1965--How it all began

INTERVIEW - February 24, 1988

INTERVIEWER: We are here with K.C. DenDooven and Dave Beal to talk about 1965--"The Story Behind the Scenery" series of books and how they began or, in the beginning -- what was it like? The inscription that is found in all "The Story Behind the Scenery" books, which Dave Beal is given credit as author, reads:

"This book is dedicated to all who find Nature not an adversary to conquer and destroy, but a storehouse of infinite knowledge and experience linking man to all things past and present. They know conserving the natural environment is essential to our future well being."

The message was important enough that it is now included in all books in this series and has since 1965. Is it the philosophy that drew the two of you together?

K.C. DEN DOOVEN: Yes, it was back in about 1964, when I had already published one book in this format, that is 9" x 12", as a softcover book, not a magazine. (A magazine is dated and contains advertising.) I had published SOUTHWESTERN INDIAN ARTS & CRAFTS as a softcover book. As a matter of fact, we are sitting here in Tucson today and Tom Bahti, the author, had an Indian arts and crafts shop here and Dave, as Chief Park Naturalist of Grand Canyon and also head of the association at the time, had agreed to sell the Indian book at Grand Canyon. Then one fine day, I made an extra trip up there.

DAVE BEAL: K.C. was the publisher and editor of a travel magazine at that time, called "Western Gateways". Color printing was not as commonplace in the mid-1960s as it is today and so obviously this is exactly the kind of thing the traveling public was looking for -- to take home something in living color that would help them to remember what they saw when they were touring the Southwest.

K.C. DEN DOOVEN: I remember distinctly. In fact, where I remember the series beginning is that one time . . . and I remember distinctly. I stuck my head in your office, Dave, and asked, "Dave,

Do you think there's a market for a $1.00 book on Grand Canyon?"

DAVE BEAL: Of course, my response was that there certainly is. At the time we had a lot of publications, most of them about 5" x 9", entirely in black and white and devoted exclusively to the Indian ruins or the butterflies or the geology or something like this, but nothing that had the attraction and eel that a large format, color book would have.

K.C. DEN DOOVEN: No, I remember your words, you said, "Yes, there is a market for your book because . . .

. . . there's never been a book done the way the Park Service wants it done."

That meant, of course, an interpretive book written by the head of Interpretation--a book tha would tell the story to the public that the park rangers, the park naturalists, and the seasonal people were trying to convey as they conducted their various nature walks and amphitheater meetings and fireside programs. It was the park story put into print -- the total, complete story with color throughout.

DAVE BEAL: I prepared a very short outline of what I thought ought to be in that book. I recently checked on the date and found it was March 2, 1965. We discussed further ideas and time passed.

K.C. DEN DOOVEN: Yes, the book came out in '67. I believe most of '65 was spent with Dave and I just talking about the project. I came up from Flagstaff, we had a lot of luncheons and we talking. We talked in his office and there's a significance to that I'll allude to in a second. Dave and I went to talk to Howard Strickland, the Superintendent, and he was very much in favor of the project. I pretty well remember his words and his tone when he said it was great for a commercial publisher to do this because the book could be brought out and sold in areas around the park that people could buy it before they got to the Grand Canyon. I think that is a significant point. I admit that most of our park books ae sold at the park but the real value would be if people would buy it a day or two before they travel to the Grand Canyon. It affords them to have a better understanding of what they are going to see. To me the worst use of our park books is to buy it ten minutes before you leave the park.

DAVE BEAL: Well, basically the next step involved petitioning through our regional office, to our Washington office, for permission to write this, not as a government employee but as a private individual on my own time, not on government time, not having any special privileges. We waited a long, long time to get a response. As a matter of fact, we even had to send a follow-up request.

K.C. DEN DOOVEN: I never knew that.

DAVE BEAL: And then K.C. and I talked it over. We thought, well, this is a big cost item, color printing and all. Let's find out if the Grand Canyon Natural History Association would like to sponsor all or part of it. The board of directors of the Natural History Association said, "Gee, that's wonderful but we just don't have the kind of bankroll that's required to do this kind of color publishing." You have to remember that, in the nine years I was Chief Park Naturalist at Grand Canyon, the Natural History Association gross grew from $8,500 a year to $85,000. There's not a lot of money for speculative publication.

K.C. DEN DOOVEN: We thought the printing was just fabulous at the time. Just mentally, my calculation on the cost of the first printing of the Grand Canyon book, including development costs, was somewhere around $25,000 which was a tremendous step up for me from $6,000 for the Arts and Crafts book. And by the way, on the Arts and Crafts, Tom Bahti paid half of it so I actually only shelled out $3,000 for the first book and now suddenly I have to come up with around $20,000.

Our goal was to publish . . .

. . . a full-color, a full interpretive story with full information about the entire park.

This was not a book on the geology of Grand Canyon alone. Granted, geology may be 85% of the story. Our book was to treat the entire park. Even today few books treat the entire park.

DAVE BEAL: Our basic idea here was to try and do a reasonably thorough job of interpreting the park to the general public. Not at the technical and scientific level but at the popular level, and. . .

. . . making sure that the facts and data contained therein were accurate and presented in a manner that people could understand.

We started to get very serious about this in 1966 and actually begain writing at that time.

K.C. DEN DOOVEN: That's right. 1966. And then, the book came off the press in the beginning of 1967. I remember Louise Hinchliffe was the librarian there. No, not the librarian at that time. I believe she was a secretay. She brought out about 12 copies to the front desk. About 30 minutes later they called back for more books and she said, "Well, I've already brought you out a week's supply. What . .. did you lose them or something?" and she couldn't believe they were sold. She went and got another 12 or 24. And then about a week later they finally gave up and they just put a stack of boxes and put them in the corner and just opened the top as the public demanded more and more copies.

DAVE BEAL: One of the things that we started out to do, right from the beginning was

to make sure that the work had merit . . from the standpoint of. . . . . . . . . . . . scientific accuracy.

Dr. Eddie McKee did review the manuscript in its entirety and commented quite critically about some things and was extremely helpful. Also, Bill Bree of the Museum of Northern Arizona reviewed the manuscript.