Bandelier Administrative History

The establishment of the Bandelier National Monument in 1916 was a direct result of conflicting pressures on the limited space of the Pajarito Plateau. Archaeologists, homesteaders, stockmen, and the Santa Fe business community all had a stake in the region. Each group thought its use should take precedence and none retreated from its position. The intervention of Federal agencies only complicated an already volatile situation, and the eventual establishment of the monument was a compromise that was a prelude to further conflict.

Between 1899 and 1916, the concept of a national park on the Pajarito Plateau frequently met solid opposition. By the time a park became a viable option, there were too many groups with interests in the region. Influential local residents periodically hindered the effort. Homesteaders upon the plateau worried that the park might threaten their livelihood. The rights of Native Americans also proved an insurmountable obstacle. Later, the United States Forest Service (USFS) posed a problem for park advocates and when an assistant secretary felt that a proposal compromised the integrity of the new park, even the Department of the Interior fought the effort.

The differing interests forced park advocates to trim their plans for the region. After 1906, a large national park, including archeological ruins, surrounding forest land, and mountain scenery was out of the question. Local stockmen and homesteaders saw to that. The resources of the region formed the basis for their living, and they fought every park effort that restricted use of land upon the plateau. Advocates never found a compromise that suited both economic and cultural interests. As a result, a 200,000-acre national park on the Pajarito Plateau was never authorized. Instead, Bandelier National Monument remains the focus of National Park Service interest in the region.

During the 1890s, southwestern archeological ruins attracted the attention of the American public as the conservation of natural resources became an important social issue. In the late 1890s, the General Land Office (GLO) began to study many of the ruins in the Southwest. After 1900, the perception that men like Richard Wetherill, a Colorado rancher who excavated throughout the four corners area, engaged in "pot-hunting" led the GLO to dramatically increase its inspections. Many sites its special agents visited later became national monuments. El Morro came to the attention of the Department of the Interior in 1899, as did other areas of peculiar interest, such as the petrified forest region of Arizona. In need of an immediate way to protect such obviously unique natural and cultural features, the GLO began to pursue a policy of "temporary withdrawal," under which it reserved land from claims until the Government decided to what disposition each tract was best suited. [1]

The attempts to create a national park on the Pajarito Plateau were a direct result of the policy of temporary withdrawal. Prior to 1906, establishment of a national park was the only available form of permanent reservation. When GLO inspectors found an area that they believed was worth preserving, the only option they had was a proposal to create a national park. As a result, before 1906, Congress considered many areas that did not fit later standards for park status.

Edgar L. Hewett, an educator and archeologist, was the catalyst for the initial park efforts in the Bandelier area. While superintendent of the Colorado Normal School in Greeley, Colorado, he became interested in archeology. In the 1890s, Hewett began to survey the ruins of the Pajarito Plateau. His activities intensified in 1898, when he became the president of New Mexico Normal University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. A scholar, albeit one without formal archeological training at that time, Hewett became famous throughout the Southwest.

By the end of the decade, Hewett believed that ruins throughout the Southwest were in serious danger, and he began to prod government agencies to take action. In his mind, the ruins of the Pajarito Plateau were particularly vulnerable. No longer protected because they were isolated and inaccessible, the ruins offered an easy target for depredators. Hewett wrote the Department of the Interior to see if it could protect the ruins. In 1899, John F. Lacey, the Chairman of the House Public Lands Committee, approached the Commissioner of the General Land Office to request a bill that would establish a national park on the Pajarito Plateau.

The GLO knew little of the region, and in late 1899, Commissioner Binger Hermann ordered J. D. Mankin, an agency clerk in New Mexico, to make an inspection of the ruins. Mankin was astonished to find himself in the midst of a lost civilization. "From a single eminence on the Pajarito," he wrote, "the doors of more than two thousand [cave and cavate lodge] . . . dwellings may be seen, and the number in the entire district would reach tens of thousands. If arranged in a continuous series they would form an unbroken line of dwellings of not less than sixty miles in length." [2]

During the course of the inspection, Hewett accompanied Mankin and significantly shaped his perspective. The report recommended the establishment of the "Pajarito National Park," encompassing 153,620 acres and including all the major ruins on land administered by the Department of the Interior. The bill suited Hewett's purposes. The establishment of a park would outlaw the wanton vandalism afflicting other archeological sites in the Southwest. [3]

Hewett continued to worry about the fate of ruins in the region. While the GLO prepared a bill in early 1900, an urgent situation developed on the plateau. Hewett informed Mankin that "irresponsible parties are making preparations to invade the territory in the early spring, with a view to opening the rooms of the Communal Dwellings and exploring the caves for relics." [4] He asked the department to establish a national park immediately. Mankin agreed and urged instant action. Nothing happened. On October, 26, 1900, Hewett again wrote GLO Commissioner Binger Hermann to urge the establishment of the park. He reported an increase in vandalism during the summer of 1900 and claimed that depredators destroyed many valuable sites. Hewett believed that the best opportunity for an archeological national park was slowly eroding at the hands of miscreants. [5]

GLO officials were ready to act and they sought out the House Public Land Committee. Late in 1900, the GLO transmitted Mankin's report and a draft of its bill to Lacey. On December 21, 1900, the Congressman proposed the bill on the floor of the House of Representatives. H. R. 13071 went to Lacey's committee, and on January 23, 1901, they reported favorably upon it. As the result of opposition in New Mexico, however, the committee added a number of clauses that indicated compromise. The most important allowed grazing at the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior. They also suggested changing the name of the proposed park from "Pajarito" to "Cliff Cities" on the grounds that an English-speaking public would mispronounce the former. [6] Later, this innocuous suggestion became a major problem.

