to make the best of it, recognizing that we have to adjust ourselves to the Works Progress Board."[1]
With the Garton project set for construction in 1936, Tom Charles could plan that winter for maximizing visitation. His efforts would result in a forty percent increase (to 48,000), and NPS would in turn change Charles' status (to permanent custodian), and increase his salary, from $384 per year to $540. White Sands was the theme of a float in the Sun Bowl carnival parade in El Paso on New Year's Day, winning first prize in its category. The Rock Island railroad wanted to include the dunes in its promotional literature for a circle tour through the Mescalero reservation, Cloudcroft, and Alamogordo. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) wanted to reprint Charles' July 1932 article in New Mexico Magazine in the July 1936 issue of their own national publication, which had New Mexico as its theme. Always eager for wider coverage of the dunes, Charles rewrote the piece to reflect changes since the NPS took over White Sands. Elsie Aspinwall, DAR officer for the state, marvelled at Charles' helpfulness, and promised to send house guests to the monument as part of their tour of the Grand Canyon and Carlsbad Caverns.[2]
Charles' notoriety as a publicist for his monument also attracted the attention of the WPA, which in 1936 inaugurated the Federal Writers' Project (FWP). As part of the larger goal of WPA artistic and cultural programs, the FWP had two major emphases in New Mexico: preparation of the state travel guide (published in 1940), and organization of the "Historical Records Survey." Ina Sizer Cassidy, director of the state FWP, asked Charles for his advice on developing a data base of public and private materials for research on New Mexico's past. She also acknowledged Charles' role as a promoter of history in southern New Mexico by asking him to serve on the survey's advisory board; an honor which Charles had to decline, citing his growing work load at White Sands.[3]
The tradition of special visitation at White Sands added Easter services in March, when some 300 residents of Otero County came to the dunes to pray at sunrise. By day's end an additional 1,200 visitors had converged upon the monument. This built
- ↑ Randau to M.C. Huppuch, Supervisor, RDP, NPS, December 5, 1935, RG79, NPS 1934–1947, Recreation Demonstration Area Program Files (RDA), Region 3, New Mexico, General WHSA 201 to 601-12 File, Box 201, NARA, DC; Diehl to Kittredge, December 5, 1935; Kittredge to Diehl, December 17, 1935, RG79, NPS, WHSA Files, Denver FRC; Charles to Pinkley, December 12, 1935, Historical Files, WHSA (1935), August 1–December 31, 1935.
- ↑ Pinkley to NPS Director, October 30, 1936, RG79, NPS-CCF 1933–1949, Box 2425; R.T. Spence to D.M. Wootton, Vacation Travel Tours, Rock Island Railroad, Chicago, IL, February 7, 1936; Charles to Wootton, March 14, 1936; Charles to Albright, February 6, 1936; Mrs. Elsie E. Aspinwall, Lew Wallace Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, Albuquerque, to Charles, May 21, 27, 1936; Charles to Aspinwall, May 23, 1936, Historical Files, WHSA (1936), January 1–May 30, 1936, WHSA Library.
- ↑ Ina Sizer Cassidy, Director, New Mexico State Writers' Project, Santa Fe, to Charles, February 10, 1936; Charles to Cassidy, February 14, 1936, Charles Family Papers, MS 18, File 1-2, NMSU; SWNM Monthly Report, January 1936.
