Navajo Administrative History

While Park Service efforts were directed at making the ruins usable for the growing number of visitors, the Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley expeditions sought to add to the base of knowledge. Among the places the survey worked was Navajo National Monument. [30] For the Park Service, this had many advantages. The agency could acquire additional information from the work of these archeologists, while focusing on its imperative: the protection and preservation of the ruins of the monument.

But the work of the Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley Expedition created a controversy at Navajo National Monument. In the late 1920s, A. E. Douglass, the founder of dendrochronology, had taken core samples from the timber at Keet Seel, carefully plugging his holes. Neil Judd also took core samples, leaving the holes unplugged. But according to Irwin Hayden, in 1934, Lyndon Hargrave of the Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley expedition and his party engaged in a "sort of sophomoric sawing spree," cutting the ends off of many of the timbers at Keet Seel.

A fracas ensued that disrupted the CWA stabilization program at the monument. Enraged, Hayden quit the project, walking the twenty-five miles to Kayenta. Julian Hayden replaced his father. But Irwin Hayden was not through. He took Hargrave to task with Harold Colton, director of the Museum of Northern Arizona, and Frank Pinkley, ever protective of the archeological resources of his domain, took Hayden's side. Colton sided with Hargrave. He and Pinkley exchanged heated arguments on the topic. Dendrochronology was a new science, and A. E. Douglass best understood it. Standards for use of the technique had not yet been developed. Until archeologists got together to work out the details, there was little chance of resolution. [31]

Repercussions continued. Jesse Nusbaum, by then director of the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe and former superintendent of Mesa Verde National Park, was distraught, as was Frank A. Kittredge, the chief engineer of the Park Service. "So many of the ancient logs had been sawed in two that it was most depressing," he conveyed to Arno B. Cammerer, director of the Park Service. Despite the advances in knowledge that stemmed from the work of archeologists, NPS goals of preservation and the objectives of the archeological community were not compatible. [32]

The end of the New Deal and the beginning of World War II halted most archeological work at the monument and in the vicinity. Federal funding for archeology dried up, and gasoline and rubber rationing curtailed opportunities for survey work. Park Service headquarters was moved to Chicago to make room for war-related agencies in Washington, D. C., and most park projects were postponed. The problems of Navajo National Monument did not merit a look during the war.

During the 1950s, scientific institutions re-entered the region. The Smithsonian Institution sponsored the Pueblo Ecology Study, while the Glen Canyon Project surveyed archeological resources in the vicinity of the Glen Canyon Dam. Preserved and protected, Navajo National Monument received some attention from these projects. The Glen Canyon project in particular had implications for the monument, investigating sites near its boundaries and with ramifications for its story.

Concomitant effort within the Park Service followed as the agency faced a dramatic increase in park visitation throughout the Southwest. The Southwestern National Monuments Ruins Stabilization program was established to assess maintenance needs of prehistoric and historic areas. As part of this program, Gordon R. Vivian examined Betatakin, Keet Seel, and Inscription House. While lack of protection loomed as an issue, he found the three ruins in good condition. His recommendations for future work led to Roland Richert's stabilization efforts at the monument in 1958. Richert's plan went beyond Vivian's recommendations, becoming a program for comprehensive stabilization and assessment. The result was a more thorough understanding of stabilization needs, a safer environment for visitors, and with the advent of Portland cement as a mortar for reconstruction, a presumed solution for the structural problems of stabilization. [32]

But the new material later caused many woes. Portland cement was harder and more durable than the material that it was supposed to preserve. It did not contract as it froze and thawed. Softer materials that the cement embraced--sandstone, limestone, and adobe--could not expand and contract with temperature fluctuation. As a result, the softer materials that Portland cement was supposed to preserve cracked and crumbled under the stress. Portland cement became the bane of stabilization. [33]

The stabilization work performed by Richert and his crew in 1958 was a watershed. At Betatakin, no stabilization had occurred since 1917; at Keet Seel, the ill-fated Hayden CWA project in 1933-34 had been the most recent effort, while at Inscription House, the stabilization was the first activity since Charlie Steen's work in 1939. Richert detailed the stabilization work, providing a comprehensive record of activities in all three ruins. At Keet Seel, forty-four rooms were stabilized. Wall foundations were shored up, roofs were patched and repaired, and stones were reset and jacal walls replastered. Even with the new Portland cement mortars available, Richert and his crew used a natural mud mortar. At Betatakin, the work was minor but widespread, occurring in twenty-five rooms. At Inscription House, another twenty rooms were repaired. [34]