Iceberg Rock Staircase, 727 Carlsbad Cavern Highway, Carlsbad, Eddy County, NM

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