Last updated: June 18, 2020
Person
Frank "Boss" Pinkley
NPS Photo
Quick Facts
Significance:
Superintendent of Southwestern Monuments
Place of Birth:
Chillicothe, Missouri
Date of Birth:
May 27, 1881
Date of Death:
1940
If ever one individual left an indelible mark on the National Park Service, that individual might well have been Frank “Boss” Pinkley. Frank Pinkley (1881-1940) was a farm boy from Missouri whose doctor ordered him to go to Arizona for six months in 1900 to recuperate from a mild case of tuberculosis. If he had a round-trip ticket he never used it and a year later he accepted a government job as caretaker of Casa Grande ruin, where he lived in a tent and dug his own well. After a brief time in the Arizona State Legislature, Pinkley returned to his job at Casa Grande. Before his death in 1940, rose to the position of Superintendent of the Southwest National Monuments, administering 28 different parks throughout Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah.
Tumacácori came under Pinkley's leadership in 1919 and for the next 10 years, he tirelessly worked to preserve, repair, and restore the mission. Much of his effort focused on the stabilization of the church and repairing damage caused by treasure hunters. When he first saw the church, much of the façade was missing, the roof had fallen in, walls had crumbled, and treasure hunters had left gaping holes in the floors and walls of the nave and sanctuary.
Pinkley embarked on a fundraising drive in the local area. With contributions and an allotment from the National Park Service, he raised $2,155 ($28,545 in 2020 dollars). Using these funds most judiciously, Pinkley decided to imitate the “methods of the builders in making our repairs.”
He used local laborers who produced adobe from the raw materials on the site to rebuild the walls. To reroof the church, Pinkley contacted the U.S. Forest Service to obtain the pine timbers needed for the beams from the Santa Rita mountains. Boss Pinkley and his team of laborers then used ax and adze to shape the logs, much as the original builders had. The floor was cleared of debris and re-laid. Laborers filled in the holes in the walls, rebuilt the stairs to the tower, reconstructed the dome, and partially restored the pulpit. They also reconstructed the arched pediment. Tumacácori came back to life.
Besides the repair of the church, Pinkley made huge efforts to interpret the story of the mission. He wrote the first interpretive guide for the fledgling park, to guide visitors through the mission complex. He believed that Tumacácori should be educational, communicating the history of the early settlement of the southwest. As early as 1919, he lobbied for the building of a museum and created the first rudimentary “visitors center” with a handmade desk and some photos of Kino missions in Sonora. Under his guidance, by 1939 the park saw more visitors than any other park under his management save one.
In 1923 Pinkley spent two weeks helping Edgar Lee Hewett and the School of American Archeology with archeological excavations at Gran Quivira National Monument. During this project, Pinkley assisted with the removal of debris from the Mission. Pinkly later reported to Stephen Mather, head of the National Park Service:
The work of clearing the debris out of the mission began on the morning of the 16th and continued until the night of the 21st. It was a straight job of moving dirt and rock, it was not necessary to sift it or examine it closely for artifacts. This being the case, as many men and teams as could work without interference were put on the job and it was rushed through, so far as the money could carry it, in a few days. It was by no means enough money to complete the cleaning of the mission and the complex of rooms adjoining the mission had to be left practically untouched. Let us hope that future appropriations will allow us to continue this work a little at a time year after year until real results can be shown at this very interesting monument.
This was the first official archeological work completed at Gran Quivira.
In 1924 Pinkley was appointed as superintendent of the Southwestern National Monuments Office (a division of the National Park Service) and became in charge of 14 separate monuments which later grew to 28 and included many of the best-known public lands in the American southwest. He was allotted $15,000 for the administration of these monuments, a figure that worked out to 9.2 cents per visitor. The monuments were staffed by a group of men and their wives, all volunteers called "custodians."
As their leader, Pinkley was called "The Boss," a nickname he gladly adopted and used when signing monthly Southwest National Monument reports. These reports contained summaries from the Custodians at each monument, as well as ruminations from The Boss:
"They all act like they thought the world would promptly go to pieces if they quit work for a few days, not that I blame them for I feel the same way about myself. However, we haven't lost our sense of humor and can still get a lot of fun out of the work and those saving graces that carry us over the rough spots. My general idea is that we ought to be serious in our work and plans---but not too serious."
Each summer Pinkley would load up his family into their Model T, "Baby", and drive a circuit visiting all of his monuments.
In 1940 Pinkley was able to get funding to hold the Southwest National Monuments first Custodian School, a three day conference at Casa Grande National Monument. For his effort, most of the 27 National Monuments' Custodians and their wives were able to attend the meeting. During his opening speech Pinkley reflected on his time as Superintendent, his near 40 years of work, and thanked the wives for their efforts to protect and promote the National Monuments as much as the Custodians. In closing he said:
"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."
Pinkley then returned to his chair, sat down, and promptly died of a massive heart attack.
Highly esteemed and well-loved, the custodians of the Southwestern National Monuments memorialized their leader:
“Through your persistent work, your determination, and your everlasting belief in and loyalty to the ideals of the National Park Service, you built up the strongest unit in that service…” - Southwestern National Monuments Monthly Report, Feb. 1940
“Frank Pinkley was the best loved man in the National Park Service.” - Eivind T. Scoyen, Acting Supterintendent, Sequoia National Park