summer, the door was cut, new cases were arriving, and exhibits were being arranged with the help of Archeologist Charlie R. Steen. Eight new cases doubled the amount of materials shown. Four cases held pottery, two basketry and weaving, one stone, bone, and wood artifacts, and eight were devoted to the place of Aztec Ruins in Southwestern prehistory. [14] The floor of the exhibit room was reinforced to resist the tramp of many feet, which had been rocking cases. In order to alleviate some congestion in the small front room, in warm weather the registration desk was moved to the front porch so that visitors could be greeted before they went into the museum.

A few imperishable specimens continued to be shown in the ruins until 1942. At that time all artifacts were taken out of the ruins, and the shelving upon which they rested was dismantled. [15]

In 1940, Sherman Howe caused concern for the monument staff by withdrawing 42 specimens from his collection to present them to the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe. Although approximately 100 Howe items remained at Aztec Ruins, Dorr G. Yeager, then assistant museum chief, felt that the Western Museum Laboratory in Berkeley should have been permitted to arrange a small attractive exhibit of selected representative specimens for Santa Fe. [16] However, since none of the specimens came from ruins within the monument boundaries, they were unprovenienced and of limited scientific value.

National Youth Administration enrollees cleaned the irrigation ditches, chopped weeds, planted native shrubs such as sage, chico, and chamiza, and watered the vegetation.

By 1940, Southwest Monuments Superintendent Hugh M. Miller was impressed with the progress that had been made at Aztec Ruins. He reported, "From the standpoint of accessibility, facilities, and administration, Aztec is one of the top monuments in the Southwestern group." [17]

RUIN REPAIR AND ARCHEOLOGY

Just two years after extensive repairs were carried out under a Public Works Administration program, the walls of the West Ruin were failing at an alarming rate. In the month of February 1937, the unusually harsh weather brought down 42 weakened portions of walls. One nearly fell on a touring party. [18] The next month, two laborers were called in to shore up these and other weather-beaten wall sections and to waterproof seven original leaking ceilings. Knowing these efforts were at best temporary solutions that could be undone with the next blizzard or upcoming summer thunderstorm season, Miller appealed for further sustained repair activities at Aztec Ruins. He estimated that a minimum of 3,000 man-hours would be needed soon.

In 1938, Pinkley organized a relief squad of men to be trained on the job to cope with relentless deterioration of a number of sites under his administration. Aztec Ruins was on its itinerary as the unit moved throughout the Southwest Region. Custodian Miller was committed to spending an increasing part of his time directing ruins repair efforts (see Chapter 12).

The first archeological work done after the Depression projects was carried out by Charlie Steen in 1938. After graduating from Denver University with a degree in anthropology, Steen joined the National Park Service in 1934 as a ranger at Casa Grande National Monument, Arizona. Two years later, he was named archeologist attached to the Southwest National Monuments headquarters in Coolidge. Beloved for his wit and respected for his technical abilities as an excavator and ruins stabilizer, except for an interval during World War II when he served in the China-Burma-India theaters, Steen remained in the southwestern ranks of the National Park Service until retirement in 1970.

At Aztec Ruins in 1938, Steen's assignment was to eliminate a physical hazard potentially harmful to visitors. For eight days, enrollees of the Indian Civilian Conservation Corps Mobile Unit, under the direction of Steen, cleared Rooms 193, 249, and 202 in the North Wing so that the visitor trail could be rerouted. In the past, persons exiting from the connected rooms with ceilings used a ladder in Room 193 to reach the top of the mound in the unexcavated portion of the ruin (see Figure 6.4). The excavations eliminated this obstacle by making it possible to walk through the site at ground level.

Artifacts retrieved from the three rooms included Mesa Verde and Chaco black-on-white and corrugated potsherds, bone awls, bone beads, a bone whistle, stone knives, arrowpoints, a stone pendant, an abalone shell pendant, and numerous unworked fragments of faunal and bird bones. Partial remains of eight individuals were recovered. Seven of them were children. Because it contained little refuse, Steen concluded that Room 202 had been used until nearly the time of final abandonment of the site. However, a cutting date of A.D. 1110 from one beam indicated it had been put in place by Chaco builders during their main construction effort. Adjoining Rooms 203 and 204 apparently had become middens during the Mesa Verde tenancy. [19]

