SITKA Administrative History

Chapter 3:
SITKA NATIONAL MONUMENT, EARLY YEARS (continued)

Agencies vie for monument control

When Sitka National Monument was created in 1910, the National Park Service had not yet come into being. It took some time to determine which agency would take responsibility for national monuments.

Local interest in the park remained after the Sitka property was assigned monument status. The District of Alaska government also continued its concern for the park, begun when the seat of government was at Sitka between 1884 and 1906. The Alaska Road Commission, originally known as the Board of Road Commissioners for Alaska, also tended to matters in the park. Congress had created the commission within the War Department in 1905 to build and maintain roads in Alaska. An army engineer officer appointed by the Secretary of War and two other army officers drawn from troops stationed in Alaska oversaw the commission's work. [102]

Given Tongass National Forest Supervisor William A. Langille's role in creating the monument, the Department of the Interior might have asked the Forest Service for help in managing the new monument at Sitka. But national-level rivalries between the Departments of Agriculture and Interior were reflected in antagonistic relations between field divisions. [103]

On September 16, 1912, the Secretary of the Interior decreed that A. Christensen, chief of the General Land Office Field Division at Seattle, would superintend all national monuments in Alaska. Christensen, in turn, directed that employees of his office -- located in Seattle -- whenever in the Sitka area, should exercise such supervision as they could over the monument without incurring additional expense. In particular, they were to act "with the object of preventing unauthorized exploration or vandalism, or the removal of relics, and . . . be prepared to report on . . . action in the matter." [104]