LEGISLATION FOR PARK ESTABLISHMENT
Stimulated in part by various individuals and groups,
the South Dakota Legislature in 1909 petitioned the federal government
to establish a township of Badlands as a national park. As read before
both houses of Congress on March 16, 1909, the petition stated in
part:
Whereas there is a small section of country about the
headwaters of the White River in South Dakota where nature has carved
the surface of the earth into most unique and interesting forms, and has
exposed to an extent perhaps not elsewhere found; and
Whereas this formation is so unique, picturesque, and
valuable for the purpose of study that a portion of it should be
retained in its native state . . . [69]
However, no legislation was introduced on the
proposal until more than a decade later.
A 1919 report by the U.S. Forest Service recommended
that the Badlands area be set aside as a national park. The report also
recorded considerable tourist travel to the Badlands. "The travel this
year was several hundred times greater than in any former year . . .
Many visitors came over state route 40 (the Washington Highway) which
connects the towns of Interior and Scenic with Rapid City. This road
was under construction in 1919 and followed, more or less, the Chicago,
Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad. Visitors also came on passenger
trains. [70]
However, accessibility to the scenic sections of the
Badlands Wall from the Washington Highway were already being closed in
1919 by the construction of fences, except for a few low passes in the
wall where side roads had been constructed. The Washington Highway and
the railroad are both located two to six miles from the most
picturesque Badlands features. The same report recommended that a road
be built "along the course of the scenic points of interest" and that
campgrounds should be constructed "at well chosen camp sites." [71] (Such a road was completed 16 years later by the
State of South Dakota; see page 43).
While other individuals and organizations played an
important part in the establishment of Badlands National Monument,
Senator Peter Norbeck deserves more credit than any other legislator.
Norbeck was born on a farm in Clay County in southeastern South Dakota,
August 27, 1870, and was the son of a member of the 1871 Dakota
Territorial Legislature. His public career began when he was elected to
the state senate in 1908 and he served there until 1915. In 1914 Norbeck
was voted lieutenant-governor of the state, and was elected governor in
1916 and 1918. His achievements as governor were many, including the
founding of a state-enterprise program designed to help farmers. Another
of his great accomplishments was the establishment of Custer State
Park.
In 1920 Norbeck was elected to the United States
Senate where he served continuously until his death in 1936. Although
his chief interest was in farm-relief legislation, he was instrumental
in passing the Migratory Bird Act of 1929 and in securing federal funds
for the carving of Mount Rushmore National Memorial. [72]
South Dakota's congressmen, William Williamson from
Oacoma and Charles A. Christopherson from Sioux Falls, assisted Norbeck
by their work in the U.S. House of Representatives. Christopherson's
services in the House began in 1919, Williamson's in 1921. [73]
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Figure 13. EARLY ROAD THROUGH CEDAR
PASS, 1908 or earlier.
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On May 2, 1922, during the second session of the 67th
Congress, Senator Norbeck introduced the first bill (S. 3541) for making
the Badlands area a national park. Entitled "A bill to establish the
Wonderland National Park in the State of South Dakota," it proposed to
set aside and withdraw from entry "all public lands lying and being
within townships two and three south, ranges fifteen and sixteen east of
the Black Hills meridian, and township three south, ranges seventeen,
eighteen, and nineteen east of the Black Hills meridian." [74] The proposal provided that the Secretary of the
Interior might add to the park from time to time any lands which may be
donated to the United States for such purposes. It also stated that the
Secretary of the Interior may authorize exchange of non-federal lands in
the park for certain public lands of equal value outside the park.
Finally, the bill provided that a sum not exceeding $5,000 annually be
appropriated by Congress for the maintenance and improvement of the
park, if the State of South Dakota made an equal contribution. After the
bill was read, it was referred to the Committee of Public Lands and
Surveys. [75]
On the same day, Congressman Williamson introduced a
bill (H.R. 11514) in the House of Representatives, identical to the
first one submitted by Norbeck in the Senate. This bill was referred to
the Committee on the Public Lands and ordered to be printed. [76] No further action was taken on either the Norbeck or
Williamson bills in the 67th Congress.
