PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

To File or Not to File? (continued)

1937

Snow storms beginning in mid-December 1936 and continuing into the new year were so severe that Special Investigator Reddoch was prevented by snow-blocked roads from reaching Camp DG-44 in January to make his annual inspection report on conditions at the camp. Reddoch reported to ECW Assistant Director McEntee on January 22 that the road had been impassable since December 18, and that mail, food supplies, and coal could not be delivered to the camp. Reddoch learned that only one and one-half days of work had been performed in the field since late December due to inclement weather. In February McEntee in turn contacted Grazing Service Director F. R. Carpenter and asked for a report on the situation. Carpenter reported that the Arizona Strip had experienced unusual and unprecedented snows that winter, which reduced the days of fieldwork that were possible. Heaton's monthly report to Pinkley that month stated that the CCC camp officers were finally able to obtain snow removal equipment from the State of Utah by January 22 enabling them to clear the roads. While the coal supply was sufficient, much of it was buried under snow. Much to Heaton's chagrin, some of the CCC boys cut down 13 cedars and pines on the monument for fuel, to save themselves the work of shoveling snow off the coal pile.

At the same time the monument was shoveling out from under the snow, Associate Regional Geologist Vincent W. Vandiver was preparing a geological report on Pipe Spring National Monument in the regional office in Santa Fe. In addition to geology, the report included background history of the area as well as information about native plants and animals. The purpose of the report appears to have been to provide general background information about the monument that would be useful for administrative or interpretive purposes rather than information oriented toward legally establishing water rights. (It was published in February as Southwestern Monuments Special Report No. 14.) The report states that Moccasin Spring had a capacity of about 200,000 gallons per day, as contrasted with Pipe Spring's capacity of 65,000 gallons per day. [978]

Weather improved enough by late February 1937 that Heaton had CCC boys working on grading several areas in preparation for grass reseeding. [979] The camp commander informed Heaton in February that the west cabin was no longer needed for a classroom. At some point prior to this, however, some damage had been sustained as a result of the CCC boys locking a coyote into the cabin. The animal broke a window to escape. Heaton requested that the cabin be cleaned out, but to no avail. He finally tired of waiting and in March piled all the Army's things outside the cabin, removed electrical fixtures, and cleaned the cabin himself. He also obtained poplar logs in Moccasin to be used for making the campground tables.

A new crew of enrollees arrived from western Kentucky on April 15, 1937. Several areas of the monument were seeded: around the swimming pond, the parking area, and east of the fort (the site of the earlier campground). During April and May, the CCC boys worked on constructing picnic tables and the watering trough. The trough was hewn from a large cottonwood log; the picnic tables were constructed of cottonwood with cedar stringers. [980] Additional cottonwoods were planted south of the fort. Hugh Miller, Al Kuehl, and Park Service Engineer J. H. Tovrea visited the monument mid-April to inspect ECW work and to study proposals for the 1937 master. The Grazing Service agreed to set aside a monthly allotment for ECW jobs on the monument.

Heaton, who was seeking a way to get a National Park Service ranger's rating, met with Assistant Superintendent Miller during the April visit to discuss how this might be achieved. Heaton wrote later in his diary, "Was told that the Boss [Pinkley] was doing all he could to keep me in the service." [981] The following month, Heaton took the ranger's exam in Cedar City, writing afterward in his diary, "Did not do so good in the mental test. Too many words I did not know, but believe I passed the practical test." [982] As his status did not change, it is assumed he did not do well enough to earn the ranger rating and Civil Service status he sought.

In late April 1937, Heaton discovered a 22-bullet slug in the west door of the west cabin. Several had been fired against the rock wall, and one through a window of each room of the cabin. Boys who had already left the camp had carved two names into the walls of the east cabin. Heaton complained to the camp officers that the camp kitchen help was dumping meat waste in the monument's drainage wash, creating stink and flies. In June Heaton got after two boys for hunting birds on the monument, only to discover they were after them to feed an eagle they had captured and were keeping in camp. "DAMN it," Heaton wrote in his journal, "I wish this camp would leave soon or the officers would be a bit more strict about the boys having guns in camp and about park rules." [983] Problems continued as boys kept killing birds and other wildlife by means of guns, "flippers" (slingshots), or any other means they could find.

