Big Bend Administrative History

Observing the daily operations of Big Bend National Park reveals much about the hopes and dreams of its early advocates and employees. Big Bend also provides an excellent venue for understanding the complex relationship of park service policies, public moods, and political pressures that have affected all NPS units over the past four decades. Once the infrastructure funded by Mission 66 was in place, it fell to the management and staff of Big Bend to uphold the mandate of preserving the park's resources for the enjoyment of the taxpaying public. Among the more intriguing features of that process was the shift in public attitude from development in national parks to preservation of wilderness; a circumstance that Big Bend's neighbors found problematic (despite the park's creation in harsh environmental and economic times). As the nation and the NPS struggled at the turn of the twenty-first century to define a new generation of park policies, the story of Big Bend's management (with its isolation, distance, aridity, size, and location along the border between the United States and Mexico) offered insights that had parallels throughout the NPS system.

Whether coincidental or not, each decade of Big Bend's existence after the dedication of the Mission 66 structures had its own character and challenges for park staff. The 1960s, a time of great turmoil nationally amidst the movements for civil rights, antiwar protest, and environmental activism, seemed to bypass Big Bend, with the result a stagnant operation awaiting the need for a new master plan. The next decade, however, was not so fortunate. During the 1970s the process of rethinking Big Bend's management style included the new ideas of ecological sensitivity and reduction of human use of the resources. At the same time, the failure of the superintendent and his top staff to solve the difficulties of managing Big Bend required drastic measures of NPS supervisory personnel. When the park service decided in the early 1980s to change the direction of Big Bend, the interaction of the park and its neighbor to the south became intertwined with management objectives. Then in the 1990s, the need for increased funding to upgrade the half-century-old physical plant brought Big Bend's problems once again before the park service.

When Stanley Joseph took command of Big Bend in 1960, he realized quickly that Mission 66 had not resolved all of the issues that had plagued the park since Ross Maxwell's day. Doug Evans, chief naturalist at Big Bend from 1961-1966, analyzed in 1965 the visitation patterns of the park in anticipation of changes in the interpretative program. As late as 1959, wrote Evans, Big Bend hosted some 70,370 patrons; a number that was hard to verify, since Big Bend did not charge admission, and there were no automobile counters installed at the entrance stations until the late 1960s. By 1963, Big Bend's visitation estimates had grown some 62 percent (to 114,232). Evans speculated that "if this rate of increase continues, we could expect 185,000 visitors in 1968 and 300,000 by 1973." The chief naturalist viewed these figures as "conservative," assuming that "visitation will certainly be affected by the completion of the new interpretative roads, new lodge, campgrounds, trailer facilities, and museum facilities" that he studied. He also believed that once "the new road, now being constructed northward from Muzquiz, Coahuila toward Big Bend is completed, the number of park visitors will certainly soar above all predictions made thus far." [1]

Reflective of the mood of park officials prior to the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Evans offered solutions for this visitation that accepted current visitor habits and tastes. "At the present time," wrote the chief naturalist, "all visitors to Big Bend come in private cars." These patrons "drive either to Santa Elena Canyon," he noted, "or Boquillas Canyon, and to the Chisos Basin." The most striking feature of visitor use, said Evans, was that "during the summer months, up to 80 percent of park visitors go to the Basin." He suggested to NPS officials that "with improved facilities there we can expect that nearly all visitors will go to the Basin in the future." Thus Big Bend needed to improve roadside interpretation, which Evans hoped would include self-guided tours of the main roads and trails. The park also could expand its programs of guided walks, campfire talks, and museum exhibits. Evans also encouraged more use of the Rio Grande Village, which he envisioned with "overnight accommodations, [a] dining room, and saddle horses" to augment the existing campground, picnic area, and service station. "Interpretation in the Rio Grande Village," wrote the chief naturalist, "will emphasize the biology of the river floodplain and the river." Evans also called upon NPS officials to construct at the river's edge "a campfire circle with a seating capacity of about 250." He predicted that ""when proposed facilities are complete, and naturalists become available, campfire programs will be conducted seven nights a week through at least nine months of the year." Should the NPS add "trailer facilities and air-conditioned accommodations," the park could anticipate a twelve-month schedule of activities in the vicinity of the old Daniels ranch and the mining community of Boquillas. [2]

At the west end of the park, said Evans, the NPS should consider expansion of visitor services at the old Army compound of Castolon and the mouth of Santa Elena Canyon. "Plans for the future," he wrote in 1965, "include sleeping and dining facilities, saddle horses, campgrounds, trailer facilities, and picnic areas." NPS staff could explain to visitors "United States Cavalry operations during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, and of an isolated Mexican-border trading and ranching center." Evans suggested that the park service use the Alvino residence to "illustrate the way of life on an Mexican border farm." The interpretation could include "a small demonstration garden of vegetables and melons" growing next to the house. Then in a statement filled with irony, the chief naturalists noted that "the candelilla wax processing system will be restored nearby." Museum exhibits to be housed in the old Castolon store also would have on display candelilla wax, which Evans characterized as "an important means of livelihood." [3]

The chief naturalist's plans for interpreting Big Bend's story represented the peak of the "development" phase at the park. Within two years, NPS resource planner David J. Jones would come to Big Bend to gauge the future of resource planning, and comment on the challenge that facilities expansion posed. "The establishment of Big Bend as a National Park has not entirely solved the problem of consumptive use," claimed Jones in a 1967 natural sciences research plan. "Recreation has replaced the previous forms of land use," he suggested, "but it, too, places demands upon natural resources." In Jones's mind, "three developmental determinants established long ago are critical factors." These he labeled as "encouraging a highway in Mexico to connect with the park ending at Boquillas; concentrating visitor-use facilities in the Chisos Basin; [and] developing visitor-use facilities at Rio Grande Village and Castolon to avoid over-concentration of visitors in the Chisos Basin during the heavy travel season." The NPS faced "a crucial problem . . . [in] making the decisions now that will control how we accommodate the one million visitors anticipated annually some 60 to 100 years from now." This would include "providing them [with] an enjoyable and quality park experience with minimum impact upon the biological and esthetic well-being of the land." [4]

While not mentioning the work of Mission 66 in the park, Jones nonetheless asked: "Is it wiser to concentrate in one large developed area the principal food service and overnight accommodations offered visitors by the concessioner, and government employee housing and administration facilities?" These he attributed to "the scheme envisioned in the master plan team study dated February 1965." Instead, wrote Jones, "is it better to have what amounts to four highly developed areas of the park: one in the mountains; one on the upper bajada; and two at the river, as proposed by a different study team plan dated June 1965." The NPS resource planner recognized the need to balance visitor demands and "the biological well-being of the park." Equally challenging was Jones's question: "Which [option] is more feasible to finance, is the least costly to operate, and is the best investment for the concessionaire?" NPS planners would need to determine "adequate water supply, disposal of sewage, garbage, and trash, space enough to expand accommodations as the need arises, ready and free-flowing access to and egress from the major points of interest in the park (the Chisos Mountain Basin being a prime example)?" Jones declined to "review the validity of the basic development scheme which has prevailed for the past 20 years," preferring to ask: "How productive have our efforts to achieve this really been?" He then wondered: "Is it not possible that by the time such an investment becomes economically feasible the Mexicans will have developed acceptable high standard facilities at Boquillas as part of the Border Improvement Program?" [5]

