GILA CLIFF DWELLINGS Administrative History

Campbell And The Reserve Monument: 1942-1955

Originally from Pennsylvania, Campbell had come to the Southwest in 1930—when he was 17—for adventure and relief from hay fever. Drawn by New Mexico's largest wilderness, he had ridden a burro the same year to the forks of the Gila River and trapped fur all winter—without much success. In the spring, he found more reliable employment wrangling a pack string on the Gila Hot Springs Ranch, the small resort that had been developed by the Hill brothers in the 1890s and the same place at which Bandelier had stayed during his visit to Gila Cliff Dwellings in 1884. Later, Campbell worked eight years on the XSX Ranch on the East Fork before purchasing in 1940 the 320-acre Gila Hot Springs Ranch, which he continued to operate as a guest ranch and base for his guide service into the wilderness. [33]

On April 1, 1942, based on Miller's recommendation, Campbell was appointed nominal custodian of Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, a responsibility that entailed inspecting the ruins once a month for structural damage and advising ranchers and other local guides about rules that prohibited digging for artifacts, knocking down walls, writing graffiti, "and other vandalisms or thoughtless practices which might be destructive to the ruins." Damage was to be reported immediately to the Southwestern National Monuments office in Casa Grande, Arizona; otherwise, a monthly report sent on a regular date would be sufficient. All in all, he was advised:

We want you to be our local representative to keep us constantly in touch with the situation at the Gila Cliff Dwellings by acting as a combination godfather and wet nurse to those somewhat neglected but very valuable and interesting dwellings. [35]

In return for these services, Campbell received a check twice a month for 46 cents—that is, a dollar a month, less an eight-percent deduction for his retirement fund. [36]

In 1990, Campbell recalled the early years of his nominal employment at Gila Cliff Dwellings with the following observations:

[W]e made several trips up there. Sometimes once a month, sometimes much oftener. We filed a monthly report. We answered the mail. Now they did furnish stationary and envelopes—stamped envelopes—and they did have...an information sheet that we could enclose. Mrs. Campbell had been a secretary in the civil service, and so she did the typing. We had a portable typewriter, and she did the typing to respond to [inquiries...]

Now, in those days—particularly in wintertime—you didn't get mail very often. We might get a letter once in a while...I wrote [the Washington office of the Park Service] a letter and told them how things were out here, and I mentioned the fact that we sent mail in sometimes when anyone was going in the general direction of the post office [in Silver City]. I got wires out of Washington relayed by telephone: "Where's that report?" That stopped that. But anyhow, we did make the reports—how many visitors and what had happened....

And we maintained that trail. And the trail was maintained as a family. We'd usually go have a picnic, and go up there and rake the trail and fix it up—put in water bars, build some steps...It just went up the canyon, and it was a beautiful trail. People enjoyed it....

And then remember, we had no appropriation so any tools we used on the trail was our tools. We had no typewriter except our own. In other words, this was the way it was, and that was the way it had been by other rural areas. This was just kind of customary, I guess .... [37]

In his role as a wilderness guide, Campbell also provided tours of the ruins for the paying guests who stayed at his ranch. In 1942, for example, the same year he was appointed custodian, all but six of the 196 visitors who signed the register had either been guests at his own Gila Hot Springs Ranch or at the nearby Lyons Lodge. [38] Ultimately, the coincidence of Campbell's custodial and hospitable responsibilities as well as his own curiosity elicited the first archeological overviews of Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, one from Charlie Steen [39] and one from Erik Reed, [40] who were staff archeologists with the Park Service. Both overviews had been researched and written at Campbell's specific request.

Beyond the fortuitous hiring of Campbell, who had a personal interest in the ruins, the Southwestern National Monuments office limited its investment in the isolated monument to the minimal recommendations of Tillotson. No visitor facilities were constructed, but the ruins were stabilized, using $390 that had been allotted to that end. Although modest, this figure compares favorably with the $240 spent in the same year at Chaco Canyon.

In July 1942, an archeologist—Charlie Steen, in fact—was dispatched from Casa Grande to Gila Cliff Dwellings, where he spent five days with a hired man, shoring up walls with dry masonry, measuring for a ground plan, taking core samples of the beams, cleaning the site, and building a trail from the small stream in the canyon to the ruins. Also, he dug two exploratory trenches for sherds that could be used to infer cultural affiliations of the prehistoric site.