Navajo Administrative History

The era following the Second World War saw the greatest increase in visitation in the history of the national park system. After four years of war, rationing, and a lack of consumer goods and vacation time, Americans had plenty of cash. Pent-up consumer demand permeated American society, including travel and leisure. With money they saved during the war and in the new automobiles for which they paid outrageous prices afterwards, Americans wanted to see their land--particularly their national parks. The construction of highways like Route 66, also the subject of a popular song, facilitated travel. At a time when Americans could travel from coast to coast by car, popular culture encouraged the experience. Gallivanting around in an automobile had become the American way; in the postwar era, many more people could enjoy the opportunity to travel by car. Trains ceased to be a primary mode of transportation for park visitors; by the 1950s, more than ninety-eight percent arrived in private automobiles. [9]

The impact of most of the increase in travel bypassed Navajo National Monument. At the end of a dirt trail, the monument remained remote from most travelers. Paved roads had not yet traversed the western Navajo reservation, and the visitors who came to places like the Grand Canyon to the southwest or Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks to the northwest could still not reach Navajo without great individual effort. Only those with a special interest in prehistory made the long and arduous journey past Shonto Trading Post to the little cabin atop Betatakin Canyon.

For a park without measurable resources, distance from civilization proved an advantage. As it had since 1909, the remote location of the monument precluded the kinds of management problems that prompted calls to close the national parks. Visitors inundated the national park areas they could reach, leaving trash and debris, damaging resources, and swamping park staff and facilities. Popularity was what the Park Service wanted, but too much of it drained the system. At Navajo, park officials did not need to worry. Even though the first motor coach to reach the monument stopped only two miles from the monument and visitation increased from the artificially low totals accumulated during the war to 705 in 1946-47 and 2,303 in 1956, the numbers were not sufficient to alter the routine to which Brewer and his seasonal Navajo staff were accustomed. [10]

As a result, Navajo remained a park out of time. While the park system faced rapid changes, the monument continued as a relic from an earlier era. Its superintendents could be snowed in or out by bad weather; a dirt approach road could become impassable for a range of reasons. The problems at Navajo dated from a simpler time, before visitation overwhelmed facilities and managers. Hard to reach, ignored by the hierarchy of the agency, and lacking most of the amenities common in the park system, Navajo was clearly apart from the mainstream of the Park Service.

Although custodians and superintendents selected themselves for the monument, they sometimes found their position depressing. The annual reports filed by Brewer and his successor, John Aubuchon, were terse, one-page documents devoid of any real information. Despite admonitions from the regional office, the reports remained perfunctory exercises. In 1949, Brewer offered an explanation: "Please be advised that no material is being furnished from this area because nothing of national importance has occurred." [11]

Brewer and his successors rightly felt that they served in an outpost far from the concerns of their agency. Their actions had great impact on the people around them, but little on the park system. Nor did their problems mirror those of the rest of the national parks. They could not marshal the kind of influence necessary to acquire the resources to implement programs, protect resources, and interpret Anasazi and Navajo culture. Despite a 1948 upgrade in the only position from custodian to superintendent, the people who worked there grew frustrated. Navajo was a hardship post by any measure of the term, and after Brewer left in 1950, Aubuchon and his successor, Foy Young, each left after one three-year rotation.

The non-contiguous nature of the monument exacerbated existing management problems. The monument was a construct, a creation of federal officials. Its artificial boundaries did not isolate it from the changes in the physical environment around it, nor did it make management easier. The allocation of resources for a trip to an outlier meant that something went undone at one of the other two areas. The combination of lack of resources and distance between the three sections made for distinctly different management practices. By the middle of the 1950s, each area was treated in a separate fashion. Betatakin had become the center of visitation. As the Shonto route became the lifeline for the area and the park developed a structure, the ruin that visitors could see from the trail became their major destination. Accessible only by horseback or on foot, Keet Seel had become less important. It lacked both signage and constant protection, while the distant Inscription House had signs but no protection other than sporadic visits from the superintendent.

As visitation increased, the content and caliber of interpretation became an issue. Because of the name of the monument, its location in the middle of the Navajo reservation, and the preponderance of Navajo people living in the vicinity, Navajo history and culture were as much an interest of visitors as the story of the Anasazi. Sensitive to the needs of the Navajo and the desires of visitors, park superintendents Brewer, Aubuchon, and Young sought to balance prehistory and Navajo culture in the interpretation program of the monument.

Superintendent John Aubuchon looks over the first museum display in the original ranger cabin.

Access to the ruins also posed problems as visitation grew. Brewer had suggested limits on visitation in Betatakin in 1939 and other Park Service inspectors concurred. Brewer had initially discarded John Wetherill's practice of keeping visitors out of Betatakin by roping off the rooms. Instead he lined out trails between the clusters of rooms in the ruin, a practice he quickly decided was a mistake. On occasion, visitors strayed from the route Brewer provided. In one instance, a Boston architect and a Santa Fe artist were permitted to walk in rooms above original ceilings. When informed, regional archeologists were apoplectic. Managing visitors in the ruin was a difficult task, for safety of the visitors and protection of the ruins mandated a need for close monitoring of visitors. By 1941, Brewer no longer allowed visitors in Betatakin without supervision. [12]

During this time, interpretation at the monument was inconsistent. Archeologists debated the meaning and significance of the various ruins that composed the monument, and the efforts of the Park Service were limited by the lack of consensus among professionals. Without a visitor center or museum, much of the interpretation was imparted by the superintendent to visitors. Under Frank Pinkley's system, visitors were not allowed in ruins without a uniformed park person. At Navajo, the distance between the contact station and the ruin made escorted visitation the only possibility. But again, the increase in postwar visitation forced changes. Brewer took as many visitors as he could, sometimes impressing Bob Black, a Navajo maintenance worker, into service conveying visitors to Betatakin. Black's command of English was minimal, and in such situations, interpretation became merely a guide service. Black recalled taking visitors to the canyon and pointing to the ruins as the extent of his interpretation. The lack of personnel, the increase in visitation, and cross-cultural inability to communicate caused interpretation to suffer. [13]