In 1934, in America's strangest honeymoon, Arizona couple chose a roofless 900-year-old crumbling monument with snakes and scorpions as company. The famous couple later worked in 8 national monuments and divorced 11 years later

For most newlyweds, a honeymoon means finding a comfortable place to stay, but Sallie Pierce Brewer and Jim Brewer had a very different idea in 1934. The Arizona couple began their married life in the remote surroundings of Wupatki National Monument, where part of their living quarters consisted of an ancient pueblo with no roof and plenty of desert wildlife nearby.

The unusual story was later documented by the National Park Service, which described the Brewers' life as part of the difficult but important history of women and families working at America's early national monuments.

A honeymoon inside a centuries-old pueblo

Wupatki was already around 900 years old when the Brewers arrived. The National Park Service says the pueblo had been a major centre of trade and agriculture from the early 1100s through the mid-1200s. It is the largest free-standing pueblo in Northern Arizona and contains 104 rooms along with a community room and ceremonial ballcourt.


The Brewers' accommodation, however, was hardly what most people would call a home.

An NPS monthly report from August 1934 described their move into a room at the pueblo after they had been staying in a cook shack. It joked about the "minor inconvenience" of having two walls, no roof and scorpion and snake neighbours, adding, “Incidentally, this is probably the first time in 500 years that a young couple has spent a honeymoon in Wupatki pueblo.”

The couple's life in the parks did not stop there. During their marriage, Jim and Sallie worked in eight Southwestern national monuments, living in tents, a Navajo hogan, a log cabin and even sleeping on the ground beside a pickup truck before eventually getting a more conventional NPS house.

Sallie was more than a park wife

Sallie was already an archaeologist when she married Jim. She had studied anthropology at the University of Arizona and worked at Montezuma Castle through the Civil Works Administration, classifying archaeological material and taking part in fieldwork.

After marrying Jim, she became an "Honorary Custodian Without Pay", a title used for wives who were qualified to contribute to the work but were not officially paid for it. She helped with research, tours, reports and other duties while moving between remote monuments. NPS superintendent Frank "Boss" Pinkley even joked, “We think we’re doing well when we can angle for one archaeologist and get two!”

The arrangement reflected a wider reality of the period. Many women living with NPS employees worked without salaries, helping run isolated park communities while also contributing to interpretation, research and visitor services.

Their marriage ended, but Sallie's career continued

The difficult life did not last forever for the Brewers as a couple. They divorced in 1945, about 11 years after their marriage. Sallie's professional life, however, continued for decades.

She later held paid NPS positions and contributed archaeological research at several Southwestern monuments, including Wupatki, Navajo, Walnut Canyon, Tumacácori, Casa Grande and Montezuma Castle. She also became one of the first permanent women rangers in the Southwestern Monuments and continued archaeological work long after her marriage to Jim ended.

The National Park Service credits Sallie with conducting research at seven different national monuments and helping lay the foundation for NPS archaeology. She eventually left the NPS in 1958 and continued her archaeological career elsewhere in Arizona.

Today, Wupatki is preserved as an important ancestral Puebloan site, and the NPS stresses that the ruins remain culturally significant to 13 Traditionally Associated Tribes. The strange honeymoon story, meanwhile, offers a glimpse into just how rough life could be for the people who helped establish and protect America's early national monuments.