Presenting Nature

Cover

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Overview

Stewardship

Design Ethic Origins
(1916-1927)

Design Policy & Process
(1916-1927)

Western Field Office
(1927-1932)

Park Planning

Decade of Expansion
(1933-1942)

State Parks
(1933-1942)

Appendix A

Appendix B

Bibliography

Presenting Nature: The Historic Landscape Design of the National Park Service, 1916-1942

VI. A DECADE OF EXPANSION, 1933 TO 1942 (continued)

EMERGENCY CONSERVATION WORK (continued)

HEADQUARTERS AREA, SEQUOIA

Construction and landscape naturalization projects were coordinated throughout the national parks and monuments during the 1930s. An ECW project at Sequoia's Ash Mountain in the fourth enrollment period, from October 1934 to April 1935, enlarged the administration building which had been constructed in 1923 in a form typical of California bungalows. For the addition, builders used a technique called California box framing, which had been used in the original construction, and gave it an exterior of split shakes and false exposed framing. The new addition changed the public entrance to a covered flagstone patio, where rustic rafters were supported on masonry piers of schist. Planting areas were left in the joints of the stone floor and walk to allow grass and moss to grow. Ferns were planted at the base of the porch piers, and shrubs of California laurel (Umbellularia californica) were planted on the slopes leading to the building from the parking area. A new stone stairway gracefully curved from the parking area to the new entrance. It was built of heavy rounded boulders that formed the steps and a coping to either side, and reflected a high degree of craftsmanship and an understanding of the naturalistic mode derived from the Olmsted firm's work at Franklin Park. The redesign of the headquarter's principal building added greatly to the appearance of the area. [44]

The improvement of the grounds included the construction of a dry rock base wall around three sides of the administration building and low border walls set along the walk. An eighteen-inch-thick curb wall of schist rock masonry set fourteen inches below the surface of the ground and extending eight inches above the ground was constructed along the approach road and the road leading to the parking area. Similar curbing surrounded the checking station island. The old parking area was enlarged to accommodate twenty-two cars and improved with a sidewalk and curb combination to serve as a barrier for cars. Five-foot paths leading to the building were paved with a mix of oil and crushed stone and edged with flat schist rock, a type of construction economical to place but rustic in appearance. Curving lines replaced the rectilinear lines and corners of the earlier walks, adding an informal appearance and allowing more direct passage. [45]

Although unique in its craftsmanship and subject, the sign at the Ash Mountain Entrance to Sequoia National Park illustrated the typical 1930s construction of entrance signs in many western parks. Posts were made of tall, single or clustered logs of native timber embedded in a rock-faced concrete base, while the signboards were roughly cut boards of native wood, were hung on metal straps or brackets, and had the name of the park carved in relief or burned into the wood. (Sequoia National Park)

A new entrance sign featuring a massive hand-carved profile of an Indian was built at Ash Mountain during the following enrollment period. Logs three and one-half feet in diameter were set in a stone-faced concrete bases to form columns on each side of the road, one being nine feet in height, the other fifteen. Carved in relief by enrollee George Muno of Camp NP-1, the signboard was made from a massive slab of redwood. The sign contained the name of the park in bold letters and was fastened to the taller post with wrought-iron braces and fasteners. [46]

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