Mesa Verde Administrative History

Although Mesa Verde receives considerably more rainfall than true desert areas, vegetation is fairly sparce at the best and is generally of the arid type. Cacti of a number of varieties flourish but are conspicuous only in May and June when they bloom. Piñon, western yellow pine, juniper and Douglas fir represent much of the evergreens. The north-facing slopes and moist canyons contain quaking aspen and box elders, with willows and cottonwoods growing along the Mancos River. The heavy covering of scrub oak and mountain mahogany over the higher elevations of the park makes this region a most colorful one during the fall months. Many varieties of wild flowers are found and in the early summer the park is a blaze of color.

A. Fire Protection

In the winter of 1929 a forestry policy was codified in Mesa Verde and it became the basis for future forestry activities in the park. Forest protection work was mainly devoted to the protection of the park trees against fire, insects, tree diseases, and other injury.

Fire was the greatest menace to the park. Each year at the very driest part of the whole season, usually at the end of the spring drought, the Utes fired the willow thickets in the bottom of Mancos Canyon in an effort to produce grassland and at the same time permit easier access to the country above the willow thickets. These fires usually burned themselves out at the edge of the thicket and were not necessarily a serious threat because of the lack of vegetation to carry the fire to the rim rock and over it to the mesa.

On the western side of the park, just before the termination of the period of drought, the Utes gathered wild horses by forcing them into the heads of box canyons away from water, and in many cases started fires across the mouth of the canyon to gather them more easily. This was a dangerous practice on the forested upper mesa lands and had resulted in serious fires in the past, as evidenced by the fire kills in some of the canyons. [1]

Up to early 1934 the park had not experienced large fires and there were no cooperating agreements with the Indian Service or the Forest Service. [2]

There were six fires in the park during the 1934 season, and two were the worst in its history. The Wickiup Mesa fire started on July 11, and burned 286 acres. The Wild Horse Mesa fire started on the Ute Reservation at the west side of the park on July 9. It was promptly put under control, but broke away and burned a total of 4,492 acres of which 2,263 were on the Ute Indian Reservation and 2,229 acres within the park. This included the 286 acres of the Wickiup fire, as the two fires burned together.

The presence of CCC enrollees, located in a camp in Prater Canyon, and the cooperation of members of the Indian Service enabled the park staff to prevent more disastrous consequences. Citizens from Mancos and nearby communities offered splendid support in fighting the fire.

Approximately 1,000 persons were employed to fight the fire, which was a very hot one, and the burn was very deep and heavy. Practically all vegetation was killed.

According to the superintendent, the fire was an object lesson of what could happen under the right conditions. Fortunately the fire was kept from coming close to headquarters and was located in a region not often visited by the travelling public. Nevertheless, what happened on Wickiup and Wild Horse Mesas could easily happen on any other mesa of the park. If the fire had been on Chapin Mesa, the park and the developed areas would have been ruined. The fire emphasized the importance of having lookout towers, truck trails, and fire trails by which men and equipment could be quickly moved from park headquarters to the various sections where the fires originated. [3]

E. P. Meinecke, forest pathologist of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, made several observations about the fire in 1935.

The fire, detected by a lookout on the Montezuma National Forest, started on Indian land and "admittedly it was of incendiary origin". In the park itself fires were extremely difficult to locate on account of very poor visibility on the table land and the unsurmountable difficulties of travel presented by the precipitous canyons. In the park there was no lookout.

Because the fire was extremely hot, it caused many spot fires in advance of the line. In the brush to the north the fire swept through with such intensity that the stems were killed and charred. In the forest all trees and shrubs were dead and many totally consumed. The ground was thoroughly burned and even the outcropping rocks cracked and scorched. In general, the aspect of thousands of acres was of utter desolation, black tree trunks and stems of brush sticking out of the ashes. A very large area had dropped in park value to nothing, and it would take many years before it could be lifted out of a stale, sheer ugliness. The forest itself would not come back for centuries, and then only if erosion was promptly controlled and if it was protected from further fires.

Erosion had already set in at an alarming rate. There was strong evidence of heavy wind erosion, water erosion had already cut gullies which would be much deepened with subsequent rains. Loss of surface through erosion would retard recovery for many decades. Much of the land burned was rolling or hilly so the eroded soil was washed into the canyons and was irretrievably lost.

As Meinecke saw it, all efforts had to be bent on stabilizing the soil as a prerequisite to the establishment of some sort of vegetation. Once this was started, the process of rehabilitation would go on automatically.

