PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

The Hurricane-Fredonia Road

In late January 1940, Heaton learned that the Indian Service was surveying a new road through the reservation. Two of the Indian Service's road engineers, District Engineer Norman B. Conway from Spokane, Washington, and Regional Engineer Alma Pratt from the Ouray and Uintah Agency, Ft. Duchesne, Utah, met with Leonard Heaton on January 27, 1940, to discuss the approach road alignment that was being considered. The proposed route would have traversed land below the monument's south boundary.

On February 23, 1940, when Heaton noticed the Indian Service's surveyors running a line through the archeological ruins south of the monument, he advised the engineer that they were staking the road through an important ruin. [1110] Heaton had only recently learned - at the custodians' conference in Coolidge - of his responsibilities regarding archeological sites on public lands. On February 26 Heaton made a sketch map of the ruin, gathered some archeological samples from the area, and sent these along with a report to headquarters about the Indian Service's plans to lay a road through the ruins. Superintendent Miller immediately sent a telegram to Regional Director Hillory A. Tolson in Santa Fe that said,

Custodian Heaton reports proposed new alignment by Indian Service of Fredonia to Short Creek to Zion highway transects extensive pueblo ruin on Kaibab Indian Reservation few hundred feet south of Pipe Springs Boundary. His random surface collection shows classic pueblo sherds. Urge immediate investigation by Nusbaum. [1111]

Tolson contacted the director's office in Washington, D.C., about the matter. (Soon after, on April 13, 1940, Tolson left the regional director's position so was no longer involved in the road issue.) Director Cammerer's office in turn discussed the matter with Office of Indian Affairs Commissioner John Collier. Associate Director Demaray then directed Regional Archeologist Jesse L. Nusbaum to meet with Indian Service officials for an investigation of the site. The meeting was held on March 19, 1940. Nusbaum brought with him 82-year old Santiago Naranjo of Pueblo Santa Clara, New Mexico. [1112] Engineers Conway and Pratt returned to the Kaibab Indian Reservation for this meeting in a very angry state. Furious about having to return and to change road plans (since Heaton had not raised the issue of the ruins in January), the engineers insisted the Park Service pay their travel expenses. To that, Nusbaum replied that the Inter-Bureau Agreement of December 26, 1939, called for each Service to cover its own travel expenses when such matters arose. Heaton said in his own defense that he had not been aware of his responsibilities regarding archeological sites until he attended the custodian's conference in February. Then Nusbaum learned that during Conway and Pratt's earlier visit the road wasn't staked to the monument's southeast corner and that Heaton only knew they contemplated surveying westward across the reservation, but did not know the specifics of the route. After the four men surveyed the Late Pueblo II site south of the monument, the Indian Service engineers proposed a solution which would have placed the center line of the east-west road right on the monument's southern boundary, partially using the route of the monument's stock driveway (drive).

At this point, it is necessary to interject the history of the monument's stock drive. At the time the monument was established, as well as long before, the old Kaibab Wagon Road which passed between the fort ponds and the fort (sometimes referred to later as the "old monument road") served as a stock drive. Nusbaum recalled that either Mather or Albright wished to terminate such use of the road but the Indian Service refused to provide any land for a stock drive that would bypass the monument. As a result, the Park Service created a 15-foot wide, fenced stock drive along its southern boundary (as well as for some distance along the east boundary) on its own lands. [1113] What the Indian Service engineers proposed in 1940 was that the Park Service donate this driveway plus an additional 17 feet of monument land for the north half of the road right-of-way. This would have resulted in the loss of 33 feet of Park Service land across the monument's entire width. In return, the reservation would give up 33 feet of reservation land for the road right-of-way (a total of 66 feet was required). Nusbaum reported, "This proposed location is satisfactory from the archeological standpoint. There is no surface evidence to indicate that any subterranean features, burials or structures, would be involved." [1114]

In his report Nusbaum also made a brief reference to the suggestion (made on numerous occasions by others) that the archeological ruins become part of the monument through a formal expansion of its boundaries. "The inclusion of the mound... would be desirable but I am doubtful, in the light of past problems in the area and attitudes, if the Indian Service would favorably consider any proposal to incorporate this site as a part of the Monument area." [1115] Nusbaum's report on the March 19 meeting with Pratt and Conway was not written up and sent to the Washington office until September 1940. By this time, Newton B. Drury had succeeded Cammerer as Park Service director.

Heaton reported in late August 1940 that he had learned that the Indian Service was not interested in any road improvements other than those for the road from Fredonia eastward, stopping just short of the monument, where it intersected with the road leading north to reservation headquarters, Kaibab Village. They did not intend to do any work on the road from the monument westward to the Utah state line. [1116] During August 1940 the Mohave County Commissioner visited the monument and told Heaton the county was furnishing cement and the Grazing Service's CCC camps were going to furnish labor to grade and gravel the road from Fredonia to the Utah line west of Short Creek, a length of 50 miles.

