Big Bend Administrative History

Despite the bold statements of Carlyle Raht about the virtues of the Anglo frontier of west Texas, by 1930 few residents could share his optimism for their future. The nation, the American West, the Republic of Mexico, and the Big Bend country faced the most devastating economic and ecological crisis of their histories, in the form of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Prosperity generated by the war in Europe and the subsequent spending spree of the 1920s had convinced many that the good times would last forever. Once the reality of economic and social collapse struck the nation, all shared the need to find solutions to unemployment and environmental degradation resulting from poor farming and ranching practices. The change of presidential administrations in Washington, DC, and Mexico City, in the mid-1930s ushered in a revolutionary concept: preservation of what local residents loved to call the nation's "last frontier," and to connect its vast acreage of mountains, streams, and desert to the equally striking landscape south of the Rio Grande in an international park.

Interest in some sort of national park facility in west Texas began as early as 1921, when a group of civic officials petitioned the Texas state legislature to identify lands within the Davis Mountains for a state park. The rise of tourism generated by the popularization of automobile travel, and the passage in 1916 of the Federal Highway Act, opened the region to visitors seeking the exotica and wonders of the Far West. In 1924, an Alpine doctor and state senator, Benjamin F. Berkeley, asked William C. Boyd of the Texas Fish, Game, and Oyster Commission about establishment of a 25,000-acre park in the Chisos Mountains. The following year, U.S. Representative Claude Hudspeth introduced in Congress a resolution to appropriate $100,000 to purchase lands in the Davis Mountains. This idea died in committee, but it stimulated interest among local and state leaders to plan for road construction in and around the storied military post of Fort Davis. Nothing came of the initiatives for parks in the Davis and Chisos ranges, and Texas promoters of tourism and travel looked elsewhere in the late 1920s to invest their time and resources. [1]

Private-sector interest in the Big Bend area resurfaced in 1929, when J.J. Willis, an automobile dealer from Odessa, Texas, purchased the abandoned property surrounding Glenn Springs with plans to convert the former military post into an exclusive hunting preserve for West Texas residents. The collapse of the New York Stock Exchange that year inhibited the plans of Willis for his "Chisos Mountains Club." He had wanted to stock his 25,000 acres with game animals indigenous to the Big Bend area. Few investors showed much interest in this enterprise, given the loss of 50 percent of the nation's industrial output and the closing of banks and savings institutions daily. [2]

Willis was but one of many disappointed business people who had hoped to reap profits from the Big Bend country. The historian Gerald D. Nash, in The American West in the Twentieth Century (1977), wrote that "everywhere western dreams for sustained economic growth lay shattered." Farm and ranch income in Texas and the West fell more than 50 percent, while oil prices (the source of Texas' prosperity in the 1920s) declined from $2.50 per barrel in 1929 to ten cents per barrel four years later. Richard W. Lowitt, author of The New Deal and the West (1984), declared that "depression, drought, and dust undermined dependence on the marketplace as an arbiter of activities." In 1931, the famed University of Texas historian, Walter Prescott Webb, released his magisterial study of life in the arid West, The Great Plains. Writing at the dawn of the Depression, as the drought conditions of the "dirty thirties" had just commenced, Webb warned his readers that "the failure to recognize the fact that the Plains destroyed the old formula of living and demanded a new one led the settlers into disaster, the lawmakers into error, and leads all who will not see into confusion." [3]

As the Great Depression lengthened, the Texas state legislature began a search for economic relief, an idea disturbing to people who identified as independent and hardy. Yet the desperation facing the nation led its conservative Republican president, Herbert T. Hoover (1929-1933), to seek liberal use of the Antiquities Act of 1906 to include public lands in the national park system that contained "man-made wonders or scientific curiosities." A young state representative from Abilene, Robert M. Wagstaff, received inspiration in December 1930 from an article on the Big Bend area in the magazine Nature. Interviewed a dozen years later by his hometown Abilene Reporter-News upon the occasion of the 1944 opening of Big Bend National Park, Wagstaff recalled being "impressed by the fact that apparently Texas had scenic beauties comparable to those of Colorado." Wagstaff was "determined to look into the question of whether a state or national park could be established in Texas." He then approached J.H. Walker, state land commissioner, during the 1931 session of the legislature to ascertain "whether or not there might be a considerable amount of state-owned land within the area, which might be included in a state park." [4]

Historians of Big Bend National Park, and NPS officials in the 1930s, often credit the park's origins to Everett Townsend, who on March 3, 1933, coauthored House Bill No. 771 to create "Texas Canyons State Park." Yet the impetus for that legislation included Wagstaff's inquiry two years earlier to J.H. Walker, who "'became very much interested in the matter and made a careful check of the area.'" Wagstaff recalled that Walker "'decided that it would be better to delay action a couple of years on account of the fact that some of the most desirable lands for a park, adjoining the main [Rio Grande] canyons, had been forfeited for non-payment of interest, but were still subject to reinstatement.'" The Texas lawmakers did, however, agree that year to adopt Senate Concurrent Resolution 9, which called upon the federal government to conduct an immediate survey of potential parklands in the Lone Star state for inclusion in the national park system. J. Frank Dobie, the noted writer of Texas frontier novels, echoed these sentiments with his call in 1930 for a park in the "wild Big Bend." The Hoover administration further whetted the appetite of local interests by declaring no fewer than nine western areas as "national monuments" in the waning days of his administration. One of these was the 250,000-acre gypsum field of New Mexico's Tularosa basin that became White Sands National Monument. Momentum for creation of parks like Big Bend had accelerated, believed Wagstaff, strengthening his resolve in the 1933 session of the Texas legislature to pursue his dream of a park for west Texas. [5]

The arrival in Washington, DC, in March 1933 of the presidential administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt meant much to the champions of Big Bend National Park. The harshness of four years of economic collapse led FDR and his advisors to press for imaginative and experimental solutions; the process known as the "New Deal." Michael Kammen, author of Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (1991), referred to Roosevelt's "distinctive capacity to connect innovation with tradition." Kammen noted that "American society increasingly needed and sought a meaningful sense of its heritage in crisis times," further commenting that "had there not been a Great Depression, it might have taken considerably longer for government at any level to concern itself with American history, myths, and museums." This latter point would be crucial to the success of any effort to bring Big Bend National Park into the NPS system, as the park service had included only areas of great scenic beauty; "crown jewels," in the words of many park admirers. As Richard Sellars noted, "the 1930s saw a vast diversion of Park Service programs, which expanded responsibility beyond management of mostly larger natural areas and drew attention to matters other than nature preservation." [6]

Robert Wagstaff did not know on Texas Independence Day (March 2, 1933) that his bill to set aside fifteen sections of land around the Rio Grande canyons of Santa Elena, Mariscal, and Boquillas, would become by 1944 the first national park in Texas. His colleagues approved of the measure in short order, but problems that would plague the formation of the park for the next decade required another version for a special legislative session that September. Section 2 of the new park bill held that "the legislature of the State of Texas hereby withdraws from sale all unsold Public Free School Lands situated in Brewster County, Texas, South of North Latitude 29 degrees, 25 minutes; and said lands, estimated to consist of about 150,000 acres." The name of the park also would be changed from "Texas Canyons State Park" to the "Big Bend State Park." These school lands would be valued at one cent per acre for payment to the Public School Fund (or the sum of $1,500.00). Wagstaff and co-sponsor Townsend also agreed in the amended bill that "all minerals in and under the above described sections of land are hereby reserved to the Public School Fund, to be developed under present or future laws as minerals under other unsold school land." Section Five of the new bill indicated the hopes of its sponsors for federal inclusion of Big Bend in the NPS network of parks: "The fact that the State of Texas owns additional lands located near the Canyons of the Rio Grande and in the Chisos Mountains of Texas, which are suitable for park purposes, and that Federal aid will probably be secured to improve said lands if they are taken over for park purposes." Wagstaff and Townsend then cautioned their legislative peers that "steps should be taken immediately to set aside said lands before they are acquired by private parties;" a condition that "creates an emergency and an imperative public necessity." [7]