A national park on the Pajarito Plateau seemed imminent, and the Federal bureaucracy geared up for its proclamation. The Smithsonian Institution added its support to Mankin's proposal, and other government agencies followed suit. In accordance with Mankin's report, on July 31, 1900, Commissioner Hermann of the GLO ordered the temporary withdrawal of the 153,620-acre proposed tract in contemplation of national park status for the region.

Despite Hermann's withdrawal, the first serious attempt to create a national park on the Pajarito Plateau went no further than the proposal stage. The existing national parks were vast, spectacular areas, such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Mt. Rainier. There was little precedent for an archeological national park. Western congressmen questioned the efficacy of the proposal, and the House of Representatives did not act upon the bill. It expired along with the 56th Congress.

Interest in the park possibilities of the Pajarito region did not end with the initial bill. On January 9, 1902, Lacey reintroduced the earlier measure to the 57th session of Congress as H. R. 8323. Opposition in the New Mexico territory quickly appeared. The Santa Fe newspaper, the New Mexican, expressed its fear that this was just another way for the Federal Government to seize control of large tracts of land in the state. The paper supported the principle of a national park filled with archeological ruins, but its editors expressed concern that the federal government already reserved too much land in New Mexico and further withdrawals would hamper local commerce. On March 4, 1902, the paper asked New Mexico Territorial Delegate Bernard S. Rodey to block the bill. [7]

In the summer of 1902, Lacey visited the Southwest and discovered the depth of resistance to the proposal. Hewett served as his guide in northern New Mexico, and the men found that many New Mexicans opposed the project. Even the more "enlightened" factions of the Santa Fe community expressed reservations about the new park. An editorial in the New Mexican during Lacey's stay again supported the principle of the park, but cautioned: "Not an acre more than necessary . . . should be included in the area reserved. New Mexico is being plastered up with forest and other reservations which are at least three times the area necessary to serve the purpose for which they are created." [8]

Westerners were responding to the aggressive conservation policies of Theodore Roosevelt. They long resented the power of the federal government over what they felt was their land, and Roosevelt's ascendance frightened western constituencies. The idea of withdrawing land from the public domain inevitably met strong resistance in the West. Many in the region believed that bureaucrats in Washington, D. C. too often made the decisions that determined their economic future. [9] The national park idea was only taking shape, and except to the far-sighted, the establishment of the National Park Service offered little obvious benefit. To some, Lacey's Pajarito Plateau proposition seemed just another example of government officials whimsically taking away someone else's ability to make a living.

The astute Lacey recognized the importance of mustering support in the West. He already encountered western opposition to previous restrictions on public land that he proposed, and he knew that he would have to accommodate them if any of his future measures were to pass Congress. These factors, and Hewett's persistent coaxing, convinced Lacey to compromise. In 1903, he revised the bill, reduced the acreage drastically, and reentered it as H. R. 7269. [10] A pragmatic accommodation, the new bill stood a better chance of passage than its predecessors. In order to appease local stockmen, the size of the proposed park was reduced from the original 153,620 acres to 55 sections, about 35,000 acres. Although the compromise satisfied local interests, park advocates were not pleased.

Anthropologists and Archeologists also recognized the significance of preventing vandalism in southwestern ruins. Headed by the Reverend Henry Mason Baum, the founder of the Records of the Past Society and the editor of its journal, they began to make inroads to establish a favorable intellectual climate in which to pass legislation to preserve archeological ruins. Americans began to recognize the cultural value of the North American continent, and the fervent nationalism of the turn of the century helped their cause. The perspective of the scientists, however, was often different from that of government officials looking to protect ruins or local merchants trying to attract tourists.

Baum found Lacey's revision unacceptable. In 1902, he headed an expedition of the Records of the Past Society to the Southwest that visited a number of archeological sites, including the Pajarito region. Despite his lack of formal training, Baum saw himself as the preeminent Americanist on the continent. While quite impressed with the Chaco Canyon region, upon his return he belittled the national park qualifications of the Pajarito bill in the society's journal, Records of the Past. [11] The membership of the society included many influential archeologists, and Baum's contentions were the damning blow that soon came back to haunt the park effort.