However, in October 1922 President Harding issued an
executive order temporarily withdrawing all public lands in the seven
townships to be included in the proposed park for the purpose of
classifying them "pending enactment of appropriate legislation." [77] The total area within the seven townships was about
161,000 acres, of which 35,410 were classified as vacant. [78]
On March 3, 1923, Congressmen Christopherson and
Williamson presented memorials from "the Legislature of the State of
South Dakota urging Congress to set aside the Bad Lands as a national
park ..." [79]
In December 1923, in the 68th Congress, Williamson
again introduced a bill (H.R. 2810) to establish Wonderland National
Park. This proposal was identical to the one he and Norbeck introduced
in the preceding Congress. [80] Like the earlier
bill it, too, died in committee.
If the Norbeck papers, now at the University of South
Dakota, are any indication of the public support the Senator received
for his park proposal, only a few people in the early 1920's shared his
views. Attorney General Byron S. Payne of South Dakota, Professor W.C.
Toepelman of the University of South Dakota Geology Department, and W.H.
Tompkins of the U.S. Land Office in Rapid City, all endorsed the
Wonderland National Park proposal. [81] However, at
that time the highways were relatively undeveloped. The automobile
industry and tourism were both in their infancies. It was to take nearly
another decade to gain the support of local and state chambers of
commerce and other promotional groups for national parks and
monuments.
It appears that the National Park Service did not
give Norbeck encouragement for his idea of a national park in the
Badlands. In a letter to a constituent in May 1924, the Senator
wrote:
. . . regarding the Bad Lands National Park, [I] will
state that the Park Service here will not approve a bill of that kind,
and therefore, we can not secure the legislation. They are,
however, willing to approve the plan of having it designated by the
President as a "National Monument". In practice, this means nearly the
same thing, so Congressman Williamson and I have come to an agreement
that we are going to accept that plan and work it out that way. [82]
Nevertheless, Norbeck continued to work for a
national park instead of a national monument.
To insure that he would include the most scenic parts
of the region in the proposed park, Norbeck made frequent trips there.
In answer to a constituent's letter, he wrote in November 1927, "I have
visited the Bad Lands every year for sixteen years. A year ago I spent
four or five days in them and this year I have made five trips into that
area." [84] During 1927 a number of eastern
newspapers carried photographs of the Badlands in their Sunday photo
sections. [85]
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Figure 14. VAMPIRE PEAK, 1930's. Located
near the present national monument visitor center, the peak has since
lost its spires to erosion. According to local tradition the presence of
bats around the formation caused J.I. Peterkin, a traveling artist, to
give it this name around 1915. [83]
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In the late 1920's Badlands visitors who arrived from
the east via Kadoka or Cottonwood probably used Cedar Pass. The narrow
and precipitous route through Cedar Pass was aptly described by one of
those early visitors:
The passes become more crooked and the grades more
steep. The road is bordered by profuse scrub cedar trees. There is a
thrill in that drive! At first it looks dangerous, but the danger seems
to minimize as we approach each more steep and more crooked and more
narrow section. By taking it slowly the risk is small. [86]
The route passed the new Cedar Pass Camp (now Cedar
Pass Lodge) and took visitors to the railroad town of Interior where
they may have spent some time at Palmer's Curio shop and at Henry
Thompson's souvenir stand which he called "The Wonderland." From
Interior visitors traveled west over the Washington Highway to the
railroad town of Scenic. In the late 1920's the Museum Filling Station
in Scenic was widely known for its collection of Badlands fossils and
Indian artifacts. They also provided guide services to visitors desiring
to see Badlands features located off the road. Rapid City was reached by
traveling northwest over 45 miles of good dirt road except
during rains. [87]
Support for the park proposal grew in the late
1920's. In October 1927 the Wonderland Hiway Association, in a letter to
Senator Norbeck, wrote:
At a meeting of the Wonderland Hiway Association, an
orgization [sic] comprising the business men and local residenters
[sic] of the Towns through the Bad Lands, It was resolved;
That the Association would ask and petition the State
Hiway Commission . . . for a State Hiway, Starting from Kadoka, West
over Cedar Pass to Interior, S. Dak. West through The Bad Lands to
Scenic over Hiway #40 and from Scenic to Hermosa, S. Dak., Providing a
sutable [sic] location can be found. [88]
The State Highway Commission gave the proposal its
wholehearted support. [89]
The National Park Service, however, continued to
oppose the area as a national park on two grounds. For one thing much of
the land was in private ownership. Senator Norbeck explained in a 1927
letter:
The Park program is not as easy as it seems on
account of so much of the land having gone into Private ownership. The
Federal Government will not purchase land for park purposes. They never
have. The State must and that will come slow. [90]
In the second place, the National Park Service
believed that the area was more suitable as a national monument. The
Senator continued in the same letter:
The Park Service is opposed to making it a National
Park as they try to limit the Parks to the areas that are principally
recreational. They would favor a plan to make the Bad Lands a "National
Monument." [91]
Despite the objections of the Service to the
Senator's park proposal, Norbeck's continued desire for a national park
in the Badlands was stated in a letter written in November 1927 to
Hubert Work, Secretary of the Interior:
The Congressional delegation from this state will be
united in an effort to create a Bad Lands National Park in South Dakota.
