Platt Cline's Role & Account

Platt Cline circa 1961
See Photo Source below.

Few 1960's small city projects developed without support of the local newspaper. Back then practically every small American community boasted a thriving newspaper and Flagstaff was no exception. "The Arizona Daily Sun" enjoyed a robust readership thanks to a diligent Staff directed by Publisher Platt Cline.  Cline's boosterism for "all things Flagstaff" remains forever legendary. He was named "Citizen of the Century" in 1994 by the City of Flagstaff Centennial Committee. So it is not surprising that Platt Cline was one of the six members of The Buffalo Park Committee. (See "Buffalo Park Story" ephemera below.)

What is surprising is Cline's account of Buffalo Park as it appeared in Cline's landmark book about the history of Flagstaff's first century.  The account takes up less than a page of the 626-page book and numbers only 256 words.  Although Cline was renowned for his obsession with accuracy, his account of Buffalo Park contains errors, a key omission  and a misleading statement. Most surprising is Cline's omission of his own name from the roster of Committee members! Likewise, Cline's mention of Ivo Poglein's assertion doesn't square with available accounts of early promotion for the Buffalo Park Project. Poglein's purported assertion was not mentioned in any archived press coverage of early Buffalo Park development.  In fact, "The Arizona Daily Sun" was an active, eager, enthusiastic, relentless promoter of Buffalo Park, something that could have only taken place with the blessing of the Publisher...Platt Cline.

We have no way of knowing why Cline's account of Buffalo Park does not square with the facts.  Perhaps he harbored after-the-fact misgivings about the project.  Perhaps his memory of the project written about 30 years later simply morphed facts into generalities.

Buffalo Park began being promoted in 1963 but was not formally established until 1964. The park clearly occupied 217 acres as stated in the city lease. The park made money in the early years.  Admission was not by car but per person by age. Cline's grammar implies the park opened in April 1964.  The buffalo arrived in April but the park opened in late May that year.

We do know Cline himself used Buffalo Park later in his life and is said to have considered the woods and the mountains as his church.  Below is Cline's verbatim account of Buffalo Park as it appears in his book (cited below).

 "Buffalo Park was established in 1963 on 163 acres of city-owned McMillan Mesa land, part of more than 700 acres acquired by the city in a trade with the Forest Service in 1958. Mayor Wheeler and the council gave blessing to Chamber of Commerce President James Potter's proposal that a wildlife park be established there as a tourist attraction, and a committee was named, including Potter, John Babbitt, Bob Prochnow, Ernest Chilson and, for a time, Wheeler.
Funds for a chain link fence were solicited, and work was underway by September. There were to be stagecoach rides and "holdups" at certain hours; a visit with the "Old Trapper,” O.T. Gillette; some Navajo hogans with part-time occupants; and herds of elk, deer, antelope and buffalo. In spite of the fact that Ivo Poglein, director of the Albuquerque Municipal Zoo, pointed out that there had never been buffalo in Northern Arizona in old times, and that the site was not suitable for the big animals in view of the altitude and sometimes severe winters, eight bison arrived for the opening in April 1964. Costs were to be met by a fee of 50 cents per car, but the take was far below expectations and expenses far higher, and the record-breaking snows of 1967–68 were disastrous. By spring, fences were down and animals wandered around yards in the north part of town seeking feed. In October 1969, when the five-year lease expired, the city declared that the animals must be removed in two weeks. The debt was around $12,000."

Cline, Platt. Mountain Town - Flagstaff’s First Century. Northland Publishing, 1994. Pages 445-446

Cline photo by unknown photographer from Page 25 of the 1961 Flagstaff Pow Wow Program.  Cline served on the Pow Wow Committee.

The ephemera below is courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society North Division as archived at the NAU Cline Library Special Collections in Flagstaff, Arizona.