Tales of Boss Pinkley
Rick Smith
Casa Grande (AZ) Dispatch
Friday, September 4, 2015
Behind the Headlines: Ruins’ role was big in US parks’ history
Andy Howell, Assistant Managing Editor
In 1940, Frank Pinkley, the longtime custodian of Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, gave the opening speech at the first training conference for workers from the then 27 national monuments in the U.S. At the time, Pinkley was supervising all the monuments and had fought hard for funding and recognition.
He considered his speech the most important of his life.
He rallied the troops, so to speak, on the importance of their mission, calling them “our outfit.” After giving the speech on the grounds of the Casa Grande monument, he sat down, slumped over and died of a massive heart attack.
The “Outfit” decided to finish the three-day conference because they were sure “The Boss,” as he was affectionately known, would have wanted it that way.
His funeral was held later in front of the monument he helped preserve when he arrived at its remote location in 1901.
“About the only thing that I ever did that was really smart was to go out into the desert and pick a darned good ruin, and sit down by it for 30-odd years,” Pinkley said of his “calling” to preserve and protect the Hohokam adobe ruins near Coolidge.
Pinkley’s story so personifies the ideals behind the formation of the National Park Service that it is included in “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” the companion book by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan to the popular PBS documentary of the same name.
Pinkley’s story is included in a chapter on the national monuments, memorials and battlefields preserved, managed and operated by the National Park Service, which will celebrate its centennial next year.
Thursday we ran a story by Joey Chenoweth on plans by Coolidge community members to celebrate this milestone. Plans include hosting an archaeology expo next March and the American Indian Arts and Music Festival next November. Other events and special programs will be held throughout the year as the National Park Service celebrates its 100th birthday.
Some may not realize that the Ruins, like many other national monuments, is operated by the National Park Service just like the Grand Canyon or any other national park. This is why the 480 acres set aside to protect the area is often called a “park.”
Other monuments in Arizona managed by the Park Service include Sunset Crater, Wupatki, Tumacacori, Organ Pipe Cactus and Walnut Canyon national monuments.
In fact, Grand Canyon National Park was first designated a national monument before being elevated to national park status by Congress; the same with Saguaro National Park near Tucson.
The Ruins designation and operation is different from the Sonoran Desert National Monument, located between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, and Ironwood Forest National Monument, south of Red Rock, which are managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
National monuments can either be established by Congress though legislation or by the president through the use of the Antiquities Act.
Those established by Congress are generally managed by the National Park Service. Most of the recent designations by presidents have been controversial as they have set aside land mostly as wilderness, circumventing Congress.
The Ruins was proclaimed Casa Grande Reservation by President Benjamin Harrison in 1892, becoming the first prehistoric and cultural reserve in the country. It was re-designated a national monument by President Woodrow Wilson in 1918, setting the groundwork for presidential designations of monuments under the Antiquities Act, which was established in 1906.
In its own way, the Ruins set a foundation for the formation of the National Park Service, so its recognition of the agency’s centennial is appropriate.
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