If this is impossible they will desire to have certain areas set aside
as national monuments. [92]
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Figure 15. SENATOR PETER NORBECK (1870 -
1936)
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In April 1928 Norbeck wrote Representative Williamson
asking him to help draft a bill for the park. The first part of the
bill, Norbeck indicated, would "include the Badlands Wall proper, from
a point about 4 miles east of Interior to a point 12 or 14 miles
southwest of Wall." [93] The establishment of the
park would be contingent on the building of a road by the State through
the proposed area and the State acquiring 90 percent of the privately
owned lands within it. The second part of the bill would authorize a
national monument which would include Sheep Mountain and the surrounding
area, some six to seven miles southwest of Scenic. The authorization of
this area would be conditional upon the construction of a highway from
Scenic to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and acquisition of the
lands within the proposed monument by the State of South Dakota. The
third portion of the bill would authorize the abandonment of Wind Cave
National Park! [94]
The bills as finally presented to Congress by Norbeck
and Williamson were somewhat different from the one which the Senator
planned.
During the first session of the 70th Congress,
Norbeck and Williamson introduced identical legislation in their
respective houses on May 8, 1928, to set aside the Badlands as a
national park. Norbeck introduced S. 4385, "A Bill To establish Teton
National Park in the State of South Dakota . . . " The bill authorized
the Secretary of the Interior, through negotiation, to exchange
privately owned lands within the proposed park for public lands of equal
value outside. The bill contained a provision that when 90 percent of
the privately owned lands within the proposed area had been acquired
without expense to the federal treasury and transferred to the
government for park purposes, the park would be set aside for the
people, " . . . Provided, That the State of South Dakota shall have
first constructed" approximately 40 miles of suitable road to specified
points inside and outside the proposed park. [95]
Norbeck's bill was referred to the Committee on
Public Lands and Surveys. On May 19 the bill was reported out without
amendment. The accompanying report (No. 1246) gave a strong endorsement
to the proposal. [96] On May 23, the bill was
considered as in Committee of the Whole and passed the Senate. [97]
However, in the House where Williamson had introduced
an identical bill (H.R. 13618), the park proposal ran into trouble. In
a circular letter dated November 7, 1928, the National Parks Association
claimed that the proposed Teton National Park had not been examined for
standards by the National Park Service before the Senate acted on the
proposal and that the bill was hurried through that body. Asserting
that the proposed area was reported below standard by the National Park
Service, the association charged:
Neither of these Senators [Norbeck and Nye], nor the
Public Lands Committee which reported the bill and resolution, nor the
Senate sessions which carelessly passed them, discussed the national
aspects of this legislation. They did not consider the plan and
standards of the national system which Congress had been building unit by
unit, each painstakingly chosen, since 1872. They ignored the half
century Congressional custom of awaiting the report of the Interior
Department, to which Congress had entrusted the System's shaping from
the beginning. They ignored the American people's enthusiastic interest
in the plan and purpose of this unique world-famous institution, and
its insistence in recent years upon park selection by the expert
National Park Service . . . .