In between the signing on May 27, 1933, of the original park bill by Texas governor Miriam (Ma) Ferguson, and her endorsement five months later of the vastly expanded Big Bend State Park, the Alpine Chamber of Commerce assumed the lead in gaining regional support for the proposed park site. Local sponsors, preeminent among them James Casner, a recent arrival in town who had bought the local Chevrolet auto dealership, knew that Congress that spring had passed legislation to create the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). This program, part of the heady "First Hundred Days" of legislation signed by FDR between March and June 1933, had as one of its goals, said Sellars, "protection of the nation's forests from fires, insects, and disease damage - goals that matched perfectly those of most national park managers." The CCC included a state parks assistance program that attracted the attention of the Alpine chamber of commerce, which brought to the attention of park service officials in Denver, Colorado, the merits of including their favored location. If Brewster County could receive one of the CCC's 600 units, 200 young men would soon arrive, earning $30 per month. Their employers also would stimulate the west Texas economy with purchases of construction materials, food, clothing, and shelter. [8]

CCC camps were not easy to acquire in the first weeks of the program, and the Big Bend sponsors had to wait until May 1934 to welcome the program to their area. Conrad Wirth, assistant director of the NPS (eventually to become director of the system), wrote in July 1933 to Herbert T. Maier, director of the NPS's Denver office of state park conservation, to express his concerns about the efforts of promoters of parks in the Big Bend and Davis Mountains. Maier had offered to travel to west Texas to examine the sites, but Wirth preferred to wait until the NPS's premier authority on potential park locations, Roger Toll, would be able to leave his post as superintendent of Yellowstone National Park and visit Big Bend. Wirth cautioned Maier that "the meager reports we have on these areas . . . would not indicate that they measure up to National Park calibre." The assistant NPS director did offer hope that "these reports do indicate that [Big Bend and the Davis Mountains] are excellent State Park material so perhaps they should be retained and developed as State parks." Since Wirth's office could not guarantee support for the Texas units, he also did not see how they could be included in the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) program, an alternative to the CCC. [9]

Aware that politics affected park creation as did economics and aesthetics, the Alpine chamber of commerce undertook their own campaign for Big Bend. Chamber director Forest Robinson called upon local business leaders to speak on behalf of the merits of the CCC, and to promise financial support if necessary. James Casner and his colleagues convinced Herbert Maier that they needed not one, but two CCC camps in the Chisos Mountains (a total of 400 employees). F.A. Dale, Texas district inspector for the CCC program, wrote in September 1933 to Major John D. Guthrie, commander of the Eighth Corps Area of the U.S. Army (which oversaw the operations of the camps). Dale suggested that both camps be located at Government Springs, as the "camp site and water" had been "placed under lease by the Chisos Mountainspark committee and the Brewster County Chamber of Commerce." The sites had access to Marathon, and would consist of employees transferred from other CCC districts. Dale then offered the logic that would prevail for the remainder of the planning process for Big Bend: "The National Park Service is particularly interested in this park on account of its outstanding qualities as a wilderness and recreational area." [10]

The reality of CCC funding, and the need for the NPS to understand the merits of Big Bend, affected the negotiation process attempted by the Alpine chamber and other champions of a national park for Texas. Herbert Maier, now the ECW district officer for Texas, wrote to Conrad Wirth in Washington in early October 1933 to warn him that "I have told the Chisos [Mountain] people that the camps as first recommended for their area could not be awarded because two camps had to be withdrawn from the Texas list for Arizona." Budget constraints (the bane of many New Deal programs throughout the 1930s) required Maier to judge the Big Bend proposal carefully, and his decision revolved around the obstacles of distance and isolation. "The Chisos Mt. camps," said Maier, "were decided upon for this switch because of their high altitude and very long dirt road." Maier would disappoint backers of a CCC camp in Bastrop, Texas, "since the unfortunate reduction in the total number of Texas camps makes it desirous to spread the camps around as much as possible in the light of so many applications." Bastrop had offered the NPS some 2,000 acres of land on the chance that three camps would be awarded. The selection of a west Texas site had become more complicated, and raised the stakes for the Alpine chamber as the NPS calculated the benefits of Big Bend. [11]

As Maier struggled to balance the Big Bend request with the onslaught of applications for CCC work, his district inspector continued to echo the sentiments of local promoters from Alpine. On October 6, 1933, Dale again reminded Maier that, "considering scenery, climate, flora, fauna, and Indian relics, there is nothing approaching [Big Bend] closer than Colorado." ECW personnel who had visited the area judged it "as far superior to Palo Duro Canyon;" the area south of Amarillo being promoted for NPS inclusion for its connection to the Coronado expedition of 1541-42. "The Big Bend district," said Dale, "may not have much influence, but it certainly has the best park possibility now offered in Texas." He encouraged Maier to move quickly, as "the next six months have practically no rainfall - hence no objection from the Army on account of unbridged creeks, etc." Dale also noted that the Army had rejected calls for a CCC camp at "Santa Helena" in June because of "excessive heat." Should Maier adopt the Chisos Basin site, Dale believed that "the area would be used extensively by vacationists from all over Texas and possibly adjoining states." He rationalized that the Chisos "and the Davis and Guadalupe Mountains are the only cool spots in Texas in the summer." The state of Texas could be counted upon to improve the road from Marathon to the park, said Dale, "which would put the area within one and one-half days drive of Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin." Dale then closed his plea to Maier with the suggestion that "here is an opportunity of raise the standards of the E.C.W. parks in Texas," as Texas' natural attractions suffered in comparison to the more striking physical beauty of the Rocky Mountains and the desert Southwest. [12]

Herbert Maier would define this contrast more clearly when he wrote on October 12, 1933, to Everett Townsend, apologizing for rejection of the Chisos camps after his favorable recommendation. Texas had to reduce the number of CCC sites from 17 to 14, and the Army's judgment about the "Saint Helena" camp influenced its thinking about the entire Big Bend area. The park service remained committed to promotion of the site, given the imperatives of the New Deal to improve the economic life of the nation, and the political realities of including Texas in the net of services and programs emanating from Congress. George L. Nason, director the NPS's state parks division in Oklahoma City, asked Professor B.C. Tharp of the department of biology and bacteriology at the University of Texas, for his opinion of Big Bend. Tharp in turn supplied Nason with a research paper written by C.H. Mueller, one of his graduate students who in the summers of 1931 and 1932 had conducted fieldwork in the Chisos Mountains. While Tharp encouraged Nason to engage in much more thorough analysis of the area, he agreed with Mueller that "this region is of outstanding scientific value by virtue of the fact that it is the meeting place within the United States of representatives from Mexico and from the Rocky Mountain systems lying to the north." In addition, the Big Bend area housed "a rather surprising number of eastern species and of species from the arid west." Big Bend's scientific value from the standpoint of vegetation, Tharp claimed, was "further enhanced by virtue of the fact that the Chisos Mountains are not a range but rather a 'heap' whose diameter is essentially equal in whatever direction it is measured." The height of the mountains "above the surrounding plain is relatively greater than that of other mountains in the state," even though "the altitude above sea level is somewhat less than the maximum." [13]

None of these testimonials to the beauty and power of the Big Bend landscape mattered as much as the report filed by Roger Toll. The Yellowstone superintendent ventured through the future park site from January 8 to 11, 1934, accompanied by J. Evetts Haley of the history department of the University of Texas, Everett Townsend, John W. Gillette, president of the Alpine chamber of commerce, local rancher Homer Wilson (who also served as the outfitter for the surveying party), and other NPS officials. In a letter to Arno Cammerer, director of the Interior department's office of national parks, buildings and reservations in Washington, Toll spoke to the concerns of the Army and the park service regarding Big Bend's inclusion in the NPS system. "The Chisos Mountains . . . have attractive vegetation with some trees and plants not found elsewhere in the United States," Toll reported, and "the view from the South Rim is highly spectacular." The canyons of Santa Elena, Mariscal, and Boquillas had "spectacular gorges, from 1,000 to 1,500 feet deep," which the Yellowstone superintendent considered (along with the Chisos Mountains) to be "the chief scenic features of the area." Toll judged the Big Bend to be "a wilderness area," marked by its aridity and its "very sparse population." Most of the economic activity revolved around the raising of cattle, sheep and goats, as well as "mercury ores and some other mineral deposits." Toll thus agreed with F.A. Dale that "the Big Bend Country seems to be decidedly the outstanding scenic area of Texas." Should the NPS construct a road to the three canyons and the Chisos, "the area would offer a scenic trip that would be of national interest." He further warned Cammerer: "The area will not have many visitors until the facilities of access and accommodation are provided." [14]