For the NPS resource planner, the challenge included the thinking of the park service itself. "If restoration to a vignette of primitive America is to be attempted at Big Bend," wrote Jones, "who determines what was there in 1880 (the date proposed by the park staff)?" Jones could not ascertain "who knows what is 'natural' when one is dealing with an area supporting some vegetation and perhaps some fauna that are either relict species [of] that date from a more favorable environment of the past or are species just becoming established?" The planner worried that "a number of competent scientists, including biologists, who have experience with paleo-reconstruction in the Southwest doubt the wisdom of such an effort." Instead, Jones concluded, "it would be more practical and useful to manage Big Bend 'to assure a minimum of man-induced interference with the natural evolutionary process.'" This involved what Jones called "documenting the changes of the past to the degree possible, determining what is taking place today, and noting trends that indicate what changes might occur here in the future." The Southwest regional planning team should revisit its assumptions made in February 1965, and "utilize both normative and humanistic decision model theory, if possible, before selecting the appropriate development scheme to be followed in the future of Big Bend–if the goal is to produce a minimum of damage and deterioration to the natural resources the park was established to perpetuate." [6]

David Jones's comments reflected the growing discontent within scientific circles about environmental degradation and land-use patterns in national parks. To claim that the park service was harming the Big Bend ecosystem like the ranchers before them said a great deal about the turmoil and confusion awaiting the staff and management of the 1970s. A decade of planning ensued, with criticism and complaints about NPS strategies arising almost immediately. Three factors came together in park planning that generated much controversy: the 1964 wilderness act, the 1968 wild and scenic rivers act, and the 1969 national environmental protection act. All three measures would influence thinking about Big Bend, and would draw attention from landowners in the area, environmental activists far away, and NPS planners from Santa Fe to Washington.

Like every other federal agency involved in natural-resource issues, the NPS had to adjust its planning process after the passage of NEPA to solicit public commentary at open meetings. In January of 1972, a group out of Temple, Texas calling itself "Americans Backing Better Park Development" called upon the park service to consider their "Alternative to the Master Plan and Wilderness Proposal for Big Bend National Park." Bob Burleson, president of the association, echoed David Jones's cautions about the 1965 master planning strategies. The 1972 document, said Burleson, "would authorize projects that in the long run will result in over-development in the form of high-speed highways, excessive automobile and commercial traffic, an international river crossing to Mexico, and excessive water use and impact in the Chisos Mountains Basin." Burleson's association realized that "all parks cannot be left forever undeveloped, and that some segments of public pressure on the National Park Service will tend to call for increased development in the future." But the group warned that "over-development, in the long run, will be a much greater sin than under-development." [7]

The organization, which Burleson claimed had over 1,000 members in chapters throughout Texas and in Los Alamos, New Mexico, agreed with the NPS that "the Wilderness proposal is realistic and large enough to protect the most important values in the Park." Burleson called the "Chamber of Commerce-type groups" that opposed the plan "misguided." What they sought, claimed the association, "is an influx of automobile tourists, the 'pie in the sky' road link with Mexico, motels and campgrounds for the 'swelling millions' of tourists that they envision will contribute heavily to the Alpine-Marfa economy." Burleson's group believed that visitation would increase with "a really quality experience," given that "the beauty of the Big Bend Country lies in its mood of remoteness, of silence, of vast and untouched space, of its blend of desert and mountain wilderness." While criticizing the tone of the master plan as "vague," Burleson agreed with its goals "to reduce human impact in the Chisos basin, remove the horse concession to some other point in the park and to concentrate development in the future in the area of Panther Junction, Nugent Mountain and Rio Grande Village." But the "consensus" of the association was that "the proposed Master Plan will continue to allow excessive impact and development in the Chisos Basin, and that its emphasis on the proposed international park and bridge crossing into Mexico is highly dangerous to the long-term survival of the highest values of the Park." [8]

Writing some 40 years after the initial conversations with Mexico about the international park, Burleson and his group regarded the Muzquiz-Boquillas road as "the most dangerous proposition that Big Bend National Park will ever have to face, exceeding in gravity even the anticipated large increases in automobile visitation to the Park from the United States of America." The road was "fraught with such danger to the park," said Burleson, that "we were shocked by the great emphasis placed upon this proposal in the Master Plan and by the enthusiasm with which the Park Service has embraced a proposal that threatens the ultimate destruction of the most valuable features of the Park." Burleson warned that "the National Park Service was not created as an instrument of foreign policy, and is ill-suited to the role." Unaware of the four decades of negotiations over the international park, the association claimed that "anyone acquainted with the history of Mexico and its present problems of population growth vs. economic growth will at once recognize the dangers of mixing Big Bend National Park with foreign policy." Burleson argued that "the Mexican government is obliged by political expediency to remain committed to The Revolution, one of the cardinal tenets of which is that the rural landholdings should be broken up and re-distributed to the former peons." This had given rise to "the Ejido Program, under which tracts of land are worked cooperatively, almost communally, both for livestock grazing and for row-crop agriculture." The ejidos created near Boquillas and Santa Elena, claimed Burleson, included "a vast grassland area, and an important source of commercial timber, as well as active mines." The association president warned that "all of these are local economic interests which will have to be reckoned with by the Mexican government if it should ever actually be serious about an international park." [9]

Burleson then noted the policies of the Mexican government in the 1960s to shift its population from the central valleys to the northern border. "The lack of money, jobs and space in Mexico," wrote Burleson, "and the ease with which the border is illegally crossed and employment obtained, has caused tremendous buildups of population in Mexican cities along the border where international crossings are maintained and cities have grown up." Given these realities, the association claimed that "Mexico has no genuine interest in withdrawing lands from economic use and creating on its soil a 'national park' of the type that we have in Big Bend." Burleson believed that "economic self-interest" tied the chambers of commerce in west Texas to Mexico's plan for a highway to Boquillas. Since "the Mexican government cannot be expected to take away the property and livelihood of the local miners, ejido-dwellers, and ranchers without gaining for the area some economic benefits," Burleson claimed that "this must come from the proposed commercial uses of the new road and river crossing." He warned that "the population of Boquillas can be expected to increase perhaps a thousand-fold in the event that there is an automobile linkup and river crossing." "Who wants a Villa Acuna across from Rio Grande Village," asked Burleson, "among the tourist traps and vice parlors?" Instead, wrote the association president, the NPS "should stick to its business of providing quality park experiences within our own national park system, and leave the economic development of northern Mexico to the Mexican government." The park service would do better to encourage development at the La Linda bridge-crossing outside park boundaries. The local economy would not suffer, and "both tourism and commercial use would be greater on such a road . . . because it would be less restricted." [10]

