citizens of the territory "worried about the burgeoning conservation movement which threatened their free use of New Mexico's woodlands." In addition, developers "began to lobby for reducing the size of Indian reservations." In 1898 the territory had successfully petitioned Congress for passage of the Fergusson Act, which granted two million acres of public land to the public school system for sale as revenue-generating property. Angered by these efforts, the EPNE mobilized opposition to the Mescalero National Park, not out of recognition of tribal sovereignty but a fear of future withdrawals of public lands from the marketplace. Among the voices raised in protest was that of William Hawkins, who believed that New Mexico had enough Indian reservations and military installations without adding national parks.[1]
Despite the "victory" of Hawkins and the EPNE, other interests kept pursuing the competing venues of preservation and development of the Tularosa basin. Miguel Otero sought to improve the image of his native land by encouraging both concepts of use and protection of resources. Symptomatic of the divided mind of the Progressive reformer, Otero wrote glowingly in 1903 of the potential that White Sands offered to the tourist and industrialist alike. Devoting a full page of his lengthy report to the Secretary of the Interior to the promotion of White Sands, the namesake of Otero County became almost poetic in his description of the dune fields: "On these gypsum sands is the playground of the mirage, and here it plays its greatest pranks with distance, perspective, and color." Shifting in the next paragraph to a development metaphor, the governor praised the use of the 99-percent pure gypsum for agricultural fertilizer, plaster of Paris, and even sulphuric acid. Otero closed his report by noting the presence of a cement plant in nearby Alamogordo that relied upon White Sands gypsum; proof positive that "the great desert … may some day be utilized in commerce and be found a great source of wealth."[2]
For the next ten years the White Sands tantalized developer and preservationist alike. By 1907 J.R. Milner and Bill Fetz, brothers-in-law, had constructed a plaster of Paris batching plant about one-half mile southwest of the future headquarters site of the monument. Mrs. Tom Charles wrote five decades later that Bill Fetz operated the plant, "cooking the sand by means of an iron roller, using mesquite roots for fuel." Fetz carried the processed plaster by ox-cart to Alamogordo, where contractors used the blocks for housing construction. One of his wagon-drivers was 14-year old Charlie Sutton, later to work for Tom Charles at the monument in road construction (1934–1935). Sutton, who also served as mayor of Alamogordo, remembered how Fetz and his employees extracted gypsum by drilling a long shaft into the dunes, and removing its contents at night to avoid the desert heat. Plant workers then slept inside the hollowed-out shafts, as the journey back to town over a rutted road was prohibitive.[3]
- ↑ Schneider-Hector, White Sands, 54–55.
- ↑ Miguel A. Otero, "Report of the Governor of New Mexico to the Secretary of the Interior, 1903," 122, cited in Territorial Archives of New Mexico (TANM), Microfilm Roll 149, Frame 411, NMSRCA.
- ↑ "'Gyp' Plant was Once Live Outfit," Alamogordo News, n.d., Charles Papers, NMSU.
