Mount Rainier Administrative History

PART FOUR: DEPRESSION AND WAR YEARS, 1930-1945

XI. THE IMPACT OF THE NEW DEAL (continued)

OTHER PUBLIC WORKS

To obtain a true picture of park administration during the New Deal, it is important to recognize that several federal relief programs were operating simultaneously, all of them offering possibilities for getting valuable work accomplished in Mount Rainier National Park. While Superintendent Tomlinson and his staff were preparing work programs for each new CCC enrollment period, they were also tapping into other new sources of funds for construction and conservation work. Each program involved somewhat different administrative demands. The three significant programs in addition to the CCC were the Civil Works Administration, Works Progress Administration, and Public Works Administration.

CWA Projects

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) was established in the fall of 1933 to provide emergency relief jobs for the unemployed through the coming winter. Roosevelt appointed Harry Hopkins to head the vast program. Under Hopkins's leadership, the CWA put more than four million men on the federal payroll, all at minimum wage, and pumped more than a billion dollars into the ailing economy. But the CWA was short-lived; Roosevelt worried that it would create a permanent underclass of people dependent on a federal dole. He terminated the program in the spring of 1934. [35]

As Tomlinson put together a civil works program for Mount Rainier in the fall of 1933, he wrestled mainly with the problem of housing the workers. Secretary Ickes, anxious to avoid anything that would tend to make the CWA a permanent fixture, ruled that no agency of the Interior Department would build new camps for civil works projects. Nor would CCC camps, vacant for the winter, be winterproofed and occupied for that purpose. Tomlinson's proposal called for 350 to 550 men depending on how strictly the Secretary's ruling was interpreted; he received authorization three weeks later for a force of 363 men. At the CWA's peak in mid-January, the force in Mount Rainier numbered 388 men and 7 women. Housing these workers called for some resourcefulness by the park administration. About one half of the workers (including six women) were employed in the Longmire area. Of this number perhaps half lived in towns or on farms near the Nisqually entrance and were able to commute to work, while the rest were housed in existing facilities at Longmire. Another 68 men and 1 woman worked in the Ohanapecosh area and were billeted in the facilities belonging to the road contractor and the Ohanapecosh Hot Springs Company; the remaining 108 men were assigned to the Carbon district and stayed in the Manley-Moore Lumber Company's facilities near Fairfax. [36]

The projects varied in each district. The CWA workers in the Carbon district spent a quarter of their time on river bar cleanup and crib construction for flood control, and the other three quarters of their time on improving the Carbon River Road. This camp started work on December 15 and was terminated on March 31. In the Ohanapecosh district the work consisted of campground development and construction of an approach road, and it lasted from December 8 to April 6. The workforce in the Longmire area was broken down into more than a dozen crews which accomplished diverse projects, including the production of 450,000 board feet of lumber at the sawmill for use in government buildings, the construction of three equipment buildings (two at Longmire and one at Nisqually Entrance), and building repairs. The last of these work crews was terminated on April 19, 1934, bringing an end to the CWA program in Mount Rainier National Park. [37]

Nationwide, the CWA was set up and dismantled with such lightning speed that it produced some of the most pathetic examples of make-work projects during the Depression. (The word "boondoggle" acquired its familiar meaning at this time.) But the national park was well-suited to make effective use of this federal relief program, and Tomlinson viewed it as a complete success. The total expenditure by the CWA in Mount Rainier amounted to $80,292.23, three-fourths of it paid directly to local unemployed people who were in desperate need of income. For this expenditure, the NPS received a considerable amount of skilled labor at the minimum wage level and accomplished much work toward its general plan of development. The program's extremely short duration (some projects had to be completed by the CCC), together with the shortage of adequate housing in the park, proved to be the program's two limiting factors.

WPA Projects

In 1935, Roosevelt pushed a much larger work relief bill through Congress called the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. The law provided nearly $5 billion for relief and gave the President wide discretion over how the money was used. Congress made additional emergency appropriations each year through the end of the decade. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) administered most of these huge sums, providing jobs for millions of unemployed Americans. The NPS provided technical supervision for more and more WPA work camps each year, most of which were located on state, county, and municipal lands. Toward the end of the 1930s, the NPS supervised WPA work camps in the national parks themselves.