Turning their attention to the Chisos Basin, Burleson's group highlighted the impact studies conducted there for the NPS by Dr. Paul Whitson. He had concluded that "the upward spread of desert vegetation and the drain on limited water resources" faced any plans for expansion of visitor services. Burleson found particularly offensive the master plan's call for "new structures for the private personal gain and benefit of National Park Concessions, Inc." Whitson and others had found that "pollution problems are becoming more pressing in the Basin with the advent of new developments and increased overnight use by staff and tourists." Big Bend had but two percent of its acreage devoted to woodlands, and Burleson saw "no excuse or justification for further concentration of the major human use and impact on the smallest and most fragile part of the Park environment." The 1972 draft master plan called for a multi-story motel unit in the upper Basin, a new interpretative-contact station in the upper Basin, new employee housing and storage areas near the Chisos Remuda location, a new house for the NPCI concession manager, and a new gas station-store and ranger station in the lower Basin. Burleson wanted NPCI to build any new motel units at Panther Junction, Rio Grande Village, "or elsewhere in the developed areas outside the mountains." He also called for retention of the CCC-vintage "Dallas huts," with their "common shower houses and toilets." Should these be replaced with more modern accommodations, "the water usage by overnight guests rises in direct proportion to the availability and ease with which water can be used." Aesthetics, ironically enough, added to the appeal of the Dallas huts for Burleson and his association. "The Dallas huts, as old as they are," he wrote, "at least blend with the landscape and are not readily visible from a distance, as from the trails to the South Rim, etc." [11]

If the park were to limit expansion of visitor service in the Chisos Basin, argued the association, it also should follow the master plan's recommendation to remove the horse concession. "The horses are daily contributing to the ruin of the Chisos Mountains trail system," wrote Burleson, "and to the pollution of the Basin with fecal matter and exotic plants." The association conceded that visitors liked the horse concession, and suggested one of three options for relocation: Rio Grande Village, Castolon, or "the proposed campground are near Nugent Mountain." Burleson preferred the latter site, as it was "at an elevation high enough to make summertime riding possible." He admitted that "the horses will still do some trailside grazing and damage to the new trails." Yet Burleson believed that "the grassland slopes around Nugent Mountain are more stable than the woodlands in the Chisos, and comprise a much greater percentage of the land area of the Park than do the woodlands." Burleson called this "the top priority" for the NPS, and asked that it be accomplished within two to three years. [12]

If the association's advice were taken, said Burleson, within a generation all visitor facilities and NPS operations in the Chisos Basin would be gone. The Nugent Mountain area, which Burleson suggested could be built "west of the Boquillas Road and 1/2 mile below the K-Bar Road," would include the Chisos Remuda, a campground, amphitheatre, and ranger-interpretative station. NPCI also should be encouraged to locate a service station, grocery store, and trailer court at Nugent Mountain. "Ample water has been demonstrated in this area," wrote Burleson, "and no natural water sources such as springs are involved." By 1995, the visitor would find in the Chisos Basin a landscape not unlike that encountered by the CCC when its first work crews began the task of creating Texas's first national park. [13]

The Burleson study of Big Bend's future had elements of the larger planning process that the NPS faced throughout the decade of the 1970s. By January of 1973, the park service had decided to request wilderness protection for 523,800 acres of the park (nearly three-quarters of the park's land base). Some 245,000 visitors had come to Big Bend in 1971, but the vast majority had not ventured into areas that the park service outlined in its wilderness proposal. The area most utilized, the Chisos Mountains, should be included (a total of 141,000 acres), with twelve additional sections of the park comprising the request for wilderness designation (each needing at least 5,000 acres to qualify). At public meetings held in Alpine, a group calling itself the "National Park Development Committee, Inc., wanted no action taken on the wilderness proposal, and asked that any future designation expire within seven years. The "Lone Star Chapter" of the Sierra Club, by contrast, joined with the Wilderness Society and the Fort Worth chapter of the Audobon Society to petition the NPS to expand wilderness in Big Bend to 669,000 acres (almost 95 percent of the park). The Texas Highway Department, speaking through its office of travel development, vigorously opposed the master plan. "The wording of the restrictions," wrote Richard H. Pierce of the highway department, "makes it abundantly clear that 74 percent of Big Bend National Park will be placed off limits for casual family travelers." This included "the station wagon family with youngsters, who are neither inclined nor equipped for cross-country hiking and dry-camp survival." Also prohibited would be "the senior citizens who travel so extensively, but are physically incapable of the rigors of back-packing across mountain and desert." The Texas highway department found most disturbing the clause in the 1964 wilderness act that would "apparently make impossible any future expansion or development of normal tourist facilities in that Wilderness Area, without a special rescinding act by Congress." [14]

Public debate about the master planning process for Big Bend led NPS officials in March 1973 to send another team to assess the interpretative needs of the park. Aram Mardirosian and Bill Ingersoll of the NPS's Denver Service Center went to Big Bend with Bill Brown of SWR, and discussed the issues surrounding the master plan with park staff. The team tried to reconcile the vision of park use outlined by Doug Evans in the mid-1960s with that of the environmentally conscious planning of a decade later. While no thorough assessment had been made of the types of visitors to Big Bend, the team identified "Texans and other southwesterners" as the primary users of the park. Their desire for high-altitude recreation in the summer would require "stimulation to explore the desert more carefully," wrote the review team. The same could be said of other groups like senior citizens, young people seeking solitude, and families coming at other times of the year like winter and spring holidays. Responding to the concerns of the early 1970s created by the "energy crisis," the review team conceded that their proposals "are based on the assumption that visitors will continue to explore Big Bend in private cars." The team believed that "ten years from now, the private-car, family-group type of visitor may be a rarity." In their place, "charter-bus tour groups may be the norm, with in-park bus tours the principal patterns." To meet that exigency, the NPS review team suggested that "wayside exhibits would have to accommodate to this, or they might be dispensed with in favor of on-bus personal and audio interpretation." [15]

The DSC review team also commented at some length on the park's distinctive historical resources, and noted the need for more recognition of the cultural heritage of the Big Bend country. The team liked what it found at the Castolon compound, especially the presence in the grocery store of historical detail that "gives the place the look of an old country store." The team called upon park officials to provide "formal furnishing plans" at Castolon, as "Big Bend is a marginal area, and there are virtually no social histories of that time and place." They believed that "the first decades of the 20th century are just long enough ago so that furnishings are beginning to interest collectors." Then the team commented at length on the invisibility of Mexican culture at the compound. "Big Bend is curiously free of Mexican food," wrote the reviewers, "although there is hardly any place in the park where you can't see Mexico." They suggested that "a small Mexican kitchen in the other wing of the [Garlick] house could sell tacos and burritos or something similar." The team believed that "interpretively, the Mexican kitchen would underscore the fact that Big Bend is not as overwhelmingly Anglo as the visitors are, [and] that the ecology of the Chihuahuan Desert ignores the international boundary." Their plan for a Mexican restaurant "would certainly not be aggressively modern, but then it wouldn't be historically pure either, just a comfortable sort of bridge across the river, linking the past and the present." In like manner, concluded the review team, the park needed "special salvage and documentation of cast off debris at places like Glenn Springs and Mariscal Mine," as well as "the need for more emphasis on oral history." The team noted that these tasks "are admittedly low priority in the operational context," but believed that they would "produce valuable interpretive data–and the things and the people involved are fading away fast." [16]

