Black Rock: A Zuni Cultural Landscape and the Meaning of Place

CHAPTER 6. Appropriating Place: Black Rock, an Agency Town

[ 1 2 7 ] As Zuni students did their best to make a “home” out of their dormitory at Black Rock, the government employees, traders, and other non-Zunis who lived in the new town also endeavored to create a place where they could comfortably reside. And, indeed, in the first several decades of the twentieth century they did transform Black Rock into a place that was visually familiar to a non-Zuni and somewhat foreign-looking to many of the Zunis who bothered to visit there. Anglo residents took over a landscape and transformed it—they bestowed meaning to this place. MAKING A HOME The first government houses at the yet to be named town of Black Rock were temporary structures—canvas tents and simple wooden buildings erected in 1904 to house dam workers. These dormitories, as they might be called, were located on the south side of the escarpment at its edge overlooking the river. These wooden structures were very portable as demonstrated by the fact that they were disassembled and moved following the 1909 dam breach. In May of 1910, the work camp was moved again as construction activities encroached upon the buildings.1 Roland Ritter, in his monthly reports to his supervisor H. F. Robinson, reports that “small foundations” for the buildings were being prepared and that lumber for flooring was being shipped in. In addition to moving the existing buildings , lumber for new structures was also brought to the construction site. By August of 1910, the new camp was set up and water was pumped in from the boarding school’s water tank.2 After repairs to the dam were completed and the construction of the irrigation laterals had slowed, these temporary housing units were dismantled. The first permanent government-built house at Black Rock (building 34) was constructed in 1904 and likely served as the home for John Harper or Herbert Robinson while they were building the dam (fig. 6.1).3 It was a gable-end structure commonly referred to as a hall-and-parlor-style Appropriating Place: Black Rock, an Agency Town CHAPTER 6 [ 128 ] APPROPRIATING PLACE: BLACK ROCK, AN AGENCY TOWN house with a rear kitchen “ell” attached to the rear. The frame structure was coated with cement stucco and had a wood shingle roof. The small front porch had a shed roof with neoclassical posts and balustrades. The doorway was offset to the “hall” side of the house, thus opening into the home’s public space. The one-bedroom cottage was typical of a style described as National Folk—a variant of an American folk-housing tradition that followed the railroad west, facilitating the spread of architectural ideas as well as the availability of construction materials.4 This typical worker’s cottage was very popular in New Mexico during the late 1800s, particularly in early railroad neighborhoods. Four years later, in 1908, a second government house (building 30, fig.6.2) was constructed just to the east of building 34.This distinctly styled building was built specifically for the agency superintendent. The singlestory , wood-frame structure had a gable-and-wing design in the National Folk style. The building was remarkable for some of the exuberant architectural details for a house located in such a remote community as Black Rock. Its front porch and the striking, front-facing bay window both featured Italianate bracketing, and there was other decorative Victorian detailing around the window’s eaves and sill. There were subtle pediments over the bay window and over the windows along the west side of the house. In addition, the two stone chimneys featured a projecting cornice Fig. 6.1. First employee’s cottage built at Black Rock (bldg. 32),1918. Photographer unknown, reproduced from report by H. G. Wilson. Courtesy of National Archives, Washington, D.C. [ 1 2 9 ] APPROPRIATIN G PLA C E : BLA C K RO C K, A N A G E N C Y TO WN just below their openings, suggesting some attention to detail that was decorative rather than simply functional. The bay window and other Victorian details were classic nineteenth-century American architectural features that probably would have looked very foreign to the residents of Zuni Pueblo. As with the boarding-school buildings, the builder of this house wanted this structure to stand out in the new community, perhaps making a statement that “an important person lives here.” Although the cross-wing...