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Despite advances on the administrative and regulatory front, historical parks were in a decayed condition at the end of the sixties. Visitation rates for the entire park system increased forty-eight percent between 1963 and 1968, but visitors went predominantly to natural and recreational areas. With the possible exception of the San Jacinto Park, historical parks remained relatively small (in 1968 they comprised 948 acres, one percent of the total park land) and attracted a modest number of visitors. As a result of their low visitation rate, historical parks as a group produced the least revenue of the system. Unfortunately, they were also the most expensive parks to maintain because of their high restoration and preservation costs. Since most historical parks were poorly maintained, they were at a disadvantage in attracting visitors, which meant less money for their development, a condition that produced a vicious circle. It is not surprising they were a low priority for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in terms of capital outlays for improvements, maintenance, and number of employees.⁽¹⁾

The passing of the National Historic Preservation Act was the motivation that TPWD needed to give a much needed attention to its historic sites. Not only did the law obligate the agency to develop a statewide system of historical parks, but it also provided some matching grants to help finance it. Still, more funding was needed, and TPWD looked for alternative ways to obtain it. The solution chosen was the issuance in 1967 of $75 million in bonds for a ten-year state park land acquisition and development program. By September 1968, $5,750,000 in bonds had already been sold, and that same year TPWD instituted entrance fees to help paying the interest of the bonds.⁽²⁾ As money became available, the agency acquired new historic sites. Between 1967 and 1969 TPWD incorporated into the park system Fort Leaton at Presidio, Fort McKavett near Fort McKavett, Fort Lancaster at Sheffield, Fort Richardson at Jacksboro, and Hueco Tanks near El Paso.⁽³⁾

Although the bond money permitted new acquisitions, it was still insufficient to develop all historical parks. By 1971, the bond program had produced $15.75 million, but the limited revenues from park entrance fees made it impractical and imprudent to issue a new bond series. Official estimates indicated that at least $11 million were still needed to expand and develop the historical parks system, and TPWD called on the legislature for help. The response was the establishment in 1972 of the Texas Park Fund No. 31, commonly known as the "cigarette tax," because the revenue came from a tax of one cent per pack.⁽⁴⁾

The purpose of the cigarette tax was to provide money to update and improve the parks that existed prior to the enactment of the bond program (by statute, bond funds could not be spent on older parks) and to accelerate acquisition of endangered historical and archeological areas. It was expected that if more parks were established, entrance fee revenues would increase, thus allowing additional issues of bonds to finance park development. In its first year of existence, the cigarette tax raised $13 million, and, during the entire decade, the tax garnered an average of $17 million annually. Between 1971 and 1975 TPWD targeted one million of this amount solely on historical parks acquisition and development, but by 1979 the percentage of cigarette tax money invested on historic sites had risen to approximately twenty-five percent.⁽⁵⁾

The cigarette tax not only increased park financing, but in 1972 it provoked a major structural change that recast TPWD along lines more sensitive to the preservation needs of historical parks. The reorganization consisted of the creation of two new branches within the division responsible for parks, the State Parks Division, to deal with specific preservation issues; their names were the Historic Sites and Restoration branch, and the Interpretation and Exhibits branch. To the Historic Sites branch was assigned the acquisition, development, restoration, and planning of historic sites, as well as the monitoring of construction projects in historical and archeological areas. The Interpretation and Exhibits branch was responsible for the development of interpretive and educational programs for both natural and historical parks. Before 1972, these responsibilities were shared by various branches within different TPWD divisions, so the centralization aimed to streamline the agency's performance.⁽⁶⁾

In addition to this reorganization, during the early seventies TPWD codified its policies for acquisition, development, and operation of historical parks. The agency focused on three major points. First, the significance of historic sites was to be determined by the specifications stated in the 1967 Historic Structures and Sites Act. In other words, potential sites had to be selected on the basis of their association with an historic event or person, their distinguishing architectural or craftsmanship type, or their significance to the understanding of Native Americans.⁽⁷⁾ Second, the park system was intended to represent and to interrelate all the multiple aspects of Texas history in order to complete a comprehensive presentation of Texas's past. To direct this objective, in 1970 TPWD established a chronological and thematic division to classify historical parks. It was determined that the agency had to own at least one site for each subtopic and time period.⁽⁸⁾ Finally, historic properties had to be of statewide importance, and their interpretation should emphasize it.⁽⁹⁾

