Monumental Changes

Monumental Changes. El Morro National Monument. Living and working at El Morro in the early 1900s was an adventure in itself. The duty station was remote, the dirt roads leading in and out were often impassible during wet weather, and a lack of running water or electricity made living conditions primitive. In fact, the first ranger cabin, which also served as a tourist shelter, began as nothing more than a three-sided shed., The advent of the public works programs of the Depression Era changed the face of El Morro National Monument. A new custodian's residence and visitor contact station were completed in 1939, utilizing Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds , one of the New Deal programs initiated by President Roosevelt. The superintendent and his family finally enjoyed the luxuries of running water and a coal furnace. The sandstone residence before you now serves as the administrative offices for El Morro., Mission 66 , With the post-World War II economy booming and an increasingly mobile public, it wasn't long before El Morro didn't seem quite as far off the beaten path. As visitation rose each year, El Morro soon outgrew its small visitor contact station., El Morro wasn't alone. In 1956, the National Park Service (NPS) initiated Mission 66 , a ten-year program created to revitalize the national parks in time for the 50th anniversary of the NPS in 1966., The visitor center through which you entered was completed in 1964 as part of the Mission 66 effort. Its modern architecture is typical of the many other NPS visitor centers built during this time. It is, along with the 1939 residence, as much a part of El Morro's history as the inscriptions themselves.