Chapter Five:
Selling Sequoia: The Early Park Service Years (1916-1931)
(continued)
Preservation: The Conflict for Giant Forest Begins
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Dr. Emilio Meinecke's report on the status of the
giant sequoias and their susceptibility to human-caused damage came
during an important year for the two parks. In 1926 the park's acreage
more than doubled, the new road to Giant Forest opened, and Howard Hays
brought concession stability to the parks. Meinecke's report was like a
bucket of cold water thrown on the cheery scene. He demonstrated that
the giant sequoia suffered serious root damage when confronted with
roads, buildings and massed human traffic. Its shallow roots seemed
particularly susceptible to soil compaction and the danger of severing
during construction. With a badly damaged root system inhibiting the
intake of water and nutrients, how long would it be before the tree
died? As an added matter of concern to Colonel White and his staff, the
scenery and serenity of Giant Forest in particular was being gravely
harmed. Subsumed under scores of buildings and up to several thousand
cars at a time, nature appreciation was nearly impossible on busy summer
days and evenings. It went against the superintendent's nature to
interfere with visitor enjoyment of the park's primary resource, but
there was no ignoring the serious breach of quality that beset the
grove. [63]
For Colonel White the solution was always some
measure that would encourage people to go elsewhere in the big park.
Construction of the High Sierra Trail and limits on cabins, recreation
buildings, services, and amenities in Giant Forest, were actions aimed
at dispersing use and focusing attention on the park's spiritually
uplifting qualities. Meinecke's report added fuel to the fire of these
thoughts by simply stating that the best solution to the damage caused
by construction among sequoias was to stop building. [64] Much harm had already been done by the new
Generals Highway; prevention of further damage was paramount.
The superintendent fired the opening shot on May 26,
1927, in a letter to Director Mather. He wrote that after careful
consideration he believed that limits should be placed on the
concessioner's housing capacity in Giant Forest. White suggested limits
of 600 guests at Giant Forest Lodge and 600 more at Camp Kaweah for the
1927 season. Further, he suggested that at the end of the season the
Giant Forest Lodge cabins be removed from under the sequoias to some
unspecified locationpossibly near Beetle Rock and Camp Kaweah or
perhaps even to Lodgepole. [65] Mather
initially agreed but recommended that they wait a month until their
scheduled meeting with Hays during which time the concessioner would
submit his plans. There is no record of that meeting, but whatever
Howard Hays told his old friend worked because no more was heard of
White's recommendations for several years. [66] A few years later, in 1929, White did gain
one victory by blocking Hays' request to build a new auto camp at Round
Meadow. The Park Service had just cleared the ramshackle litter of
campsites that had covered the area for the previous twenty summers. It
sharply opposed building a new camp there. Hays was forced to develop
the auto camp at Pinewood instead. [67]
On July 4, 1930, a disturbing and increasingly
familiar scene unfolded before Colonel White and his staff. Cars crowded
around Giant Forest Village, honking and jostling for parking places in
the lot and along the road. Over at Giant Forest Lodge more cars clogged
the sprawling complex of housekeeping cabins. People coursed this way
and that between their cars and cabins, and from the dining room to the
visitor center. At Camp Kaweah the scene was repeated. There were
traffic jams at the Moro Rock road junction, at the new Giant Forest
Village gas station, and at the access roads to Giant Forest Lodge and
Camp Kaweah. More cars and more people packed into the four campgrounds
and Pinewood Auto Camp. In all nearly 1,200 cars brought almost 4,300
people into Giant Forest that day. A few years earlier that would have
been more than a month's total. [68]
On that Independence Day of 1930, White worried about
what he saw and a few months later put those worries to paper in his
report to the director:
The problem of handling such numbers (of visitors) in
the congested central Big Tree area at Giant Forest is a serious one;
and much study and planning must be given to developing new areas for
hotels, housekeeping camps, public camps etc. in order to accommodate
the increasing crowds. If we do not plan carefully and transfer the
major part of the present activity away from the heart of Giant Forest,
the beauties of that areaalready badly tarnishedwill be
further impaired. [69]
It was a desperate situation that threatened to leave
the world's greatest forest anything but "unimpaired for future
generations." In Giant Forest something drastic was required; something
that would restore the grove and make sure that its beauty and
inspirational qualities were never again tarnished. That something was
the complete evacuation of concession facilities from among the Big
Trees.