Beginning in 1938, Mount Rainier National Park had two WPA camps out of a total of eleven located in national parks throughout the nation. The WPA camps were also called subsistence camps. Mount Rainier's WPA camps were located at Longmire and Ohanapecosh (later Packwood), and were occupied from 1938 through 1940. The work consisted mainly of river bed cleanup and flood control on the Nisqually River and construction of a sewer system at Ohanapecosh. [38]

In addition to the labor provided by WPA work camps in the park, the Emergency Relief Appropriation Acts permitted these funds to be granted directly to other federal agencies. In 1940, for example, "E.R.A. funds" paid for two project superintendents, one engineer, and two secretaries on the park staff. The WPA program wound down in Mount Rainier at the end of the 1940 fiscal year. [39]

PWA Projects

The Public Works Administration (PWA) was technically not a relief agency; it was established under the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and was aimed at improving cooperation between the federal government and private industry. But like the WPA and the CWA, the PWA had the capability of putting millions of people to work and "pump-priming" the economy with federal expenditures. NPS officials were quick to grasp the importance of this development. For one thing, the NPS was in the enviable position of having master development plans already on hand which called for millions of dollars of road, bridge, and building construction. For another, the NPS had the good fortune of being in the same department as the PWA; Roosevelt decided to place the PWA in the Interior Department under the direct control of Secretary Ickes. Not surprisingly, therefore, the national parks received generous allotments of PWA funds over the course of the next seven years. [40]

The PWA actually contributed more funds to Mount Rainier National Park than the CCC, CWA, and WPA combined. But the figures are deceiving: a large proportion of the public works program in Mount Rainier in the 1930s was merely a continuation of the heavy road construction program of the 1920s, carried out under a new arrangement. PWA-funded construction of the Eastside Road and the Stevens Canyon Road in the 1930s approximately matched NPS-funded construction on the Nisqually Road, Westside Road, and Yakima Park Road in the previous decade. Forty years of road development in Mount Rainier happened to reach its culmination in the 1930s. All that remained after 1940 was the completion of the Stevens Canyon and Mowich Lake roads during the Mission 66 period.

What distinguished the PWA's public works program in Mount Rainier as another Depression-era relief program, similar in design to the CWA and WPA, was its ambitious array of small-scale development projects, collectively termed "other physical improvements." These projects ranged from water and sewer systems and campground development to comfort stations and ranger residences. The single, largest project involved the construction of an underground telephone system for the entire park--estimated to cost $106,340. [41] While the Bureau of Public Roads continued to administer and supervise road construction contracts in Mount Rainier, the NPS handled this other component of the public works program.

These were not make-work projects. In reality, the public works program that Superintendent Tomlinson proposed to the director consisted almost entirely of items that had been programmed in the park appropriation estimates for the past several years. The projects had been deferred year after year while funds were diverted to meet the urgent need for services at Ohanapecosh and Tipsoo Lakes (the two areas encompassed in the 1931 addition to the park) as well as the newly developed area at Yakima Park. The PWA allotments gave the NPS an opportunity to catch up on the backlog of projects that were required to meet the demand of growing visitor use. Excerpts from the superintendent's proposed public works program for 1934 may provide a sense of how basic these projects were to the development of the park:

Extension, Administration Building Yakima Park

Present Administration building crowded, and with no space for some operations. Telephone exchange takes up most of lobby. Sleeping quarters inadequate.

New building needed for Naturalist quarters, telephone exchange and additional sleeping quarters.

Part of personnel now required to rent cabins from operator. Yakima Park has proved unusually popular and room is needed to care for necessary personnel to handle functions necessary.

Community House, Yakima Park

No facilities now available, lectures held outdoors where weather handicaps tremendously, or in Operators dining room where operations conflict.

Building with adequate heating plant very necessary if public is to be taken care of, and educational features continued.

There is a persistant [sic] public demand for shelter of this kind from visitors who criticise [sic] adversely when they find none now. The lectures are well attended and deserve shelter rather than being compelled to be outdoors.

