of consumerism that brought highly mobile and large families in their automobiles to White Sands and other scenic attractions in the West.[1]
For White Sands, the triangle of Cold War, military spending, and family recreation caused visitation to multiply exponentially, starting in the spring of 1946. From its low point of 35,000 visitors in 1944, the park saw a doubling within two years, then doubling again in three more years (1949). By 1957, visitation had doubled once more (to 304,000), or ten times the war-era low. From there it did not surprise the staff that visitation exceeded 500,000 in 1965, or that days like Easter Sunday of 1964 had nearly 17,000 paying customers. Park employees noted the growth in attendance each month in matter-of-fact tones, echoing Johnwill Faris's comments of May 1946: "We get little done aside from actual visitor contacts, checking, information, and cleanup of headquarters and the sands." When auto traffic backed out of the entrance station for two miles on the afternoon of Easter Sunday 1964, the staff's reaction echoed their pragmatism in the face of overwhelming demand: they opened the gates and waved in several thousand cars with no attempt to collect admission fees.[2]
The essential feature of facilities maintenance for White Sands in the postwar era was survival. While records do not indicate any formal NPS policy toward the unit, Superintendent Dennis Ditmanson would note sixty years after the park's creation that it hosted twenty times its original visitation with a physical plant built to New Deal specifications. Forrest M. Benson, Junior, who replaced Johnwill Faris in 1961, spoke similar words to his superiors soon after his arrival at the dunes. "We are taking care of 378,000 visitors a year," wrote Benson, who had inherited a park constructed "when travel was approximately 40,000."[3]
The facilities issues confronting superintendents Faris (1939–1961), Forrest Benson (1961–1964), Donald Dayton (1964–1967), and John "Jack" Turney (1967–1973) only worsened as thousands of cars drove over the dunes roads, thousands of campfires burned in the gypsum, thousands of gallons of water were flushed down toilets or poured into overheated car radiators, and thousands of feet crossed the floors of the visitors center and concession. In July 1946, Faris unknowingly foretold the challenge of maintenance when he wrote of his success in locating surplus Army materiel at the closed Deming Army Airfield. The War Assets Administration (WAA) offered to Faris "lumber, pipe, steel plate, warehouse cabinets, filing cabinets, etc." Faris and his rangers made several trips that month from the dunes to Deming (a roundtrip of over 200 miles) to acquire what he called "our 'loot.'" Unfortunately, this continued a precedent
- ↑ Nash, American West in the Twentieth Century, 213–14. For a thorough analysis of the social changes of the post-War II era, see Landon Y. Jones, Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation (New York: Ballantine Books, 1980, 1986).
- ↑ Schneider-Hector, White Sands, 103; SWNM Monthly Reports, May 1946, March 1964.
- ↑ Interview with Dennis Ditmanson, Superintendent, WHSA, July 1, 1993; SWNM Monthly Report, February 1961.
