and the story line of the dunes traced by Charlie Steen was quite tasteful and sophisticated. One issue that echoed this, and also revealed the competing visions of the local chamber of commerce versus the park service, was the depiction of scenes on the museum walls. Painting of murals had been a highlight of the Federal Artists Project (FAP), and the chamber wanted the journey of Cabeza de Vaca memorialized at the dunes, calling him "the earliest European to visit this part of the continent." Charlie Steen preferred to represent the multiculturalism of the region, showing daily life in a Mexican village, Anglos on a wagon train or at a ranch, a Mescalero Apache camp scene, and American soldiers stationed at a desert fort. Steen then criticized the prevailing artistic style found on many public buildings (train stations, post offices, etc.): the impressionistic art work of Thomas Hart Benton "I would not like to see [at White Sands] a set of murals of muscle-bound pin-heads," said the exhibit designer, "which is the usual FAP artist's concept of the human body." Steen called upon Pinkley to "ask that a realist be put on the job," to which the NPS regional director in Santa Fe appended in the margin to Steen's letter: "He is right!"[1]
Whether because of content or style, NPS officials debated the representations to be painted at the White Sands visitors center for several months. Aubrey Neasham, Santa Fe regional historian, warned that "no one person … can have the last word on a subject, especially in this day of a fast-moving world." Federal employees, said Neasham, should "try to find certain general principles or fundamental truths" about telling the story of the West. For the regional historian, "Hispanic-American history has been my great interest," and he promised: "Wherever I can push Spanish history, I shall do so with all of the enthusiasm possible." Neasham was responding to charges that the park service had discarded the notion of murals about Cabeza de Vaca, and that it preferred Anglo scenes of ranching or outlaws like Billy the Kid. Dale King wrote to Neasham explaining this latter emphasis: "We were going on the assumption that a great number of White Sands visitors are rather provincial Texans … exposed to little Southwestern history other than that of Texas."[2]
The Cabeza de Vaca-Billy the Kid debate underscored the inherent ethnic tension in a state whose central corridor (the Rio Grande basin) and northern mountains were predominantly Hispanic, while its southeastern quadrant was known as "Little Texas" for the migration of ranchers and farmers into its river valleys and high plains. The park service sought compromise on this issue by including other ethnic groups in the museum, most notably the Mescaleros and the black (or "buffalo") soldiers of the U.S. 9th and 10th Cavalry, stationed at nearby Fort Stanton. Charlie Steen despaired of locating Mescalero objects for the museum, suspecting that "for some peculiar reason the
- ↑ Maier to SWNM Superintendent, January 21, 1939; Pinkley to Acting NPS Regional Director, Santa Fe. February 4, 1939, RG79, NPS, WHSA Files, Denver FRC; E.P. Simms, President, Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce, to Charles, January 23. 1939. Historical Files, WHSA (1939), Janaury 1–April 30, 1939.
- ↑ Tolson to Pinkley, February 24, 1939; Dale S. King to Aubrey Neasham, NPS Regional Historian, Santa Fe, February 7, 1939, RG79, NPS, WHSA Files, Denver FRC.
