Interior courtyard of the Old Santa Fe Building Source National Park Service, 2012
After being closed for two decades, and a year after its 75th Anniversary, the Old Santa Fe Trail Building—the former home of the Southwest Regional Office of the National Park Service (NPS)—is again open to the public. Constructed in the Spanish-Pueblo Revival style and completed in 1939, the office was closed to the public after the NPS reorganized and the regional office was moved to Denver.
But in 2013, a group of dedicated preservation advocates and volunteers, headed by the National New Deal Preservation Association, coordinated efforts to re-open the building and provide information and tours to the public. As the Santa Fe New Mexican recently noted, Kathy Flynn, Executive Director of the National New Deal Preservation Association, has a broader vision for the building. “We would like to see the building become a joint CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] and WPA [Works Progress Administration] museum or library or some combination,” said Flynn, a Santa Fe resident. “There is nothing in the nation as far as we know where the CCC and WPA, the two big programs during the New Deal, are put together.”
At 24,000 square feet, the Park Service’s former Southwest Regional Office is perhaps the largest adobe office building in the country, according to research files of the Historic Santa Fe Foundation. The major work force came from CCC Camp #833 based in Santa Fe, while the Works Progress Administration was responsible for artworks and other furnishings. Among the other CCC accomplishments in this area were the rock lining along the Santa Fe River through the city, the lodge and shelters at Hyde Park, and Bandelier National Monument’s roads, buildings, and the furniture inside those dozens of buildings.
Most of the 200 workers were men aged 17 to 23 from local Hispanic families. For $30 per month, and room and board, the men hand-mixed and formed more than 280,000 adobe bricks for the walls that are between two and five feet thick. They also hand-peeled the pine vigas and made heavy, intricately carved furniture for the offices. Much of the earth for the adobe bricks came from the excavation for the building. Foundation stone was quarried near Canyon Road. Ponderosa pine logs for vigas and corbels came from the CCC camp in Hyde Memorial State Park. Flagstone for the floors in the lobby and conference room, and the paving under the courtyard portáles, came from a Pecos ranch. Funding came from the WPA Federal Art Project for art including ceramic vessels by Maria and Julian Martinez of San Ildefonso Pueblo, Lela Gutierrez and Eulogia Naranjo of Santa Clara Pueblo, and Agapita Quintana of Cochiti Pueblo; paintings by Victor Higgins and E. Boyd; nearly 50 rugs, most Navajo-made; etchings by Gene Kloss; and lithographs by B.J.O. Nordfeldt. The Park Service’s regional landscape architect, Harvey Cornell, designed the site and courtyard.
Located at 1100 Old Santa Fe Trail, The Old Santa Fe Trail Building is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. Guided tours are available by appointment. Those wishing to volunteer at the building can call the volunteer program managers at Pecos National Historical Park at 505-757-7211. Come visit—and support—this New Deal treasure!
This post was submitted by Robert Krause, an Historic Preservation Planner with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission in Prince George’s County, Maryland. He received his Ph.D. in United States History from the University of Mississippi in 2010, with an emphasis in Environmental and Public History. Dr. Krause has worked as a curator, historian, and preservationist in federal, state, and local government agencies since 2001. Krause grew up in Bozeman, Montana, and his grandfather and great-uncle were enrollees in the Civilian Conservation Corps.