Spanish conquistador Cabeza de Vaca, and his journey through the Southwestern deserts in the 1530s; and also the custodian's printing and sale of a pamphlet with NPS photographs entitled, "The Story of the Great White Sands." Dodge, who in 1971 would publish the masterful Natural History of White Sands, had visited the dunes in 1938 with his family. The naturalist noted the joy with which his own children frolicked in the gypsum, and wanted to write an article about the annual visits of the state school for the blind. "There is quite a field for exploiting the play angle at the Sands," said Dodge, "simply because, with reasonable control, there is little chance of danger either to the monument or to the people." The dunes offered "the one spot" in the park service "where we can let recreation mean play." In an ironic, if unconscious reference to the resistance of Tom Charles' superiors to acknowledge the pre-eminence of recreation at White Sands, Dodge conceded: "Rolling rocks over cliffs isn't so good in a National Park, so that sort of thing has to be taboo." But the dunes were "unique," and "kids can roll down [them], run races, throw sand, or build castles without harming either the scenery or themselves."[1]
Charles' own writings about the monument had focused upon the recreational potential and natural beauty of southern New Mexico. Yet he also became enamored of the story of Alvar Nunez, Cabeza de Vaca, the shipwrecked Spanish official who wandered from Florida to northern Mexico in the years 1528–1536. The 1930s had witnessed a surge of interest in the historical antecedents of modern America, as much to assuage the doubts of many citizens for the future of the country as to chronicle the past. In particular, the scholarship of Herbert Eugene Bolton, professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley, brought into focus the exploits of the sixteenth century Spanish conquerors in the "Borderlands" (the crescent of land between San Francisco, northern Mexico, and Florida). Bolton's work, and that of his graduate students, evolved as did the fascination with regionalism in architecture that had prompted the park service to design the White Sands visitors center in adobe style.
In the September 1938 issue of New Mexico Magazine, Charles wrote of his speculation that Cabeza de Vaca had traversed the southern edge of the Tularosa basin before turning south for Mexico City. Charles sought to link the explorer with the monument as George Grant had done with Billy the Kid, since White Sands had the only historical museum display in the basin. Such a connection would also bring White Sands into the orbit of the Coronado Cuarto Centennial Commission (or "4C's"), an ambitious project begun in 1934 at the University of New Mexico to commemorate in 1940 the 400 years of Spanish presence in the region since the journey of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado (1540–1542). Governor Tingley, UNM President James F. Zimmerman, and Albuquerque insurance salesman and New Deal official Clinton P. Anderson, sought to place New Mexico on the national tourist map with a series of scholarly and popular events. By 1938 the planning phase of the 4C's had yet to bear financial fruit, but the
- ↑ Natt Dodge to "Tom [Charles]," September 17, 1938, Historical Files, WHSA (1938), July 1–December 31, 1938.
