Navajo Administrative History

The coming of the paved road became a critical step in the gradual elimination of the obstacles that hindered the growth and development of Navajo National Monument. When the MISSION 66 program for the monument debuted, it was low on the list of agency priorities. Regional Director Hugh Miller regarded the plan for a $179,000 visitor center at Betatakin as "startling even with improved roads and increasing travel." He required some evidence that the level of visitation would increase enough to merit such a program. But as Superintendent White announced in one of his monthly reports, the monument was "land-bound," for it lacked a a surrounding area sufficiently large to implement a substantive capital development program. [28]

The boundaries of Navajo were minuscule in comparison to other similar monuments in the Southwest. The Betatakin section was a mere 160 acres. It encompassed the canyon area; only a very small area on one of the rims was inside monument boundaries. During his tenure, James W. Brewer privately speculated that even the ranger cabin built in 1939 might be outside park boundaries. Keet Seel was the same size, while Inscription House was only 40 acres. When its officials cut the monument down to avoid conflict with grazing interests in 1912, the GLO permanently limited growth. Before any capital improvement plan could be implemented, more land was necessary. [29]

Yet the combination of MISSION 66 for the park system and the road-building program of the Navajo Nation generated momentum that made the development of Navajo National Monument a possibility. The forces of modern civilization were beginning to act on the western reservation in a comprehensive manner. The leaders of the Navajo Nation, Paul Jones, who served as chairman of the tribe from 1954 to 1962, and his successor Raymond Nakai, implemented new services and encouraged economic development projects. [30] To meld its holdings into this changing world, the Park Service had to further similar programs.

Only one way to get more land existed. Some kind of arrangement had to be struck with the Navajo Nation, the Shonto Chapter, and the individuals in the region. "We must either get the land or permission to build off the monument," White insisted in July 1958. [31] But despite the interdependent nature of life in the region, NPS officials recognized that a lease, purchase, or other form of acquisition would limit the autonomy to which agency officials were accustomed. As foreign supplicants in the Navajo homeland, the NPS needed to be prepared to compromise.

The long and complicated process of orchestrating an agreement began in 1958. Regional Director Hugh Miller instructed White to begin informal, low-level discussions about acquiring land. The land on the rim of Betatakin Canyon belonged to Bob Black, who had almost twenty-five years of service at the monument. White and Black reached an accord, circumventing the need for approval at the chapter level. Subsequently, the Park Service convened a meeting with a number of Navajo leaders. Prior to the meeting, White and Leslie P. Arnberger, assistant regional director of the Southwest Region, discussed the issue. White wanted to acquire an entire 640-acre section for the monument. Buildings at the monument were already on reservation land, and White wanted to assure that the monument could grow if needed. Arnberger disagreed, and the two compromised on forty acres. [32]

At the meeting in the superintendent's house at the monument, Art White, Regional Director Hugh Miller, Les Arnberger, Navajo tribal representative Sam Day III, Frank Bradley Jr., and tribal employee Jim McNee met to work out an agreement. Day proposed an exchange: twenty monument acres for twenty Navajo acres and the tribe would grant twenty more. After viewing the land, Day was willing to forgo the exchange. He told the Park Service to just ask for the land. The Navajo Nation would not be interested in an exchange for such visibly unproductive land.

But the idea of an exchange was unsuccessful, and throughout the rest of the 1950s, little progress occurred. After giving up on the idea of an outright exchange, the Park Service subsequently sought some form of agreement to use land adjacent to the monument. But acquisition remained the paramount goal for the NPS, and when the chances of acquiring some portion of adjacent land seemed good, NPS interest in an agreement for use declined. When agency officials found avenues of acquisition blocked, they sought an agreement. From the perspective of the Navajo Nation, acquisition at the monument was linked to the transfer of some other land to the tribe. Antelope Point and the Page area were both suggested during negotiations, but no consensus emerged. The result was a stalemate. Yet from regional director to superintendent, everyone recognized that Navajo National Monument needed additional area. [33]

The response of the staff was a mixture of excitement and trepidation. In July 1958, when Smokey Lehnert came to the monument, he and Art White became a formidable duo. They responded to the impending changes in colorful and descriptive fashion. With the increase in paved roads, the monument area "will have had it," White remarked. Nonetheless, the process continued. In 1959, crews began to pave the section of road between Tuba City and Kayenta. By the time it was completed, it left only one section of dirt road to the monument: the tract from the main highway through Shonto and on to Betatakin. [34] As it became easier to reach the monument and the number of travelers on the newly paved roads of Navajoland increased, White and his staff had to prepare for significant changes at Navajo.

The impact of increased visitation posed one major issue. Since its establishment in 1909, Navajo had been protected largely by its remote location. Easy access would clearly alter existing patterns of visitation. Visitors who previously would not have tackled almost 100 miles of dirt road told White and Lehnert that the increasingly small unpaved sections only spurred them forward. For staff members, increased visitation was clearly a mixed blessing. Superintendent Art White seemed to dread the arrival of the "beer can and kleenex" crowd, the sedentary traveling public, unappreciative and unwilling to make a sacrifice to understand the place on its own terms. "God or MISSION 66 help this monument" if the Tuba City-Kayenta road was paved, White caustically remarked in March 1958. NPS personnel recognized that the roads would change the character of the monument as well as the experience of visitors there. They were also cognizant that the past as they had known it was already gone. By the early 1960s, time was running out. [35]

Negotiations between NPS and the Navajo Nation were the clear solution to the lack of land and facilities faced by the Park Service. After a strong beginning, the negotiations stalled in 1958, and relations deteriorated. Issues of land transfer and rights of way for potential entrance roads slowed progress toward an agreement. The NPS and the Navajo Nation had different goals, and as economic development began in earnest on the reservation, the Navajo Tribal Council under Paul Jones expressed resentment towards the Park Service.