No sooner had Toll left the Big Bend area (and before he could file his report to his superiors in Denver and Washington), local supporters of the park resumed their lobbying efforts among state park and NPS officials. D.E. Colp, chairman of the Texas state parks board, wrote to Herbert Maier in early February 1934 to ask that he "discuss this with Mr. Roger W. Toll as he inspected this property and I am sure the NPS would place a good deal of confidence in whatever he had to say about it." Colp informed Maier that "it is our plan to acquire something like one million acres in this area by getting small amounts at each session of the Legislature." He then mentioned for the first time that "we are working out a plan with the Mexican Government with a like amount on the Mexican side of the river." This venture to incorporate one million acres on each side of the international boundary arose because of a change in leadership in the Republic of Mexico. Lazaro Cardenas became president of Mexico in the spring of 1934, offering a dramatic departure for his impoverished nation that included redistribution of lands from the wealthy to the masses, an increase in educational opportunity, and social reforms to improve the daily lives of Mexican citizens. Cardenas' governing agenda, in the words of Lane Simonian, author of Defending the Land of the Jaguar (1996), included reversal of Mexico's tradition of exploitation of natural resources, and preservation of the environment because "people's well-being depended upon the maintenance of stable ecosystems." [15]

Over the next several months, the concerns of the Big Bend sponsors revolved not around Mexico, but the sense that the NPS and Congress had changed their minds about their CCC application. D.E. Colp ranked the "Chisos Mountains Park" fourth in priority for the Texas state parks board, behind Palo Duro Canyon, Bastrop, and the Davis Mountains. Harry L. Dunham, ECW district inspector in Austin, informed Maier in February 1934 that the Chisos camp sponsors had secured the backing of U.S. Representatives Robert Ewing Thomason of El Paso, Thomas R. Blanton of Abilene, and R.M. Kleberg of Corpus Christi. The overpowering beauty of the Big Bend, felt Dunham, more than compensated for the cost of facility and road construction to the remote site. "You will note," Dunham advised Maier upon submission of the Texas request, "that the estimates on the road items are less than 50% of the estimated total man hours." Land acquisition costs likewise had been reduced, as the original 225,000-acre request had shrunk to 105,000 acres. Dunham believed that the NPS could not justify work on park lands that it could not acquire easily, and the latter figure represented acreage already under the parks board's control. Other budget items in the CCC proposal that Dunham highlighted for his superiors included the need for a "rock quarry" in the Basin, some $2,000 to drill a well, and monies for fighting forest fires around the CCC camp. "I learned yesterday from Mr. Townsend," Dunham wrote, "that within reasonable distances from the probable camp site there are very large capacity springs of potable water." As for fire suppression, said Dunham: "We assumed that while there had been a few, if any fires in the Chisos area up to now, it is entirely possible that the advent of some 600 men into the area might occasion fire." [16]

Based upon the remarks of Harry Dunham, the appeals of the Alpine chamber, and the impending report of Roger Toll, Herbert Maier moved quickly to submit the Big Bend State Park application to his superiors in Washington. Maier told Conrad Wirth in February 1934 that "the name, Big Bend, is being used because it is the ambition of the [Texas] Park Board to finally acquire the whole Big Bend area of a million acres for a National Park." The NPS wanted three CCC units, "all to become located at one point in the Green Gulch in the Chisos Mountains." The park service's initial reviews of potential work included twenty miles of truck trails, 72 miles of fencing, an undetermined number of horse and foot trails, as well as over-night cabins, a concession building, and a telephone line. Maier, operating on Toll's statement to him of the merits of Big Bend, asked if the NPS realized "that the work would be outlined down there in such a way as to tie in with the final master plan for a national park," a task that Maier conceded "is not an easy thing to do." Toll further worried about "what effect our activity will have on the values placed on land still to be purchased by the state." In a telephone conversation between Colp, Toll, and Maier, Colp reported that "the people down in that part of the country have promised various parcels of land with the idea that either a state or national park will become an actuality." Maier worried that "since they [local landowners] have been turned down on [CCC] camps both in the first and second periods [of 1933-34], they will lose all confidence in the project if it is turned down." [17]

To expedite the Big Bend request, Maier and Toll offered suggestions for the location of roads, trails, and buildings that revealed the distinctiveness (and the cost) of CCC work. Toll argued that "three roads will eventually run up the walls of the Rio Grande Canyon onto the plateau above, and thence across this plateau partly over existing roads up to and through the Chisos Mountains." Toll and Maier called for CCC work at Santa Elena, as "the state now owns two or three sections of land suitable for a camp." The NPS, however, would need at least two camps there, as "a road leading up the walls of the Rio Grande Canyon would have to be practically their sole project." Another site of interest to Maier and Toll was Green Gulch, "which will always be the natural entrance way to the park from the west, and to which one can drive at the present time." Maier called for a camp there with primary tasks of "building . . . foot and horse trails, the developing of water, some overnight cabins, and above everything else a survey of the road from here on." The NPS would need special permission to "devote 90% of the [CCC] activity to the building of this road," as the CCC preferred spending the bulk of its funds on preservation projects. Maier saw Roger Toll's opinion as influential with the CCC, and "we might justify this as 100% conservation in that everything done in the area, whether road or otherwise, is being carried toward the permanent conservation of the area." [18]

More than road and trails, the search for water in the Chisos Basin concerned Maier and Toll as they promoted the new Texas park. D.E. Colp had assured Maier that "the water up in Green Gulch . . . will surely pass inspection this time," and the parks board chairman "intends to sink a well with CWA [Civil Works Administration] labor and have the water ready in plenty of time before the camps are installed." While Maier wondered how the state could guarantee funding for such a speculative venture as well-drilling, he noted that "Colp has a way of obtaining his objectives in the end." Colp knew the director of the Texas relief commission, and CWA officials in Texas acquiesced to Colp's wishes. This pattern of political maneuvering also concerned the NPS in matters of land ownership, as Toll did not believe that Texas had unrestricted access to the 105,000 acres projected for Big Bend State Park. In addition, Colp had succeeded in acquiring passage in the Texas state legislature of a measure allocating $50,000 for the Big Bend CCC program, and the state senate and the governor seemed equally inclined to support Colp. "You have certainly got to hand it to him," Maier told Wirth, and concluded about the camps: "Although we may not go into this thing, taking it all in I think it deserves to be classed as an 'A' project." [19]

Once Colp had convinced Maier to advance the Texas proposals, the latter official turned to Roger Toll on February 19, 1934, for more specific details. Toll compared the process for creation of a Big Bend National Park to that recently used with Tennessee's Great Smokies, Virginia's Shenandoah, Kentucky's Mammoth Cave, and Minnesota's Isle Royale national parks. "The danger of doing any development before the park has been established and the land secured," said Toll, "is that the valuation of the land will be increased by having the State and the Federal Government committed to the project, and by the expenditure for roads and other development on near by [sic] land." The Yellowstone superintendent realized "the urge to start development with relief funds that are now available, but which may not be available in later years." He asked Maier to secure from Colp maps of the proposed park site, including notation of the state lands. Toll closed his recommendations by encouraging a first camp at Santa Elena, because of its access to water from the Rio Grande, as opposed to the Chisos Basin, where "the water supply is doubtful and the [CCC] men could not begin immediately on road work." [20]

