Devils Tower National Monument: Historic Resource Study

This study presents historical contexts associated with Devils Tower National Monument (DETO). First, we describe the Tower itself. The following five chapters elucidate themes, better known as historical contexts. The first theme describes how Native Americans occupied the region since about 13,000 years before present. Evidence is clear of their continuous presence in the area. Eras of exploration and settlement follow. The establishment of Devils Tower as the nation’s first national monument, created by Theodore Roosevelt’s executive order under the Antiquities Act, occurred in 1906. During the 1930s, development of the park continued with some twists unique to Devils Tower. The CCC era is of particular interest for National Park Service sites across the nation, and Devils Tower is no exception. MISSION 66 improvements transformed the monument and laid out a modernized, standardized park landscape in Devils Tower. The history of climbing also has a significant and unique place in the history of Devils Tower. Buildings and structures dating from 1973 are now of sufficient age to be considered for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. We discuss the 1970s in several places in these narratives and offer a theme and historical context for the 1970s to the present. What is particularly significant for Devils Tower National Monument is how nature and culture come together in every age with the result that people perceive the Tower differently, draw various inspirations from it, and experience Bear Lodge/Devils Tower in unique ways.This is published as Devils Tower National Monument: Historic Resource Study. National Park Service, Intermountain Office, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2023. Document is available online at the National Park Service History Electronic Library & Archive: http://npshistory.com/index.htm. Posted with permission

Homesteading Vegas: Promotion, Race, and Water in the East Mojave

The East Mojave is a hot, dry place. As Americans moved into the desert during the early twentieth century, motivated by a national movement championing country life and dry farming, promotional literature from railroads, and advertisements from individual boosters, they confronted an unforgiving environment ill-suited for agriculture. In early Las Vegas, Nevada, external promoters and local powerbrokers obscured the environmental realities of the budding desert railroad hub, contributing to the rapid deterioration of the local aquifer, and setting the stage for the eventual Boulder Dam project. In Lanfair Valley, California, African American homesteaders escaping the brutalities of the Jim Crow South and unrealized expectations for racial advancement in Los Angeles, found community and security in one of the early twentieth century’s most ambitious, albeit never fully realized, mixed-race farming communities. Informed by a Progressive Era belief in envirotechnical solutions to environmental problems, homesteading communities in the East Mojave demonstrate the pivotal role of outside capital and government intervention in the success of desert farming communities. As migrants arrived in the East Mojave, climatic conditions, not hard work or new technology, determined the limits of personal and community success