PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

Monument Administration (continued)

The 1969 Summer Program: Adding Volunteers

During the summer season of 1969, 18 youth were employed at various points under the NYC program, which ended August 30. That summer, girls were paid $1.30 per hour and boys were paid $1.60 per hour. [1952] Once again they were Paiute and Navajo boys and girls, and white girls from Fredonia. [1953] As in 1968, they worked 26 hours per week, with boys working as laborers and girls primarily as costumed guides. The Fredonia girls wore long, "pioneer-period" dresses and the Paiute and Navajo girls wore "Indian dress." [1954] In addition to giving tours, the girls cooked, sewed, operated the loom, and played the organ, all the while displaying increased confidence over the prior summer. They also did office work. Geerdes reported the Indian girls were "pleasantly surprised" to find so many visitors interested in asking them questions. Visitors were drawn to the girls and sometimes engaged for an hour or more in conversation with them. Geerdes felt this boosted the self-esteem of the Kaibab Paiute girls in particular. [1955]

On July 14, 1969, Andy Sandaval came from Flagstaff with one of his assistants to observe the NYC enrollees working on site. Ten days later he returned with another assistant (Lupe Anaya) and took movies of the youths. Enrollees performed over 3,000 hours of work at the monument that summer. Over the entire year, the monument utilized 27 enrollees in in-school and out-of-school programs; their combined contribution in labor totaled 11,814 hours. [1956]

In addition to the use of NYC youth at Pipe Spring during the summer of 1969, Geerdes incorporated more adult volunteers from Moccasin into the interpretive program. That year he experimented with such volunteers just on the weekends, beginning in May with the branding demonstrations and going to late June. Owen and David Johnson from Moccasin and Alfred Drye from Kaibab Village oversaw the branding demonstrations. From late May to late June (a total of seven days), women from the Moccasin Ward's Women's Relief Society came in period dress to assist in period demonstrations. [1957] Geerdes later reported some of the women wore authentic 100-year-old clothing passed down in their families. The first day of the women's demonstrations overlapped with the final day of the men's branding demonstrations (May 24). The women baked bread on the fort's old stove, crocheted, quilted, operated the rug loom, and played the organ. Soap making and butter churning were also added at some point that summer. During the same period, Claudine Teller and Glendora Snow demonstrated corn grinding to visitors using manos and metates. The two Kaibab Paiute girls were situated outdoors on the south side of the fort ponds near the steps.

Geerdes later described that summer's program to a private citizen from Banning, California (the man was formerly of Kanab). He had seen a newspaper article about the monument and had written, inquiring about it. Geerdes wrote to him,

Here at Pipe Spring we have initiated several programs on the way to making this a 'living ranch,' much as it was in the 1870s. During the summer months we have a staff of high school girls from Fredonia that come in pioneer dress, guide visitors through the fort, and demonstrate many of the pioneer's activities. They cook, wash, weave, sew, and garden. Since Pipe Spring was a cattle ranch, we would be justified in setting up a complete cattle operation here. This season the only aspect of such an operation that was practical on the Monument was branding in the corrals just east of the fort.... The three weekend sessions were very popular with visitors. [1958]

In fact, it all worked just as Geerdes had envisioned: visitors loved the new living history program at Pipe Spring and attendance increased dramatically that summer. Geerdes calculated visitation for June 1969 was more than 50 percent higher than for June 1968, a marked increase that continued for the rest of the summer. [1959] (Visitation for September-December was about 25 percent higher than for those months the previous year.) What is most perhaps notable is that the improvements to the monument's interpretive program required only minimal direct expense to the Park Service. Rather, they were realized through, and heavily dependent on, the use of the government-sponsored youth employment programs and a new, previously untapped resource - local volunteers. There is no question that Geerdes had truly effected positive and dramatic change at Pipe Spring in just one year, charting a new interpretive course for the monument that would continue into the early 1970s. At some time about mid-August 1969, Geerdes' title was changed from supervisory historian to management assistant; his title was changed again in November to area manager. [1960]