Any delay in establishment of the camps threatened the plans and dreams of the Big Bend promoters, as Colp had estimated a direct cash infusion of $200,000 into Brewster County within six months of the creation of a CCC facility. In March 1934, Colp met in Alpine with the Alpine chamber of commerce, calling upon them to purchase even one quarter-section (160 acres) in the Chisos Basin to demonstrate their commitment to the NPS and Congress. The release of Roger Toll's highly favorable report encouraged the chamber to fund its own search for water supplies. Herbert Maier wrote to Conrad Wirth on April 9 to warn Washington officials of the NPS that "the water question in the Chisos Mountains has not as yet been settled to the satisfaction of the Army." Chamber officials first had approached rancher Waddy Burnham, owner of substantial water rights in the Basin, to sell the needed supply to the CCC. When Burnham refused, Everett Townsend convinced the Alpine boosters to join with the CWA to fund the drilling of two wells. The chamber employed Dr. Charles Baker, chairman of the geology department at Texas A&M University, to determine the location of a steady supply of water. On April 16, 1934, Townsend's crew tapped a source of water at the foot of Pulliam Bluff on the north side of the Basin that released eight gallons per minute, three gallons more than the minimum standard used by the Army. This discovery triggered the rush to approve the CCC camp, and to begin the hiring of its 200 employees. [21]

While Brewster County park advocates reveled in their good fortune, in the spring and summer of 1934 the NPS accelerated the process of park surveys. By the end of that year, the park service had a much clearer idea of the opportunities and challenges awaiting Big Bend National Park. Yet the NPS also faced similar demands for reviews and planning throughout the country as its share of responsibility grew for economic recovery and resource preservation. The experimental nature of the CCC and related work programs, the lack of any experience with long-range planning for government employment programs, and the costs of operations in the isolated conditions of Big Bend rendered the exercise problematic for the NPS, even as state officials moved legislation through Congress toward incorporation of the site as the 27th national park.

In anticipation of the discovery of water, the NPS sent a delegation of regional and national officials in early April 1934 to Big Bend. George Nason (later furloughed himself for budgetary reasons) was recommended for supervision of park planning in southern Texas, with sites at Palo Duro Canyon, Fort Davis, and Big Bend. Herbert Maier saw more potential for CCC work at Big Bend than at existing campsites at Stephenville and Lampasas, and made plans to move them once the Army approved the Chisos Mountains proposal. From April 5to 8, 1934, Ben H. Thompson of the NPS's newly formed "Wildlife Division" conducted the first official park service study of the flora and fauna of the Big Bend area. Thompson represented the entering wedge of professionalism in park ecology and natural resource planning emanating from the University of California campus at Berkeley. There, according to Sellars, "the university was becoming a center of Park Service activity that included education, forestry, and landscape architecture," fields of expertise that the NPS would apply to the planning for Big Bend's future. [22]

Thompson's report reiterated the detail and sense of wonder about Big Bend that Roger Toll found in the area. The NPS wildlife biologist noted that southern Brewster County had endured "a period of perhaps forty or fifty years of domestic stock raising." Cattle, sheep and goats had predominated, and "needless to say, over-grazing is characteristic of the entire area." Thompson lamented that "most of the grass is gone and the more palatable species of browse have been greatly depleted." The biologist wrote that "with protection from grazing the vegetation of the area would restore itself markedly." Even though aridity marked the landscape, "springs are numerous, providing abundant water for the native wild life." One side effect of this combination of grazing and dryness was the abundance of exotic vegetation, as "only the thorny varieties could persist in the face of fifty years of grazing." Thompson identified some 33 forms of grass, cactus, and brush, with the "weeping juniper" (Juniperus flaccida) as a species "found only in the Chisos Mountains [of] Texas." [23]

Once Thompson had examined the extent and complexity of plants and grasses, he reported to his superiors about the conditions of animal life. Sellars contended that "biologists were gaining an increased comprehension of the role of habitat in the survival of species," a phenomenon not mentioned by park promoters and landowners (whose concerns gravitated towards economic relief and recovery). In addition, "the biologists [in 1933] proposed to perpetuate existing natural conditions and, where necessary and feasible, to restore park fauna to a 'pristine state.'" While Thompson did not resort to such dramatic terms, nonetheless his coverage of mammals indicated their endangered status in the face of land-use practices of local ranchers. One example was his focus on the species of peccary, which local residents claimed devoured a considerable amount of lechuguilla. If this were the case, said Thompson, Big Bend could become "the most suitable preserve for the peccary and a type of area which is not included in any other national park." [24]

In addition to threats to the javelina, Thompson also wrote about the presence of three types of deer in the Chisos Mountains: mule deer, which he said were "commonly hunted," "Arizona white-tailed deer," which Thompson believed "finds it eastern limits of range in the Chisos Mountains" and fan-tailed deer. The NPS biologist had inquired of locals about the presence of "Mexican Bighorn" sheep, as Vernon Bailey in 1905 wrote that "they have been killed on the north slope of the Chisos and may still be found in the Santa Helena Canyon." Thompson wondered if pronghorn antelope had ever inhabited the area, in that "the range looks suitable," and "it is possible that they were once native." Local residents, however, could not remember sightings of the pronghorn. Black bears, said the locals, still existed in "the upper regions of the Chisos," although they "are no longer abundant." Before 1920, wolves had been targeted for special eradication, as they "once were common in the region." Coyotes and foxes continued to inhabit the area, as did bobcats and cougars. Thompson noted that gray foxes had been trapped and penned at a gas station some 20 miles north of the Chisos Mountains, a facility owned by W.A. Cooper. Many species of small game could be found throughout the Big Bend country, from raccoons to skunks to jackrabbits. Of these, perhaps the most intriguing to Thompson were the brown bats and Mexican free-tail bats. "Numerous bats were flying around," he reported, "when it was too late for visual identification and no specimens were collected." [25]

Future travelers to Big Bend National Park would be most excited about the "great variety of bird life" that Thompson noted on his four-day excursion to the desert, mountain, and canyon country of the Rio Grande. "Many species of subtropical birds not found elsewhere in the United States," said the NPS biologist, "would be seen by the visitor to the Big Bend, and in the winter months it is a great highway for migrating birds." In his brief tour of the vast Big Bend country, Thompson identified no fewer than 33 types of birds, from blue herons to the "White-rumped Shrike." Visitors also would appreciate Thompson's statement that few poisonous snakes inhabited the area, with garter snakes most common along the Rio Grande. [24]

When Ben Thompson contemplated the future of Big Bend National Park, he echoed policies already forming within George Wright's wildlife division. "Of all their proposed solutions," said Sellars, Wright's "survey team most frequently emphasized the need to expand boundaries to include year-round habitats for protection of wildlife." Thompson saw in Big Bend an excellent opportunity to apply this logic. "The flora and fauna of the Big Bend area," he concluded in April 1934, "is varied and abundant." He warned his superiors in Berkeley that "to draw up any sort of proposed boundary which would follow natural barriers and faunal zones is impossible because of the nature of the terrain." He recommended that the NPS "reserve a sufficient chunk of territory to provide adequate habitat for the species involved" as "the next best possibility." This corresponded with Toll's boundary suggestion of the northern parallel of 29 degrees 20 minutes, "excluding of course the town of Terlingua and the adjacent mercury mines." Thompson then concluded: "It is suggested from the wild life point of view that the area is of national parks caliber," with Toll's demarcation "adequate to protect the wild life of the area." [25]