Equipment Shed, Yakima Park

At present much equipment is stored outdoors, facilities being inadequate for storage purposes.

Rapid deterioration is inevitable under the circumstances. Only a temporary garage and repair shop is now available and this shed will at least get drivers and mechanics under cover while working on machinery.

Sewer System, Ohanapecosh

With the vastly increased patronage of this area caused by the building of the Transmountain Road by the State and our own road into the area just being completed, the problem of sanitation immediately becomes important.

An adequate sewer system for the hotel, cabins, the camp ground, new Ranger Station and Utility area is very necessary to prevent pollution of the stream and resultant danger to health.

The above items were ordered fifth through eighth in priority in a list of forty items. At the end of the list were such items as Comfort Station, Paradise Camp Ground; Bunk House, White River Entrance; Gas and Oil Storage Shed, White River Entrance; Carpenter and Plumber Shop, Longmire; 2 Equipment Sheds, Longmire; Paint Shop, Longmire. Most of the items received the director's conditional approval. [42]

The public works program brought about changes in the park staff. The park administration had been hiring seasonal laborers for construction projects such as these since the early 1920s, but the public works program of the 1930s was on an unprecedented scale. At the peak of the program in the mid-1930s, hundreds of PWA workers were employed in the park. Unlike the CCC and WPA, the PWA did not provide funds for supervisory personnel. In order to administer and supervise the increased labor force, the Park Service had to create its own new staff positions. Specifically, Tomlinson requested more engineers, foremen, experienced clerks, timekeepers, and storekeepers to oversee the public works program. [43]

The park administration was also responsible for housing and feeding the PWA workers. Initially, the cost of procuring tents, cots, blankets, tools, and mess equipment for the work camps had to be charged directly to the PWA projects. By the mid-1930s, the park had accumulated a large stock of camp equipment which could be used year after year. PWA camps were smaller and less elaborate than CCC camps. They were set up at the beginning of each summer season and dismantled at the end of it. The precise locations of these camps is not well-documented, but presumably the Park Service situated them near Longmire, Paradise, Sunrise, and Ohanapecosh, where most PWA projects were located. [44]

While the NPS judged the public works program in Mount Rainier National Park to be necessary and indeed overdue, the program eventually fell victim to broader public policy concerns. When the national economy made a partial recovery in 1937, Roosevelt, believing that the federal government's deficit spending might cause inflation and undermine private investment, slashed funding for both the PWA and WPA. A year later, with the economy in retreat once more, Roosevelt requested another $1.4 billion for the WPA and $1 billion for the PWA. But by 1940, public works programs were rapidly giving way to federal spending on defense. [45] Tomlinson rode this rollercoaster without complaint, though each year it became more difficult to plan and complete large projects.

One project epitomized the difficulties of winding down the public works program: this was the Paradise ski lodge. The building began as a joint CCC-NPS project in 1938. When construction of the Paradise ski lodge stalled for lack of funds in 1939, Tomlinson's superiors tried to get the PWA to chip in the last $22,000; when this failed, they tried to scrape the money together from the balances remaining in other PWA project accounts. Finally, in 1941, the ski lodge had to be completed under NPS force account. By coincidence, the ski lodge opened to the public in the same week that the United States entered World War II. The building marked the end of an era in the park's construction history. [46]

Road Construction under the PWA

Road construction practically proceeded on a separate track from the rest of the public works program in Mount Rainier National Park. Road work required heavy equipment and skilled equipment operators, putting it out of reach of the various government relief camps. Instead, the Bureau of Public Roads contracted all major road construction projects to private companies, as it had since 1925. These companies hired their own labor, serviced their own work camps, and provided their own tools and heavy equipment. They followed engineering plans prepared by the Bureau of Public Roads. The park administration was involved mainly at the beginning and the end of each project: working with BPR engineers on the location and design of the road in the early stages of the project and employing CCC crews or other laborers in roadside cleanup and landscape naturalization work in the later stages of the project. [47]