By the end of the summer of 1969, Geerdes expanded the monument's direct involvement with the NYC program. Local and county Community Action councils oversaw the OEO program. During August both Geerdes and Mel Heaton were elected to the Coconino Community Action Council which gave them seats on the five-county council that met monthly in Flagstaff, giving the monument a stronger voice in NYC and other OEO programs operating in the area. [1961] Under the OEO's Operation Mainstream program, a full-time, year-long training position at the monument was funded for a clerk-receptionist. Konda Button, a young widow living in Fredonia, was interviewed for the position in September and was hired in October (see "Personnel" section). The monument's responsibility to Button (and to the program funding her) was to provide training experience, counseling, and supervision. She in turn worked just as an agency employee would. While the monument had benefited in 1968 from some office assistance provided by a few female NYC enrollees, this was the first time the administration had such help on a year-round basis. During the fall of 1969, Geerdes also hired two Navajo boys under the NYC's out-of-school program, Norman Curley and Melvis Slim, both of whom had prior work experience at the monument. The two Fredonia youth rode to work with Konda Button.

Editor Ron Greenberg of the Park Service's Interpreter's Newsletter visited Pipe Spring on December 3, 1969, with plans to write an article on its new interpretive programs. Geerdes was ready for him, making special arrangements for another branding demonstration. He also brought in four of the previous summer's NYC girls in costume and installed them in the fort for Greenberg's visit. Greenberg was suitably impressed: Pipe Spring earned the first five pages in an issue of the Interpreter's Newsletter. A story in the same issue on Yellowstone National Park only made page 7; Geerdes was on cloud nine! Other monument staff and members of the local communities were all quite proud - and deservedly so - of what had been achieved in 1968 and 1969 through mutual effort.

Confidant that much could still be accomplished with the work force he had tapped, Geerdes compiled an ambitious list of goals for fiscal year 1970 that included 15 projects. Among them was the "rejuvenation" of the Whitmore-McIntyre dugout, excavation of the old lime kiln and construction of a pathway to it, construction of a trail to the Powell survey monument (located on the reservation), reconstruction of historic watering troughs, replanting a vegetable garden, establishing a fruit orchard, cultivation of the grape arbor, as well as continuing with all the programs established by the summer of 1969. [1962] Other 1970 goals were to replace the asphalt walks with native flagstone, work with the BLM on the Arizona Pioneer Roads project, experiment with a wagon ride concession, and provide proper heating and lighting in the fort. [1963]

In January 1970 a corral-style fence of horizontal quaking aspen poles was constructed along the front of the parking lot and along the roadside of the picnic grounds. The fence was installed to keep people away from the drainage ditch and culverts, to facilitate fee collection (though none was yet being assessed), and to eliminate camping problems in the picnic area. Geerdes felt that it also enhanced the "historic attractiveness and atmosphere of the area." [1964] In March a Park Service electrical engineer and landscape architect met with Southern Utah Group officials and representatives from GarKane Power Company to work out details for installing an underground power line. During May an historian and historical architect from the Western Service Center inspected the fort to review plans for wiring, heating, and lighting.

In 1970, other than Operation Mainstream employee Konda Button, Ray Geerdes was the only permanent, year-round monument employee. Seasonal staff included Park Guide Bolander, Seasonal Park Historians Allen Malmquist and Tony Heaton, Maintenance Foreman Mel Heaton, laborer Paul C. Heaton, and - on an intermittent basis - laborers David Johnson and Alfred Drye. Steve Tait was also hired as a seasonal employee. Tony Heaton was a history teacher at Hurricane High School. [1965]

Working with and living among the mostly Mormon population of surrounding Arizona Strip communities was a positive experience for Geerdes and his family. He had been there just under two years when, in early 1970, he received anti-Mormon literature in the mail from the Christian Tract Society of Hemet, California. He sent the society an angry letter demanding to be taken off their "hate mailing list," writing, "I am not a Mormon but have never had finer neighbors to live with or people to deal with." [1966]

During the summer of 1970, 19 NYC enrollees worked at the monument under the in-school program, two under the out-of-school program, and two under Operation Mainstream. All were from Fredonia or Moccasin. [1967] Geerdes both expanded and made more authentic the range of demonstrations offered that summer, including starting a "Paiute demonstration." [1968] This project consisted of the NYC boys constructing several reproduction Paiute wickiups and a lodge. Other work performed by the boys that summer included weeding and irrigating the seven-acre plot of land replanted in native grasses the previous year and working on maintenance projects, such as trail improvement and erosion control. The costumed girls continued to offer guided tours with demonstrations, to clean the fort, and to perform office work.