With the cigarette tax money, its reorganized structure, and its set of policies, TPWD engaged vigorously in augmenting the number of historical parks under its management. In 1972, a team of TPWD architects, in collaboration with the Texas State Historical Survey Committee, selected forty-two top-priority historic places for acquisition. Since architects composed the team, most of the fourteen properties eventually incorporated in the TPWD system during the decade were historic buildings: the Texas State Railroad in 1971; Sabine Pass Battleground and Mission Rosario in 1972; Seminole Canyon in 1973; Landmark Inn in 1974; Caddoan Mounds and Casa Navarro in 1975; the Starr Family Home, the Sebastopol House, the Sam Bell Maxey House, Magoffin Home, and the Fulton Mansion in 1976; and the Kreische Brewery and Fanthorp Inn in 1977. Additionally, Fort Richardson, Fort Leaton, Fort McKavett, and Governor Hogg Shrine historical parks were expanded with additional tracts of land.⁽¹⁰⁾

Besides receiving and developing new parks, during the seventies and the early eighties TPWD modernized the old ones. Master plans for park development were now obligatory, and the agency devoted most of its energies to preparing them. Between 1972 and 1984, the Historic Sites and Restoration branch produced 17 preservation plans for historical parks, each of which included an analysis of the conditions and characteristics of the site, an evaluation of its interpretive value, and a scheme for its reconstruction, restoration, or preservation. The Interpretation and Exhibit branch produced during the same period 22 interpretive exhibits, 22 interpretive trail or signage systems, 10 historic furnishings projects, 9 audio-visual programs, 6 interpretive publications, and 2 educational programs.⁽¹¹⁾

To streamline even more the coordination of the different parks' programs, TPWD again reorganized its Parks Division in 1982 by creating three new branches: Special Services, Planning and Development, and System Operations. The Special Services branch investigated and purchased new park land and provided financial assistance to park projects. After a historic site was acquired, the Planning and Development branch developed it following a master plan. When the site was ready for visitation, its operation was transferred to the System Operations branch.⁽¹²⁾

Still, park progress was very slow during these years. Insufficient staff and monetary resources delayed for seven or more years the execution of some master plans and opening parks to the public, with the consequent loss of revenue from entrance fees. Those were the cases of Landmark Inn State Historic Site, bought in 1974 but opened to the public in 1981, and Caddoan Mounds Historic Site, acquired in 1975 but opened in 1983. The longest delay occurred in Sebastopol House State Historical Park at Seguin, which was acquired in 1976 and remained closed to the public until 1989, even though its original preservation plan had been completed in 1979. Another significant detail is that in 1984 no less than thirty-one historical parks and sites had no interpretive facilities.⁽¹³⁾

Contrasting the slow progress of the historical park system, TSHSC's work was brisk during the seventies, basically because ...

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1. "Park Development Bonds. Series 1968," 1.

2. "Park Development Bonds. Series 1968," 18; Hiller, "Parks for Texas," 23, 25; New Handbook of Texas, s.v. "Texas Parks and Wildlife Department."

3. Hiller, "Parks for Texas," 23. The Hueco Tanks are natural cisterns with Indian pictographs. The County of El Paso conveyed the property by warranty deed to the state at no cost.

4. State Interim Committee on Parks and Recreation, This Land is Our Land: A Report on Texas' Natural Environment (Austin: The State of Texas, 1969), 5, 40-41; Texas State Park Policy Issues Workshop, 24-25 January 1977, copy on file at TPWD, 53; Toney, "Texas State Parks," 248.

5. Ibid., 258, 263. Bill Dolman interview.

6. Bill Dolman interview.

7. Vernon's Civil Statutes, art. 6081s.

8. The chronological periods were: 1) Paleo-Indian, 2) Archaic, 3) Neo-American, 4) Early Exploration and Colonization, 5) Early Anglo-American and European Colonization, 6) Mexican Texas and the Revolution, 7) Republic of Texas, 8) Early Statehood, 9) Confederate Texas, 10) Reconstruction, 11) Victorian, and 12) Twentieth Century Texas. See TPWD, A Future for the Past: Texas State Historical Parks, January 1996, copy on file at TPWD, 22.

9. TPWD, Historic Sites and Restoration Program Policy Statement, March 1979, copy on file at TPWD, 1-5.

10. Curtis Tunnel interview; TPWD, Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission Policy for the Administration of the Texas State Park System: Policy Guidelines for Acquisition Development and Operation (Austin: Texas Parks and Wildlife, 1975), 1-10; Hiller, "Parks for Texas," 25.

11. TPWD, "Sunset Advisory Commission: Self Evaluation Report," 1984, copy on file at CLRL, 78.

12. Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, "Staff Evaluation. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department," June 1984, copy on file at CLRL, 25-26.

13. Toney, "Texas State Parks," 291; Sunset, "Parks and Wildlife," 52; TPWD, "Sunset Self-evaluation," 71.

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