George Wright's wildlife division (in the person of Ben Thompson) had defined the essence of Big Bend's appeal to future visitors worldwide. Yet the immediate concerns of the park service and the CCC were more pragmatic: claiming public land for the Chisos Basin camps, constructing facilities that could become part of either a state or national park, and easing the twin burdens of economic hardship and ecological ruin in southern Brewster County. To that end, a host of federal officials came to Big Bend in the spring of 1934 with goals other than those of Ben Thompson. Even as the wildlife biologist circled the future park site in April of that year, W.C. Carnes, the assistant chief engineer of the NPS for its Western Division in San Francisco, met with Conrad Wirth to discuss facilities and road planning. Wirth asked Carnes "to review the geological conditions and flora to determine in general the probable highway development [that] would be needed for the area to attain National Park status." This in turn would allow the CCC to focus its resources on "development of water resources, camp sites, possible truck trails or parking areas at points which would fit with an ultimate National Park development." The NPS engineer noted that Big Bend's isolation and distance from a transportation hub "is not dissimilar to that of Grand Canyon, Zion, or Bryce [Canyon]" national parks on the Colorado Plateau. He decided to send the assistant landscape architect at the Grand Canyon, Harry Langley, to join with a Phoenix-based engineer from the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads to inspect the Big Bend. "It is so seldom," Carnes told Dr. L.I. Hewes, deputy chief engineer of the Bureau of Public Roads in San Francisco, that "we have a chance to influence the development of areas before they become National Parks." Thus the reconnaissance would help the NPS avoid mistakes of the past, where poorly coordinated transportation planning hindered park service operations. [26]

For the boosters of Big Bend, the key figures in the area that spring were George Nason of the ECW program and Robert D. Morgan, superintendent of CCC camp "SP-33-T." They came to the Chisos on May 21, 1934, with the first installment of the 200-member work crew (80 percent of whom were Hispanic). The CCC bought the original camp acreage from ranchers Ira Hector and Waddy Burnham, using money provided by the Alpine chamber of commerce. That organization then had to recapture their investment through a bond election. The Texas state parks board "owned" the property occupied bys the first and second CCC camps (the latter designated as "SP-34-T"). The board then informed the Army that "the United States is authorized to use this property for camp sites for one year or as much longer as camps are retained on the Big Bend State Park, said occupancy to be without cost to the Federal Government." D.E. Colp then told the commanding general of the CCC, stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, that "any and all buildings, structures or installations erected on these camp sites by the Government shall be and remain the property of the Government." Should the government decide to abandon the CCC camps, "the land shall be disposed of by the Government in any manner it may deem to be [in] its best interest." [27]

D.E. Colp's optimism, and that of the Alpine chamber, soon faded as the economic realities of New Deal programming took hold in the Big Bend. On June 1, 1934, George Nason wrote to Maier asking that the NPS limit its work to the Chisos Basin proper, and not expand down the mountain. Early plans had called for "an open air pavilion in Boot Spring Canyon." Nason agreed that Boot Spring "is a magnificent setting for such a structure." Yet he had to limit the scope of CCC work, and contended that the pavilion "would not add to the magnificence of the superbly wooded area." The CCC also could not release its workers from the Stephenville camp as early as it had hoped, leaving Big Bend short of time and money for the planned second camp (the budget for all CCC work in the Chisos in the summer of 1934 had shrunk by nearly half). Ironically, the state parks board and the Alpine boosters managed to secure a special type of CCC camp that summer: DSP-1, a "drought relief camp." No one could explain why the temperate Chisos Basin qualified for this program, but it promised to give the NPS the additional manpower and funds to create the "class A" facility that so many park planners had envisioned. [28]

New Deal work relief programs often faced criticism from politicians and conservative commentators in the media for their wastefulness of money and human resources. W.G. Carnes expressed some surprise in July when resident NPS architect Harry Langley informed him that the first weeks of the Chisos basin CCC programs had not gone well. "No member of the personnel in charge of development there," said Carnes, "is at all familiar with development on National Park standards." Langley responded: "I am somewhat concerned as to the results that will be obtained." Langley did not blame Nason, whom he described as "a very capable man" who "has too much territory to cover to devote the time needed for proper study of the problems." Compounding Nason's situation was the success of local park boosters in acquiring promises of CCC labor. "Within another month," Langley warned Carnes, there will be four camps established in the area (approximately 1000 men)." The Grand Canyon architect could find only one architect and "Landscape Foreman" on site in July 1934, and called for "more Landscape Architects [to] be engaged immediately to prepare the necessary development plans at once and supervise the work;" people whom Langley pointedly described as familiar with Park Service methods and personnel. [29]

Discontent with the NPS-CCC partnership, the haste with which these programs unfolded, and the lack of professional staff to manage the growing workload affected many park service sites in the 1930s. Langley's critique of Big Bend's CCC camps prompted Carnes to visit him at the Grand Canyon to explore the issue further. In a "Personal and Confidential Air Mail" message on August 8 to Herbert Maier, Carnes admitted to be "somewhat alarmed at the fact that the camp superintendent [R.D. Morgan] is entrusted with so many duties." Beyond his usual tasks, which Carnes identified as "organizing the crews and equipment and direct charge of the work," Morgan "also submits the projects to be initiated and prepares whatever drawings are necessary." George Nason, nominally in charge of the CCC operations, could only make "infrequent trips to Big Bend." Thus Morgan undertook "a wide range of work which would ordinarily be performed by architects and landscape architects." Langley voiced particular displeasure with Morgan's plans for several highway bridges, at least one of which had a 50-foot span. Carnes advised Maier that "in our own work a full fledged highway engineer is not entrusted with the preparation of bridge plans, particularly for masonry bridges which have to be very well done or the result is terrible." Even a bridge specialist would require five to six weeks to design such an important structure, as well as "administrative facilities such as office, shops, etc." He also had to determine the location of "future camp grounds, housekeeping camps and hotels in areas suitable for their ultimate needs." This would require a "development plan . . . to be made before working drawings, on any particular building." If not, warned Carnes, "buildings would be planned, one at a time, without any definite relation to one another." [30]

The success of the New Deal hinged upon public acceptance not only of the expenditure of funds on work relief, but also of the quality of their labors. Richard Sellars, viewing the CCC from the perspective of the 1990s, wrote that "in both state and national park construction, the Service's architects and landscape architects of the 1930s directed CCC craftsmen toward a harmonious blending of new construction with the surrounding park landscapes." Carnes had that legacy in mind when he informed Herbert Maier: "If you State Park people are forced to depend upon either the camp superintendents or the landscape foremen for the preparation of all your plans, I feel that you are being seriously handicapped." The San Francisco engineer thus wrote to Maier "principally to inform you that the National Park camps are not on a similar starvation diet so far as designers and supervisors are concerned." He cautioned Maier that "inasmuch as in the future any one viewing the work done in the State Parks may say 'well, this work was done under the supervision of the National Park Service, why didn't they get it done just the way they wanted.'" Carnes warned that such critics would not know "that your set-up contained no man who could devote his whole time to the preparation of plans." In addition. "the inspectors had so many camps to cover, that their trips were necessarily hurried and none too frequent." [31]

The Carnes-Langley review of Big Bend's early CCC days struck a nerve with Herbert Maier, who knew from other camps of the strain of supervision and the limits of staffing. An indication of this condition came in Maier's response to Carnes, in which the ECW district officer reminded the NPS engineer: "I am very busy at the present moment and have not read your letter over as carefully as I will presently." He then spoke personally with George Nason at the state park division office in Oklahoma City, and his reply of August 24 was both defensive and critical of Carnes' judgment. "Yes, our set-up is quite different from yours," Maier responded, as "we do not have anything that corresponds to a central drafting office." Maier admitted the problem when he conceded, "except of course that here at my office I try to help out all I can with plans that are sent in for approval and revision." Maier then moved to the heart of the matter (at least from his perspective), revealing the burden that New Deal economic recovery placed on the NPS. "In some of the eastern states," he told Carnes, "where the state parks may have been a going concern for a number of years, where they have a state park board with perhaps a consulting architect, and one or two landscape architects," Maier would agree that "the matter of design is quite simple." Western conditions, however, had affected Maier more than he realized. "Out here in the wilds," he told his San Francisco colleague, "where the State Governments have perhaps never heard of a landscape architect, and where State Parks Boards have been very recently set up in order to take advantage of our program," the NPS found it "necessary . . . to carry on our design work at the camps under the jurisdiction of the Inspectors as the work progresses." All they could do, Maier declared, was to "try wherever possible to keep the plans ahead of the work." Alternately apologetic and irritated, Maier admitted that "since as a rule no work may be undertaken before the camp moves in, this does not always work out as satisfactorily as it should." Thus his judgment differed from Carnes: "We have gotten along very well and are now finally getting the horse before the cart." [32]