The fire of 1934 has proved, quite definitely, that there exists a very real danger in Mesa Verde. There is plenty of evidence that Mesa Verde has been visited by many fires in the past. The many brush fields in various stages of ecological transition, as well as the islands of timber left here and there and the fringe of the old forest on the northern ridge, are so many pages in the fire history of the park. [4]

After the disastrous fire of 1934 the park placed great emphasis on protection work. CCC enrollee fire lookouts were stationed at Park Point and at the well tower. They not only detected and reported fires on park lands, but also on adjacent National Forest and Indian Reservation lands. Park Point became the common fire detection location for all Federal areas in the locality of Mesa Verde. [5]

Lightning-caused fires are a perennial threat to parched vegetation. From 1939 to 1969 the park forces extinguished 200 fires. As many as 16 fires were extinguished in both 1951 and 1962. In July 1959 lightning ignited a fire in Morfield Canyon that burned 3,043 acres of forest and brush. Of the 200 fires, 14 were caused by lightning and 16 by man. Fire as a byproduct of summer storms, therefore, has been an important ecological factor in the area. [6]

Recent studies of the relationship between the cliff dwellers and their total environment show that fire has had an important effect on the vegetation of Mesa Verde. According to the studies, fires

have been more common in the higher, north part of the mesa than in the lower areas. Possibly the prehistoric Indians deliberately burned these upper parts of the mesa, which are of marginal farming value, in order to maintain the shrub vegetation, which supports a heavier game population than a pinyon-juniper forest approaching climax. Many fires, however, were undoubtedly started by lightning. The mountain brush vegetation in the North Rim area is relatively unstable. Pinyon reproduction has increased as a result of stringent fire-protection measures by the park, and the area is gradually becoming reforested. [7]

B. Restoration

Another important phase of conservation in Mesa Verde is the protection and preservation of the piñon forest, which is a vital and indispensable part of the typical piñon-juniper forest of the park. In addition to possible forest fires, piñon trees in Mesa Verde have been protected against three active enemies: Leftographium, bark beetles, and porcupines.

During the early 1930s park officials became conscious of two kinds of landscaping which were related, in a broad sense, but nevertheless presented separate problems. One had to do with the landscaping which necessarily followed such activities as road and trail building, the erection of all types of structures, construction of power and telephone lines, or any type of development and improvement which resulted in the destruction of the natural ground cover or that left unsightly scars which were undesirable in a national park. The other type of landscaping was the restitution to nature for the damages suffered either by man-made or natural causes, or the combination of the two. Prolonged drought, fires, the disturbance of the water shed, the concentration of large populations in comparatively small areas, and many other causes, simply tended to weaken the forest, which then became prey to natural diseases and insect infestations. [8]

From 1935 to 1941, inclusive, a total of 238,190 piñon and juniper seedlings were planted in the park, principally in the burned area of the 1934 fire. By 1943 survival had been negligible as a result of unsuccessful plantings. New test-planting plots were established in 1942, in cooperation with Region Three assistance, on Wetherill and Long Mesas. These test plots were guarded carefully, and regularly observed and checked to ascertain what methods of reforestation gave best survival results. Both loose and potted seedlings from two entirely different nursery environments were used. It was planned to continue regular checking of these plantings for a five-year period, in order to ascertain best methods, stock, and the like, before resuming an extensive reforestation program. [9]

Ground cover over the entire park was generally in fine condition by 1944. The recovery, growth, and spread of grasses, shrubs, and flowers was most gratifying, particularly in former burned areas and those subjected to excessive grazing by cattle prior to termination of commercial grazing in the late 1920s. Vegetative cover in the area of the 1934 fire had reached such density as practically to preclude further soil erosion, save along the trails. Only the top branches of fire-killed oak brush showed above the new, green growth in most locations. Over the greater part of the area the main ground cover—grasses, weeds, flowers—averaged knee to hip-high. Planting of piñon and juniper trees was initiated in 1945 and continued afterwards, but up to the present time the recovery of the forest has been painfully slow and limited. [10]

A significant change took place also around 1944 in the vegetative cover on the floors of Prater and Morfield Canyons, as far south as the lower well in Prater, where more favorable conditions and a high water table were gradually converting the valley floors from barren areas when cattle was terminated, to the present mountain-meadow character. [11]

Perhaps the most formidable argument against grazing in Mesa Verde was the slow and steady, but remarkable range recovery. Superintendent Rose's annual report of 1946 refers to the manner in which the park became a veritable showplace for scientific and educational personnel of other federal and state conservation agencies and of institutions of higher learning throughout the Southwest who were interested in range recovery and control. In 1946 a Range Training School sponsored by the U. S. Forest Service convened in the park and was attended by range examiners, training officers and forest supervisors from that agency's regional offices and field stations in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. It was significant that range conditions resulting from conservation policies of the Service became of such direct benefit to other agencies and institutions who administered grazing to an extensive degree and who were interested in technical problems of range control and management, wrote the superintendent. [12]