Other scientific research during the Miller years carried out by persons not connected with the National Park Service concerned tree-ring dating of the site. In the early developmental period of dendrochronology, tree-ring dating had a big impetus from 52 specimens from the West Ruin submitted by Earl Morris. After the series of relative dates was connected to absolute dates, several other collections were made at the village for purposes of cross checking data. Harry T. Getty, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona, bored a few cores in 1934. In 1940, Deric O'Bryan, Gila Pueblo, collected 92 additional samples. [20] The range of dates for the West Ruin continued to cluster from A.D. 1110 to 1115, as they had in Douglass's first appraisal. The years A.D. 1106 and 1131 were the earliest and latest dates of the series. Samples from beams in what had been the American Museum field house conformed to those from the Anasazi communal house. The neighboring East Ruin produced wood dates in the period identified with Chacoan tenancy. In addition, three examples from the site dating in the 1230s conceivably reflected Mesa Verdian building or remodeling. [21]

Four dates obtained during this interval from a large unexcavated cobblestone construction beside the entrance road at Estes Arroyo seemed to represent a widespread regional occupation predating erection of the multiroomed village of the West Ruin. These covered four years from A.D. 1091 to 1097. [22]

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PUBLIC

Custodian Miller had the misfortune of settling in at Aztec during a winter season with the most severe weather on record in northwestern New Mexico. Deep snows and extreme subzero temperatures played havoc with new and ancient structures on the monument and virtually closed the miserable dirt entrance road for a month. Miller laid a temporary board walk across the courtyard of the ruin so that intrepid visitors braving the wintry conditions would not sink up to their ankles in slush and mud. A helper dragged a scraper by hand to clear trails around the monument. [23]

Custodians Faris and Miller were convinced that Aztec Ruins National Monument would not be fully developed, bringing greater recognition to the installation and economic benefits to the neighboring community, until the dirt entrance road was paved. The mile-long road was negotiable when the weather was dry. Otherwise, getting to the monument by vehicle was challenging. For years, Faris lobbied state officials for help, even resorted to grading the road himself, all to no avail. Miller likewise made little immediate headway in obtaining state help to improve the road. Ultimately, however, his agitation led to a meeting among the San Juan County Commissioners, local businessmen, and the governor of New Mexico, Clyde Tingley. The outcome was a promise from the governor that, if the commissioners would secure title to land for right-of-way, he would see that a decent road was constructed. In May 1937, Miller reported to Southwest Monuments headquarters that he had the right-of-way, the fences were set back, and "we are waiting for the road." [24]

Shortly, grading and leveling work on the approach road began and continued through June and July. Aztec merchants bought, erected, and maintained several signs directing travelers to the monument. However, it was not until a year later that the road finally was seal-coated, ending years of complaint.

The new entrance road and New Mexico Highway 550 from Farmington through Aztec to Durango, paved at the same time, and a national climate of rising well-being accounted for a good year of visitation in 1938. More than 20,000 persons registered at the monument. Across the road from the entrance, the Westward Ho Curio Store opened in an Abrams building. Mr. and Mrs. Ernest P. (Doc) Josey hoped to benefit from the new tide of tourism with craft items, sandwiches, and soda pop.

The diplomatic skills of the custodian at Aztec Ruins were tested in balancing the desires of the curious traveling public to be educated about the Anasazi heritage, which the facility helped preserve, and those of individuals and organizations wishing to make use of the restored Great Kiva for personal enjoyment not related to the monument's intent. Public usage fostered good will essential to the success of a government holding within a settled area; the fact that the structure was not aboriginal outweighed fear of profanation. Miller was successful in this delicate intermeshing of needs. While general visitation climbed, an increasing after-hours use of the Great Kiva occurred. The Odd Fellows, Boy Scouts, Federated Women's Clubs, Rebekahs, American Legion, Masons, assorted church groups, and unidentified families met, prayed, or were married in what a Santa Fe newspaper termed "a heathen temple." [25] At the request of the Aztec Chamber of Commerce, the 25¢ entrance fees were waived for persons attending Easter sunrise services in the Great Kiva. [26]

During the war years, visitation expectedly dropped precipitously. It reached its lowest level of 4,574 persons in 1944 (see Appendix K). Entrance fees again were waived for those in military uniform and for Native Americans. [27]