When Maier turned to the particular details of the Big Bend CCC program, he took pride in the obstacles overcome. "We have in the original camp," he told Carnes, "two graduate landscape architects, one graduate architect and three graduate engineers." Maier admitted that "this may not be as satisfactory as a central drafting office where standards are established and ability is concentrated." Yet he believed that "it has the good point of placing the designer right on the job." In particular, Maier took issue with Harry Langley's criticisms of Robert Morgan, whom he described as "a Civil Engineer with twenty years experience." Instead of dismissing his abilities in bridge design and construction, Maier judged Morgan as "capable of designing a highway bridge as far as the structural efficiency is concerned." Other NPS staff would draw the plans, and George Nason would review the final product. More troubling for Maier was Langley's claim that the Big Bend camp did not follow a master plan carefully for facilities construction. He agreed that, "as you know, while a general plan is at first agreed upon, this is kept in a flexible state and cannot be entirely completed before the draftsmen take hold of other things to keep ahead of the work." Maier cautioned Carnes that "this does not mean that these items are out of sympathy with the general plan;" a situation exacerbated by the CCC's rule that "camps are approved for a six months period only," meaning that "drafting frequently cannot be concentrated on one item at a time." Big Bend in particular posed a serious design-build problem, in that "it is difficult for us to make a final general plan in an area that has never been surveyed." The CCC crews "must carry on topographical work a considerable length of time before any final master plan may be drafted." [33]

Despite these clear differences of opinion on NPS-CCC policy, Maier appreciated the gravity of the Big Bend case, and of the need for firm oversight of the planning process. The NPS's Oklahoma City office needed closer contact with Denver and San Francisco personnel, and all should visit Big Bend on a regular basis. "There is too much at stake," said Maier, "in working in an area that may later become a National Park." He also confided in Carnes that "you know that my own knowledge of park development is really quite limited." It did not help that Langley and Nason now disliked each other, and that Maier had to recommend Charles Ritchey, who "covers New Mexico and gets down to Carlsbad," as an alternative to the staff member assigned to landscape architecture oversight (Langley). "I realize," concluded Maier, "that Mr. Ritchey probably has a mighty full program as it is," but he could not allow Big Bend to fail because of personality conflicts and planning disputes. [34]

As the NPS and CCC moved into the first fall season of work at Big Bend, the issue of oversight and budgetary constraints did not ease. By mid-September, Carnes had acknowledged his inability to provide Maier with sufficient staff time for supervision. Carnes conceded that "I have not even seen the place," and had written Maier only "as an inquiry concerning the type of overhead personnel and how the different phases of the work are handled." Carnes then gave Maier more disheartening news: "As to the making of periodic inspections, this is becoming more and more difficult." Carnes lost one of his top landscape architects to the NPS office in Washington, and "our resident landscape architect at Yosemite was made Assistant Superintendent." Such personnel changes "necessitate our older field men taking on larger and larger territories," said Carnes, "and it is getting to a point where their services are spread pretty thin." Then in a statement typical of the erratic nature of New Deal budgeting, Carnes advised Maier that if he could wait until winter, he would have "eight or ten capable and experienced men available by transfer from the Northern parks." The CCC expected a reduction of camps in the fourth quarter (October-December) from 58 to 29, forcing Carnes "to let quite a few good men go." [35]

Given this situation, Maier in late October revised plans for Big Bend's "drought relief" funding, with hopes that he would receive twelve months of support. He informed the national ECW office that "the beauty and grandeur" of the area "is unsurpassed in Texas, and has been said by park authorities to be the equal of any other like area in the United States." Original plans for two CCC camps had not materialized, and now Maier had word that Big Bend would lose the one camp established that May. Thus the drought relief unit of the CCC would have to "embrace those essential projects for this park;" a factor in the high budget estimate that Maier had calculated. He hoped to use "native rock and timber," but it would have to be carried from the Marathon railhead to the site. The Texas state parks board had agreed to "furnish all building stone and such sand, gravel and timber as are available on the [105,000-acre] property as its contribution to the development of this park." Then Maier itemized the facilities needed at Big Bend for the year 1935: a "lookout house" in the Chisos, "six miles of truck trails . . . to open up the mountainous areas and make accessible the lookout house . . . as well as the Boot Springs Canyon area and South rim mesa of the Chisos Range." With an eye toward the day when tourists would converge on Big Bend, Maier then asked for $2,200 to build "a combined concession house and lodge, to be known as the Hacienda de los Chisos." His rationale was that "being located 90 miles from a railroad, practically all visitors to this park will of necessity spend one or more nights therein, and housing facilities must be made available for their comfort." An additional $1,000 would permit construction of "5 native stone cottages for use of park patrons." Yet the most expensive detail of park construction was purchase of seven trucks (for $4,000), as employees would have to be transported throughout the Basin daily, and materials hauled down the long dirt road from Marathon to the campsite. [36]

As much as the NPS wished to endorse Maier's request, Big Bend received authority to operate only until the end of the fiscal year (June 30, 1935). In the estimation of Herbert Evison, the NPS state park division supervisor in Washington, Big Bend was lucky. He informed Maier on November 27 that the normal authorization of CCC units expired on March 31, 1935. "With that in mind," said Evison, "work at Big Bend should be so scheduled that everything undertaken before March 31 will be in a fair state of completion in the event the camp is discontinued on that date." Evison further suggested that Big Bend add "fireplaces, tables or other desirable small equipment" to the Chisos campgrounds, and to "undertake erection of more than the five cabins approved." Evison's logic was that "since this area is so isolated from any town and, presumably, from any place offering satisfactory overnight accommodation," Big Bend needed facilities more elaborate than the rustic arrangement offered by Maier. [37]

With funding in hand for at least 120 days, the NPS turned to an issue that arose in December 1934 that threatened continued work. Texas attorney-general James Allred declared as "unconstitutional" the state parks board's plan to pay one cent per acre to the school fund for all mineral rights on school lands in the Big Bend area, and five cents per acre for the "Big Bend District" (the 105,000 acres in the Chisos Basin). Nason warned Maier that "we probably do not have clear title to the section where the Army Camp is constructed, and have recently obtained a clear title to the section containing a lodge location, subject to a tax of $970.00 to the State." Nason planned to request a rehearing on the matter with Allred, who played an important role three years later as governor when he vetoed legislation that would pay landowners $1.5 million for their lands and donate the acreage to the NPS. Yet the park service and CCC had to proceed in hopes of resolution, with a new round of studies and surveys triggered by the stabilized funding of the "drought-relief" program. [38]

Simultaneous with Allred's objections to Texas' gift to the CCC and NPS, Everett Townsend and W.D. Smithers advanced the cause of the international park between Mexico and the United States. John Jameson noted that the first person to draft a plan for such an initiative was Alfred Dorgan of Castolon, a concept that he called the "Friendly Nations Park." By December 1934, Townsend and Smithers saw the emerging sentiment in Mexico for natural resource conservation aligning with NPS plans for the Rio Grande canyons, and the Roosevelt administration's call for a "Good Neighbor Policy" between the United States and Latin America. Smithers, an experienced photographer, asked Herbert Maier if the NPS would fund his travel across the river to document the wonders of the Mexican north. Smithers commented on the cost in time and money of acquiring permits from the Mexican government to explore the area, and the rigors of travel south of the border. "I know how to get around in Mexico," said Smithers, "as I have been all over it, and I will go into the very best areas, no matter how rough it is." He mentioned in particular an area some eight miles south of the Elmo Johnson ranch, which he had been told had "the largest groups of pectographs [pictographs] in America." Smithers claimed that "with the exception of two other men, I know of no other white men that has [sic] been to this Canyon." He surmised that "if the park is ever made, this will be one of the main attractions," as Mexicans had told Smithers that the canyon's name was "the Salado, also . . . the El Boquillas de los Muertos," which he translated as "the Canyon of the Dead." [39]