80. Campground with poplar log tables and benches, late 1930s
(Pipe Spring National Monument, neg. 141).

Several changes in the camp's Army officers and U.S. Forest Service personnel were reported during 1937. Lt. Wolfe left the monument in late April and was replaced by Lt. Beidinger. In May a new ECW foreman, Albert B. Chilton, arrived at Pipe Spring with his wife. On July 15, 1937, Lt. Carl A Wickerham replaced the camp's commanding officer, Capt. Hofler.

On June 1, 1937, the Mountain State Telephone and Telegraph Company laid an underground phone cable to the fort, ending 66 years of use of the old Deseret telegraph line poles. Heaton salvaged enough of the old poles and line from north of the monument "to reconstruct the line west of the fort within the monument as a relic of the past," he wrote in his journal. [984] (This reconstruction work was done in August.) In mid-June Heaton took four weeks annual leave, leaving CCC enrollee Clarence Thomas in charge of the monument. When he returned on July 14, he "found things not as they should be." [985] Thomas had gone home a week earlier and another enrollee was in charge. The trees were in need of watering and the new education adviser, Mr. Black, was making plans to turn the west cabin into a woodworking shop. Heaton opposed such a use, but later allowed the cabin to be used as a map room and office by the Grazing Service's range survey crew and then as a photography dark room. [986] During the month of June, Al Kuehl made a ground study for the monument's new master plan and decided that new buildings should be sited further from the fort than the original plans had called for.

Heaton also reported in July 1937 that the swimming pool was using too much water and the Army's tank frequently overflowed. After several months of badgering by Heaton and a letter from Pinkley, the Army officers finally installed a stop valve on their tank to avert wasting water. Heaton reported it did not work well, however, and he asked the new company commander, Lt. Wickerham, to address the problem. Meanwhile, as monument trees started suffering for lack of sufficient water, Heaton grew impatient and decided to take matters into his own hands. On July 24 Heaton wrote in his journal,

Have been putting rocks over the end of their intake pipe so that so much water will not go to waste. Must of [sic] shut off too much yesterday as the tank got dry and the new Lt. Wickerham jumped onto me red-eyed about shutting off the water and said that they about blew up the hot water tank and there would be a lot to explain if someone got killed just because the water got shut off. To this I told him that I had tried for nearly two years to get the Army to fix the float on their tank so that so much water would not be wasted and it has not been done as yet and I was a bit sore [about] the way I had been treated regarding it.... I am not going to have the trees die because there was water going to waste. [987]

On July 27, 1937, Heaton reported the Army's float was finally working. Heaton wasn't the only one dismayed by water waste however. Reservation Agent Parven Church complained to Heaton in August that water was being wasted at the new drinking fountain and water trough. Heaton wrote, "He said there should have been an agreement between the Park Service and the Indian Service before the fountain and trough were put in, to which I told him that the public was to have the first use of the water before any division was made... [I also told him] that I shut off the water when I found it running..." [988] Church also was upset that the CCC camp was using and wasting too much water. Heaton said he had done all he could in that regard and urged Church to do what he could about it.