By 1975, the NPS had prepared a revised master plan that incorporated much of the debate and thinking about Big Bend since the early 1970s. Planners noted the decline in visitation by mid-decade (191,200 visitors, or a loss of 22 percent), even as "a large corporate land subdivision and sale is in progress . . . along the northern boundary of the park." These lands "are being sold primarily as recreation sites," wrote NPS planners, "and hunting is expected to be an important activity." Future guests to such facilities might use railroad service from Alpine to the park area, while "increased use of private aircraft suggests the wisdom of an airstrip near the park." The 1975 plan did recognize criticisms about the Muzquiz-Boquillas road, suggesting instead the La Linda bridge alternative. "Such a route would also provide much better access into the Sierra del Carmen-Fronteriza Range," said the planners, and could become "a principal feature of Mexico's proposed companion park." The planners preferred to leave border crossings at Santa Elena and Boquillas as they were, as "the residents of the Mexican agricultural villages along the park boundary use both park roads and concession services in the Rio Grande Village and Castolon areas." [17]

One feature of park planning that had not changed in the 1970s was the call for reduced dependency on the Chisos Basin for visitor and park use. The planners wanted no more automobile traffic in the basin than the existing 1975 levels, but agreed that the "Dallas huts will be replaced with modern units on a unit-for-unit basis," with "all new units . . . located within the existing impacted areas." Panther Junction would become the preferred site for visitor contact. "The location presents excellent opportunities for horseback rides into the surrounding foothills of the Chisos Mountains," wrote the planners, and "trails could be developed to connect with the existing trail network at the higher elevations." Rio Grande Village, in the estimation of the 1975 plan, would "become a major park visitor-use development." This site had sufficient water and land to form a "green-oasis" for visitors. Castolon would become a "secondary park use area," with "many of the amenities found at Rio Grande Village." History would be Castolon's primary emphasis, and "extreme care must be taken to integrate new structures with the old, while designing all facilities to fit within the regional scale." The planners included a call for "a river management plan . . . to establish the river's carrying capacity for float-trips, define appropriate types and extents of use, determine an appropriate number of commercial operators, and outline other necessary management practices and controls." [18]

By addressing these facility issues, the planners believed that Big Bend could solve its most serious problems of resource management. While conceding "the impossibility of turning back the ecological clock," future resource programs should attempt "re-establishing, where feasible, the dynamic natural scene as viewed by the first European visitor." The planners praised "the reintroduction of pronghorn in 1947 and 1948 and the apparently successful reintroduction of Montezuma quail in 1972." The next step for Big Bend's natural resource efforts, said the NPS planners, was that "the turkey and the desert big horn sheep should re-established in their former habitats." Park officials also should maintain vigilance about the grasslands, and "the historical role of fire in the ecology of the grassland and upper Chisos forests should be investigated." Once "the role of this natural agent is defined," said the planners, "and public property is not endangered, naturally occurring wildfires should be allowed to run their course." [19]

Should the NPS be permitted to implement these ideas, concluded the 1975 planning document, the NPS could make great strides to preserving the wilderness conditions that had prevailed centuries ago. Echoing the words of Walter Prescott Webb four decades earlier, the planners wrote that "Big Bend National Park provides an opportunity for a desert experience unequalled in quality or quantity in its region and the Nation." As had previous generations of NPS planners and scientists, the 1975 document called for "sound land-use practices, effective water utilization, and establishment of a companion park in Mexico" as the "major priorities for the continued qualitative use of the park." Then the planners reminded the NPS that "every encouragement should be given to the development of the park in Mexico by that government." They believed, as had commentators as diverse as Roger Toll, Everett Townsend, and Daniel Galicia in the 1930s, that "physically, the outstanding resources in the Big Bend National Park landscape are matched, and in some cases excelled, by the outstanding resources in Mexico south of the Rio Grande." The "facilities, developments, and wild areas for the two parks," wrote the NPS team, "would be planned to complement one another, to heighten the visitor's understanding of the region's plant and animal life and wildlife, and to better interpret the relationships between the Rio Grande watershed and all the people who inhabit it." [20]

Adoption of the draft master plan for Big Bend did not come easily in the 1970s, even after several revisions and inclusion of criticisms from both the preservation and development perspectives. Then in August 1975, Roland H. Wauer, chief scientist for the Southwest Region of the NPS (and previously the chief naturalist at Big Bend), delivered a paper to the Southwest Region superintendents' conference in Santa Fe. Wauer, like David Jones in 1967, placed the NPS in the context of a land-user in Big Bend as he narrated "a chronology of the environmental evolution of the Chisos Mountains and vicinity." When the CCC closed its camp in 1942 in Big Bend State Park, there remained about 4,500 square feet of building space; a number that had grown by 1975 to 115,126 square feet. In addition, said Wauer, NPCI had added 22,624 square feet for its operations. Visitation to the park had compounded what the NPS's chief scientist called "man's demands upon this unique environment." From 3,205 people in 1945, said Wauer, the numbers had grown in five years to 70,325, to 80,990 in 1955, and 163,550 by 1966 (the year, said Wauer, "when new facilities were completed that were intended to offer adequate visitor facilities for several decades into the future"). When the new master planning process began in 1973, visitation had leaped to 281,320. Wauer argued that "the National Park Service was not the first landlord within the Big Bend, but we are likely to be the last." The NPS "did not inherit a virgin area, but one that had been badly abused over the years." The chief scientist noted that "we started out to restore the natural environment and for the most part succeeded," as "nature has a way of healing itself if we let well enough alone." But Wauer confessed that "we made gross errors." In his mind, "I will always be ashamed that the Park Service developed Cattail Falls Canyon, placed a radio repeater station on top of Emory Peak, constructed two sewage lagoons in the Lower Basin, and are now building a sewage treatment plant nearby." [21]

Wauer then took issue with the conclusions of the March 1975 master plan, especially its call for new construction at Castolon, Rio Grande Village, and Panther Junction. "These are redundant areas," claimed the regional chief scientist, "where some development will not appreciably add to the total impacts within the environments of floodplain, desert and grassland." He praised the plan's call for removal of facilities in the Chisos Basin, as "these actions are huge pluses for resources protection." Wauer saw as an intractable dilemma "the continuation of natural processes, while seemingly insurmountable pressures for more development continue;" a circumstance that the chief scientist said "we must live with in this case for many years to come." Speaking rhetorically, Wauer asked "in retrospect, how wonderful it would have been if the Park Service could have inherited virgin wilderness and then had the foresight to learn about the resources and their relationships prior to committing ourselves to development." He then emphatically declared: "But it was too late! It is now a battle between the protectionists and the developers." Quoting the famed naturalist Aldo Leopold, Wauer closed by reminding the region's superintendents of the lessons of Big Bend. "It was Leopold who said, 'The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all of the pieces.'" For Wauer, "today's extremes are tomorrow's lifestyle." Thus the NPS "must use the tools at hand if we are going to really win the battle of preservation of our resources." Big Bend, if it taught anything in its three decades of existence, reminded its former chief naturalist that "we must do more than just insulate the natural processes from the impact of modern man." [22]

