PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

Museum Collection

In addition to the 1951 donation of Anson P. Winsor's gun, mentioned earlier, in March 1952 the monument received a small picture of William (Bill or Gunlock) Haynes Hamblin from his great-granddaughter, Velma L. Jepson of Alpine, Arizona. During the same month, Heaton reported that he went northeast of the monument with Ralph Castro and "found an old Paiute Indian burden basket at an old campsite. Took some pictures as we found it in a cedar tree. The basket is pretty well broken up." [1609] In March 1953 Maggie Heaton (Leonard Heaton's mother) donated some antique English china and an oil painting of the Toroweap area of the Grand Canyon, approximately 30 x 18 inches in size. [1610] The artist was Loren Covington and the painting (in 1953) was believed to be about 35 years old.

In April 1954 Heaton took a box of iron objects from the museum collection to Zion to be sent to Washington for conservation treatment. These were returned in November 1954. Heaton worked during the fall of 1954 cleaning and repairing wooden artifacts in the museum's collection. In January 1955 Zion officials gave Heaton three museum cases to take back to Pipe Spring. He placed one of them in the east upstairs room of the north wing of the fort and filled it with "old guns, shells, slugs, bullets molds, and loaders." [1611] The materials were identified with typed labels. In November 1955 Heaton received a museum donation of a roll-top desk, used in Orderville, Utah, in the 1870s. [1612]

Heaton sometimes prepared snake skins for the museum's display. On May 23, 1955, he reported, "Killed a large rattlesnake just east of the fort. Skinned it for museum. Placed the king snake skins on exhibit in the fort." [1613] (Heaton noted in his monthly report for May 1954 that snakes and lizards tended to make their appearance at the monument in July and August, "during the hottest weather.") It appears that Heaton's popular caged reptile exhibit was no longer on display during the 1950s, as he makes no mention of it.