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FOR MANY YEARS thoughtful people interested in national park conservation. Federal officials and private citizens alike, realized the need for a unified administration of the national parks and monuments. The first decade of the 20th century, in addition to the positive and decisive national park developments just mentioned, also brought increasing threats to the integrity of the Nation's parks. Several parks with no kinship to the existing national wilderness parks, or to the outstanding archeological values of Mesa Verde and Casa Grande, were created. More active threats were the endeavors of various groups to exploit park waters, forests, and other features.

In 1908 J. Horace McFarland, then President of the American Civic Association, pleaded that the Nation "hold inviolate our great scenic heritages;" and in 1910 he spearheaded the growing movement to establish a Federal Agency with the sole responsibility of administering the national parks and monuments. Secretary of the Interior Walter L. Fisher and President Taft recommended such action to Congress and bills to effect it were introduced.

Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, taking office in 1913, approved the movement for an integrated national park and monument system under the management of a separate parks bureau. Perhaps partially as a result of the clamor of protests that arose concerning the damming of beautiful Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park for waterpower purposes—the worst raid ever perpetrated on national park resources he took steps toward unification by the appointment of an assistant charged with the primary responsibility of national park management, pending creation of a parks bureau.

Two men came into the picture at this stage who were destined to become prominent figures in the national park scene. In 1915 Stephen T. Mather took over park supervision as assistant to the Secretary of the Interior. His assistant was Horace M. Albright. Together they furthered the move for legislation to establish the needed new bureau and to coordinate, with the facilities available, the work of administering the fast-growing National Park System.

So the stage was set, the groundwork laid, for the next step in national park history—the creation of the National Park Service. By Act of Congress approved August 25, 1916, that Service was created, and was expressly directed to "promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter specified by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purpose of the said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

When limited appropriations became available the following spring to organize the new bureau, Stephen T. Mather became its first Director and Horace M. Aibright its Assistant Director. Later, Mr. Albright served for ten years as Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park and then succeeded Mr. Mather as Director.

DREAM LAKE, Rocky Mountain National Park. This gem of a lake is reached only by trail from Bear Lake, a mile away—and when you get that far from a road in the big western national parks you are in the real wilderness. Hallett Peak in left background. (Photograph by George A. Grant.)

Coming into existence during World War I, the Service began on a financially limited basis. In the following years, depressions, emergency spending programs, World War II. and the Korean War all affected its appropriations adversely. Yet even as they cut park appropriations to supply funds for urgent emergencies, both the Bureau of the Budget and Congress were friendly toward the National Park Service and its work.

Two important events occurred in 1933. The first was the issuance of an Executive Order by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, under the reorganization powers given him by Congress which consolidated all Federal park activities in the Department of the Interior. Thus were brought under National Park Service control the national monuments formerly under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture and the War Department, also various other areas reserved under War Department control because of their outstanding military significance. These latter included national military parks, battlefield sites, and other similar areas; also cemeteries that are a part of the historic scene represented by nearby military parks. Some of these military areas were reserved as early as 1890. Most of the War Department areas were in the East, so the small beginning already made in historic conservation in that section of the country was greatly augmented. Some of these transferred areas, especially the sites of crucial Civil War battles, are among the leaders in annual visitation. Gettysburg alone provides inspiration for nearly three-quarters of a million visitors annually.

Another outstanding event of the Great Depression days was the availability of emergency funds. When measures were taken to bring unemployment relief, the National Park Service was in a strategic position to cooperate. Public works funds (President Hoover had already inaugurated a limited public works program in Shenandoah National Park), Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration allotments, plus others, helped immeasurably to bridge the regular appropriations gap. With out participation in the emergency programs the Service would have been hard put to it to serve the public during the years immediately following 1933.

WHERE THE BATTLE'S FINAL STAND WAS MADE, Shiloh National Military Park. These cannon mark the line of the final stand of the Union Army at the Battle of Shiloh when, on the second day, reinforcements enabled them to turn back the last Confederate attack and prepared the way for Grant's success at Vicksburg. Of Shiloh Grant said: ". . . a case of Southern dash against Northern pluck and endurance. . . . The Troops on both sides were Americans . . . united they need not fear any foreign foe." This is one of the areas turned over to the National Park Service by the War Department in 1933.

Last Modified: Sat, Oct 5 2002 10:00:00 pm PDT
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