A crucial planning meeting between NPS and BPR officials took place at park headquarters on August 18, 1933. The purpose of the meeting was to go over the large allotments for road construction projects which Albright had authorized in July and devise a public works program that would meet with the PWA's approval. The main question was whether to modify the program in such a way as to allow more contracts to be let right away, in order "to put as many men to work in the very near future as possible." [48] Attending the meeting were the Park Service's chief architect, Tom Vint; the Park Service's landscape architect assigned to Mount Rainier, Ernest A. Davidson; the Park Service's chief engineer, Frank A. Kittredge; Superintendent Tomlinson; and four engineers of the BPR, F.E. Andrews, E.D. Kinney, C.G. Polk, and G.W. Mayo. Unexpectedly, the meeting also brought out lingering differences of opinion among NPS officials concerning the Stevens Canyon Road, even though Albright had tried to lay that controversy to rest two years earlier. Immediately after the meeting, Vint, Kittredge, and Tomlinson each dictated a letter expressing their respective position on the Stevens Canyon Road, and sent the letters along with a neutral memorandum describing the meeting to the new director, Arno B. Cammerer.

Regarding the main issue of harnessing Mount Rainier's multi-million dollar road construction program to the national economic recovery plan, the representatives of the two bureaus agreed to several changes that would allow more road work to commence immediately. Four-year contracts were broken down into two-year contracts to be let concurrently. About half of the funds programmed for Eastside Road construction were reapportioned to other projects: Westside Road construction, improvement of the road into Ohanapecosh, paving the Yakima Park Road, building a bridge over Laughingwater Creek. A temporary "tote" road would be built from the Reflection Lakes into the head of Stevens Canyon so that construction of this section of the Stevens Canyon Road could be attacked from both ends at once. Tote roads would not be built, however, for the Eastside or Westside roads, ''on account of the destruction which would be entailed in the very difficult country.'' It would be necessary, instead, to work these projects from one end only. [49] There were limits to what ought to be sacrificed in the face of the current economic crisis.

Concerning the Stevens Canyon Road, the two landscape architects, supported by Kittredge, argued that the road should not be built. They favored an alternative route via Skate Creek, south of the park boundary, which would connect the Nisqually Road with the state highway south of Ohanapecosh. The distance from Longmire to Ohanapecosh would be only two miles greater via Skate Creek, or thirty-one miles as opposed to twenty-nine. The advantages of the Skate Creek route were that it would cause less scarring of the landscape, cost considerably less to construct and maintain, open earlier in the season, and reach completion sooner. The main disadvantage was that it would not fulfill the goal of an all-park road linking Paradise and Sunrise. To get from Paradise to Sunrise via the Skate Creek route would require a thirteen-mile backtrack to Longmire plus an excursion outside the park. [50]

Tomlinson, of course, favored the Stevens Canyon route. He had been pushing hard for this connecting road since 1930. He thought the former director had finally settled this issue on his visit to Mount Rainier in 1931, and he fumed that Vint and Kittredge should have raised their objections two years ago. This was somewhat disingenuous: Albright had settled the matter of whether the south side road should follow a low-line route from Stevens Canyon around Backbone Ridge, or take a high-line route over Cowlitz Divide. As Vint pointed out, he and Kittredge were now responding to the more detailed plans which the BPR engineers had developed during the past two years. Vint commented,

From my viewpoint we could very nicely eliminate the Stevens South Side Canyon project avoiding the construction of a very heavy project which means heavy scars and heavy maintenance on a short season project. I have always recommended the use of the Skate Creek project in preference to the Stevens Canyon Ohanapecosh project. [51]

Kittredge, for his part, observed:

The proposed highway is about one thousand feet in elevation above the Ohanapecosh Hot Springs and parallels the existing new East Side highway near Ohanapecosh Hot Springs for a distance of several miles. The steepness of the Cowlitz Divide slope is so great that the scars of construction must be very severe. It will be impossible to hold all of the blasted rock on the slope and there will be much devastation of the timber below. There is also the extreme danger that on such a steep slope, burning logs may during clearing, roll and start fires between the right-of-way and the river. [52]

Both Kittredge and Vint suggested that the high cost of the road--now estimated at $2 million--should also be taken into account. The money could be used on the Westside Road instead. Tomlinson replied to these arguments:

It is true that the Stevens Canyon Section is an expensive route to build and maintain as compared to a much larger and less scenic route. If construction and maintenance costs are the governing elements, then the Stevens Route should be abandoned. These points were considered by Director Albright and his decision to include the Stevens Canyon Route was based, as I understand it, on the need for a direct scenic route connecting the two major operations; namely, Paradise Valley and Yakima Park; also a route within park boundaries. [53]

Cammerer sided with the superintendent in this debate, and work on the Stevens Canyon Road commenced that fall. By 1941, the road was virtually completed from the Stevens Canyon Entrance to Box Canyon and from Reflection Lakes to within a half mile of Stevens Creek. Work on the actual Stevens Canyon section was halted by World War II, and was not resumed until 1950. [54] It is interesting to speculate whether Cammerer would have decided against the project had he known that it would take twenty-four years to complete it.

The location and construction of the Eastside Road, meanwhile, proceeded without much controversy. The route was straightforward: up the Ohanapecosh River and Chinook Creek to Cayuse Pass--an elevation gain of 2,700 feet in thirteen miles. The main engineering challenges consisted of the single tunnel between Deer and Dewey creeks and the several creek crossings. [55] To speed the work along, the BPR let separate contracts for clearing, grading, and surfacing sections of the road and for constructing the tunnel and bridges. Sometimes small complications arose from having so many contractors working on the east side at one time; for example, the contractor for the Eastside Road surfacing occupied the vacated work camp of the Deadwood Creek Bridge contractor before the latter's project was approved. Minor labor troubles and short construction seasons also hampered the work. [56] The NPS anticipated that the road would be completed in 1937, but it took an additional three years. The eventual cost came to $1.4 million. [57]

TOMLINSON AND THE SUPERINTENDENCY

The growth of the NPS during the New Deal years added immensely to the administrative burdens of the Mount Rainier superintendency. The demands placed upon the superintendent by the public works program and federal relief programs have already been described. Other new responsibilities are discussed below. With added responsibilities came added power; the Mount Rainier superintendency acquired pivotal regional importance in the NPS hierarchy.

Effects of the Reorganization of 1933

President Roosevelt issued two executive orders in June and July 1933 which transferred a large array of federal reserves from the Forest Service and the War Department to the Park Service. When these took effect on August 10, 1933, the national park system embraced not only national parks and monuments, but national memorials, national battlefields, national cemeteries, and national capital parks. During the next few years, it also came to include national recreation areas, national parkways, national historic sites, and national seashores. These diverse holdings expanded the NPS mission. The Park Service was now not only the keeper of the nation's natural wonders, but the recognized leader in recreation policy, historic preservation, and related matters. [58]

There were so many units in the national park system that senior officials in the NPS could no longer expect to have a close, personal familiarity with each one. Before the reorganization, Mount Rainier National Park was one of twenty-two national parks. In addition to the national parks, the NPS administered forty national monuments. [59] Thus it was possible, during the Mather-Albright years, for Mather or one of his two top assistants, Albright or Cammerer, to make almost yearly visits to Mount Rainier. They obtained a firsthand knowledge of park issues and did not hesitate to overrule the superintendent even from their far away offices in Washington, D.C. Director Cammerer faced a new situation. As the first director of the NPS after the reorganization, Cammerer had to adopt a new management style, relying more and more on the judgment of superintendents to resolve local policy questions. By the time Cammerer retired in 1940, the NPS administered more than 175 separate units of the national park system.

Superintendent Tomlinson adapted his office well to these changing circumstances. He and Cammerer were both "Mather men," veterans of the Park Service's early years, and he knew that he had the director's full confidence, often addressing him in correspondence as "Cam." Not only did Cammerer rely on Tomlinson's judgment in nearly all major administrative decisions affecting Mount Rainier, he also respected Tomlinson's advice on other NPS concerns in Washington state. With his tenure as Mount Rainier superintendent now entering its second decade, Tomlinson had become a known quantity among the people of the state. Conservationist Irving Brant, who worked closely with Tomlinson on the Olympic National Park campaign, wrote in his memoirs that the Mount Rainier superintendent was "highly regarded throughout the state of Washington." [60] Increasingly, Tomlinson served as the Park Service s ambassador to the Pacific Northwest, a sort of regional director before the national park system was regionalized.