New opposition also arose to Lacey's bill. The GLO transmitted the measure to other Government agencies that administered land in the region. In January 1903, Clinton J. Crandall, the Superintendent of the Santa Fe Indian School who doubled as the agent for area pueblos, tried to have the boundaries of Santa Clara Reservation extended. His superiors informed him that the lands he wanted were already reserved within the temporary withdrawal of 1900. Crandall expressed his dismay to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He felt that the park proposal was inappropriate. "It is a locality not visited frequently by tourists or others," he wrote. "If instead of creating a national park, this land could be set aside for the benefit of the Santa Clara Indians . . . it would serve every purpose." [12] The ruins were safer in Indian hands than as a national park, he contended, and cited Baum's article as evidence that the park idea was flawed. The Santa Clara claim antedated the park proposal, and Crandall believed that it should take precedence. Since both agencies were divisions of the Department of the Interior, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs requested an inspection of the area. GLO Special Agent Stephen J. Holsinger was appointed to the task.

Holsinger had long been the man in the field for archeological inspections by the Department of the Interior. Prior to the Pajarito proposal, Holsinger reviewed a wide range of cases. In 1900, he visited Chaco Canyon to report on Richard Wetherill's unauthorized excavations. He broke up a ring of "pot-hunters" in Arizona in late 1902 and inspected the Montezuma Castle and other archeological sites. He arranged to place a watchman at the proposed Petrified Forest National Park. When GLO officials wanted an important inspection in the Southwest, they nearly always called on Holsinger.

By 1903, a national park in the Pajarito region had become the focus of conflicting interests. Advocates of archeological preservation lined up in favor of the park. Local stockmen expressed the traditional western fear of centralized authority. The rights of Native Americans in the area also became a significant obstacle. Stockmen, area homesteaders, the Santa Fe community, and area Pueblos would all have to be satisfied with a proposal before a national park on the Pajarito Plateau had become reality.

Compromise was already an integral part of any solution. Park advocates sensed that they would have to make concessions to get what they wanted. At the turn of the century, the best national parks were large areas. Most allowed grazing under a system of permits. Stockmen were powerful in territorial New Mexico, and park advocates were willing to allow grazing in the proposed park in order to secure the support of this important constituency. Even Hewett understood this reality. Perhaps the most influential figure in American archeology in the first decade of the twentieth century, he envisioned a national park for archeological study. Grazing did not interfere with his objectives, and he placed his growing national influence behind the park effort.

Stephen J. Holsinger's job was to determine the validity of the various claims and come up with an equitable solution. His report evaluated the contentions of each group and strongly sided with park advocates. Holsinger characterized the Santa Claras as a "distinctly agricultural people," intimating that Crandall's assertion of the need of the Santa Clara Pueblo for more land was "not well-founded." Its agricultural economy made the addition of pasture land unnecessary. Holsinger noted that vandalism remained endemic, and there was strong support for the park in Santa Fe. Holsinger also discounted the notion that the area was too remote for a park, arguing that the difficulty would not deter the truly interested. He incorrectly claimed that existing national park regulations in 1904 provided for roads to be "speedily built." [13] In his mind, a national park on the Pajarito Plateau was an important step forward.

Since Hewett supported Lacey's revision of the bill and Holsinger reported that the other objections were specious, there appeared to be no further obstacles to the establishment of the national park. Lacey's committee took Holsinger's report and revised it to allow the Secretary of the Interior to permit grazing within the boundaries of the park. They also decreased the size to a forty-section tract that included Otowi, Tsankawi, and Puye, but which left out the Rito de Los Frijoles ruins. The area that included Frijoles Canyon was proposed as a forest reserve, and privately owned land separated its ruins from the rest of the park. Given the limits of the compromise, there was no way to include the Rito as a contiguous section. The Department of the Interior was willing to take a park in the northern half of the plateau. The Bureau of Forestry approved the new plan, as did the Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs, A. C. Tonner, and GLO Commissioner W. A. Richards. All possible opposition was legislated out of the bill, and passage again appeared imminent.

Despite general concurrence among Federal agencies, many New Mexicans were still uncomfortable with the ramifications of a national park. From their perspective, the Government managed too much of New Mexico and residents of the state had little part in shaping their own destiny. They opposed any measure that gave Washington additional control over lands in the territory. When the newest edition of the park bill debated in a House of Representatives Public Lands Committee hearing on January 11, 1905, it was paired with a bill to establish the Mesa Verda [Verde] National Park. Both bills were closely tied to the movement to preserve American antiquities, which the Lodge-Rodenberg Bill personified in 1904-05.

The Lodge-Rodenberg bill, of which Henry Mason Baum was the major proponent, caused serious controversy at the end of the prior congressional session in 1904. The bill raised objections among westerners for it granted the Secretary of the Interior unlimited discretion over unreserved public lands. The Smithsonian Institution publicly opposed the bill and sent its representatives to the floor of Congress to lobby against it. The crisis fractured the preservation constituency. With Lodge-Rodenberg again current, opposition to national park bills became prominent.

By 1905, the archeological and anthropological communities made a serious commitment to the concept of preserving American antiquities. Scientists favored the idea of archeological national parks. At the Public Lands Committee hearing, such luminaries as Francis W. Kelsey of the University of Michigan and the Archeological Institute of America lined up to show their support of both the Mesa Verde and Pajarito park bills. Henry Mason Baum, whose views regarding the suitability of the Pajarito changed after a subsequent visit to the area in 1904, also addressed the committee. The professional community unequivocally supported the bills.

