Whtie Sands Administrative History

The strain under which White Sands operated by the mid-1950s echoed that of park service units across the country. Demands for improved services and better access to the system's treasures prompted NPS officials to inaugurate a ten-year plan called "Mission 66." Planned to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the park service, Mission 66 began with a system-wide series of "area management studies." The regional team sent to the dunes in 1956 included James Carpenter (administrative officer), Philip Wohlbrandt (engineer), Erik Reed (chief of interpretation), and David Canfield (chief of operations). They produced a lengthy document in January 1957 that explained for the first time the scale and scope of White Sands, and offered suggestions for remedies to the problems that Johnwill Faris and his staff knew so well.

The area management study began by noting White Sands' size (seventh in acreage of the system's 85 monuments). The team identified boundary status problems with the neighboring military bases, and also the heavy volume of local visitation "on special occasions." Among its Mission 66 recommendations were permanent and seasonal employee housing to aid staff in the volatile real-estate market of Alamogordo, and reduction by means of a "diplomatic effort" in the number of "local celebrations." Among these were Play Day and the Fourth of July fireworks; the latter a fire hazard in the heat and crowds of mid-summer (both events were terminated by 1960). The team called for additional full-time staff (a naturalist and museum attendant); extensive repairs to buildings (painting and sealing); steam-cleaning of garbage cans to improve sanitation: and the incorporation of these recommendations within the next three years. [11]

Regional officials in Santa Fe reviewed the White Sands Mission 66 report, but failed to recognize the severity of conditions at the monument. Johnwill Faris spoke bluntly in September 1957 when he learned that the region disagreed with his "justification of our extension of picnic facilities and enlargement of our Visitor Center building." Faris found most annoying the region's "request for brevity," in that he had linked expansion of the physical plant to the increase of visitation. "Whether we like it or not," said Faris, "our area is of the type that is very popular with picnickers." Referring to the review team's study, he reminded his superiors that "according to estimates made during our early years of development, our present unit is ideal for approximately 50,000 visitors per year." Showing little patience with the rhetoric of Mission 66, Faris concluded: "Present inadequacies must be corrected and an expansion program inaugurated, or we will fall increasingly short of our Service goal with the passing years." [12]

Johnwill Faris' confrontation with his superiors reached a critical stage in 1960, after fifteen years of explosive growth at the monument. In his 22nd year at White Sands (21 as superintendent), Faris had labored under the strain of visitation, environment, and NPS management to make the dunes become a professional and respected unit of the park service. The strain showed, however, when George Medlicott of the regional office filed a "Master Plan for the Preservation and Use of White Sands National Monument." For Medlicott, the central feature of White Sands' planning was alleviation of the crush of vehicles at the entrance station, immediately west of the visitors center. Over 100,000 cars passed through the narrow two-lane portal, at a rate estimated at one car every 50 seconds during operating hours. Faris had been asked by Mission 66 planners four years earlier to predict visitation for the next two decades, and believed that the figure of 1.3 million was "not very far off . . . and will be reached and passed by 1975." Medlicott, while not using that number, nonetheless told NPS officials that access, parking, residential housing, and utilities all needed upgrading and expansion to meet whatever visitation increases that Mission 66 scenarios would require. [13]

Publicly, Johnwill Faris spoke optimistically that year of the benefits to accrue to White Sands from Mission 66 work. In May he wrote for the regional office's monthly report: "Our first taste of this marvelous program has been the awarding of contracts for 40 new shades and tables, as well as 56 new garbage disposal units, and the same number of fireplaces." The concession business would also benefit from these facilities, even though the Tom Charles family had sold their interest in 1954 to Robert Koonce of Alamogordo. Koonce tried to maintain the level of service demanded by the visitors, but found the task overwhelming. In 1960 he in turn sold the concession to local businessman G. Clyde Hammett, who offered to invest $40,000 in a new facility separate from monument headquarters. Hammett, who also anticipated strong sales volume from the Mission 66 program, led Faris to report: "We can expect much greater service with the expansion of facilities that is planned." [14]

What Faris did not say about Mission 66 was that NPS superiors had decided not only not to expand along the lines of the master plan. They also revived old arguments from the days of Tom Charles first as custodian, then concessionaire, to dispute the findings of Medlicott and Faris. Sanford Hill, chief of the division of design and construction for the NPS western office in San Francisco, informed the regional director in April 1961 that the problem at White Sands was the character, not the volume, of visitation. "It appears that the concession is mainly used by local people who come to the Monument as a substitute for a city park," said Hill. "This local use in turn," he continued, "has created the traffic problems which now exist." Hill believed that "rather than giving further encouragement to such use by expanding concession facilities," the NPS should "consider the possibility of eliminating the concession entirely and simply installing soft-drink machines." Hill further blamed the Charles family for the expansionist mentality in the area, saying that the park service had to "accommodate" them with the concession contract. Now that the family had left the business, said Hill, "we are apparently relieved of our obligation to retain a concession for their benefit." This would negate any need for a state highway interchange at the entrance (which would be charged to the NPS), and would also inhibit the ambitions of Clyde Hammett, whom Hill suspected of being "interested primarily in developing a saleable [concession] facility." [15]

One could hear in Sanford Hill's memorandum the voice of Frank Pinkley and other NPS officials who had despaired of the intense localism surrounding White Sands at its creation. Ironically, Hill gave no credit to Johnwill Faris for laboring for 22 years to professionalize the monument in the face of great odds. That same year as the master plan appeared, Faris suffered a severe kidney infection that required major surgery in El Paso, and a lengthy recovery period in late 1960. NPS officials then discussed with Faris (now a 34-year veteran of the service) the need to provide White Sands with new management. Faris and his wife, Lena, would leave in January 1961 for Platt National Park, a small unit in southeastern Oklahoma, where he would remain two years as superintendent before retirement. [16]

Faris' departure marked the end of an era at White Sands; the period of creation and development of one of the most visible monuments in the park service system. Sanford Hill notwithstanding, this process owed much to the attention paid by Charles and Faris to local interests. These in turn rewarded Faris with a good life as a prominent community member. Donald Dayton, White Sands superintendent in the mid-1960s, recalled that static conditions within NPS management in the 1950s had kept Faris from advancing his career by moving to a larger park. Yet Lena Faris, remembering their life at the dunes from a mother's perspective, noted that the stability permitted their sons James and Kenneth to graduate from the local public schools, and to have many lifelong friends in Alamogordo. Johnwill served in 1950 as president of the local chamber of commerce, which in January 1961 held a luncheon attended by over 100 guests in honor of himself and his wife. There the grateful citizenry recognized Johnwill's and Lena's work in "Rainbow, DeMolay, Chamber of Commerce, PTA and other civic functions," and gave Johnwill a life membership in the chamber. He would also return in 1963 to serve two years as its executive director upon retirement from Platt. The best testimonial to Faris' local prominence, however, came in March 1961 when his successor at White Sands, Forrest Benson, wrote to regional officials: "[Faris] apparently knew everyone personally in the surrounding counties, and this presents quite a challenge to continue this fine community relationship." [17]

Figure 47. Summer picnickers (1950s).
(Courtesy White Sands National Monument)