Thoughtlessness, apparently, but in practice this
amounts to localism defying national aspirations. It seriously threatens
national park standards. [98]
In a letter to Robert S. Yard, Executive Secretary of
the association, Senator Norbeck accused the association of sending out
a misleading report:
You criticise me for introducing and securing action
in the Senate on a bill fifteen days after it was introduced and
especially in view of the fact that it had not been investigated by the
National Park Service.
You could truthfully have said that this legislation
has been pending for a great many yearsat least five years.
You could also have said that I have been trying all
these years to get the Park Service to investigate the proposed
area.
You could also have added that the Government land in
this area was withdrawn by Presidential Proclamation many years ago in
anticipation of park legislation. Why carry the idea that it was all a
fifteen day affair when it is all of five years? It would be a hard rule
to apply that the failure of the Park Service to investigate an
important project should preclude a member of Congress from taking any
action whatever . . . .
You also state that the project has been investigated
by the Park Service and reported adversely. It is an astonishing fact
that the knowledge of such reports should be withheld from me.
Therefore, I doubt very much that any report has been made. I therefore
wired the Park Service, asking who made the report and when. I have no
response. [99]
Acting Director Arthur E. Demaray of the National
Park Service, meanwhile, wrote Norbeck advising him that the Service had
never prepared an official report on the park proposal and that the
statement by the association that the proposed park was "reported below
standard by the National Park Service" was without authority. [100]
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Figure 16. BEN MILLARD (1872 - 1956)
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In the House of Representatives where the proposal
was considered in the second session, the bill (S. 4385) underwent
substantial revision. After being considered by the Committee on the
Public Lands, it was reported out with amendments on February 19, 1929.
[101] The revised bill changed the boundary of the
proposed area, reducing it from 69,120 acres to about 50,760 acres [102] (50,830 acres according to another source [103]). The name was changed from Teton National Park to
Badlands National Monument. It modified the requirements for the road
which the state had to construct from 40 miles to 30 miles of total
length. The requirement that 90 percent of the privately owned lands had
to be acquired before the park could be established was dropped.
Instead, it was now at the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior
to decide when enough privately owned lands within the proposed boundary
had been purchased so that the area could be proclaimed a national
monument by the President. As before, the bill stipulated that the lands
would have to be acquired without cost to the federal treasury. The
amended bill had a new provision that the Department of the Interior
could grant hotel and lodge franchises in advance of the fulfillment of
the conditions. [104]
The amended bill was considered by the Committee of
the Whole House on February 25, six days after the Committee on the
Public Lands had acted on it. Two additional amendments were offered on
the floor of the House and were accepted. The idea that the Secretary of
the Interior could decide when enough privately owned land had been
purchased so that the area could be proclaimed as a national monument was
dropped in favor of requiring all privately owned land within the
proposed boundary be purchased before the area could be established. The
provision giving the Department of the Interior authority to grant
franchises in advance of the establishment of the national monument was
also deleted. This amended form passed the House of Representatives on
the same day, February 25. [105]
When the House act was referred to the Senate on the
next day, Norbeck asked his colleagues not to concur with the amended
proposal. He asked instead that the modified bill be considered in a
conference committee of the House and Senate. [106]
On March 2, the conference committee recommended that the two amendments
that were attached to the bill on the floor of the House on February 25
be dropped, returning the bill to the form it had when it was originally
reported out on February 19. [107]
On the same day, March 2, the final bill was passed
by both houses. [108] Known as Public Law No. 1021,
the act authorizing Badlands National Monument was approved by President
Calvin Coolidge on March 4, 1929. The signing of the act took place on
the last day of Coolidge's term as President of the United States. [109]
The area authorized under this act (45 Stat. 1553)
included 50,830.40 acres; of this amount, 39,893.85 acres were in the
public domain. The remainder was state land or privately owned land. [110]
It is interesting to note that Senator Norbeck
introduced a new bill (S. 5779) to establish Badlands National Monument
on February 11, 1929. It was identical with the House amendments
proposed for S. 4385 which were later reported out by the Committee on
the Public Lands on February 19. The new bill, after being referred to
the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys, was returned on February 20
with Senate Report 1842. [111] Meanwhile, Williamson
introduced H. 17102 in the House, which was identical to S. 5779; it was
referred to the Committee on the Public Lands. [112]
Both of these bills died without further consideration.
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