El Paso business leaders joined the petition drive, trying to link Mescalero National Park with highway construction to the Mexican border. Governor Merritt Mechem expressed surprise to Senator Bursum in November 1921, as he had learned of strong opposition from his own state game and fish commission. Alva L. Hobbs of Raton, chairman of the commission, wrote directly to Stephen Mather about rumors of NPS seizure of Elephant Butte, New Mexico's premier fishing site. Mather and his staff wrote several letters to Hobbs and other correspondents to placate their fears, concluding that the state would manage recreation at the reservoir if the Park Service ever took control.[1]
Local sponsorship of these schemes emboldened Fall in 1921 to seek national support for his reversal of Progressive-era land policies. That year he drafted legislation that would permit his Interior department to sell ten percent of the public lands in each state at public auction. The federal government would retain mineral rights, and no timber lands would be sold. Funds derived from these sales would be spent on road construction on the rest of a state's public domain. This would allow connection of the Mescalero and Elephant Butte park lands, and not incidentally open Three Rivers ranch to automobile and truck traffic from the more populous Rio Grande valley. These measures would also make it difficult for western legislators to oppose Fall's plans for the Tularosa basin. Given the Republican majorities in the House and Senate, and a pliant administration in the White House, Secretary Fall had no reason to doubt the prospects for this latest park measure.[2]
Applying lessons learned from his previous forays into park planning, Albert Fall then moved in October 1921 with a new proposal: the "All-Year National Park [AYNP]." He called to his ranch a delegation from the Alamogordo chamber of commerce, one of whose members was Tom Charles. The Secretary took full advantage of his prestige with local citizens, discussing a wide range of regional concerns, only one of which was his park. Charles and his peers agreed to form a committee to stimulate support for the park throughout southern New Mexico and west Texas. He also consented to serve on the executive committee of a new lobbying group, the "Southwestern All-Year National Park Association [SAYNPA]," whose members included Governor Mechem and William Hawkins, now a resident of El Paso.[3]
In order to convince Congress of the groundswell of support for the AYNP, the Secretary worked with Charles and the Alamogordo chamber to host a "statewide" convention of chamber delegates interested in national parks for their sectors of New
- ↑ James G. McNary, President, The First National Bank, El Paso, TX, to Mechem, November 9, 1921; Mechem to U. S. Senator Holm O. Bursum, November 15, 1921; Alva L. Hobbs, Chairman, New Mexico State Game and Fish Commission, to Stephen T. Mather, Director, National Park Service, May 11, June 12, 1922; Mather to Hobbs, May 20, July 8, 1922; Hobbs to Mechem, July 12, 1922, Letters Received and Letters Sent Files, Mechem Papers.
- ↑ Kelly, Assault on Assimilation, 174–75.
- ↑ Ibid., 173–74; Schneider-Hector, White Sands, 61; H. H. Brook, Chairman, Southwestern Ail-Year National Park Association, to "The Members of the Executive Committee …," July 22, 1922, Letters Received and Letters Sent Files, Mechem Papers.