Having the regional chief scientist weigh in on the 1975 master plan did not augur well for Big Bend's planning process. At the same time, operations deteriorated within the park under superintendent Joe Carithers. By the summer of 1976 (five years after Carithers's appointment), the Southwest Region had to send a review team to document charges of mismanagement and racism. This process echoed the problems of a generation earlier, when Ross Maxwell's actions came under increasing scrutiny, leading to his removal and departure from the park service. Four regional officials (Robert Bendt, Jose Cisneros, Emil Matic, and Charles Budge), joined with Dennis Hill of the NPS's Mather Training Center to conduct a series of interviews and site inspections in August 1976. From that would come a scathing indictment of Carithers's management, removal of nearly all of his top assistants, and the need for new directions in a park already under siege in the battle between preservation and development. [23]

The Southwest region had received complaints about the management of Big Bend for several years. Making the review of Carithers's operations more difficult was his connection to the upper echelons of NPS management, and his presumed relationship with important Democratic party officials like Arizona senator Morris Udall and his brother, former Interior secretary Stewart Udall. A preliminary review of Big Bend's activities in July 1976 led SWR officials to suspect problems not only with the superintendent, but his assistant superintendent, chief ranger, chief of maintenance, and administrative officer. Regional director Joseph Rumburg (himself a young park ranger at Big Bend in the early 1950s) went to the park in early August, and agreed that a complete review was in order. He then asked the review team to address concerns with park maintenance, resource management, employee development, and external programs and activities. [24]

Upon arrival at Big Bend, the team began with assessment of external affairs. They found that Carithers and his staff did little with the surrounding communities. "It is, therefore, little wonder," wrote the team in August 1976, "that 49% of the articles and 47% of the space given to Big Bend in the 'Alpine Avalanche' were concerned with park development and planning, mostly negative in nature." The team then remarked about the lack of standards for employees' appearances, including adherence to NPS regulations for uniforms. In matters of law enforcement, "a great deal of thought is to be given," said the review team, "to de-emphasizing of the wearing and displaying of weapons and other defensive equipment by the RM [resource management] and VP [visitor protection] personnel." The team disliked the lack of planning by park staff in matters of "search and rescue, backcountry management, river management, and resource management." There was no documented safety program at Big Bend, as "safety appeared to be of concern to employees but not of too great a concern with park management." Rules of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were not applied, and the team discovered that "safety meetings, tailgate sessions, safety films, etc., are not being held or shown as they should be." Training in first aid had been requested by staff, but not provided. This laxity had spread to all areas of maintenance, leading the team to report that "the general appearance of the park is one of wide-spread neglect in maintenance of all facilities." From planning to inventory of supplies and equipment to "personal performance standards," the team found that "maintenance is managed by crisis," and that employees were frustrated and unmotivated. [25]

The language used by the review team consistently emphasized the shabby state of affairs at Big Bend. At the Panther Junction visitors center and park headquarters, paint had faded, restrooms were unclean, and even the American flag needed replacement. In the Chisos Basin (the object of much discussion in the master planning process), the team declared that "the overall appearance of those facilities that we are responsible for maintaining are a disgrace to the Service." Restrooms and campground facilities showed that "there has been no scheduled preventative maintenance for several years." The same applied to the hiking trails in the basin, while the road into the Chisos Basin was the worst in the park. Erosion, poor drainage, overgrown vegetation, and obstructed signage plagued all park roads, and the review team surmised that employees put up whatever color of sign that they had at their disposal. [26]

Employee moral contributed to the sad state of resource management at Big Bend; a condition that the review team agreed "was a chronic problem." Staff would be kept in remote locations for too long, leading to jobs that the reviewers considered "dull and repetitive." In addition, employees faced "supervisory neglect" in the field. "Supervisory contact is limited to radio conversations," leading to "a two-sided problem: management is not aware of the problems and employees are made to feel alienated from the organization." Maintenance supervision suffered from a heavy reliance upon seasonal employees with little experience, and the "increasing chronological age" of the permanent staff. This created what the team called "a drain on available manpower as a result of required annual leave, furloughs, and in some cases, extended sick leave." The average maintenance worker was 50 years of age, with 18 percent eligible for immediate retirement and 40 percent facing the same situation within five years. "As a result," wrote the review team, "the work force is rapidly losing the stamina to do the maintenance work necessary to maintain operations at standard." The review team especially disliked the lack of minority employees throughout the park, with the maintenance crew "predominantly minority," and only one permanent ranger being Latino. [27]

Given these concerns at Big Bend, the NPS had to make changes in management that underscored what Jose Cisneros would recall as the 1970s' political nature of park management. Gene Balaz would be named as assistant superintendent, charged with improvement of operations and maintenance. When superintendent Carithers refused the offer of a position in the regional office in Santa Fe, SWR director John Cook then had to remove him and his supervisory personnel. Issues of maintenance improved with the appointment of Robert Haraden in 1978 as superintendent, as Haraden had come to the NPS in the 1950s with a degree in engineering from the University of Maine. Gene Balaz would recall in a 1996 interview his efforts to advance the cause of employee morale at Big Bend, and the improvement of facilities such as the 250,000-gallon water-storage system in the Chisos Basin for the concessions. Bob Haraden also worked to reestablish good community relations in west Texas (not unlike the efforts in the early 1950s of superintendent Lon Garrison when he replaced Ross Maxwell). [28]

With the dawn of the 1980s, the planning process at Big Bend had nearly reached a halt. Russell Berry, acting superintendent, and Wayne Cone, acting SWR director, admitted in January 1980 that the NPS could not complete the park's master plan begun ten years before. Caught between new environmental standards and local opposition to changes in park operations and boundaries, the master planning team decided instead to release in August 1979 one of the new documents connected to the planning agenda: a final environmental statement (FES). Visitation had rebounded at Big Bend by the close of the decade (a reported 300,000 in 1978), and the NPS claimed that "park use patterns are fairly well established." They had hoped "to develop the park for the visitor in a way that interprets park values and, at the same time, preserves the natural and historical environment." One feature of the master plan that had not existed when the process began inn 1970 was congressional designation of the Rio Grande as a "wild and scenic river." Because of the separation of management, the WSR would not be included in the 1980 master plan for Big Bend. [29]

While the 1980 plan could not initiate action, the team did attempt suggestions for new park operations that once again blended the preservation and development concepts debated throughout the 1970s. Panther Junction would continue to be the focus of visitor orientation and interpretation. To alleviate crowding in the Chisos Basin and avoid such overuse in other areas of the park, the plan called for the NPS "to encourage development of privately owned campgrounds, trailer villages, motel units, and other visitor facilities on lands adjacent to the park." At the same time, the park should "provide park accommodations and camping facilities, along with supportive facilities" in the Basin. This meant that "visitor accommodations and other facilities in the Basin will be upgraded and made safer, and human use of the area -particularly horse use and employee quarters — will be redirected to reduce environmental impacts." For the Rio Grande Village, the planners described its future as a "major use area, such as the Chisos Basin is now." No details were given of the expansions for the village, but the plan hoped that this would "spread park visitation more evenly through the year, as well as more evenly throughout the park." Castolon required that the NPS "move very slowly . . . in such a way as to avoid intrusion into the historic scene." [30]