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The opening of this battle came in 1931 with Hays'
request to add five new redwood cabins to Giant Forest Lodge. It was a
simple and modest request; Hays believed that it was scarcely more than
a formality before construction began. However, to his amazement,
Colonel White rejected his proposal and answered that Hays ought to be
planning instead to move the entire lodge complex to another site.
White's idea was nearly five years old, but this time he meant it. To
Hays and his manager, George Mauger, the rejection threatened the
viability of their operation. They believed that visitors came to the
park to stay among the Big Trees, not to pay short visits from
their lodgings in a mundane pine forest. Removal of the facilities from
Giant Forest might spell a serious fall in concession customer numbers.
In addition, they believed that whatever damage might befall the "half
dozen" sequoias on their grounds (a considerable underestimate at the
time) would be minimal compared to the damage done by "hundred of
thousands of sightseers and campers who will be motoring through and
picnicking under the Big Trees." Hays concluded his response by
writing:
No money payment as damages or expense could
compensate us for the moving of our Hotel from our present site out to
(say) Lodgepole. There is no National Park feeling at Lodgepole. Among
the finest pages of John Muir are those where he writes of his poignant
sorrow because the venerable Emerson was restrained from joining him
(Muir) for a night under the Big Trees. [70]
The lines were drawn and two resolute, erudite and
savvy men, John R. White and Howard Hays, faced off over the future of
the concessioner's major investment and the park's principal resource.
[71]
For Hays the next step was obvious. Whenever he had
problems with his concession operations in Sequoia and General Grant, he
simply went to his old friend Horace Albright, now director of the
National Park Service. This practice infuriated Colonel White who
believed that only the superintendent could really make such decisions
based on fact, observation, and the best interests of the park
uninfluenced by outside concerns. Left unsaid was White's increasingly
proprietary feelings about his two charges. The Colonel had begun to see
Sequoia and General Grant as his fiefdoms and resented any activity in
them that was not directly under his control. He fired off letters to
Albright, to members of the director's Washington staff, and to friends
in the Sierra Club bitterly complaining about the concessioner's
penchant for going over his head. [72]
In the end, Hays' tactic worked. Albright overruled
White and flatly stated that he would never insist that the Giant Forest
Lodge be removed from the sequoia belt. Indeed, if some reason was found
why they should move from the site they occupied, then they should move
to another site under the Big Trees. That settled the matter of moving
the lodge out of Giant Forest, at least for the time being. In addition,
the director approved construction of the five redwood cabins that had
triggered the whole conflict. [73] It was a
crushing defeat for Colonel White and those who would protect the
sequoias.
Nevertheless, it was not a total victory for Hays and
his company either. Albright, like his predecessor, was gravely
concerned about protection of the sequoias and of the park values in
Giant Forest. He recognized that limits had to be placed somewhere lest
the magnificent grove be turned into a residential neighborhood with
rather large backyard trees. Thus on November 23, 1931, Albright ordered
that the Giant Forest Lodge capacity henceforth would be limited to 200
guests or "pillows" and a number of still-to-be determined employee
quarters. This pinned the concession company to a total only slightly
higher than they already had. A few months later, the director expanded
the "pillow limit" concept to cover Camp Kaweah where up to 500 guests
could be housed and pinewood Auto Camp which would be limited to 300.
Both complexes were well below those totals and allowed the concessioner
considerable further expansion within Giant Forest. However, the areas
directly among the major sequoias, those of the lodge, were virtually
closed to further construction. [74]
The magnitude of this decision can scarcely be
overestimated. It was the first time the Park Service placed a limit on
tourism development in any of its parks. It was a revolution of sorts in
policy and philosophy and arose from men who had campaigned vigorously
for recreation development. Mather had been leaning toward control,
Albright had implemented it. Some of the evidence to back the latest
decisions came from Walter Fry's nature observations. But it was Colonel
White, the increasingly dominant and preservation-oriented
superintendent, who drove the Park Service to the decision, and who was
far from finished in his efforts to force the concessioner out from
among the sequoias.
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