New Mexicans were less comfortable with the proposal. Although Edgar Hewett expressed reservations, in the end he favored the plan. The delegate from the New Mexico Territory, Bernard S. Rodey, felt otherwise. As a cattleman, Rodey resisted the intrusion of the federal government into state land matters. Hewett remarked that too much forest land in New Mexico was already withdrawn, and Rodey concurred loudly. The prospect of a law that allowed widespread reservation of archeological sites frightened him. If all the ruins were lined up, he said, an area ranging from Espanola to the Colorado border might be reserved and grazing in the northern half of the territory would end. To laughter, Congressman Eben W. Martin of South Dakota asked Rodey: "How would the size of the State of New York suit you as a limitation [on possible reservations for the preservation of antiquities]?" "Well, we have been reserving New Mexico for about sixty-eight years," Rodey replied. "[The Secretary of the Interior, Ethan Allen Hitchcock] might get in reservations of that size. [He] is pretty radical [and] is liable to do almost anything." [14]

Sounding the concerns of his constituency about the nature of antiquities legislation, Rodey damaged the case for the Pajarito park. He confused the Pajarito proposal with the move to reserve antiquities in general. His stance typified regional resistance to what westerners saw as the meddling of the federal government in state and local affairs. A national park was not a large enough prize to offset the animosity of local residents and New Mexico voters did not favor extending the power of federal bureaucrats.

Simultaneously passing a number of bills to preserve antiquities at proved a difficult proposition. Lacey's committee reported favorably on the Pajarito proposal and it went to the floor of Congress. Along with a number of measures for the preservation of American antiquities and the bill to establish the Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, there it remained throughout 1905. With a variety of options, it seemed that Congress could not choose.

The spectra of Richard Wetherill, the self-trained rancher-turned-archeologist from Mancos, Colorado, continued to shape the evolution of southwestern archeology. An anathema to the professionalizing discipline of anthropology, Wetherill became the subject of a widespread campaign to condemn him as a "pot-hunter." American archeologists discounted Wetherill's discovery of the Basketmakers, the prehistoric peoples that preceded the Anasazi, and Baum regularly defamed him in print. Edgar L. Hewett also complained to the Department of the Interior about Wetherill's digging. Places that Wetherill worked, such as Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, became priority locations in the scheme of institutional preservation. The consensus among government officials and accredited archeologists was that Wetherill had to be put out of business once and for all. One of the best ways to restrict Wetherill was to reserve the sites where he excavated.

When it became apparent that only one of the two archeological national park bills was going to pass Congress, Lacey made the choice that the near-hysteria regarding Wetherill dictated. He threw his support to the Mesa Verde project. When he heard that Theodore Roosevelt added forty-seven square miles, including the Puye ruins, to the Santa Clara reservation in July 1905, Hewett publicly followed. He complained that the proposition was dead. [15] Without either Puye or the El Rito de los Frijoles ruins, the archeological potential of the Pajarito Plateau national park was minimal.

Enthusiasm for the project waned. On March 26, 1906, William H. Andrews, Rodey's successor as the delegate from the New Mexico Territory, introduced another measure to establish the Pajarito National Park. The bill, numbered H. R. 17459, made little headway. Hewett's "Act For the Preservation of American Antiquities," which allowed the President to proclaim any section of unreserved Federal land of significant pre-historic, historic, and scientific interest as a national monument, passed both houses and became law in early June, 1906. Mesa Verde National Park was authorized later the same month. There was no sign of a national park on the Pajarito Plateau.

In Congress, 1906 became the year of archeology and it offered the best opportunity to create an archeological national park. The passage of the Antiquities Act and the Mesa Verde park bill within three weeks of each other revealed a greater interest in establishing archeological national parks than before or since. As it stood in 1906, the park proposal for the Pajarito Plateau lacked a significant archeological component. The most important archeological sites on the plateau were within a forest reserve, an Indian reservation, and private land. Ironically, the archeology of the plateau was beyond the reach of park advocates at the best moment for the creation of an archeological national park. The series of compromises deprived the park bill of its primary features as well as the opportunity to be included in a unique moment in the history of American preservation.

As the pre-eminent archeologist of the Southwest in the early 1900s, Hewett should have been able to orchestrate the establishment of a national park on the Pajarito Plateau. Between 1904 and 1906, his influence over the GLO and the Department of the Interior was at its zenith. He served as an advisor to GLO Commissioner Richards on archeology and preservation and drew up a survey that identified four distinct river basins brimming with archeological remains. Hewett also wrote the Antiquities Act and received the approval of the American Archeological Institute and the American Anthropological Association for the project, testified frequently in front of Congress on archeological questions, and remained a close friend of John F. Lacey. In 1906, he was as close to the centers of power in disputes over land as any man in the country.

After Lacey's death, Hewett contended that the congressman abandoned the Pajarito project in favor of the Mesa Verde bill. Hewett was a capricious man, however, and a stronger likelihood was that after he inspected Mesa Verde for the Department of the Interior in March, 1906, Hewett himself gave up on the abrogated Pajarito project. Without either Puye or Frijoles Canyon, from Hewett's perspective, there was little point in establishing a national park. Better opportunities would certainly arise, but there would be no national park on the Pajarito Plateau in 1906.