In a reference to the ongoing debate over wilderness status, the plan called upon the park service to preserve the natural resources of Big Bend through "management of 533,900 acres of the park as though it were wilderness." A stretch of the Persimmon Gap-Panther Junction road was to be rebuilt according to current NPS standards for drainage and surfacing. The plan then called for "relocation underground of all or most of the present 110 miles of electric and telephone lines which are aboveground." The park also should remove "18.75 miles of unnecessary roads to conform to the wilderness designation," restore "where feasible" an "historic vegetational system," and offer "alternative transportation planning when visitor pressures increase." Fire management also needed attention, as "natural caused fires, in specific delineated locations, will again be allowed to influence the natural ecosystem as long as they do not damage private property or Federal structures, or threaten protected species." This would be accomplished through "prescribed burning," with "test plots in the grasslands and research from other Park Service areas with similar ecosystems" used as models. Restoration of the Montezuma quail and desert big horn sheep should proceed, said the planners, and archaeological resources required inventorying. Finally, the plan called upon the NPS to monitor "environmental factors to evaluate consequences of development and to determine carrying capacities." [31]

The 1980 plan paid careful attention to the contentious issue of Chisos Basin facilities, even though earlier discussions had generated much controversy. The fifteen "Dallas huts" would be removed, and replaced with "an equivalent number of motel units" to maintain the capacity of 68 overnight guests. The park service should move the bulk of concessionaire housing into the lower Basin, reducing by half the number of employees residing in the upper Basin from the maximum of 65 to 35 on average. The NPCI store in the upper Basin should become a ranger station, allowing the NPS to remove the modest facility dedicated to that purpose. NPCI's grocery store also should be moved to the lower Basin, and the Chisos Remuda taken out of the Basin altogether. The campground also would need attention, with one group campsite closed to reduce occupancy by about 1,000 visitors per year. The park service had not given up on the idea of complete restoration of the Basin to pre-1935 conditions, however, as the 1980 plan called for "long-range plans (perhaps 40 years hence) for converting the Basin to day-use, including consideration of the removal of automobiles and replacement with a bus-type or other public transportation system from a parking are outside the Basin." [32]

The planners acknowledged that Panther Junction needed much more development to accommodate future park use. "The overall effect," said the 1980 plan, "will be to approximately triple the present developed acreage of about 30," including the search for a more stable water supply. The NPCI compound would hold some 30 employees, while the park service would need to house an additional 40 of its staff members. An "NPS operations center" would include "office space for the U.S. Magistrate, U.S. Post Office, medical clinic, detention cell, and communications-dispatch facilities." In addition, the plan envisioned an "NPS employees recreation building." This structure would consist of a general recreation room and gymnasium, as well as an outside swimming pool, a wading pool, and bathhouse. Water supplies would be stored in a new 500,000-gallon structure to augment the existing 150,000-gallon facility. Visitors could expect development at Panther Junction of a 50-unit motel, lodge, three campgrounds, a trailer court, and a remuda and horse trails. All of this would require more water piping, surfacing of roads, and hiking trails. [33]

Without implementing the 1980 master plan, Big Bend had to make do with the limited resources available to all national parks in the budget-conscious decade of the 1980s. In 1984, an unsigned report on "Natural Resource Protection" outlined the problems that cost cutting had wrought upon the infrastructure and operations of Big Bend. The park had grown to 741,118 acres of land with the addition of the Harte-Hanks ranch on its northern boundary. "Today, 40 years after the establishment of Big Bend National Park," wrote the SWR employee, "a critical look at this question of 'impairment' shows some disturbing trends." The reviewer attributed Big Bend's problems in part to its sheer size: 324 miles of gravel and paved roads, and 276 miles of trails. Big Bend shared its northern and western boundaries with 45 private landowners, and 118 miles of the southern and eastern boundary were shared with Mexico. The reviewer contended that "there is a clear and unmistakable indication that the park's natural and historical resources are being impaired at what appears to be a slowly increasing rate." One such feature was removal of cactus "as the demand for desert vegetation for home landscaping throughout the Southwest increases." H.A. Harrington visited Big Bend in 1984 to write an article for The Cactus and Succulent Journal. Outside of Study Butte on the park's west side, Harrington discovered "the most disgusting sight to that point: in a flat area behind a small grocery store/gas station lay enormous loads of collected plants, all freshly dug and in flower." He estimated the number to be "12 stacks, measuring 20 to 30 feet long each, by 5 to 10 feet wide, by 3 to 4 feet high." Harrington concluded that "there is strong evidence to suggest that many of these specimens are being taken from the park; nearby and adjacent ranches are virtually denuded of certain cactus specimens." [34]

The NPS reviewer then turned to an age-old problem at Big Bend: the trapping and poaching of wildlife. "There is a large and continuing demand for animal furs and live reptiles," said the report. While the reviewer did not know the extent of these operations, the NPS official did note that "in two recent cases (1983 and 1984), furs valued at over $60,000 were seized by State and Federal authorities immediately adjacent to the park." In 1979, "17,000 assorted pelts valued at over $1,000,000 were confiscated by Federal authorities at a ranch which is adjacent to the park's northeast boundary." The reviewer had "strong evidence" to prove that "many of these pelts were taken from the park." Equally problematic was the seizure of snakes and lizards. "The demand for certain species is high," said the reviewer, "and some specimens are sold for prices up to $1000." Unfortunately for the park service, "the Chihuahuan Desert of the Big Bend is an especially attractive source for reptile collectors, since specimens are much more numerous than near large population centers where collecting has been taking place for a number of years." Big Bend in particular had rare species, such as the Trans-Pecos Rat Snake and the Gray-banded King snake that poachers found highly valuable. [35]

Trapping and poaching shared space in Big Bend with yet another historic resource problem: trespass livestock from Mexico. The 1984 review lamented the fact that NPS programs to restore the denuded grasslands and eroded stream banks now confronted an increase of illegal grazing. "Some of the trespass is deliberate," the report stated, while "some is accidental, but with no real efforts made by the Mexican people to prevent the activity." This the reviewer attributed to "a definite lack of an adequate feed source on the Mexican side of the river caused by severe overgrazing and a prolonged drought." The reviewer had observed that "many animals are literally starving to death." The report did note that "the problem along the park boundary which borders ranches in the United States is similar but not nearly as significant as along the river." This condition occurred because of "livestock crossing into the park through downed or damaged fences." [36]

While not as extensive as natural resource damage, limited funding for law enforcement put the park's historic resources in jeopardy as well. "Recent surveys indicate that many of the best and most significant of these sites," said the 1984 report, "have suffered serious damage from vandals, collectors, and 'pot hunters.'" A major factor was their proximity to travel corridors. "Most sites are within a reasonable distance of roads or the river," said the reviewer, "and thus are accessible to most visitors." The reviewer could only comment that "as damage or pilfering of these irreplaceable resources occur, remedial action most often cannot be taken." [37]