Washington state was the scene of one of the great conservation battles of the 1930s: the struggle between the Park Service and the Forest Service for control of the old growth forests on the Olympic Peninsula. In the reorganization of 1933, Mount Olympus National Monument was transferred from the Forest Service to the Park Service. Within months of the transfer, the Seattle Mountaineers and the Emergency Conservation Committee were starting a campaign to make the area a large national park that would take in some of the forest country surrounding the crest of the mountain range. Washington's Congressman Mon C. Wallgren introduced a bill in March 1935; the president visited the embattled peninsula in October 1937; the park was established in June 1938. These were the turning points in a campaign that increasingly took Tomlinson away from the administration of Mount Rainier. Some time prior to 1938, Tomlinson was named coordinating superintendent for Mount Olympus National Monument. He also had responsibility for Whitman Mission National Monument (established in June 1936) and he served at this time as the Park Service's point man for the proposed North Cascades National Park. [61]

Tomlinson's broader responsibilities not only divided his attention, they shaped his outlook on certain matters pertaining to Mount Rainier. For example, when the NPS Wildlife Division pushed for a south side addition to Mount Rainier National Park that would include winter range for the park's deer population, Tomlinson objected that it might cause political repercussions on the Olympic Peninsula. "The most important project in this State now before the National Park Service is the proposed Mount Olympus National Park," he declared. "I feel that all of our efforts and energies should first be directed toward obtaining approval of National Park status for as much of that fine wilderness area as can be obtained." [62] Acting Director Arthur E. Demaray backed him up, advising one NPS official that "such projects [as the south side addition to Mount Rainier] should not be pressed at this time in view of the detrimental effects such action might have on our prospects regarding the Olympic Peninsula." [63] Another NPS official reported a conversation with Tomlinson on this matter in the summer of 1936. The brief memorandum is revealing of Tomlinson's forceful personality as well as his political savvy:

Major Tomlinson emphasized to me the importance of avoiding any activity in this direction. He stated that the state-wide controversy regarding any increase in national park area in the State is so heated, that any suggestion for the addition of this area to Mount Rainier would greatly endanger the possibility of securing local support of our Mount Olympus plans.

This area is obviously of far less importance to the National Park system than the Mount Olympus area, and, unless you instruct otherwise, this office will definitely avoid any further action on it at this time, and will discourage any interest which may arise from other sources. [64]

On Tomlinson's recommendation, the NPS established a branch office in Seattle in April 1933. Although not continuously staffed, the office served as a convenient meeting place for NPS officials and other federal and state officials. Tomlinson made it his practice to occupy the office each Thursday, and he encouraged other park staff members to use the office as the need arose. It was his view that the trend of NPS affairs in the state would create more and more need for a city office such as this, particularly if and when Mount Olympus became a national park. [65]

At one point, Tomlinson's office routine got him into trouble. The superintendent had purchased a home in Seahurst, a suburb south of Seattle on the shore of Puget Sound, where his wife and children now resided. Tomlinson regularly made the round trip from his home at Longmire to the Seattle office, then from Seattle to Seahurst, then from Seahurst back to Longmire. At the beginning of fiscal year 1937, the NPS issued a travel order authorizing him to travel from park headquarters at Longmire to and from such points in the state as might be required in connection with his official duties. For some time (it is unclear how long) the superintendent dubiously claimed per diem expenses for all the week days that he spent the night at his second residence in Seahurst. This embarrassing infraction was brought to Secretary of the Interior Ickes's attention after what appeared to be a routine, internal audit of Tomlinson's expense vouchers. It is possible that the superintendent was set up. He had been investigated twice before on spurious grounds. [66] More likely, Tomlinson's expense vouchers came under scrutiny because he was one of several "coordinating superintendents" in the expanding national park system who were being asked to take on administrative duties outside their respective parks. This called for more complicated accounting procedures, and Secretary Ickes was known for running a tight ship. In any case, Tomlinson agreed to reimburse the government for these per diem expenses and managed to lay the matter swiftly to rest. [67]

Regionalization and the Seattle Office

As the NPS grew during the 1930s, the various field offices with technical staff became consolidated into a few cities spread across the United States. San Francisco and Berkeley had the western offices of the NPS Branch of Planning and the Wildlife Division respectively. With the creation of the CCC, the NPS also established a field office in San Francisco for administering the CCC program in state parks. To fulfill this latter function, the NPS divided the nation into four regions and established four field offices. Four years later, Cammerer decided to regionalize the entire national park system along the same lines as its administration of the CCC. Mount Rainier National Park became part of the Western Region, or Region Four, with the regional office located in San Francisco.