Townsend also contributed his share of historical knowledge to the momentum in Brewster County for designation of an international park. In December 1934, he submitted to the NPS a narrative entitled, "Adjoining Area in Mexico." Since his days as a U.S. Customs agent and later a Texas Ranger, Townsend had found the Mexican side of the Rio Grande fascinating for its environment and cultural complexity. "The truth of the matter," said Townsend, "is that, in our grandest and most striking views, the greater values seem to lie beyond the Rio Grande," and "to reap the full value of their own scenery, the Mexicans must come to our side to see it." Townsend considered the "flora [as] almost identical on both sides of the River with an occasional rare and beautiful exception." The Mexican mountainsides, like the Chisos, boasted plentiful varieties of plants and trees. He spoke most movingly, however, of what he called the "Hechereros or Palomas Mountains." These Townsend identified as "about thirty miles from the western part of our State Park." "Hechereros [the proper spelling of which was Hechiceros]," said the advocate of an international park, "means enchanting, bewitching, and in this instance, the term is no misnomer." The area had "considerable water . . . and a sprinkle of trees, but no forests." There the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa "had a stronghold for years, a great remount and resting station, from which his enemies never succeeded in driving him." Other topographical features that Townsend praised were the "Noche Buena Peaks" and "El Pino Mountain." He had never visited the Fronteriza Mountains (another local term for the Sierra del Carmen), but had it on good authority that "vegetation is quite extensive, that there are forests of great trees, also that water is frequently found in their canyons." [40]

With such natural beauty available so close to Big Bend, Townsend encouraged the NPS to consider an aggressive campaign with the government of Mexico to join the two nations in an international park. "The territory on the south bank of the River is scantily populated," Townsend reported, "and much of it is said to be public land." Like south Brewster County, Mexico's share of the international park would be "of no great commercial value." Then Townsend echoed the sentiments of FDR's Latin American policy, an attitude not shared by some of his own neighbors. "Undoubtedly such a great recreational area," he wrote late in 1934, "would go far toward bringing the two races closer together." Townsend hoped that such a park "would tend to solidify more securely the friendship that has been forming for some years." Visitors from both nations could find in the Big Bend country "a zona libre, in which the tourist upon entering the gate of the Park on either side would find himself free from all customs and immigration regulations so long as he stayed within its bounds." This bold plan, the source of much debate between the two nations (and within Texas) for the next 60 years, "would create ties of kindly sentiment that would multiply and become stronger between the Mexican and American peoples," said Townsend prophetically, "now almost unknown to each other, as the future years roll by." [41]

The touching sentiments of Townsend, and the eagerness of Smithers to catalogue the wonders of the Mexican frontera, caught the park service off-guard. Focused as it was on the politics of the New Deal, the peripatetic nature of federal budgeting, and the delicate negotiations with the Lone Star state's congressional delegation to achieve park status in 1935, Herbert Maier had to caution both Brewster County residents about the hazards of ambitious promotion and private entanglement in diplomatic relations with Mexico. Maier wrote to Smithers on December 14 to deny federal funding for his Mexican photographic survey. He also warned Smithers, as he would Townsend, to "be careful in the future in giving out any information as to our work that has come to your attention." Experience had taught Maier that "local publicity is of little value since the procedure of the government is based entirely on the native calibre of an area." Adding to the NPS's concerns was the fact that "local landowners, et cetera, thereby frequently get a distored and overambitious picture of a project in which the government has indicated an interest." [42]

To Townsend Maier was more candid: "There is one thing I should like to request of you in regard to the Big Bend project and that is you appoint yourself a committee of one to see that absolutely no publicity of any kind gets out on it." Maier had seen all over the country where the NPS "had one project after another killed as a result of publicity." Maier had learned a hard lesson in Alpine itself, when his offhand comment to the unnamed "President" of the chamber of commerce led to an Alpine Avalanche story "describing an 'International park of two million acres.'" Instead, Maier counseled Townsend to appreciate the fact that "the Big Bend area is at present receiving all of the attention that it is possible for the Federal Government to give it." The park service's major problem at Big Bend, now that the CCC had begun facilities construction, remained acquisition of private property. "I have felt," said Maier, "that the best way to organize the property ownership part of the program is to have a project manager, such as yourself, who is thoroughly familiar with local conditions, appointed." The park service could take advantage of the "sub-marginal program" that allowed for the "purchase [of] large tracts of sub-marginal land." If the NPS would accept the area as a sub-marginal project, "it will probably materially hasten the matter of land acquisition." Maier compared the Big Bend property issue to a similar situation in southern Florida, where the original legislation to create the Everglades National Park had passed Congress in 1926, but land purchases had yet to be completed. Maier's determination to include Townsend in the Big Bend process had led to his candor, and the ECW director predicted: "I should not be at all surprised but what unless the matter is very carefully, vigorously and intelligently handled it will take ten years to make a National park out of the Big Bend area, if ever." [43]

Maier's judgment of the next phase of park planning proved eerily prophetic, as it would be June 12, 1944, before the NPS could open the park for visitors. In the meantime, careful attention to detail by the park service and the CCC coexisted with obstacles of land acquisition and reductions in federal spending as the New Deal faced growing criticism in Congress. Then the imperative of global conflict from 1941 to 1945 would halt most plans for expanding the NPS system. Yet the determination of local sponsors to convince the Texas legislature to appropriate funds for land purchases, and their aggressive campaign to acquire the properties for the nearly 800,000-acre park, proceeded with the same energy and enthusiasm that the new partnership between Texas, Mexico and the NPS had demonstrated in their quest to save the Southwest's "last frontier."

Figure 6: Adobe and Stone Cottages Built by the CCC (1940-1941)

Endnotes

¹ Welsh, A Special Place, A Sacred Trust, 28-29; Elmer J. Edwards, "To the Big Bend Away! Newest National Park Is Widest of the Open Spaces, Offers Most to Vacationists Seeking Nature at Its Rawest," West Texas Today, Volume 26, No. 3 (May 1945): 6. West Texas Today was published by the West Texas Chamber of Commerce, based in Abilene.

² Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 175.

³ Gerald D. Nash, The American West in the Twentieth Century: A Short History of an Urban Oasis (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977), 137-38; Richard W. Lowitt, The New Deal and the West (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984), 218; Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1976 reprint), iv.

⁴ Welsh, A Special Place, A Sacred Trust, 34; "First Steps In Creating Big Bend National Park Taken By Abilenian," Abilene (TX) Reporter News, June 11, 1944.

⁵ "First Steps In Creating Big Bend National Park;" John Jameson, The Story of Big Bend National Park (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), 19; Welsh, Dunes and Dreams: A History of White Sands National Monument (Santa Fe: National Park Service, 1995), 32.

⁶ Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), 450-51, 458, 460, 462; Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks, 91.

⁷ Jameson, The Story of Big Bend National Park, 23; Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 176; House Bill No. 26, "A Bill To Be Entitled An Act changing the name of the Texas Canyon State Park to Big Bend State Park," September 1933 (?), Everett Ewing Townsend Collection, Box 9, Wallet 24, Folder 4, Archives of the Big Bend, Sul Ross State University, Alpine, TX (cited as Townsend Collection, ABB).

⁸ Ross A. Maxwell, "Summary Of Events That Led To The Establishment Of The Big Bend National Park," n.d. 1949 (?), Record Group (RG) 79, National Park Service (NPS), Southwest Regional Office (SWRO), Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to National Parks, Monuments, and Recreational Areas, 1927-1953, Box 2, Folder: 101 NPS History, Rocky Mountain Branch, National Archives and Records Administration, Denver, CO (cited as DEN NARA); Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks, 126, 133; Welsh, A Special Place, A Sacred Trust, 37.

⁹ Conrad L. Wirth, Assistant Director, NPS, State Park Conservation Work, Washington, DC, to Herbert Maier, NPS, Denver, CO, July 24, 1933, RG79, NPS, SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Parks, Forests, and Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-1934, Box 96, Folder: 204-01 CCC By Field Officers, DEN NARA.