The patience of Park Service officials with Camp DG-44 was wearing thin. Al Kuehl reported in late September,

The Pipe Springs camp continues to exist with no particular benefit being received by the National Park Service. In accordance with an agreement reached earlier in the year, the monument was to receive a pro rata share of the monthly camp allotment for monument jobs. No funds have been made available since July; consequently no progress has been made on jobs that require materials. [989]

In September 1937 Heaton reported he was thrashing out grass seed gathered by the CCC boys the previous June and planned for it to be planted on the east half of the monument in the fall. [990] Heaton also planned to plant "a lot of pinyon nuts on the hill back of the fort this fall, as I would like to see a lot more trees growing up there." [991] In October Kuehl visited the monument and told Heaton he could plant all the grass and trees he wanted to. The following month Heaton reported to Superintendent Pinkley,

On Oct. 19th I gathered some two or three hundred pinyon seeds and planted them on the monument back of the fort, on the hill where some of the trees are dying and where some of the trees were cut for fuel last winter by the CCC camp when they ran short of coal.

I have some 20 lbs. of grass seed that is in the process of being cleaned and I hope to get [it] planted this next month. It is taking me longer to clean the seed than I thought, as each seed is covered with small cotton-like hairs that cling to the grass stems and is hard to shake out. [992]

In November 1937 Heaton reported, "On Oct. 26 and Nov. 15, I planted about 5 pounds of grass seed, collected on the monument, and 25 pounds of greasewood seed, on the southeast quarter of the monument which has in the past been farmed. I want to get a lot more seed planted on the bare spots this fall." [993] Asking the CCC boys for help in ridding the monument of weeds was always risky, as their efforts were usually nonselective. Once when Heaton asked them to eradicate weeds, they cut down most of his rose bushes that had been planted at the head of the meadow. "Doesn't look like I will be able to grow anything there 'til the camp moves out," Heaton once lamented. [994]

During the fall of 1937, the monument's first administrative buildings were constructed. In September the monument's old Dodge truck (transferred from the Bureau of Public Roads in 1936) was replaced with a new Ford pickup. In November Leonard Heaton's old board and batten sided barn, sited near the monument's south boundary, was remodeled into a temporary, shed-roofed garage to house the new truck. Work consisted of partitioning off one end of the barn, cutting in double doors, reroofing, and installing a flagstone floor, a workbench, and new windows. [995] At about the same time an oil and gas house, a 6 x 6-foot underground structure, was built about 40 feet north of the garage. [996] This dugout was constructed with stone walls, a sandstone floor, and pole and earth roof. It was large enough to store five drums of gasoline. Heaton and a small crew of CCC boys completed both buildings. Kuehl inspected the two buildings on November 24. Tools and gas, previously stored in the east cabin, were then moved to the new garage, and the east cabin cleaned out so it could be better exhibited along with the fort as a historic building. Heaton said the east cabin "had been used as a tool house and work room for about four years and very few got to see inside of it [during that time]." [997]

It was during the fall of 1937 that the question was raised once again by Park Service officials about the usefulness of the CCC camp at Pipe Spring. Pinkley sent the monthly report for Pipe Spring to Acting Regional Director Herbert Maier in September, while pointing out that Grazing Service allotments of about $50 per month for Park Service projects had only continued for a few months prior to June 30. Pinkley reported,

No such contribution has been made since that date and it is my recommendation that unless some practical benefit to the Park Service can accrue from the location of the camp on this small monument, the camp should be withdrawn... If the use of our land and our water are of no value to the camp and the Grazing Division is not willing to recognize the value they can have no logical objection to removing the camp from the monument premises. [998]

Pinkley would not object to the camp remaining, "if some satisfactory contribution to monument projects can be arranged," he wrote. Otherwise, he wanted them out. Maier forwarded Pinkley's letter to Director Cammerer, stating the regional office was "thoroughly in accord" with Pinkley's suggestion that some benefit should be derived from DG-44. [999] The threat of being expelled from the monument worked. The Division of Grazing agreed on November 10 to allot a fixed amount of $50 per month to purchase materials for approved ECW jobs at the monument. In exchange, the Park Service agreed to provide another truck to Heaton that would be shared with the Grazing Service. The same number of CCC enrollees were still to be allotted for monument projects, as in the past. [1000] The availability of a predictable source of money gave Pinkley new hope that the monument water system could soon be constructed thereby permitting other planned development to move forward. In December he requested that the Branch of Plans and Design prepare and submit preliminary plans for the monument's utility and residential areas. The development plans approved for the monument are shown on the monument's master plan. The location of existing CCC camp buildings and proposed monument developments are shown in dashed lines on the master plan (see figure 81).