A regional directorship was similar to the kind of position Tomlinson was trying to create in Seattle, and it was hardly surprising that four years later he would become regional director for the Western Region. [68] But in 1937-38, the Mount Rainier superintendent remained sharply focused on the Olympic National Park campaign and the potential for an important Seattle office situated between the two national parks in Washington. He worked closely with his former chief ranger and then custodian of Mount Olympus National Monument, Preston Macy. [69] In October 1937, when President Roosevelt went to the Olympic Peninsula, he and Macy faced off against Forest Service officials as the president listened and made up his mind in favor of the Park Service's position. [70]

After the establishment of Olympic National Park on June 29, 1938, Tomlinson proposed the establishment of an enlarged superintendency based in Seattle. He advised Cammerer that such an office would be the "best way to administer the two parks in the State of Washington"--it would allow the superintendent to devote "much needed attention to the development of better understanding in the State of national park policies, the solving of numerous conflicting problems in the new park, and the coordination of the work in connection with the North Cascades proposed park." The North Cascades park proposal alone, Tomlinson added, would justify the position. The position would barely allow the NPS to keep abreast of the Forest Service's vigorous public relations effort in the state. The details of Mount Rainier administration could be left to subordinates, who had proven their mettle during his many absences from the park in the last four years. [71]

Tomlinson fleshed out his proposal in a letter to Demaray in September. The "coordinating office" in Seattle would handle all purchasing, vouchering, and accounting work as well as much of the routine administrative correspondence for both parks. The superintendent would spend about 50 to 60 percent of his time there and the remainder in the two parks as circumstances required. He would need an assistant superintendent, a stenographer-clerk, a purchasing and voucher clerk, a typist, and an accountant-clerk. Besides the savings in personnel and equipment costs, the permanent staffing of a Seattle office would be a boon to NPS public relations in the state. [72]

Cammerer made recommendations to the Secretary of the Interior along somewhat different lines from what Tomlinson proposed. Tomlinson's position as Mount Rainier superintendent would be reallocated to grade 17 and he would supervise the organization and preliminary development of Olympic National Park, Preston Macy would be appointed superintendent of Olympic at grade 15, and there would be an assistant, grade 13, who would serve both parks. Meanwhile, Demaray wrote to Tomlinson: "I see no reason why you should not recommend transferring some Rainier personnel to Seattle during the winter and spending perhaps the major part of your time at Seattle." [73]

If Tomlinson still hoped that his supervisory role in setting up Olympic National Park might evolve into an enlarged superintendency, he was finally disappointed in March 1939 when Demaray informed him that Secretary Ickes had stipulated that the administration of Mount Rainier and Olympic were to be fully separated. Tomlinson was to turn over all records pertaining to Olympic to Superintendent Macy. In an effort to soften the blow, Demaray added:

At this time, I desire to tell you of the deep appreciation that we all have here of the splendid work you have done to bring about the creation of Olympic National Park and to assist in the progress of its administration. This fine work of yours has been recognized so far as possible by administrative promotions and will be borne in mind for any future consideration. [74]

Tomlinson was now anxious to move on. His superintendency at Mount Rainier National Park, dating from 1923, was the longest of any serving national park superintendent. For several years he and his wife had maintained two residences for the benefit of their school-age children. In the winter of 1940-41 he accepted a temporary assignment in Washington, D.C. (leaving his family behind in Seahurst), at the behest of Director Newton B. Drury. [75] Finally that summer he received the appointment he had been looking for: regional director, Western Region. He would serve effectively in that position until 1950, keeping a hand in the administration of Mount Rainier National Park.