Faris to suggest that the park service create a new national monument to commemorate the atomic test. A.P. Grider and Fritz Heilbron of the chamber wrote to the NPS director to promote the idea, comparing its historical significance to "the spot where the first Pilgrim set foot on this continent." Johnwill Faris saw things somewhat differently, as he dealt more closely with Army officials than did the chamber. "Peace will have no effect on the White Sands Proving Ground operations," he told the regional office. Yet Faris knew that the atomic site held great potential, and suggested that the NPS had "a wonderful opportunity to build and install a museum of super-quality."[1]
The Alamogordo chamber knew what mattered to visitors and locals as the Second World War came to an end. Whether the curious came to the Tularosa basin for a glimpse of "instant" history, or whether local residents wished to rid themselves of the cares of wartime sacrifice, the numbers at White Sands would grow rapidly in the weeks after the war's end. Visitation in August and September 1945 (11,000) equalled prewar counts, and the monument that December recorded its busiest winter month since 1938. But the numbers also meant a strain upon scarce water resources (already threatened by continued military testing and the onset of drought in the basin). Then New Mexico's political leaders weighed in first with their calls for an atomic monument, and then their fears of the loss of hundreds of thousands of acres of grazing lands. One example of this concern was the idea of Charles S. McCollum of the Farm Security Administration in Las Cruces. He wished to make the test site "a real peace monument or shrine for the entire world." The crater could be fenced and equipped with a visitors center "that would be worthy of comparison with many of the fine buildings in Washington." McCollum would have deep wells drilled, and visitors drawn from around the world to experience both "the surrounding peacefulness of the desert calm," and "the terrible force that can be utilized against any nation that might have thoughts of making war on any other country."[2]
Media attention also focused heavily on the Tularosa basin, with reporters scouring the countryside for evidence of the atomic test. Johnwill Faris kept a scrapbook of the famous visitors who came to the area, as the NPS collected information on the proposed monument. One such group included a reporter from the Los Angeles Times, who wrote of the publicity campaign waged by the Army to disprove Japanese charges of lingering health hazards at Hiroshima. "There was more radioactivity in the atomized New Mexico area visited by the newsmen," said the Times on September 12, "than possibly could have existed at Hiroshima because of the different altitudes at which the two bombs were exploded." As if to prove that Americans had nothing to fear from
- ↑ Faris to "Chuck [Richey]," August 9, 1945; A.P. Grider and Fritz Heilbron, Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce, to the Director of the United States Park Service, August 11, 1945, RG79, NPS, New Mexico Atomic Bomb Monument File L-58, Trinity Site 1945, Box 1 of 1, RG79, NPS, Denver NARA; Faris to "Natt [Dodge]," n.d. 1945, RG79, NPS, WHSA Files, DEN FRC; Tillotson to the NPS Director, August 14, 1945, Historical Files, Trinity Site (1940s), WHSA.
- ↑ SWNM Monthly Reports, August, September 1945; Memorandum of Faris to the Region III Director, August 14, 1945, RG79, NPS, WHSA Files, Denver FRC; Charles McCollum, Farm Security Administration, Las Cruces, to Hatch, August 16, 1945, Historical Files, Trinity Site (1940s), WHSA.
