The three Flagstaff national monuments, Sunset Crater, The Wupatki Ruins and Walnut Canyon, were created in 1915 to preserve the past. Now, the parks themselves have been around long enough that they have a history of their own that needs to be preserved.
Each place was designed to teach visitors about the geology of the area and about the native people who lived there almost a thousand years ago.
Nearly 900 years ago at Walnut Canyon National Monument the ruins built along the cabin walls were inhabited by people who scientists now call the Sinagua.
"I think it's amazing," Alan Lowell from California said. "They literally lived off the land."
Another visitor, Mary Riggle from New York, said it was amazing that those people could actually survive in the area.
But the park's newest attraction is the park's original Ranger Cabin, which tells the story of those who first wanted to preserve the Sinagua cliff dwellings.
"It was started as a one room log structure built in 1904 that housed the first ranger," Lisa Baldwin, Flagstaff national monuments archeologist and leader of the cabin restoration project, said, "It pre-dates the establishment of Walnut Canyon as a National Monument, which didn't happen until 1915."
The cabin's first inhabitant and the park's first ranger was William Henry Pierce.
"He was about 60 years old when he got this position," Baldwin said. "He came out here with his wife Mattie. She was the daughter of a confederate soldier and he was union. So, I think it's always interesting [to think] what kind of conversations did they have over the dinner table?"
Over the years the function of the cabin changed. First it was a home, then a visitors center, and finally was abandoned and used only for storage in the 60's.
"As soon as people moved out the rats moved in," Baldwin said. "It reeked. It reeked to high-heaven."
Baldwin explained that over the decades several attempts to restore the cabin were started, but each attempt ran out of funding before the project was finished. But in 2011 it fell on Baldwin to take on the challenge to turn this rat infested building into an attraction.
She says the building has several quirks that created challenges for the rehabilitation. One being that the building doesn't have a proper foundation and has been slowly sinking. Another is how some of the floor isn't attached to the walls, which was a problem when trying to lift and move the structure.
One of the more interesting details is a tree that grows through the front deck and through the roof's overhand.
"They added on this second room which is the kitchen and deliberately built it around the tree," Baldwin said.
Now Walnut Canyon is not only telling the story of the Sinagua, but also the story of those who wanted to see it protected.
"It pre-dates the park service, it predates the forest service, it was the people of Flagstaff coming together and saying, you know, Walnut Canyon is a special place," Baldwin said.
The old Ranger Cabin will be available for public view in May. They will also do periodic tours of the cabin with a park ranger playing the role of the cabin's first ranger William Henry Pierce.