With much of the earlier national interest dissipating, Hewett tightened his hold upon the ruins of the Pajarito Plateau. Following the lead of earlier archeologists, he came to see the area as his personal project. The failure of the first proposal strained local support badly, and advocates of the project needed time to regroup. Hewett stepped into this void and consolidated his position in the professional world. In 1903, Territorial Governor Miguel Otero forced him to leave the New Mexico Normal School, and Hewett changed careers. He pursued graduate work in archeology at the University of Geneva, where he received a Ph.D in 1908. He developed his power base with professional anthropologists and archeologists, and in 1907 became the director of the newly founded School of American Archeology in Santa Fe. This increased his prestige, and Hewett used his new position to acquire simultaneous excavating permits from the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior. He became the only authorized excavator at Frijoles Canyon, Puye, and other sites within the area the GLO withdrew in 1900. In 1907, Hewett led an excavation of Puye, and in 1909, followed with similar at Tyuonyi, in Frijoles Canyon. He also held permits for other archeological sites throughout the Southwest. [16] Although the permits required his presence at all times, his prestige was such that the GLO, the Department of the Interior, and the Forest Service allowed him to violate the terms of the Antiquities Act.

The withdrawal of 1900 and the creation of the Jemez Forest Reserve [later the Santa Fe National Forest] in 1905 created a confusing situation upon the plateau. Because forest reserves and the public domain were under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior in 1900, the GLO made the original temporary withdrawal. In 1905, Theodore Roosevelt transferred the national forests to the new United States Forest Service (USFS), a division of the Department of Agriculture. The first United States Forester, Gifford Pinchot, advocated utilitarian conservation and sought to build grass roots support for his agency. He arranged for the passage of the Act of June 11, 1906, which opened arable land within forest reserves to homestead claims. With nearly 200,000,000 acres involved in the transfer, the USFS and the GLO paid little attention to specific cases like the Pajarito Plateau. Moreover, USFS personnel never understood exactly which lands in the region the GLO withdrew from entry. As a result, the Forest Service allowed settlers to file for ownership of land that was within the boundaries of the temporary withdrawal of 1900. When the error was discovered, a paramount western fear came to the forefront— that an individual's property could be taken at the whim of the Federal government.

This became an important source of anti-national park sentiment in the region. In 1907, a tubercular homesteader from Illinois, Harold H. Brook, filed a claim on a tract at the base of the Jemez Mountains, where the Fuller Lodge stands in Los Alamos. When he tried to perfect his patent in 1909, he discovered that his property, which he called the Los Alamos Ranch, was within the temporary withdrawal of 1900. The enraged Brook blamed his predicament on the incompetence of the Forest Service for allowing him to apply and on the GLO, for granting him conditional title. [17] But he saved his real wrath for national park advocates.

Linked to the development of the national park, a small range war was brewing on the Pajarito Plateau. Brook had a sizable investment in his enterprise, and he was prepared to defend it. He brought the problem to the attention of the public, writing letters to newspapers and contacting influential people in the territorial government. His neighbors made him their spokesman and homesteaders in the Pajarito region gathered support for their cause.

As his influence grew, Hewett became an informal arbiter of land claims in the region. Brook asked Hewett to apply his influence to the situation. Hewett recognized that such conflict would not further his goals. With the primary ruins still unreserved and Brook stirring up opposition to future efforts, the status quo became intolerable. Hewett pressed the Department of the Interior to develop new options for the administration of the region.

In 1909, the Department of the Interior and the GLO had two options when it came to reserving archeological areas: a national park bill and the Antiquities Act of 1906. Hewett authored the latter, which allowed the president to reserve sections of public land as national monument without obtaining congressional sanction. Because it circumvented Congress, the Antiquities Act offered greater flexibility than a national park bill.

Even at the turn of the century, there were assumptions about the nature of national parks. Yosemite and Yellowstone were the models for the category. Although "porkbarreling" in Congress before 1906 led to a number of inferior national parks, afterwards Congress held to a rudimentary if ambiguous standard. Like Mount Rainier and Crater Lake, two turn-of-the-century additions, national parks had to include spectacular scenery. [18]

National monuments were less clearly defined. Most of the ones created prior to 1909 were areas that the GLO withdrew before the passage of the Antiquities Act. They were often small areas, with archeological values or scenery less impressive than that in the national parks. More important from the local point of view, commercial use of natural resources was rarely restricted. Local ranchers could usually graze their animals within the boundaries of a nearby national monument.

