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| Pecos - once a mighty pueblo |
Earlier this month the National
Park Service (NPS) kicked-off the “Find Your Park” program. The campaign hopes
to encourage us to share our National Park area experiences as part of the NPS
Centennial celebration: I’ll tell you about Pecos, the park I’ve chosen, and a
special personal experience in a few moments (after all, I live about 20-miles “west
of the Pecos”)…
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| Kiva entrance - Pecos NHP |
Many of us know the National Park
Service Organic Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on August
25, 1916, and the NPS was created to protect parks, monuments, and reservations
with a special mandate: “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic
objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same
in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the
enjoyment of future generations.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Park_Service_Organic_Act
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| North Pueblo- room blocks on right |
“According to the
National Park Service, Find You Park invites the public to see that a national
park is more than just a place - it can be a feeling, a state of mind, or a
sense of American pride. Beyond vast landscapes, the campaign highlights
historical, urban, and cultural parks, as well as National Park Service
programs that protect, preserve and share nature, culture, and history in
communities nationwide. Further, Find Your Park encourages people to find their
own personal connections within the network of national parks and public
lands.” You can check-it-out at: www.findyourpark.com
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| Trash IS Treasure to archaeologists |
OK, my park is
Pecos National Historical Park: I’ve been going for years, and it is a gem. On
Tuesday I joined fellow Santa Fe National Forest Site Stewards on our walk back
through time. The area has had visitors since at least Paleo-Indian days, and
we are just some of the more recent ones. The area certainly experienced use by
Archaic era hunter-gatherer groups, as it is along a natural migration route
skirting to the south of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. First pit-house
villages were ca. 600-800 AD/CE.
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| Sangre de Cristo Mountains |
A real development
boom came hundreds of centuries before the Spanish, as ancestral pueblo
societies & nations moved into the area in concentrated numbers in the late
13th Century. Due to trade between both the Plains Tribes and Rio
Grande Pueblos they grew (wealthier and stronger). Then about 1540 new visitors
arrived: The Coronado Expedition. The Spanish were received well, but not
exactly buying what Coronado was selling it was at Pecos that he got steered to
present-day Kansas (in his quest to find the golden cities of Cibola). The
Spanish came back, building their first mission at Pecos in 1610. A larger 17th
Century mission was razed during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, when the Spanish
were driven from New Mexico (to El Paso and beyond) for 12-years. With the
second Spanish “entrada” in New Mexico (1692) came a new mission at Pecos.
Signs of the Old Santa Fe Trail, that brought “Yankee Traders” from the U.S.,
are also found “a stones throw” from the last mission site, and descendants
from Pecos are still found at the Pueblo of Jemez (they have a Lt. Governor
position for Pecos): a long and proud history.
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| Gen. Sibley |
With the coming of
the U.S. Civil War, in the spring of 1862 a Confederate Expeditionary Force
under the command of Gen. H.H. Sibley was hoping to capture the gold &
silver of Colorado, and then push west to do the same in California. However,
Pecos became the temporary staging area for Union forces from Colorado led by
Col. Edward Canby. They were there to block the Confederate’s northerly
advance. The two sides battled a short distance west of Pecos, at Glorieta Pass
(now a unit of Pecos NHP). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Glorieta_Pass
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| Kidder & crew |
Anyone that has
studied archaeology in the southwest U.S. is indebted to Alfred Vincent (A.V.)
Kidder for his early 20th Century work at Pecos and the
establishment of a ceramic chronology we still use today. Kidder’s seminal
works at Pecos, resulted in the 1st gathering of archaeologists
working in the southwest. It was convened at Pecos. The Pecos Conference
remains an annual event for professionals. Though it now moves location, it is
still called the Pecos Conference and returns to Pecos every 5-years. In 1935
the State of New Mexico created Pecos State Monument from lands acquired from
the Forked Lightning Ranch (then owned by a rodeo personality known as “Tex
Austin”).
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| 18th Century church |
The NPS became
involved in the mid-1960’s, when Pecos was declared a National Monument. My
relationship started in 1989 as the Southwest Region’s Ranger Activities
Specialist (EMS, SAR, fees, radios, uniforms, law enforcement, fire, etc.). It
was furthered in the mid-90’s when the Regional Resources Protection Unit was
down-sized to one person (me). Our archaeologist (Judy Reed) took a similar
position at Pecos, and I was in need of a secure evidence vault for the sensitive
materials I was entrusted to protect (pending case dispositions).
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| Greer & Buddy |
As it turned
out, Buddy Fogelson (“Dallas oil man”) and Greer Garson (the movie actress) had
acquired the Forked Lightning Ranch, and it eventually became part of Pecos
National Historical Park. The ranch house had an old walk-in refrigerator unit
(for their entertaining & events) that made a perfect secure evidence area.
The Chief Ranger (Gary Hartley) had the outer lock, and I had the inner lock.
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| Church interior |
My admiration for
Pecos was cemented in the late 1990’s: an event that, in retrospect, I’d spent
my career working towards (ever since a sundance near Lodge Grass, along the
Little Bighorn River in July ’75). In
the early spring of 1999 I received a telephone call informing me that the Park
had been consulting with the Pueblo of Jemez and many other pueblos &
tribes for 8-years regarding the repatriation and reburial of the remains from
over 2,000 individuals previously buried at Pecos (and a few associated sites).
They had been excavated and removed to The Harvard Peabody museums in
Massachusetts during the early 20th Century. As part of the largest return
under the Native American Graves Protection & Repatriation Act of 1990 representatives
from the Pueblo & Park would be traveling east to receive and escort the
ancestors back to Pecos in late May. I was asked to be the Operations Section
Chief for the Incident Management Team involved with the event.
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| Repatriation at Pecos |
It was a great day
in late May, with hundreds of tribal pilgrims accompanying their ancestors the
final miles back home to finally rest. When the reburials, blessings and
prayers were concluded, signs from the heavens opened with purifying rain that
indicated: “this is good.” I had never received such heartfelt thanks as that
from tribal members that day; many eyes were swollen with tears of joy that
further sanctified the ground and the occasion. I was honored to be there (a
humbling experience); certainly one of the highlights of this Ranger’s career.
The Nov. 2000 issue of “National Geographic,” page 118 chronicles the “Pueblo
Ancestors Return Home.”
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| Adobe construction area |
Those are some of
the reasons why Pecos is my park.
I hope you find yours.
RIP A.V. (&
Madeleine), RIP…
and some
additional history:
