respected unit of the park service. The strain showed, however, when George Medlicott of the regional office filed a "Master Plan for the Preservation and Use of White Sands National Monument." For Medlicott, the central feature of White Sands' planning was alleviation of the crush of vehicles at the entrance station, immediately west of the visitors center. Over 100,000 cars passed through the narrow two-lane portal, at a rate estimated at one car every 50 seconds during operating hours. Faris had been asked by Mission 66 planners four years earlier to predict visitation for the next two decades, and believed that the figure of 1.3 million was "not very far off … and will be reached and passed by 1975." Medlicott, while not using that number, nonetheless told NPS officials that access, parking, residential housing, and utilities all needed upgrading and expansion to meet whatever visitation increases that Mission 66 scenarios would require.[1]
Publicly, Johnwill Faris spoke optimistically that year of the benefits to accrue to White Sands from Mission 66 work. In May he wrote for the regional office's monthly report: "Our first taste of this marvelous program has been the awarding of contracts for 40 new shades and tables, as well as 56 new garbage disposal units, and the same number of fireplaces." The concession business would also benefit from these facilities, even though the Tom Charles family had sold their interest in 1954 to Robert Koonce of Alamogordo. Koonce tried to maintain the level of service demanded by the visitors, but found the task overwhelming. In 1960 he in turn sold the concession to local businessman G. Clyde Hammett, who offered to invest $40,000 in a new facility separate from monument headquarters. Hammett, who also anticipated strong sales volume from the Mission 66 program, led Faris to report: "We can expect much greater service with the expansion of facilities that is planned."[2]
What Faris did not say about Mission 66 was that NPS superiors had decided not only not to expand along the lines of the master plan. They also revived old arguments from the days of Tom Charles first as custodian, then concessionaire, to dispute the findings of Medlicott and Faris. Sanford Hill, chief of the division of design and construction for the NPS western office in San Francisco, informed the regional director in April 1961 that the problem at White Sands was the character, not the volume, of visitation. "It appears that the concession is mainly used by local people who come to the Monument as a substitute for a city park," said Hill. "This local use in turn," he continued, "has created the traffic problems which now exist." Hill believed that "rather than giving further encouragement to such use by expanding concession facilities," the NPS should "consider the possibility of eliminating the concession entirely and simply installing soft-drink machines." Hill further blamed the Charles family for the expansionist mentality in the area, saying that the park service had to "accommodate" them with the concession contract. Now that the family had left the business, said Hill, "we are apparently relieved of our obligation to retain a concession for their benefit."
