Canyon de Chelly National Monument – Chinle AZ

Description

Canyon de Chelly is “one of a few National Park Service units that lie wholly within Navajo lands.” It is jointly managed by the NPS and the Navajo Nation. “The National Park Service was eager to maintain Canyon de Chelly in unaltered condition while also providing safe and attractive accommodations for the visiting public. With $6000 from an erosion control project, Indian CCC laborers began work on the 4,085-foot-long White House Trail, supervised by a park service engineer. Each year Indian CCC enrollees did further work on roads leading to Canyon de Chelly as well as roads and trails within the monument.” In 1940-41, CCC workers completed various roadways. “All CCC work at Canyon de Chelly continued to be done by Civilian Conservation Corps-Indian Division employees. In addition to road and trail work and erosion protection, they made repairs at Antelope and White House and built a guard wall at the first lookout on the south rim. Navajos agreed to relinquish grazing rights in the canyon for three years as a means of restoring vegetation on the valley floor.”