Frank "Boss" Pinkley

Frank "Boss" Pinkley spent 40 years in service of the National Park Service.

NPS

Throughout the history of the National Park Service (NPS), there have been individuals that stepped up and helped direct its course. Frank "Boss" Pinkley—who became the first NPS superintendent of Bandelier in 1932—was one of those people.

Born in 1881, Pinkley had a case of tuberculosis at the age of 19. His doctor told him to go to Arizona for six months to recover, this became the start of a 40-year career in parks. One year after arriving in Arizona, Frank took his first NPS job as caretaker of Casa Grande Ruins. He would eventually become the superintendent of the Southwest National Monuments, a collection of 27 monuments across Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. It was here that Pinkley was called "The Boss," a nickname he gladly adopted and used. While grand, larger parks like Yellowstone and Grand Canyon attracted the crowds, Pinkley believed that these small parks had so much more to offer people, with their culture and less-told histories.

On February 25th 1932, Bandelier National Monument was transferred to the NPS, and to Frank’s supervision. Pinkley hoped that Bandelier’s sites would inspire people to also visit many of the other incredible places in the area—but first he had to find a way to get visitors down into Frijoles Canyon. He got a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp established at Bandelier in 1933, and over the next decade, they built the main road coming into the park, as well many of the buildings and trails.

Frank "Boss" Pinkley died in 1940 while holding the first Southwestern National Monument custodial conference. During his opening speech, he thanked those that protected and promoted the monuments. He then sat back down in his chair and died of a massive heart attack. The last words he said were, “May we leave this meeting three days hence with a bigger and broader comprehension of our work and a fixed determination to do it better this next year than it has ever been done before." Always looking to improve things, all the way up to his last breath.