As with the master planning process, the 1984 natural-resources review offered cogent solutions to problems of long-standing in the park. No fewer than eleven recommendations revolved around the hiring of more staff to round up trespass stock, remove fire dangers, catalogue cultural resources, conduct backcountry patrols, and execute more effective law enforcement. The reviewer called for the building of entrance stations at Persimmon Gap and Maverick to "deter much illegal activity that impacts the resources of the park." The park did not collect entrance fees at these locations, but the monies generated might support better surveillance and ranger presence at these extremes of the park's boundaries. In addition, the park could use a botanist to "develop baseline information on the vegetative composition at the species level," and a "park archaeologist to locate sites, re-evaluate earlier documented sites, compile data, coordinate research planning, and develop an archaeological protection program." The Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River needed its own staff so that Big Bend rangers "could spend additional time on duties and responsibilities in the park." Likewise, the park would benefit from a full-time employee serving as "liaison with neighboring Mexican states and communities to help mitigate resource threats which originate in Mexico." "The price will be high to protect those things for which the park was established," concluded the reviewer. Yet "it is a price well worth paying," as "continued impacts and damage to the park's resources cannot be allowed to continue." Ignoring these features of resource management "will mean that our mandates have not been fulfilled, and that future generations will be denied the right to experience this park in an 'unimpaired' state." [38]

The 1984 review of Big Bend had echoed challenges laid before the park since its inception four decades earlier. Thus it came as little surprise to superintendent Jim Carrico that the park faced crises of use and preservation as visitation returned with the easing in the 1980s of energy prices. Carrico oversaw in his first year at the park (1986) a "statement for management." He and his staff calculated that visitation, which now could be estimated more accurately with the installation of traffic counters at the Persimmon Gap and Maverick entrances, had rebounded from 1983's low of 198,708 to 226,559 in 1985. Carrico noted that "concessioner lodging dropped dramatically as a result of the closure of the CCC 'Dallas Huts' as concessioner lodging in April 1979." In addition, "the Panther Junction concessioner campground was closed in March 1981, and no new sites were opened elsewhere." The park also began collecting fees for overflow camping at Rio Grande Village. Backcountry-use numbers had risen substantially in January 1979, when the park began registering users of the Rio Grande for float trips. Then in 1985 the park included rafters on the wild and scenic river sections below the park boundaries. [39]

Carrico and the 1986 review team noted the impact of changing land-use patterns on the park, among them the formation of 40-acre "ranchettes" to the west of Big Bend. "The impact of the development on the natural environment," said the report, "is intensified by access roads, ranging from crude paths to paved roads, and utility lines." Many of the newcomers lived in trailers, and used septic tanks and pit toilets. One attraction for settlement in the area was the annual "Terlingua World Chili Cookoff," which the reviewers noted "attracts several thousand people annually," and which increased the demand for park law enforcement. The growth of hunting lodges and "charging fees for hunting native and non-native species is a growing business that has just recently become a management concern for the park." Formation of the 312,000-acre Big Bend Ranch State Park some 30 miles west of the NPS boundary would result in plans to "sell 1,000-acre shares (undivided interest) to various individuals for use as a private hunting preserve and to keep several thousand acres for facilities supportive of the hunting preserve activities." Yet another resource threat discovered in 1986 was the drilling of exploratory oil and gas wells within fifteen miles of the park. The reviewers could not determine "whether they were 'dry holes,' or they were capped because of current low oil and gas prices." [40]

The reviewers also took note of the discussions underway in the 1980s between Mexico and the United States to revive the idea of an international park. On August 14, 1983, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid signed an environmental accord that "provides both countries with the necessary legal document to speed up anti-pollution efforts along the border." Superintendent Carrico had met with the NPS's Office of International Affairs to explain the concerns of Big Bend and its wild and scenic river, and sought "possible international activities which could enhance a joint effort to solve common problems." One issue that the reviewers mentioned was Mexico's decision to halt construction of the Muzquiz-Boquillas highway, with the latter project stopped some 60 miles away from the border. Carrico wanted the international discussions to include the drug trade and contraband smuggling. Water pollution also concerned Carrico, as the reviewers learned of "the use of DDT along the border and its entry into waters of the Rio Grande by means of waters released from the Rio Conchos Dam in Chihuahua, Mexico and high rainfall." This phenomenon, thought the reviewers, resulted in "the near extinction of the peregrine falcon populations within the Rio Grande floodplain." Finally, the reviewers addressed the increase in air pollution in the park. In 1986, these threats came from potash plants in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and the urban centers of El Paso-Ciudad Juarez and Midland-Odessa. They also noted the presence of "uncontrolled fires" in Mexico, and suggested that "proposed coal-fired power plants in Mexico west of Nuevo Laredo could adversely affect the park in the years ahead." [41]

The decade of the 1990s brought its own changes and alterations to park management at Big Bend. The master planning process would be revisited late in the decade, with a draft circulated for public review in the summer of 2001. The early years of the decade witnessed the confrontation between park superintendent Rob Arnberger and the NPCI management, resulting in a court case settled in NPCI's favor. Superintendent Jose Cisneros would devote his attention to improving work conditions for the staff, upgrading business operations, and addressing issues of natural and cultural resource protection that earlier master plans had recommended but which the NPS had yet to implement. These efforts could be seen in the development of a "Friends" group to offer private support of park interpretation and facilities development, the decision by the NPS to put the concessions contract out for bid (after nearly six decades of management by NPCI), and the construction of a separate building for the operations of the Big Bend Natural History Association (which had shared space in the park visitors center since the 1960s). By the year 2000, the park would host 264,684 visitors in a park of 801,163 acres in size, utilizing 135 permanent and seasonal employees, and 180 volunteers. Frank Deckert, former chief naturalist at Big Bend, would assume command as superintendent in January of 2000, and would oversee the continuation of the changes initiated by his predecessors. [42]

The 2001 draft of the Big Bend master plan revealed much about the process of park management over the previous 67 years, even as it sought a new generation of ideas for operations of the vast resource in west Texas. Park planners analyzed four critical features of the park that had parallels with every study done of Big Bend since the 1930s. Balancing resource preservation with visitor use loomed large as always, as did the issue of air and water quality and "the best ways to foster a cross border relationship with Mexico." The master plan recognized that much of the park's operations were linked to forces beyond its boundaries and its control. From the collection of data and input from the general public, the planners strove to craft four "action alternatives," which they reminded readers of the plan would "support the park's purpose and significance, address issues, avoid unacceptable resource impacts, respond to public wishes and concerns, and meet the park's long-term goals." [43]

Of the four options outlined by the planners for Big Bend, the range included leaving operations unchanged to dramatic reductions in facilities and access (all of which the NPS had discussed at length since the 1960s). Alternative A called for "current management direction," with "no significant change in interpretation and management of the park." The second option for the planners (Alternative B) would provide "better protection for the park's natural resources and upgrade park facilities." Chisos Basin would receive no new construction, while the sites at Panther Junction, Castolon and Rio Grande Village would gain new facilities to ease the burden of visitor use on the Chisos Basin. The Harte Ranch addition would be managed "to preserve the tangible remains of West Texas ranching, including the preservation of structures around Buttrill Spring, Mountain Lodge, Bone Spring, and other sites associated with ranching." The park would continue maintenance of the ranch landing strip, and apply backcountry non-wilderness rules to most of the land. Finally, Alternative B would "encourage the Texas General Land Office to find a buyer for the [Christmas Mountains] who would manage it to be compatible with park purposes." [44]