But the NPS had much to offer the Navajo people. As the Navajo Nation tried to attract entities with economic potential, it found obstacles. The virtue of the reservation most easily converted into dollars was its spectacular scenery, history, and prehistory. The desire to develop resources for visitors pushed the Navajo Nation into simultaneous cooperation and competition with the Park Service. Late in the 1950s, the Navajo Tribal Park system became an important lure for visitors. Monument Valley, the location of numerous John Ford and John Wayne westerns, became a major attraction for visitors. Yet opening a tribal park and serving finicky American visitors were two separate and distinct functions. The Navajos needed the expertise that the Park Service developed during nearly fifty years of visitor service. NPS officials offered training for tribal rangers as one measure to improve relations and installed an exhibit at the annual tribal fair. Navajo leaders also eyed Canyon de Chelly in particular, with lesser emphasis directed toward Navajo, Wupatki, and Sunset Crater national monuments as possible additions to their fledgling park system. [36]

In addition, the process of negotiating an agreement strengthened the relations between Navajos and the Park Service. In November 1959, Maxwell Yazzie, one of the most distinguished Navajo attorneys, spent four days at the monument in an effort to secure the agreement. Yazzie helped convince local Navajos of the value of the visitor center and its road, secured rights-of-way from individual land holders, and offered his opinion on the chances of the proposal. It was a learning experience for both sides that helped smooth out the differences in perspective. [37]

The Park Service also revived an old concept that had major implications for the region. The debut of the "Golden Circle" of national park areas, including Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Rainbow Bridge, and Navajo, was the direct result of the southwestern strategy pursued by Stephen T. Mather and Horace Albright in the 1920s. The concept linked numerous park areas in this largely undeveloped region into a comprehensive package designed to attract visitors. The Park Service had utilized a convenient monument-to-park strategy to bring Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce Canyon to national park status in an effort to make the Southwest the focus of American travelers. This focus provided the Navajo Nation with a ready supply of visitors and encouraged the rapid development of support facilities.

It also pushed the NPS and the Navajo Nation towards an agreement at Navajo National Monument. Both sides had something to offer each other, and with much at stake--a potential anchor for economic development on the reservation for the Navajo Nation and the ability to develop and protect an important prehistoric resource for the Park Service--the two sides moved towards a solution. With the opening of the first Navajo Tribal Park at Monument Valley in 1960, the ties strengthened. Yet protracted negotiations were necessary, and the process of arranging a final accord lasted more than three years.

NPS officials found the process frustrating. By September 1960, the Southwest Regional Office had drawn up an agreement to which Tribal attorneys agreed in principle. In March 1961, White chafed at the slow pace. Recognizing the need for facilities to handle the increase in visitation, he pressed for the acquisition of land. The following May, the Advisory Committee of the Tribal Council approved the draft of a memorandum of agreement for interim use of an area adjacent to the Betatakin section. NPS officials sent a final version of the memorandum for the Navajo Nation and BIA to sign and awaited a reply. More than a year later, no word had come from the tribe. In November 1961, Art White began a countdown. "We still have ten months grace here until we are really overrun," he informed his superiors. When the Navajo Nation finally responded, significant portions of the memorandum had been changed. NPS officials determined that they could live with the changes, for an interim agreement to use land increased the chances to implement MISSION 66 programs at the monument. [38]

The result was the Memorandum of Agreement, signed on May 8, 1962, a compromise designed to further the interests of both the Navajo Nation and the Park Service. In reality, no one got exactly what they wanted. The NPS received the right to use 240 acres on the rim of Betatakin Canyon from which to manage the monument. In return, the Park Service agreed to help the Navajos acquire Antelope Point, near the Glen Canyon Dam project, for development purposes. NPS officials were to use their influence to get the area ceded to the Navajo, and in return, Navajos would give up land at the monument in "fee title." This proposed program did not work. The Navajo Nation was reluctant to give up any land, the cessation of Antelope Point stalled, and agreement across cultures was very difficult to reach. In the final cession, secured by the Memorandum of Agreement, the land was "loaned" to NPS as an interim arrangement to allow development to proceed before formal exchange could be enacted. NPS officials accepted this proposal because they feared that legislation enlarging the monument would remain beyond their reach. In the late 1960s, NPS management documents identified acquisition of fee title to the 240-acre Memorandum of Agreement tract as a serious potential problem. By 1990, no change in the status of the land had been accomplished.

The agreement happened just in time. In the summer of 1962, paving continued on the last stretch of the Kayenta-Tuba City road. A dedication of the road was planned for September 15. When finished, the road eliminated the last section of unpaved arterial highway in the western reservation. It was a "red-letter day for this part of the country," Art White remarked. But to face the implications of the road, the Park Service needed the memorandum. [39]

The Memorandum of Agreement formalized the long-standing interdependent relationship between the park and the Navajo people who lived nearby. By 1962, visitation at the monument rose to 6,603. The park needed more seasonal workers, greater quantities of materials, and more help with services such as the horse trips to Keet Seel. Navajo people perceived an economic opportunity in the development. Under the terms of the agreement, the NPS was obliged to provide a room for Navajos to sell crafts at the planned visitor center. Regional Director Thomas Allen had resisted this idea, arguing that a more typical concession arrangement was better for the Park Service. The Navajo Tribal Council had introduced the idea and refused to relent. Recognizing that the agreement potentially unlocked vast amounts of money for the monument, regional officials accepted the provision. The park and its neighbors were closely bound in a relationship that benefited both. The agreement made interdependence into a de jure rather than de facto reality.