As the author of the bill, Hewett was aware of the differences. Late in November 1909, he suggested that the Department of the Interior commission a survey of the region with an eye towards establishing a national monument. With a smaller area reserved in a national monument, the GLO could terminate the temporary withdrawal. Brook and the other homesteaders could then perfect their land patents. Such a compromise indicated that homesteaders and archeologists could co-exist upon the plateau. The homesteaders would continue their lives at the base of the Jemez Mountains, and the national monument would protect the most important ruins. It was precisely for cases like this that Hewett and Lacey created the Antiquities Act. The Department of the Interior concurred and sent the United States Examiner of Surveys, William B. Douglass, to the Pajarito Plateau. [19]

Douglass was an important figure in the evolution of preservation in the West and Southwest. Responsible for land surveys in the Southwest, he was an ardent supporter of Federal attempts at the preservation of ruins. One of the first Anglos to see the Natural Bridges and Rainbow Bridge in Utah, he also visited Navajo National Monument as soon as the Government was informed that there were ruins there. In 1909, Douglass made an enemy of Edgar L. Hewett when he forced Hewett and Byron Cummings to cease their excavation in the newly established Navajo National Monument. Douglass felt that Hewett's use of the national monument as a place to train his students in archeological technique was nothing short of criminal. In essence, Douglass called the man who developed the label "pot-hunter" an officially sanctioned "pot-hunter." Hewett never forgave him. Their rivalry complicated the process of establishing a national park on the Pajarito Plateau. [20]

When Hewett discovered that Douglass planned to survey the portion of the Pajarito Plateau outside of the Jemez National Forest, he surmised that another attempt to take the Puye ruins away from the Santa Clara Indians was brewing. He immediately used his influence to stop Douglass. While in Washington, D.C. in the spring of 1910, he informed Frank Bond, the Chief Clerk of the GLO, that he strenuously objected to the idea of a national monument at Puye. [21] On July 10, 1910, Hewett warned Clinton J. Crandall at the Santa Fe Indian School that Douglass was again surveying the Puye region. "Without my knowledge or consent," Crandall wrote the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, "Mr. Douglass proceeded to the vicinity of the Santa Clara Indian Reservation and spent some days or weeks surveying the Puye and other ruins." Crandall continued the objections he made in 1903, arguing that a national monument would abridge the rights of the Santa Clara Indians.

Hewett's sentiments had an important impact upon Crandall, and the two men obstructed the aims of the Department of the Interior. Crandall and the leaders of the Pueblo approved of Hewett's excavations, and he had nothing to gain from a change in status. His dislike for Douglass had not cooled. If Douglass advocated the reservation of Puye, then Hewett would oppose it. "Mr. Hewett . . . would regret very much to see any change made in the present management of these cliffs," Crandall informed his superior. "As a national monument there are no funds available for a custodian or caretaker, that they can be much better handled under the present arrangement. In order [to establish the monument,] it would be necessary to take away from the reservation some of the grazing land and upland timber." [22] Hewett's support for area Indians was widely acknowledged, and if the most important archeologist in the Southwest believed that a national monument was not a worthy enough prize for the transfer of land away from the Pueblo, then Crandall agreed.

Hewett worked hard to stymie Douglass' efforts, and as a result, the General Land Office needed the concurrence of other Government agencies if it was to continue the project. As Hewett expected, Douglass filed a report on July 27, 1910, that recommended the establishment of a national monument which included the Puye ruins. Hewett's influence at the Bureau of Indian Affairs led that agency to oppose the project. On October 8, Assistant Commissioner for Indian Affairs F. H. Abbott requested that Puye and the other ruins on the Santa Clara reservation be eliminated from the proposed national monument. This left the proposed monument without its most important archeological feature. GLO Commissioner Fred Dennett referred the matter to the Secretary of the Smithsonian, W. D. Walcott, explained the conflicting claims, and asked Walcott to decide whether there ought to be a national monument at Puye. [23]

Hewett was also influential in Smithsonian Institution circles, and he continued to battle the monument idea. He communicated his objections to Walcott, who informed the GLO on October 26, 1910, that he thought a national monument was unnecessary. Walcott echoed Hewett's perspective, asserting that the ruins were managed responsibly and intimated that the Bureau of Indian Affairs was clearly cognizant of the need to preserve the ruins. Two days later, Dennett informed Walcott that he planned to drop the proposal. [24] Without Frijoles Canyon, Navawi, Tschirege, and Puye, there seemed little point in pursuing the idea.

The effort to preserve the Frijoles Canyon and Puye ruins fragmented into attempts to reserve each area separately, foreshadowing the later establishment of the Bandelier National Monument. The Ramon Vigil Spanish land grant separated Puye and Frijoles Canyon, and there was already a consensus that non-contiguous areas ought not to be established as national parks. Without the cooperation of the United States Bank and Trust Company, which held title the grant, the project to unite Puye and Frijoles Canyon in a national park could not proceed.

Douglass' proposal for Puye was the first attempt to preserve discreet archeological features instead of the entire plateau. The history of failed national parks in the region and the urgent need for some form of archeological preservation induced the GLO to consider Douglass' idea. Its interest meant that the GLO committed itself to a broader ideal, articulating the belief that preservation of some of the ruins was better than none at all.