81. Plan of the Monument, part of 1937 Master Plan for Pipe Spring National Monument
(Courtesy National Archives, Record Group 79).
(click on image for an enlargement in a new window - ~128K)

In the early fall of 1937, an outbreak of typhoid occurred in Moccasin and on the nearby Kaibab Indian Reservation. Pinkley first got word of it when Heaton's monthly report for September stated that his 10-year old daughter, Maxine, had contracted the disease. U.S. Public Health Service Senior Sanitary Engineer H. B. Hommon got wind of this and directed Pinkley to find out from Heaton where the girl had been two weeks prior to having the illness. Heaton wrote Pinkley that she had been in Moccasin, where the whole family was living at the time, prior to her becoming ill. He added,

It was not until a week later that we had any idea as to where she might of contracted the disease, when it was reported by the Doctor that is in charge of the Indians of the Kaibab Reservation that three of them had typhoid. Also that there was two cases in Fredonia, Arizona.

Immediately samples of the water was sent off for testing and report came back that the drinking water was very badly contaminated and the drinking water was chlorinated. There is being a close check kept on the water supply at Moccasin.

My idea of the cause of the contamination was due to the recent storms or the rains that came prior to Maxine and the Indians contracting the disease, washing the soil and animal material into the head of the water system. It has been 12 years since we had any cases of typhoid here. I was the last [case] and don't know where I got it from. [1001]

The outbreak appears to have gone no further at the time than these six cases. Such an outbreak of disease was, of course, exactly what Dr. Farrow had long feared and why he was so adamant about keeping domestic livestock and geese away from Moccasin Spring, the primary source of the Indians' culinary water. Three years later, during October 1940 and less than a weak after Leonard Heaton's family moved back to the monument, Heaton's four-year-old son Sherwin became ill with what was eventually diagnosed as typhoid. He most likely contracted the illness in Moccasin, as that is where the family was living just prior to moving back to the monument. Under the care of Dr. Marsh and the Heaton family, he recovered from the illness.

Emergency Conservation Work projects continued at Pipe Spring National Monument during December 1937. Three truckloads of clay were hauled in to be used to line the irrigation ditches in the monument. In addition, the road from the west pond to the west entrance was graveled and five silver-leaf cottonwoods were planted around the pond banks to replace trees that had died and been removed. The ECW blacksmith worked on making fireplace grills for the campground in late 1937, though the stone fireplaces had yet to be constructed. During the summer and fall, work on the drinking fountain, watering trough, and picnic tables was ongoing. These were all completed by late December. The 30-inch tall drinking fountain was made of red sandstone with a stone step on its south side to accommodate children. It was located on the south side of the ponds, just east of the steps of the walkway that passed between the fort ponds. The watering trough was carved from a 2.5 x 10-foot poplar log set on two rock footings. Its interior was lined with galvanized sheet iron. The trough was located south of the monument road and west of the fort ponds. The water was supplied to the trough and fountain through a one-inch pipeline from the main spring. [1002] During December the six new picnic tables and benches were put in temporary locations in the campground to leave new plantings undisturbed. (None of these features — drinking fountain, watering trough, or picnic tables — exist today.)

Thus by the end of 1937, Pipe Spring had a useable campground, complete with tables and irrigated landscaping. But where, oh where, were the visitors? Visitation figures for 1937 were 667, an all-time low. [1003] Although the ECW crews worked to improve the dirt road from Fredonia, its conditions were still as unpredictable as the weather. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that a better approach road was needed, preferably one that would entice tourists to come by way of Pipe Spring. Such a road was under consideration during the late 1930s and is discussed in two later sections.