required expensive garbage disposal away from the public use area. Thus it was no surprise when Faris criticized the regional NPS office in 1952 for refusing to replace White Sands' worn-out road grader. Faris, whose visitation now exceeded 200,000 annually, considered it highly unfair that smaller parks like Wupatki, Sunset Crater, or Chaco Canyon (which averaged less than 40,000 visitors each) should receive new maintenance equipment while White Sands was offered used and inadequate road graders. Regional director John Davis tried to mollify Faris by asking him to give the equipment "an honest trial," and also advised the superintendent "to take this problem in stride without letting it bother you too much."[1]
Water problems, always a concern for the Tularosa basin, entered a new phase with the massive visitation of the early 1950s. Constant trips into Alamogordo wore down the park's tanker truck, which held only 5,000 gallons. This water would then be stored in a wooden tank, which caused problems of algae and bacteria formation. Faris became outraged in January 1953 when the SWNM superintendent withdrew $2,000 from funds to repair the water tank, including use of an automatic chlorinator. "Chlorination of water is a point I cannot conceive of an agency such as ours questioning," said Faris, "particularly here in the Southwest, where contaminated water seems to be the rule, rather than the exception." Even the addition of municipal water from Alamogordo, by way of Holloman AFB, still required chemical treatment. "The visitors ask now why we don't weaken our Clorox with a little water," Faris chided the SWNM, as his staff had to pour bottled chlorine into the tank on hot days to purify the supply.[2]
Shortcomings in facilities would have their counterpart in interpretative services at White Sands in the years after World War II. Promotion of the natural beauty of the dunes occurred via the work of scientists from around the world. Dr. Lora Mangum Shields, professor of biology at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, brought students annually to the dunes for field trips. Shields and other scholars wrote at length of the riches to be found at White Sands, but the park had no monies to hire a naturalist to explain the dunes to the many visitors who inquired. In like manner, famous photographers like Ansel Adams and Josef Muench came to the dunes to record their striking beauty. Adams had a contract in 1947 with Standard Oil Company to depict White Sands for a promotional calendar which was given free to gas-station customers nationwide. Faris asked the regional office in 1954 for funds to hire staff who could "organize evening talks," prepare a "self-guided tour leaflet," and "make some progress in the promotion of research by other institutions."[3]
- ↑ SWNM Monthly Report, July 1948; Memorandum of NPS Chief of Concessions to the NPS Director, May 2, 1949, RG79, NPS-CCF 1933–1949, Box 2430; Faris to Davis, SWNM, August 17, October 22, 1952; Davis to Faris, October 27, 1952, RG79, NPS, WHSA Files, Denver FRC.
- ↑ SWNM Monthly Report, July 1947; Memorandum of Faris to Davis, January 18, 1953, RG79, NPS, WHSA Files, Denver FRC.
- ↑ SWNM Monthly Reports, June 1947, December 1949; Memorandum of Luis Gastellum, Acting SWNM General Superintendent, to Faris, June 15, 1953; Hugh Miller to Faris, July 22, 1954; Faris to Region Three Director, October 28, 1954, RG79, NPS, WHSA Files, Denver FRC.
