PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

Visitation

Visitation figures for Pipe Spring National Monument show a gradual increase during the early 1950s, rising from 2,104 in 1951 to 4,641 in 1955. [1576]

Easter weekends continued to be a busy time at Pipe Spring. Perhaps because weekends were his usual days off (except for the summer travel season), Heaton was away for the Easter weekend of March 24 and 25, 1951. "My children were in charge of the place," he later reported. Sons Lowell and Leonard P. provided guide service that Easter Sunday and looked after the crowd of 163 people who came for their holiday outing. [1577] Visitation during the Easter weekend of 1952 was high. Fredonia had a community outing at the monument on Saturday, April 12, with 215 attending. On Easter Sunday, another 84 visitors came. School outings that month brought the monthly total to 449 people, about one-fifth of the year's total. In 1953 the Easter weekend once again brought a large number of monument visitors. Warm weather and good road conditions probably contributed to the combined crowd of 552 who came that weekend. The Easter holiday (April 17 and 18) in 1954 brought 632 people to the monument. An all afternoon ball game was held in the meadow that Easter Sunday. On May 15, 1954, a single group of 350 people from St. George came to visit the monument.

93. Joseph Frank Winsor, age 88, taken August 31, 1951 (Photograph by Leonard Heaton, Pipe Spring National Monument, neg. 489).

For the first time, Heaton got official permission from Zion to hire help for the Easter weekend of 1955. Heaton hired his son Sherwin to help with the expected crowds. That weekend (April 9 and 10) brought 721 visitors to the monument. The fort was open for people to come and go through at will; no guided tours were offered. At about 4:30 p.m. on Easter Sunday, a large cottonwood on the west side of the path between the ponds blew down, having been loosened the previous week by high winds. Fortunately, no injuries occurred. A few days later, Leonard and Edna Heaton worked two days cutting up the tree, hauling away the wood, and removing the stump.

During August 1951, two family reunions were held at the monument, the Parker family reunion on August 25 (61 people) and the Winsor family reunion on August 31 (65 people). Joseph Frank Winsor of Enterprise, Utah, the only living child of Bishop Anson P. Winsor, attended the latter gathering (see figure 93). Heaton pumped him for historical facts and reported later, "I got many good bits of information on things at the fort, as to how they built and uses made. Will get them written down ..." The reunion also appears to have prompted the donation of Bishop Winsor's 1848 muzzle-loading shotgun to the monument at this time or shortly thereafter. The evening after the Winsor reunion, Heaton hosted 80-90 Kanab Stake primary school girls who came to the monument for an evening supper. [1578]

Other Winsor family members visited the monument during the 1950s, including Ellis Hatch, (grandson of Bishop Winsor) and his wife on February 8, 1953, and other unidentified Winsor family members on August 21, 1953.

On June 2, 1951, the annual Arizona Strip Community Association barbecue was held at Pipe Spring National Monument. The event was attended by 310 people from Fredonia, Moccasin, Short Creek, Hurricane, Kingman, and LaVerkin. The crowd included some local officials, including Senator Clyde Bolenger of Mohave County, the mayor of Hurricane, Asa W. Judd, as well an Indian Service official, Superintendent Forrest R. Stone (Uintah Indian Reservation). "All seemed to have a good time and plenty to eat," Heaton reported. [1579]

A number of college student groups from California visited the monument during 1954. On April 11, 1954, Heaton had a party of 24 from Reedley College (Reedley, California) camp in the campground. On April 14, 38 cars and 110 students from Pasadena College arrived to camp at the monument. Also in 1954, a large group of fathers and sons of the Aaronic Priesthood, St. George Stake, visited the monument. The group was there for only three hours to picnic, but they brought 60 cars and 305 people. Heaton was challenged, he later wrote, in keeping the boys "from tearing the place down" since they were poorly supervised by their fathers. Some damage was done and a carpenter's plane was stolen. [1580]

Security of the historic buildings and their displays was always one of Custodian Heaton's concerns. On the weekend of September 9-11, 1954, Fredonia High School brought 50 students to the monument for an outing. Several of the boys broke the door in and others scaled the fort walls. Upon later inspection, Heaton could find none of the collection disturbed. "They should have asked to be shown in by some member of the family," Heaton later wrote. "We always have our trouble with the local people." [1581]

In March 1955 Heaton entertained a troop of 27 boy scouts from Cedar City, Utah, on a three-day outing to the monument. He spent time each day with the troop, joining them on Pipe Spring area field trips and giving them campfire talks. In late July, 186 primary school students from Kanab Stake had an evening outing at Pipe Spring. Heaton took part in a program for the children in which he assumed the role of an Indian chief. [1582]

On Labor Day weekend in 1955, the Heaton family held a family reunion on the monument. A total of 85 cars brought 521 members of the Heaton family for the event, described by Leonard Heaton as "an all day and evening affair." Heaton wrote in his journal that evening, "There were five Heaton brothers who settled in Orderville, Utah [in] 1879 and [these men] were very prominent in building this country." [1583]