In late July 1970, Dr. Irving Handlin, the Southwest Region's NYC coordinator, visited the monument. Geerdes later reported that Handlin was enthusiastic about the monument's NYC program. In August Geerdes was elected chairman of the Fredonia-Moccasin Community Action Council while Konda Button was elected its secretary. That month BLM Natural Resource Specialist Strafford Murdock and C. M. McKell, head of the Department of Range Science at Utah State University, Logan, Utah, inspected the monument's native grass restoration area. The men were enthusiastic about the project and evaluated it as an "unqualified success," Geerdes later reported. [1969] Another native species that McKell suggested Geerdes use for reseeding was Galleta grass. [1970] That fall, the Department of Range Science sent Geerdes some of this type seed.

Branding demonstrations were continued during 1970 and received increased publicity. A demonstration was offered to a group of trainees from the Albright Training Center on January 19, 1970, and again on April 6. The interpretive aspects of the branding program were discussed with trainees. Dubbed a "living ranch," Pipe Spring National Monument was one of only five such areas in the entire Park Service. [1971] That year, from May 11 to May 16, five men from Harpers Ferry Center's Division of Audio-Visual Arts filmed cattle roundup and branding activities in order to depict one aspect of the Pipe Spring's living ranch program. The group was under the direction of Carl Degen. His crew made a 28-minute movie from the shooting. Public brandings were held on May 14, 16, and 29. Two more branding demonstrations were arranged in September, one for the Phoenix Dons Club and one for a class from the Albright Training Center. [1972]

While the Harpers Ferry Center crew was there, Geerdes discussed with one of them the possibility of putting on a telegraphy demonstration the next summer. He wanted to train one of the NYC girls to "play" 17-year-old Luella Stewart, using the telegraph set to transmit messages to another former Deseret Telegraph Station in St. George. He also wanted the interpreters to demonstrate butter and cheese making, but had not yet located an Oneida cheese vat.

An operations evaluation was conducted at Pipe Spring National Monument from July 30 to August 15, 1970. The resulting report pointed out that the monument lacked formalized management objectives. While the monument's existing master plan never contemplated the area begin operated as a living ranch, current operations clearly reflected that objective. While it commented favorably on the new interpretive program, the evaluation team observed that Geerdes' ability to carry out the living ranch theme depended heavily on personnel provided under various OEO-funded training programs. They advised that the Park Service begin staffing the area to enable the monument to continue its interpretive programs "so that when and if these temporary programs are discontinued, we do not have to discontinue these effective interpretive activities." [1973] The team noted that visitation figures were already 30 percent higher than those for 1969. As in the past, the monument still charged no entrance or use fee. The report recommended that a decision on a fee should be put off until the current master plan study was completed. A horticultural plan was needed "to preserve the historic orchard." The team commended Geerdes for his relations with various outside organizations: "He has pursued a program in external affairs for the benefit of the services to the public which is generally far beyond the scope normally expected of an area manager for a unit the size of Pipe Spring." [1974]

115. Barney Burch (left) and Tony Heaton (right) take part in a branding demonstration, 1969
(Pipe Spring National Monument).

116. Attentive onlookers watch Tony Heaton (left) and Herman Tso (right) lasso a calf during a branding demonstration, 1969
(Pipe Spring National Monument).

In September 1970 Geerdes reported to officials at Harpers Ferry Center that Pipe Spring's living ranch enticed visitors who planned to make a quick stop at the monument to linger much longer. The smell of home-baked bread; the friendliness of local costumed girls; feeding the chickens, ducks, and geese; or getting nuzzled by the colt, Kamehameha, all added to the pleasure of their stop and to the richness of their experience. That month Ray Geerdes accepted a promotional transfer to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park as supervisory park historian. He left Pipe Spring on either October 8 or 9 and reported for duty at Kennesaw on October 18. Geerdes left behind a transformed interpretive program that attracted high numbers of visitors and that forged improved relations with neighboring communities, Indian and Mormon alike. The alliances he made with the Kaibab Paiute under the NYC program would be particularly critical in the days ahead. The response by Geerdes and his superiors to the challenge of tribal developments in the late 1960s (described later in the "Planning and Development with the Kaibab Paiute Tribe and Associated Water Issues" section) also turned a potential water crisis into a model for interagency cooperation. His would be a hard act to follow indeed!