GILA CLIFF DWELLINGS Administrative History

Gila Forks: Roads And The Primitive Area

Since 1941, based on Regional Director Tillotson's recommendations, Southwestern National Monuments had more or less officially relied on the cliff dwelling's isolation in the heart of the Gila Wilderness to protect it from vandalism. In the years between Tillotson's visit and Lambert's, however, the degree of isolation had begun to decline. In 1944, the lock was removed from the gate on Copperas Mountain, making the road accessible to anyone who had a sufficient vehicle, and during his visit in 1948, Steen observed that the wilderness fence itself had been moved by the Forest Service nearly to the mouth of Cliff Dweller Canyon. The following year, "Doc" Campbell subdivided his Gila Hot Springs Ranch, and property owners along the river petitioned the Forest Service for permission to bulldoze—at their own expense—an alternate route to their inholdings, citing their protected rights of ingress and egress. The improved route descended along the "old military road" to the confluence of the East and Middle forks of the Gila River, a shortcut that eliminated some of the steep grades of the road into Lyons Lodge, as well as several river crossings.

The consequences of the improved access were predictable: whereas only six of the 196 people who signed the monument register in 1942 had provided their own transportation. In 1950, 186 of the 291 signatories reached the prehistoric site on their own; and in 1951, the proportion was 236 of the 302 visitors. [46] Although the total number of visitors was still small, the proportion of visitors unaccompanied by guides from the nearby guest ranches like Campbell's was rising dramatically, a temptingly unmonitored situation that led to idle digging in the ruins by hunters, fishermen and others, as well as the kind of graffiti that commemorated their visits.

Meanwhile, the Forest Service had begun reassessing the boundaries of the Gila Wilderness as the agency prepared to reclassify the area's protective provisions from Regulation L-20 to the more restrictive Regulation U-1. [47] Regulation L-20 was vague about the construction of roads, and by a textual omission it permitted motor vehicles into the protected areas. Regulation U-1 did not. Approved in 1939, the application of this regulation had been delayed by World War II.

In 1945, the supervisor of the Gila National Forest had been petitioned—also by residents on the forks of the Gila—to delete from special status the east side of the Gila Primitive Area, which included the road leading to the cliff dwellings. [48] In 1952, the Forest Service presented a proposal for new wilderness boundaries, which reduced the 563,000-acre L-20 Primitive Area to 375,000 acres of U-1 Wilderness. Most of the deleted area was north and east of the Middle Fork, where a lot of roads had been unofficially rutted into the easy terrain. Again, the Copperas road was included in the proposed deletion. More provocative was the proposed elimination of the well-timbered Iron Creek Mesa from the northwest side of the wilderness. Inevitably, the proposed revisions drew the prompt attention of such national organizations as the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and the National Park Association, all of which opposed modifications to the wilderness boundaries and especially challenged the Iron Creek withdrawal.

As nominal custodian, "Doc" Campbell kept Southwestern National Monuments informed about the debate regarding roads and the reclassification of the Gila Primitive Area—and a little more. In 1949, for example, after reporting the increased likelihood of visits to the monument as a result of his subdivision, the new road to it, and an airstrip he had constructed, Campbell also prodded for development of the reserve. Three years later, he asked for "a definite commitment from your office on the Wilderness Area revision...," noting that he was in favor of the proposed reductions. [49] John Davis, the general superintendent of Southwestern Monuments, acknowledged Campbell's personal stake in the wilderness debate but emphasized the agency's neutrality in the debate about boundaries—as long as the monument itself was retained within the wilderness, an indirect reiteration of Tillotson's policy of isolation.

Ultimately, the debate over the wilderness revision was resolved in a compromise mediated by Clinton Anderson, New Mexico's junior senator and by a local ad hoc group that the Gila forest supervisor had appointed—the James Committee. [50] In early 1953, the boundaries of the area protected by Regulation U-1 were announced by the Forest Service: Iron Creek Mesa was retained in wilderness and most of the area east of the Middle Fork was retained under Regulation L-20 as a primitive area until "such time as further study and discussion with local people could resolve the differences of opinion." [51]

As an immediate result, the monument was no longer in the heart of the wilderness; instead, it was now on the administrative edge, buffered on the south only by the ambiguities surrounding motor vehicles in a primitive area. There was also a newly bladed road that nearly reached the ruins. In addition, the James Committee had specifically recommended that the Copperas corridor be formally extended to Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Although the recommendation was not included in the wilderness plan, a conceptual linkage between the prehistoric site and the construction of a good road was established—one that would provide considerable leverage in the near future.