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• Collection: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey

• Title: Iceberg Rock Staircase, 727 Carlsbad Cavern Highway, Carlsbad, Eddy County, NM
• Other Title: Carlsbad Caverns National Park
• Creator(s): Historic American Buildings Survey, creator
• Related Names:
     Schara, Mark , field team
     Mauro, Jeremy T. , field team
     Davidson, Lisa Pfueller , historian
     Lowe, Jet , photographer
     Carlsbad Caverns National Park , sponsor
• Date Created/Published: Documentation compiled after 1933
• Medium: Photo(s): 10
  Measured Drawing(s): 3
  Data Page(s): 23
  Photo Caption Page(s): 1
• Reproduction Number: ---
• Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. (http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html)
  
• Call Number: HABS NM-227
• Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
• Notes:
  • Significance: Iceberg Rock Staircase at Carlsbad Caverns National Park is the last remaining section of wood stairs from the pre-World War II period of cave tourism. Although discovered decades earlier and mined for guano by commercial interests, the extensive scenic qualities of Carlsbad Cavern were not widely known until the early 1920s. A party of Carlsbad citizens guided by local cave explorer Jim White toured the cave in 1922 and immediately began promoting its unique features to attract visitors. On October 25, 1923 Carlsbad Cave became a National Monument under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. Because National Monument status came with little funding, the initial development of a tourist infrastructure within the cave was sponsored by the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce and completed by Jim White and local work crews. At first access was only available via a guano hoist bucket through the cavern ceiling or a makeshift collection of wall-mounted wood ladders and hand grips at the natural entrance. Widespread publicity for the wonders of the cavern meant that the early crowds quickly outstripped the available facilities. In 1925 the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce hired Jim White to build the first staircase from the natural entrance into the cavern. Although staircase access was a great improvement, touring the caverns was still a strenuous five-hour expedition. Throughout the next decade, particularly after the arrival of the first NPS superintendent, Thomas Boles, in 1927, underground trails were almost continually added, modified and repaired. Wood staircases, platforms, bridges and parapet walls throughout the caverns were essential to the increasingly popular program of public tours. Iceberg Rock Staircase was built c. 1926, and then used for incoming tour traffic only starting with the construction of the Green Lake Room trail to the north of Iceberg Rock in spring 1929. Known as "Fat Women's Misery," eliminating a steep climb on this staircase was an early tour route improvement. Carlsbad Cave became Carlsbad Caverns National Park on May 14, 1930, and was already one of the most prominent tourist sites in the Southwest. Shortly thereafter the first elevator service in the cavern was introduced, allowing shorter and more frequent tours. By World War II, Carlsbad Cavern had reached an impasse between its rapid development as a tourist attraction, with the attendant crowds, and the desire among NPS officials for a more professional, science-based presentation. In 1943, a short connector trail allowed regular tours to bypass the Iceberg Rock Staircase altogether, and it was used only for smaller "walk-out" groups foregoing use of the elevator. Continued improvements to the trail around the west side of Iceberg Rock meant that the Staircase was used as secondary, "short-cut" route starting in the mid-1950s. The wood staircase documented here survived this period of improvement because it was removed from the main tour route.
  • Survey number: HABS NM-227
  • Building/structure dates: ca. 1926 Initial Construction
  • Building/structure dates: ca. 1929 Subsequent Work
  • Building/structure dates: ca. 1943 Subsequent Work
• Subjects:
  • stairways
  • caves
  • World Heritage sites
• Place:
  • New Mexico--Eddy County--Carlsbad
• Latitude/Longitude: 32.175373, -104.44419
• Collections:
  • Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey
• Part of: Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)
• Bookmark This Record:
     https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/nm0340/

The Library of Congress generally does not own rights to material in its collections and, therefore, cannot grant or deny permission to publish or otherwise distribute the material. For further rights information, see "Rights Information" below and the Rights and Restrictions Information page ( https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/rights.html ).

• Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html
• Reproduction Number: ---
• Call Number: HABS NM-227
• Medium: Photo(s): 10
  Measured Drawing(s): 3
  Data Page(s): 23
  Photo Caption Page(s): 1

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• Call Number: HABS NM-227
• Medium: Photo(s): 10
  Measured Drawing(s): 3
  Data Page(s): 23
  Photo Caption Page(s): 1

Please use the following steps to determine whether you need to fill out a call slip in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room to view the original item(s). In some cases, a surrogate (substitute image) is available, often in the form of a digital image, a copy print, or microfilm.

1. Is the item digitized? (A thumbnail (small) image will be visible on the left.)

   • Yes, the item is digitized. Please use the digital image in preference to requesting the original. All images can be viewed at a large size when you are in any reading room at the Library of Congress. In some cases, only thumbnail (small) images are available when you are outside the Library of Congress because the item is rights restricted or has not been evaluated for rights restrictions.

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