Lets Be Serious For A Moment

Scattered, and I do mean scattered, thoughout the files are a few items that deserve to be preserved (or not, depending on your degree of humorlessness) on their own. Two of these items come from that most serious of men, Superintendent Tillotson. First, there is this from 1933-- the condition of this document reminds me of how technology has changed in the 35 years since it was copied--, shortly after the Grand Canyon National Monument was established by Hoover's Proclamation:

The first paragraph is a classic, and Tillotson likewise in his note at the bottom that the "Area of floors is 273,145 acres". He adds that the Director's office should be billed, but his final comment is unreadable, even after repeated assaults using PSE8.

Tillotson was an engineer, and so no doubt an expert on floor care at the Monument. He was not, however, a lover of all wildlife, and was not afraid to make that clear, even heavy-handedly:

Not troubled by floors or bears, the Park's first superintendent (tenure of a year) found other ways, like fiddling, to pass the hours:

And finally, are we citizens sometimes too zealous?

In June 1964, Mrs. Sylvia Tone, of Oregon, was visiting in Supai. She was told of a notice about waterhole boarding-up that had been posted there by J. Bailey, Grand Canyon National Park ranger, and it so upset her that she wrote her Senator, Wayne Morse, fleshing out her account by citing Chet Bundy, who had told her it is a pitiful sight to come upon the bones of dead horses lying around the boarded up waterholes in the Park. He had seen this terrible thing already done on the north rim.

Mrs. Tone also wrote a friend in Los Angeles. The latter then sent a letter to the pet editor of the L.A. Herald-Examiner, Alice Scott; printed as follows:

Dear Alice. This should be in your column! My friend went to visit in Arizona and read this bulletin in Hubusu County: "If you Indians want any wild horses running around in the Grand Canyon you better get them because we are going to board up all the water holes." One man living there says it is pitiful to see the bones of dead horses lying around water holes. This missive was signed by the Park Ranger. This is terrible for all wild animals searching for a drink of water. Please ask everyone to write and protest it to the Park Ranger.

Alice added that it was terrible, and everyone should write.

The Park received around 150 letters attacking the waterhole-boarding outrage in Hubusu County. 

Mrs. Tone was also effective in another effort. In her letter to Senator Morse, she pled with him to prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from building Marble & Bridge dams, which would back water half the length of Havasu Canyon. The A.C. of E. did not build the dams.