GILA CLIFF DWELLINGS Administrative History

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument 1955-1963

Meanwhile, as negotiations flowed between state and federal agencies, senators, and citizens interested in the monument's expansion and the construction of an approach road, the prehistoric site remained an official backwater. After visiting the site for the first time in 1958, Harthon Bill reported that "it is probably the most difficult National Monument in the continental United States for people to reach." [40] Observing that its reserve status had stemmed from this inaccessibility, he recommended that management of the monument for the time being concentrate only on protecting the cliff dwellings.

Three years earlier, for that very purpose, "Doc" Campbell had been hired as a seasonal ranger, and for the next eight summers someone in uniform greeted visitors and monitored the ruins daily. As recommended in the second MISSION 66 prospectus, Campbell was provided with some "office facilities," which in this case comprised a typewriter and a filing cabinet. On his own initiative and with his own money, Campbell additionally established a modest visitor contact station at the mouth of Cliff Dweller Canyon, using a tent-fly, a telephone, and an army field desk. In 1990, Campbell recalled his improvisations:

Well, after the Forest Service phone line—the magneto line—went through the monument, I took a field phone and hung it on a tree—a spike in the tree—so we had communications up there. And then we put up a fly. We made tables and bought a field desk...And then we got an appropriation—I think I got another $150—and we built some benches and put them along the trail. Built nine benches and a picnic table from the mouth of the cliff dwellings canyon up to the cliff dwellings, clear up to the monument where people could stop and rest and enjoy the scenery.

Also, the Forest Service had put down by Scorpion Corrals an outhouse. We took a Ford tractor and hauled that outhouse up to where people were stopping, and put it in. We put it on Forest Service land just below there. Anyhow, I didn't ask anybody. I just did it and then cleared out to where they couldn't go to the bushes...So that helped out with sanitation around there. And that's the way things were done. [41]

The first contact station at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument was assembled by Custodian "Doc" Campbell, using a tent-fly, an army field desk, a typewriter, and a telephone that he hung from a no. 9 magneto line that belonged to the Forest Service. The lower photograph shows Campbell at his office.

From his tent-fly station, Campbell dispensed information to visitors who then drove or waded across the river to visit the prehistoric site. In the years between 1955 and 1962, the number of these visitors increased moderately from around 500 a year to approximately 1,500. [42] In addition to greeting people, Campbell continued to maintain the canyon trail and to report damage to the ruins. In late 1962, he even stabilized a small portion of the site at the request of the regional archeologist. [43]

In the summer of 1962, as construction of the improved road advanced towards the Gila forks, Campbell declined the seasonal position to prepare his business for the expected surge of tourists. He still remained the nominal custodian, however. In his stead, a school teacher was hired for the summer, who worked under the tarp at the mouth of Cliff Dweller Canyon and camped nearby in a wall tent. The discovery by this man's wife of two rattlesnakes inside the tent on the same day is still cited locally as a benchmark of dirt-floored rusticity.