To return to the subject of Nusbaum's report and the Indian Service engineers' recommendations, Acting Chief of Planning Albert H. Good reviewed and commented on this report to the regional director in late September who, as of August 8, 1940, was Minor R. Tillotson. Good wrote,

With the vast area of desert type country surrounding the monument it would seem logical that a road location could be found to the south of the archeological site without the necessity of reducing the already small monument area and further, a road location along the south boundary of the monument would place all travel in close proximity to the proposed utility area with little opportunity for screening. [1117]

Good requested comments from the regional office prior to a submission of his own recommendations to Director Drury. Tillotson was temporarily detailed to the Washington office. The response came from Acting Regional Director Milo F. Christiansen who informed Drury that the issue had been considered during a staff conference held on October 12, 1940. While they concurred with Good that a location south of the ruins would be preferable to one that required giving up monument land, "the Indian Service would probably voice serious objections," Christiansen wrote, all of which related to increased expense. Engineer Conway had already raised these objections during the March 19 meeting with Nusbaum. Apparently the Park Service was planning to construct an approach road which would eventually replace the "contemplated low standard Indian Service road," argued Christiansen, so why not proceed with recommendation of Nusbaum and the Indian Service engineers as a "generous gesture" of cooperation with the Indian Service? [1118]

Neither Al Kuehl nor Harvey Cornell approved of this plan, but either were not consulted on the issue or were overruled. Both preferred to see the road follow the route proposed by the Bureau of Public Roads in 1937 that passed south of the archeological ruins, a route then opposed by Dr. Farrow. After more than 20 years of conflict with the reservation's superintendent, perhaps Hugh Miller had no desire to start a new "war" with Dr. Farrow over the road issue. He too preferred the road be moved south of the ruins, but in late October he concurred with the regional office's decision to grant the Indian Service the proposed right-of-way along the monument's southern edge. [1119]

By the end of October 1940, the Grazing Service had its three area CCC camps at work on the road from Fredonia to Short Creek. The completed road was to be 20 feet wide and gravel surfaced. [1120] Once the worst of winter weather set in, roadwork had to be suspended. When the roads began to dry out the following March, Heaton reported the three CCC camps went back to work on the road project. In addition, the Indian Service contributed a crew of 20 men and five trucks for hauling gravel. (Documentation suggests the Indian Service committed to grading and graveling a six-mile section of road east of the monument.) New bridges were also under construction in connection with the roadwork. Progress in roadwork by the Indian Service was hampered by a fluctuating work force. [1121] Still, Heaton hoped the improvements accomplished in 1940 and 1941 would increase monument visitation. In fact, it appears to have done just that, for visitation went from 1,141 in 1940 to 1,934 in 1941, an increase of 59 percent.

During Al Kuehl's inspection visit to the monument on May 1, 1941, he learned that the Indian Service was willing to discuss siting the road "in accordance with the wishes of the Park Service." [1122] (This may have been due to Acting Chief Engineer Brown's intervention.) Kuehl informed Miller of this turn of events on May 8. Miller wrote to the regional office the following week, suggesting that it might be just the time to push once more for locating the road further south rather than across the monument's southern edge. Miller had hopes that the Grazing Service camps could perform the roadwork. [1123] Regional Director Tillotson in turn contacted Director Drury about the matter in June. Miller had heard nothing by late August, so contacted Tillotson again. This time he suggested the Park Service could take responsibility for the short section of road, possibly in cooperation with the Grazing Service. Miller hoped that a crew could be assigned for the job as had been done for the fort stabilization work earlier that year. [1124]

On October 21, 1941, a year after the National Park Service had conceded the monument's stock drive as a right-of-way to the Indian Service road engineers, now Chief of Planning Thomas C. Vint called a meeting in the Washington office on the road situation. Attendees included Regional Director Tillotson and Indian Service engineers Brown and Towle. Brown knew nothing of the road situation or of Nusbaum's visit to the area in March to meet with Conway and Pratt. He was not opposed to moving the road location to a place approximating the Park Service's 1937 preliminary study. Brown inquired if the location desired by the Park Service was connected with a desire to add the Indian ruins to the monument, and was told that its only concern was to achieve the best possible location for the road. [1125] Vint and Tillotson learned that the Indian Service planned only to finish the road to a stretch east of Pipe Spring and to run an all-weather road out to Moccasin. Their work would stop a mile or two east of the monument. (This was information Heaton had provided Hugh Miller in August 1940.) Vint later wrote,

The problem of the location around Pipe Springs National Monument will be dormant until the road is continued westward by the Park Service, the Grazing Service, or as a secondary road by the State of Arizona.

From this discussion we conclude that the Indian Service is no longer interested in where the road might be relocated with respect to the south boundary of the Monument and the nearby archeological remains. Apparently there would now be no objections to a location approximately 600 feet south of the monument, such as would bypass the mound.

There appears to be no further consideration necessary until such time as some agency proposes to construct the relocated road past the monument. [1126]

This is where the road issue reached a dead-end. Since any improvements depended heavily on CCC work crews and as only the County or Indian Service could provide funding, there was little the Park Service could do. Besides, by the end of 1941, there was a war on.