Following the demise of the first national monument proposal in 1910, the concept of a national park on the Pajarito Plateau remained dormant until 1914. Hewett's excavations continued at Puye and Frijoles, often as a part of the same type of archeological training project to which Douglass objected so vociferously in 1908. The Government agencies that renewed his multiple excavation permits every year did not challenge his archeological empire on the Pajarito Plateau. The status quo suited him. But the Federal Government revived its interest in the project, and in 1913, Department of the Interior Inspector Herbert W. Gleason made a cursory inspection of the region. Gleason advocated the idea of a park and wrote to New Mexico Senator Thomas Catron to urge that the senator work for the establishment of a national park. Catron responded that he planned to put a bill forward in the coming session of Congress. [25]

Attempts to establish a national park on the Pajarito Plateau again began in earnest. On February 14, 1914, Catron entered S. 4537, to establish the National Park of the Cliff Cities, which he soon replaced with S. 5176. On March 18, 1914, New Mexico Representative Harvey B. Fergusson authored and entered a companion measure, H. R. 14739. The new bills were ambitious proposals, consolidating ruins from the Santa Clara reservation, the Jemez National Forest, and the public domain into a 252,620-acre national park. This was nearly 100,000 acres larger than the original proposal and the temporary withdrawal of 1900. Instigated with the assistance of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, the new bills seemed likely to revive every conceivable objection the earlier bills created.

After his inspection of Puye in 1911, Douglass remained in Santa Fe and became the premier advocate of the Pajarito Plateau national park. He continued to make inspections for the Department of the Interior, but also began a number of projects of his own. The park headed his list. He joined the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce and awakened interest in the park there. If a park could be established while Americans were travelling to California for the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915, Douglass believed it provided an opportunity to help the local economy grow. With Douglass in the lead, support for the project galvanized.

When Catron proposed the new bill, Douglass effectively countered much of the prior opposition. The bill included Puye, but did not restrict the rights of Indians living within the proposed park boundaries. The Commissioner of the Office of Indian Affairs, Cato Sells, did not object. [26] Douglass accommodated local grazing interests by including a clause in the bills that allowed the Department of the Interior to lease much of proposed park for grazing. He also tried to pacify USFS resistance with a provision that made the Forest Service responsible for the administration of grazing leases within the new park. The community of Santa Fe publicly favored the bill, and chances of passage seemed good.

Opposition arose in a new quarter. Clay Tallman, the Commissioner of the GLO, challenged the validity of the new proposal. He informed Undersecretary of the Interior A. A. Jones that he believed the proposed lands were too scattered for inclusion in a national park. The Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce only wanted a national park because Congress appropriated money for parks, Tallman insinuated, while it had not for monuments. "Doubtless if [the area] were incorporated into a forest reserve it would receive substantially the same protection and be of substantially the same use," Tallman continued. "There appears to be no good objection to permitting it to remain a National Forest." [27]

The Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce defended its position, responding quickly and vehemently to Tallman's assertions. In a scathing letter, G. H. Van Stone, the secretary of the organization, asserted that the lands it requested were contiguous and claimed that Tallman could not have looked at a map before he made his remarks. Van Stone also objected to the protection offered the area by Indian police and the Forest Service. "Under the present rules, any college that wishes a collection of pottery can get a permit to excavate. . . . [The] scientific value [of archeological parks and monuments] has been wholly or partly obliterated by the removal of unrecorded antiquities." Emotional and hyperbolic, Van Stone objected to uncontrolled excavation by men like Hewett. He asserted that the establishment of a national park would afford the "virgin" ruins of the Pajarito Plateau better protection than Indian police or the Forest Service could offer. [28]

Despite Van Stone's veiled attack on his professional integrity, Hewett put his public support behind the proposals. [29] An all-encompassing archeological national park would further the ends of the School of American Archeology and certainly lend its director greater prestige. It also meant protection for the ruins, and since by 1914, Hewett had ceased to excavate the region himself, it offered a suitable finale to his efforts on the Pajarito Plateau.

With Hewett's support, the project seemed even more likely to succeed. The Chamber of Commerce continued to barrage the Department of the Interior with testimonials to the advantages of the park. Letters from park advocates regularly covered A. A. Jones' desk, each announcing broad public support for the bill. On April 21, 1914, the Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution requesting the rapid establishment of the park, and its tenacity overwhelmed local opposition. [30]

But passage of the bill required more than the support of the local business community. The Forest Service strongly opposed the measure, as did Secretary of Agriculture David F. Houston. From his point of view, the bill lacked provisions to make a "real park," along the lines of Yosemite. Houston wrote that he did not object to a national park if the bill included clauses encouraging development, but he would not approve a national park that was essentially a national forest under the administration of the Department of the Interior. [31] The Forest Service had a clearly defined sphere, and Houston did not want the Department of the Interior to encroach upon it.

When he learned of the opposition, Douglass tried to satisfy the USFS. He met with Don P. Johnston, the Forest Service Supervisor in the Jemez District, to work out the problems. Senator Catron was also in Santa Fe, and he, Johnston, and Douglass met with the park committee of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce. The group worked out an acceptable agreement. On May 14, 1914, Fergusson reintroduced the changed bill as H. R. 16546.

Douglass gushed over the popularity of the measure in letters to Fergusson and Catron. "Nearly everybody is 'for it,' [and, if the bill passed,] an appreciative public will reward you in the future," Douglass wrote Fergusson. [32] From the perspective of the Chamber of Commerce, passage of the bill during the 1914 session was imperative. Its members were willing to meet any conditions the New Mexico congressional delegation thought would help.

