Navajo Administrative History

By the early 1950s, a number of changes in interpretation were necessary. After Pinkley's death in 1940, his domain in the Southwest was parceled out. Attempts to eradicate the more iconoclastic features of his leadership helped reshape NPS policy in the Southwest. The insistence on guided tours through ruins fell by the wayside as visitation grew. By the early 1950s, most monuments had self-guiding ruins trail brochures. In 1951, even a remote monument like Navajo began to experiment with a self-guiding trail leaflet to Keet Seel. [14]

Keet Seel and Inscription House were not immune to the effects of increased visitation. In the early 1950s, about thirty parties a year visited Keet Seel. A rare group might camp at the ruin, but most rented a horse and a Navajo guide from Pipeline Begishie, a local Navajo who worked at the park as a seasonal laborer and offered horses for rent. This enabled them to make the eight-mile trip each way in one day. The Park Service still did not sign the trail or provide interpretation material for Keet Seel, preferring to limit visitation to those who knew the way or were shown there by local Navajos. [15]

Inscription House as Jimmie Brewer saw it in 1941.

At Inscription House, the problems of Keet Seel were compounded by the nearby trading post and environmental problems. Since the 1930s, erosion had been visible in the wash below Inscription House. In the early 1940s, the wash eroded at the rate of about twenty feet per annum. By 1944, it was "positively dangerous" to reach Inscription House. In 1949, the ferocity of the flow of water caused a number of burials from the cave at Inscription House to wash out toward Lake Meade. Brewer found bones and high quality pottery in the wash after a heavy spring rain, prompting him to call for better protective measures against creeping erosion. In addition, vandalism became more common at Inscription House in the early 1950s. Unauthorized visitors sometimes dug in the ruins. Local schoolchildren repeatedly scratched initials in the soft adobe walls. [16] Clearly the Park Service had to take action.

But without an allocation of resources, any changes enacted remained largely cosmetic. Aubuchon optimistically concluded that the arduous trek to the outliers "precludes the person who has a mania for destruction," but vandalism was an endemic problem. The best mechanisms the regional office could offer were passive. Regional Director Tillotson advocated "a tightening of control over these isolated sections of the monument," but no allocation to support those sentiments followed. Tillotson reiterated his longstanding opposition to directional signs for the trails to Keet Seel and Inscription House. He approved the idea that visitors should be required to register with the Park Service before they were allowed to proceed to either of the backcountry areas. [17] But in the face of the declining condition of the two ruins, such remedies fell short of solving critical problems.

Visitors continued to come, and Navajo topped the 1,000-visitor mark for the first time in 1949-50. In comparison to other southwestern parks, this number seemed small, but it reflected a doubling of the numbers typical of the pre-war era. The small contact station and residence built in 1939 continued to be the only permanent structures at the park. They had to serve numerous functions. Besides being home to the superintendent and his family, the residence also served as an office. Jimmie Brewer set up a desk in one corner of the living room, and most of the official business conducted at Navajo occurred there. The contact station became the focus of formal interpretation at the monument. The one-room structure included a museum in a corner that displayed aspects of prehistoric and historic life in the vicinity of the monument.

The congested parking area in this 1949 photo reflects the dramatic increase in visitation in the post-World War II era.

In 1954, the little museum offered its first major exhibit. Betty Butts, a Los Angeles sculptress, and her husband Warren, an engineer, designed a diorama of prehistoric life at Keet Seel. The Buttses first came to Navajo National Monument in July 1952, taking a pack trip to Keet Seel. After visiting Mesa Verde and observing its dioramas, they wrote to Aubuchon and offered to make a similar portrayal of Keet Seel for the museum. Keet Seel was their choice, although it well served NPS purposes. Fewer visitors saw it than Betatakin, and the diorama would allow many a broader experience at Navajo than previously available to them. After more than a year and one half of research, Betty Butts began to work on the model. On August 7, 1954, the final version arrived at the monument.

The weight and size of the diorama necessitated an addition to the contact station. The diorama was more than six feet long, four feet deep, and four feet high, with structures constructed of plywood and figurines of paper mache. Buildings and walls in the diorama contained more than 3,000 small plaster stones. The Buttses spent more than three hundred hours of work on the figures, pots and implements, and vegetation. Regional archeologist Erik K. Reed authenticated all of their work. After removing the end wall, a 6 x 10-foot area with a concrete slab floor was added on to the existing structure to accommodate the diorama. [18]

The diorama was an instant attraction. Many years later, seasonal ranger Hubert Laughter remembered his first glimpse of the diorama, and a photograph captured the moment. In it, Laughter regarded the diorama with a bemused and impressed look. It was indeed new, and a genuine asset for the museum and the monument. [19]