¹⁰ James G. Anderson, "Land Acquisition in the Big Bend National Park of Texas," unpublished master's thesis, Sul Ross State College, 1967: 39; F. A. Dale, District Inspector, NPS, Austin, TX, to Major John D. Guthrie, Eight Corps Area (U.S. Army), Fort Sam Houston, TX, September 26, 1933, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Parks, Forests, and Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Box 96, Folder: 601-03 (CCC) Camp Sites, DEN NARA.

¹¹ Herbert Maier, District Officer, E.C.W., Austin, TX, to Wirth, October 2, 1933, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Parks, Forests, and Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Box 96, Folder: 601-03 (CCC) Camp Sites, DEN NARA.

¹² Dale to Maier, October 6, 1933, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Parks, Forests, and Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Box 96, Folder: 601-03 (CCC) Camp Sites, DEN NARA.

¹³ Maier to Townsend, October 12, 1933, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Parks, Forests, and Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Box 96, Folder: 601-03 (CCC) Camp Sites; B.C. Tharp, Department of Botany and Bacteriology, University of Texas, Austin, November 16, 1933; C. H. Mueller, "The Vegetation of the Chisos Mountains of West Texas," unpublished manuscript, 1933, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to National Parks, Monuments, and Recreational Areas, 1927-1953, Folder: N/A, Box 94, DEN NARA. Mueller's work came from the introduction to his master's thesis, submitted in 1933.

¹⁴ Jameson, The Story of Big Bend National Park, 25; Anderson, "Land Acquisition in the Big Bend National Park," 40; Roger W. Toll, Department of the Interior, Office of National Parks, Buildings, and Reservations, Denver, CO, to Arno B. Cammerer, Director, Office of National Parks, Buildings, and Reservations, Washington, DC, march 3, 1934, RG79, NPS, Central Consolidated Files (CCF) 1933-1949, Big Bend National Park 207 Files, Box 826, National Archives and Records Administration, Archives II, College Park, MD (cited as DC NARA II).

¹⁵ D.E. Colp, Chairman, Texas State Parks Board, Austin, to Maier, February 6, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Forests, Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Big Bend National Park-Bryce Canyon National Monument, Utah, Box 97, Folder: 601-03.1 (CCC) Applications for Camps, DEN NARA; Lane Simonian, Defending the Land of the Jaguar: A History of Conservation in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 1-2; Michael C. Meyer and William L. Sherman, The Course of Mexican History, Fifth Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 596.

¹⁶ Harry L. Dunham, District Inspector, E.C.W., Austin, to Maier, February 6, 1934; R.O. Whiteaker, Parks Engineer, Texas State Parks Board, Austin, February 6, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW and ERA Work in National Forests, Monuments, and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Big Bend National Park, TX-Bryce Canyon National Monument, UT, Box 97, Folder: 601-03.2 (CCC) Abandoned Camps, DEN NARA.

¹⁷ Maier to Wirth, February 18, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Forests, Monuments, and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Big Bend National Park, TX-Bryce Canyon National Monument, UT, Box 97, Folder: 601-03.2 (CCC) Abandoned Camps, DEN NARA.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ Toll to Maier, February 19, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Forests, Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Big Bend National Park, TX-Bryce Canyon National Monument, UT, Box 97, Folder: 601-03.2 (CCC) Abandoned Camps, DEN NARA.

²¹ Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 177, 179; Maier to Wirth, April 9, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to National Parks, Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1927-1953, Box 1, Folder: 000 General Big Bend, DEN NARA; Jameson, The Story of Big Bend National Park, 27.

²² Maier to Wirth, April 9, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to National Parks, Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1927-1953, Box 1, Folder: 000 General Big Bend; Ben H. Thompson, Department of the Interior, Office of National Parks, Buildings, and Reservations, University of California, Berkeley, to The Director, NPS, Washington, DC, April 18, 1934, RG79, NPS CCF 1933-49, Report Ben Thompson File, BIBE 207 Files, Box 826, DC NARA II; Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks, 95.

²³ Ben H. Thompson, "Report Upon the Wild Life of the Big Bend Area of the Rio Grande, Texas," April 18, 1934, RG79, NPS CCF 1933-49, Report Ben Thompson File, BIBE 207 Files, Box 826, DC NARA II.

²⁴ Ibid.; Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks, 96.

²⁵ Thompson, "Report Upon the Wild Life of the Big Bend Area."

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Ibid; Thompson to the NPS Director, April 18, 1934.

²⁶ W.G. Carnes, Chief, Western Division, NPS, San Francisco, to Dr. L.I. Hewes, Deputy Chief Engineer, Bureau of Public Roads, San Francisco, May 4, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to National Parks, Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1927-1953, Box 1, Folder: 000 General Big Bend, DEN NARA.

²⁷ Gomez, A Most Singular Country, 179; Anderson, "Land Acquisition in the Big Bend National Park," 44; Colp to Commanding General, Headquarters, Arizona-New Mexico District, CCC, Fort Bliss, TX, June 1, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to National Parks, Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1927-1953, Box 11, Folder: 609 (CCC) Leases, DEN NARA.

²⁸ Nason to Maier, June 1, 1934; Maier to Herbert Evison, NPS, Washington, DC, July 23, 1934; Memorandum of "Pesonen" to Maier, "Drought Camp Application, Big Bend, DSP 1, Texas," July 28, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW and ERA Work in National Forests, Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Big Bend National Park, TX-Bryce Canyon National Monument, UT, Box 97, Folder: 601-03.1 (CCC) Applications for Camps (2 of 3), DEN NARA.

²⁹ H. (Harry) Langley, Resident Landscape Architect, Grand Canyon National Park, AZ, to Carnes, July 24, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Correspondence Relating to National Parks, Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1927-1953, Box 1, Folder: 000 General Big Bend, DEN NARA.

³⁰ Carnes to Maier, August 8, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Parks, Forests and Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Box 95, Folder: Project 1005, DEN NARA.

³¹ Ibid; Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks, 134.

³² Maier to Carnes, August 16, 24, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Parks, Forests and Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Box 95, Folder: DSP 1, DEN NARA.

³³ Ibid.

³⁴ Ibid.

³⁵ Carnes to Maier, September 19, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to National Parks, Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1927-1953, Box 1, Folder: 000 General Big Bend, DEN NARA.

³⁶ Maier to State Park ECW, NPS, Washington, DC, Oct. 31, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW and ERA Work in National Forests, Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Big Bend National Park, TX-Bryce Canyon National Monument, UT, Box 97, Folder: 601-03.1 (CCC) Applications for Camps (2 of 3), DEN NARA.

³⁷ Herbert Evison, Supervisor, NPS State Park Division, Washington, DC, to Maier, November 27, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW and ERA Work in National Forests, Monuments, and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Big Bend National Park, TX-Bryce Canyon National Monument, UT, Box 97, Folder: 601-03.1 (CCC) Applications for Camps (1 of 3), DEN NARA.

³⁸ Nason to Maier, December 6, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Parks, Forests and Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Box 95, Folder: DSP 1, DEN NARA.

³⁹ Jameson, The Story of Big Bend National Park, 103; W.D. Smithers, Alpine, TX, to Maier, n.d. (December 1934?), RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Parks, Forests and Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Box 95, Folder: DSP 1, DEN NARA.

⁴⁰ E.E. Townsend, "Adjoining Area In Mexico," unpublished manuscript, n.d. (December 1934?), RG79, NPS SWRO, Correspondence Relating to National Parks, Monuments, and Recreational Areas, 1927-1953, Box 94, Folder: N/A, DEN NARA.

⁴¹ Ibid.

⁴² Maier to Smithers, December 14, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Parks, Forests and Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Box 95, Folder: DSP 1, DEN NARA.

⁴³ Maier to Townsend, December 19, 1934, RG79, NPS SWRO, Santa Fe, Correspondence Relating to CCC, ECW, and ERA Work in National Parks, Forests and Monuments and Recreational Areas, 1933-34, Box 95, Folder: DSP 1, DEN NARA.