Whtie Sands Administrative History

Perhaps because of Charles' admonitions, the NPS moved quickly to resolve outstanding disputes over land and water claims in and around the monument. In February 1939, Vernon Randau of the Santa Fe office, Tom Charles, and NPS attorney Albert Johnson met with Oliver Lee, the previous owner of Dog Canyon ranch, to determine the history of Judge Lawson's purchase and usage of the property's spring water. Lee advised a rerouting of the White Sands pipeline to avoid damage from flash floods in the narrow ravines of the Sacramento mountains. Then in late February, another local rancher offered to sell his water rights to the park service. Andrew J. Taylor claimed that his property lay closer to the dunes, and could reduce the length of the pipeline by almost eight miles. Because Judge Lawson had yet to relinquish his claim, Taylor's offer, while dubious, had to be surveyed. Taylor wanted $16,000 for the rights to one spring in Dog Canyon, and $20,000 more for other springs in San Andreas Canyon. NPS staff rejected Taylor's plan, holding that Lawson's water was the most efficient and economic alternative for cost and distance. [83]

White Sands turned a corner in its quest for control of its water supply in the spring and summer of 1939, as Judge Lawson bowed to legal pressure by releasing his water rights. Coincidentally, the Lucero family (former owners of the land around Lake Lucero) asked the park service for permission to lease 23 1/2 sections (15,040 acres) of monument land for grazing. They had not exercised their grazing rights since the 1920s, but tried to restore their family's cattle business. The NPS believed that the Luceros could not make money on the land in question, and took no action on the request. [84]

The successful closure of the land and water cases involving White Sands eased the problem of visitation in Tom Charles' last year as custodian. Johnwill Faris proved to be a more diplomatic park ranger than had Jim Felton, relieving Charles' anxieties about visitor contact. In the early months of 1939 the monument prospered, with word in January that Fox Pictures would come east from Hollywood to film "an Arabian scene." The movie boasted the talents of cowboy star John Mack Brown, and the prominent leading lady Cecelia Parker. This would be the first of dozens of films, and later television shows, set in the White Sands. Not to be outdone by Fox, the Southern Pacific railroad asked Charles for color slides to be mounted on display at the San Francisco World's Fair. Then Jack McFarland, a filmmaker from El Paso, wanted to come to the dunes to make a newsreel of the Fox production. He had shot footage at White Sands in 1925 for "Fox News," and thought that audiences would appreciate scenes of camera crews at work in the desert. [85]

This momentum did not last, as in February Tom Charles received word that FDR's Bureau of the Budget (the predecessor of the Office of Management and Budget) had decided that "either automobile license or guide fees should be charged at the National Monuments." White Sands, "with its single entrance portal" to control traffic flow, and its high visitation, "presents one of the most favorable points at which to try out the fee" of 25 cents per person, or 50 cents per car, said Pinkley. Johnwill Faris demurred, citing a lack of staff to handle fees, and the absence of any completed museum exhibits. Tom Charles asked Pinkley to institute at once the 50-cent car fee so that visitors could become acquainted with the new policy "before the crowded season. " Pinkley, in his usual fashion, told Charles that no new staff would be forthcoming. "We are just being asked," said the superintendent, "as we often are, to go ahead and do the impossible and we will . . . as we often do, go ahead and get it done somehow." [86]

What ensued (as Pinkley had predicted) was a firestorm of local protest that nearly ruined Tom Charles' last summer as the White Sands custodian. Reactions ranged from a temperate plea from the Alamogordo chamber of commerce to Harold Ickes, Interior secretary, to the accosting on an Alamogordo street of Johnwill Faris by H. H. Stevenson, one of the promoters of creation of the monument. On weekends, ranger Faris spent 16-17 hours daily at the dunes, "borrowing" WPA crew members to provide security and maintenance. Faris also faced the aggravation of "turnarounds," local vehicles filled with visitors who refused to pay the entrance fee once they had driven the fifteen miles out from town. Then the numbers came in: June 1939 had only 2,429 paid admissions; a decline of 75 percent from the previous June. The Albuquerque Journal attributed nearly all the visitation decrease throughout the SWNM system to the White Sands fee, calling it "just another tax that is unjust and detrimental." The charge prohibited visitors from gaining access to their own park service unit, and perhaps more seriously, kept "much money out of the cash registers of businessmen in the vicinity." [87]

Figure 24. Tom Charles' touring car for The White Sands Service Company (1930s).
(Courtesy White Sands National Monument)