Despite Johnston's cooperation, Secretary Houston was not convinced of the need for such restrictive protection of the Pajarito Plateau. In early 1914, he expressed his sympathy for the idea to New Mexico Governor William McDonald, but also asserted that he did not yet see the need for specific park legislation. Douglass immediately worked to alter the bill to fit Houston's objections, but before he could counter the objections completely, the Department of the Interior sent him to western New Mexico to make an inspection. By the time he returned, the Forest Service had solidified its position. [33]

There were still problems within the Department of the Interior. When he made his report on S. 5176 for the Senate Public Lands Committee that July, GLO Commissioner Clay Tallman gave the project a luke-warm endorsement. He suggested that 94,275 acres on the west and south should be excluded from the 252,620-acre proposal. Because the bill included the entire Santa Clara reservation, Tallman also recommended a report from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Despite his slight objections, Tallman thought that the park was a good idea because it would "give uniform jurisdiction" to the ruins on reservation land and protection to those on the unreserved public domain. [34]

Although the Chamber of Commerce worked long and hard to please every constituency, S. 5176 was far from assured of passage. From the perspective of the Department of the Interior, the bill became too much of a compromise. It contained provisions that allowed the commercial use of resources in the park if later exploration revealed that economic potential existed. The Department of the Interior had begun to rid the national parks of commercial exploitation, and this vague clause presented evident future problems. Another unusual procedure allowed the Forest Service to retain its right to grant grazing permits and at the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior, the Forest Service could manage areas of the park as if it was a national forest. Houston previously objected to this clause, arguing that if the area was to be a national park, it ought to be reserved as such. The Department of the Interior agreed. From its perspective, the proposal suffered from unacceptable ambiguity.

Douglass' effort to appease the Department of Agriculture backfired. Not only did Houston object, the Department of the Interior could not live with the compromise either. In October 1914, Assistant Secretary of the Interior Bo Sweeney recommended that the Senate committee turn the bill back. He agreed that passage of the proposal would create a park with divided jurisdiction and asserted that the Department of the Interior wanted to wait until a bureau of national parks was established to pursue the project any farther. Then "competent persons connected therewith" could determine the feasibility of the project. Sweeney sent a copy of the letter containing the unfavorable recommendation along with his request that the House Committee also table the bill to Rep. Scott Ferris, the chairman of the House Public Lands Committee. [35]

Without the support of the Department of the Interior, the attempt to establish a Pajarito Plateau national park was finished. The bills on the floor of Congress did not meet the existing standards of the department. Threatened by the aggressiveness of Douglass and Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce and aware of the inferior national parks created during the first decade of the twentieth century, departmental officials backed off. Few representatives would vote to establish a national park of which the administering department did not approve, and efforts in Congress stalled.

The end of the park effort resulted in increased interest on the part of the Department of Agriculture. Secretary Houston continued to oppose the entire park idea, and realized that the failure of the existing proposal gave him an opportunity to terminate park proposals once and for all. He ordered an inspection of the region with an eye towards the creation of a national monument. Because Frijoles Canyon was included in the Jemez National Forest, a national monument established there became the responsibility of USFS.

Houston's idea resulted in the establishment of Bandelier National Monument. In early 1915, Will C. Barnes, the chief of grazing for the agency, and Arthur Ringland, the District Forester in Albuquerque, made an inspection tour of the area. They saw an "extraordinary exhibition of ruins and cliff-dwellings" and discussed the merits of national park status for the region. Ringland thought that a park was not warranted and the men agreed that a comparatively small monument, encompassing the important ruins in Frijoles Canyon, was. Barnes suggested naming the area for Adolph F. A. Bandelier, a recently deceased anthropologist who explored the region during the 1880s and 1890s. [36] Secretary Houston thought that a monument would offer the ruins adequate protection, and would also protect Forest Service land from what that agency perceived as a 200,000+ acre land-grab. Houston expedited the proposal. On February, 11, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the 22,400 acre Bandelier National Monument.

The USFS created the Bandelier National Monument as a way to circumvent the attempts to establish a national park on the Pajarito Plateau. The opposition of the Department of the Interior to Douglass' bill in 1914 offered the USFS an opening, and the earlier proposals to establish a national monument at Puye paved the way for the preservation of specific features in the region. Quick action on the part of Secretary of Agriculture Houston allowed the establishment of a national monument while pro-national park forces tried to regroup.

The creation of the monument was a victory for the utilitarian conservationism embodied in Forest Service policy. It removed what USFS officials and many local residents regarded as the prime threat to the commercial development of the region. The 22,400-acre tract established by statute did not lock up large areas of the Pajarito Plateau. The vast majority of the region was still open to homesteaders, stockmen, and other developers.

The proclamation, however, did not end disputes over land on the Pajarito Plateau. Edgar L. Hewett and William B. Douglass would once again find themselves on opposing sides of the park question. The new National Park Service would also try to establish a national park in the region, and the Forest Service would oppose its efforts as well. Disputes over the comparative value of the Pajarito Plateau were only beginning to become complicated.