It was Alternatives C and D, however, that suggested the more radical approaches to management at Big Bend, and which followed most closely the suggestions of the 1970s planners for substantive change in operations and use. The planners named their third option "providing for natural resource stewardship and preservation while creating a more sustainable park." They defined this as park facility design that "would sit lightly upon the land demonstrating resource efficiency, and promoting ecology restoration and integrity." Like their predecessors a generation earlier, the 2001 planning team called in Alternative C for the NPS to "remove all concession and park facilities from Chisos Basin except for campground and two residences for law-enforcement and maintenance." Where the land already was "disturbed," the planners suggested "a day-use trailhead." Then the park should "relocate the lodge and concessions operations to an area between Basin Junction and Panther Junction." Anticipating opposition to this idea, the planners went the next step and stated: "If this action were not feasible, then permit no concession lodging in the park." Panther Junction, Castolon, and Rio Grande Village would expand to meet the visitor-use needs created by closure of the Basin. The Harte Ranch should receive a wilderness study, and the park should "exclude the county road, landing strip with surrounding buildings, and mountain lodge from this study." Then the park would allow the remaining structures "to deteriorate in place," or be removed for visitor safety, and the land managed as wilderness. [45]

Readers of the 2001 draft master plan would confront in Alternative D the most striking evidence for the NPS's old dream of a restored landscape at Big Bend. "This alternative," wrote the planners, "would provide for the enduring protection and preservation of the park's natural resources." All concession and park facilities in the Chisos Basin would be removed, and the NPS would "permit no concession lodging in the park." Instead, the private sector would be encouraged to build accommodations outside the boundaries. Then the NPS could apply wilderness management regulations to the Chisos Basin. At Panther Junction and Castolon, visitor facilities and park operations would receive the upgrades outlined in earlier alternatives. It would be at Rio Grande Village, however, that the planners would offer a dramatic change. The 2001 plan suggested that the NPS "remove the gas station, store, visitor center, campsites, and park support facilities." In their place the park would "revegetate most of the area." This would "allow a more natural appearance to occur," especially with the use of "native drought-tolerant species." Yet another step towards the restoration of the village area would be exploration of "options for reallocating the park's portion of river irrigation water to maintaining the flow and quantity of water in the Rio Grande." The Barker House would be allowed to deteriorate naturally, and the NPS would "manage most of the Rio Grande Village area following the backcountry nonwilderness prescription." Once all this was completed, said the planners, the park service then could "enlarge the park's boundary to include the Christmas Mountains and seek funds for land acquisition." [46]

A close reading of the 2001 master plan reveals the impact of history on the operations of Big Bend National Park, and of the struggles that the park service encountered in fulfilling its congressional mandates to preserve America's natural and cultural treasures for the benefit of future generations. Park policy planners and park staff alike knew of the pressures on the land, and of the fragility of the environment that the NPS inherited in 1944 when the state of Texas agreed to purchase half of the acreage originally considered for Big Bend. The development of park facilities in the first decades of operations peaked with the dedication of Mission 66 construction in 1960. Then the NPS and Big Bend faced the rise of the environmental movement and its challenge to the development ethic that had suffused park planning in the years after World War II. Park managers and staff went through phases of commitment and indifference to the challenge of operations, while the nation debated in the years after 1960 not only the use of its national parks, but their funding (and at times their very existence). The closure of the park in the fall and winter of 1995-1996 because of budget debates in Congress revealed to park staff and local residents the importance of Big Bend to themselves and to the nation. Yet the return of full operations in the spring of 1996 started the process of accommodation and opposition once more. How the park service responded to this history of management would say much about its commitment to the goals of preservation, and how it would learn from its history of efforts to uphold those standards in trying times and in distant places like Big Bend.

Figure 20: Chisos Mountain Lodge, Coffee Shop (1960s)

Endnotes

¹ Douglas B. Evans, Chief Naturalist, "Prospectus for the Interpretation of Big Bend National Park," March 7, 1965, SRM Library, BIBE.

² Ibid

³ Ibid.

⁴ David J. Jones, Resource Planner, NPS, "Big Bend Natural Sciences Research Plan," July 1967, BIBE Files, SWSSO Library, Santa Fe.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Bob Burleson, "An Alternative to the Master Plan and Wilderness Proposal for Big Bend National Park," Americans Backing Better Park Development, Temple, TX, n.d. (January 1972?), BIBE Files, SWSSO Library, Santa Fe.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ Ibid.

¹⁴ "Wilderness Recommendation, Big Bend National Park, Texas," January 1973, U.S. Department of the Interior, NPS, BIBE Files, SWSSO Library, Santa Fe.

¹⁵ "Interpretive Prospectus, Big Bend National Park, Texas," Department of the Interior, NPS, Denver Service Center (DSC), October 1974, BIBE Files, SWSSO Library, Santa Fe.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ Master Plan Draft, Big Bend National Park, March 1975, BIBE Files, SWSSO Library, Santa Fe.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ Roland H. Wauer, Chief Scientist, NPS, SWR, Santa Fe, "A Case History of Land Use and Some Ecological Implications: The Chisos Mountains, Big Bend National Park, Texas," paper delivered at the Southwest Region Superintendents' Conference, Santa Fe, August 26-28, 1975, NPS BIBE N5 53a File, SWSSO Library, Santa Fe.

²² Ibid.

²³ Robert H. Bendt, et al., "Management Evaluation and Action Plan, Big Bend National Park, Texas," August 22-26, 1976, Superintendents' Files, BIBE. Bendt was chief of the SWR's office of management consulting, Cisneros served as SWR's personnel officer, Matic was a regional personnel management specialist, and Budge was chief of protection and visitor use management for SWR.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Ibid.

²⁷ Ibid.

²⁸ Gene Balaz interview, May 31, 1996; Robert Haraden interview, July 24, 1996.

²⁹ "General Management Plan, Master Plan, Big Bend National Park, Texas," March 1981, BIBE Files, Technical Products Library, Technical Information Center (TIC), Denver Service Center (DSC), NPS, Denver.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Ibid.

³² Ibid.

³³ Ibid.

³⁴ "Natural Resource Protection–Big Bend National Park," n.d. 1984, NPS BIBE N5 65 File, SWSSO Library, Santa Fe.

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ Ibid.

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ James W. Carrico, Superintendent, BIBE, "Statement for Management, Big Bend National Park," December 1986, NPS BIBE PD37 File, BIBE Files, SWSSO Library, Santa Fe.

⁴⁰ Ibid.

⁴¹ Ibid.

⁴² John Cook interview, August 1, 1996; Garner Hanson interview, September 19, 1997; Jim Milburn interview, September 19, 1997; Jose Cisneros interview, April 23, 1998, February 4, 2000; "Friends Group Donates to Big Bend National Park," News Release, NPS, March 26, 2001; "Big Bend National Park Fact Sheet," July 28, 2001, BIBE Official Web Site (bibe/facts.htm); National Parks Concessions, Inc., v. Roger G. Kennedy, et al. (1996), NPCI Records, Cave City, KY.

⁴³ "Big Bend National Park, General Management Plan, Newsletter 2, Summer 2001," Superintendent's Files, BIBE.

⁴⁴ Ibid.

⁴⁵ Ibid.

⁴⁶ Ibid.