Whtie Sands Administrative History

The Garton well issue would mature the following year (1935), as would plans drafted in November 1934 by Robert Rose for a museum at White Sands. For the next six years the park service would design, construct, and outfit a museum and visitors center at the dunes that park officials would consider one of the best in the system. Pinkley's assistant superintendent predicted that the facility, which Rose wanted built in the shape of a cross (with a lobby in the center and exhibit space on the wings), would address three themes: high visitation; the need to explain simply the dunes' complex ecosystem; and the real probability of expansion in the future. "Here in the White Sands," said Rose, "we have one of the finest places in the National Park Service system to teach that principle of 'Adaptation to Environment."' Just one year earlier, the NPS had released a study by George M. Wright, et al., Fauna of the National Parks of the United States (1933). The authors called upon the park service and Congress, in the words of Alfred Runte, to "round out the parks as effective biological units." The monument may have been reduced in size because of commercial and political pressures, but Rose believed that enough remained of the dunes "to satisfy that intellectual curiosity by bringing people in contact with the natural wonder or scientific feature itself." [27]

Rose's recommendations became the baseline data for the next six years of museum planning and construction. The facility itself would not open to the public until 1938. Yet his idea to emphasize natural history over that of humans was in keeping with NPS logic to present the story that the park itself revealed. Rose did, however, cite the need to embrace more fully the life of the nearby Mescalero Apaches. A young anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania, Moms Opler, had researched the Mescaleros and other bands of Apaches in the 1930s Southwest, and spoke in September 1933 at the dunes to a group of Alamogordo Rotarians about "the habits of the Mescalero." Rose knew of local interest in these native people, and reported to the NPS: "Unless some archeological national monument reasonably close to the Mescalero Reservation can lay stronger claim to a full and complete treatment of the Mescalero Apache, these modern Indians should be made the subject of exhibits" at White Sands. [28]

The theories of Robert Rose had a basis in fact, as White Sands would count 34,000 visitors in both 1934 and 1935. Tom Charles constructed a registration box at the park entrance, asking patrons to indicate their hometowns and size of party. He did so only after Superintendent Pinkley requested "a detailed report of the contact which I [Charles] make about the White Sands;" a condition he considered "too big an order at the present salary [$1 per month]." Charles would make an average of three trips per week to the dunes, stopping cars of picnickers to inquire about their well-being. Charles also met a steady stream of visitors in his Alamogordo insurance office, and handled all correspondence, publicity, and report-writing there. Among the less pleasant aspects of Charles' custodial work were the appeals of the unemployed for work. One such individual was W.A. Warford, a 48-year old San Franciscan who had not worked for four years. Needing to support his wife and five young children, Warford wrote to Charles seeking a position as a foreman in a White Sands CCC camp (which unfortunately did not exist). [29]

For every W.A. Warford, however, there were other information-seekers more interested in the growing publicity around the dunes. The newly elected governor of New Mexico, Clyde A. Tingley, would make tourism promotion a critical feature of his economic program. The first liberal Democrat to sit in the governor's office in the 1930s, Tingley assiduously cultivated President Roosevelt and his New Deal officers, often joining FDR when the polio-stricken president spent time in the nearby Hot Springs/Elephant Butte area. Tingley would also apply for every conceivable federal grant, and work with the state's congressional delegation to receive dispensations from matching-funds regulations (by 1938 New Mexico ranked last nationally in its share of state matching funds; three-quarters of one percent). This would benefit the Tularosa basin and White Sands financially, but would also intensify the political influence of the Democratic party, which had not been able to overcome the power of the Republican/Bronson Cutting network (to which Tom Charles belonged). [30]

The state's initiative in tourism promotion found an eager participant in Charles. As the "temporary" custodian learned more about the growing national fascination with the dunes, he developed new plans for maximizing publicity. The photographs and text of the July 1935 National Geographic Magazine story pleased Charles when he saw an advance copy. "We will make any sacrifice to get a good spread in the National Geographic," Charles told NPS photographer George Grant. Friends wrote Charles when they read the story, such as W.D. Bryars, one of the early promoters of the monument. "It is a master stroke and means a very great deal," said the Santa Fe judge, who concluded: "The people of [southern New Mexico] and of the entire state are eternally in your debt." [31]

The National Geographic article triggered a substantial increase in visitation and out-of-state inquiries to the New Mexico state tourism office. Charles furthered this effort with inauguration in early May of "Play Day," a gathering of Otero County school children, their teachers and parents. Building upon the success the previous year with the dedication ceremonies, Charles saw Play Day as an excellent opportunity to reward the citizens of the Tularosa basin for their support. More than 3,500 people gathered for a picnic, concert, and games at the dunes. Among the attendees were 35 children from the Mescalero Apache reservation school; a sign of Tom Charles' continuing commitment to incorporate them into the monument. Play Day thus became the centerpiece of White Sands' activities, expanding within a few years to include schoolchildren and college students from west Texas and southern New Mexico. [32]

Its success, and that of the park service at the dunes, also impressed Thomas Boles, superintendent at the nearby Carlsbad Caverns. Boles, whose lukewarm endorsement of the creation of White Sands had required the second opinion of Roger Toll, had reason within four years to change his mind. "I have always felt," said Boles, "that the Caverns' biggest competitor in the Southwest was the Grand Canyon." After the summer travel season of 1935, however, "the showing made by the White Sands" led Boles to realize that "perhaps my real competitor is much closer," a situation that would become even more apparent when "you [Charles] get a paved highway between Alamogordo and Las Cruces." [33]

Figure 8. Roadside Sign for White Sands West of Alamogordo (1930s).
(Courtesy White Sands National Monument)