One of the great handicaps of Cedar Pass as a headquarters area was the lack of water. To develop a satisfactory supply, the NPS found it necessary to go to the White River, three miles south. One of the major projects undertaken soon after selecting the headquarters site was to dig a trench and lay pipe to the river. Since this stream is intermittent above ground, but has a dependable subsurface flow, water was collected in perforated pipes laid on hard clay and shale about eight feet below the river bed. The pipe brought water to a sump on the river bank where it was pumped to a 100,000-gallon storage tank above the headquarters area.[161] Work was begun on this reservoir in April 1940 and completed by the CCC in September 1941. At the same time the CCC also erected a checking station at Pinnacles which Stricklin and his family occupied from November 15, 1940, until about May 15, 1943.[162]
Handicapped by the location of the original CCC camp at Quinn Table, a new camp was authorized at Cedar Pass and work on it began in June 1941. Five months later the new camp was occupied.[164]
At that time the only visitor-contact point in the Cedar Pass area was at Cedar Pass Lodge. During the summer season Mr. Millard lectured nightly to lodge guests on the geologic history of the Badlands, thereby initiating interpretive programs. He also showed movies of the Badlands and other scenic areas. A temporary park ranger, who checked travel in the Cedar Pass area during the day, took part in the evening programs.[165]
Figure 21 PINNACLES RANGER STATION AND CHECKING STATION, 1941
Completed in 1941, the ranger station also served as quarters until January 1965 when the new Pinnacles ranger station-residence was completed. The checking station was removed about 1958 to make way for road improvement, and the old ranger station was razed in April 1967.[163]
The problem of stock grazing in the national monument grew increasingly worse during the 1940’s. The acting custodian complained early in 1940:
Until the boundary is fenced and we are in a better position to know what is private and what is monument land, there appears to be very little that can be done to prevent this.[166]
In December 1941 he wrote in a similar vein:
During past winters it has been the practice of local stockmen to allow herds of horses and cattle to drift into the monument area to graze unrestrictedly over public as well as private lands and along the monument highways. There is such a large amount of private and county-owned land within the monument boundaries (31,000 acres out of a total of 150,000) that it is difficult to restrain stock from grazing on National Park Service land as well as on the land that is owned or leased by private individuals.[167]