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Presenting Nature
MENU
Design Ethic Origins
(1916-1927)
Design Policy & Process
(1916-1927)
Western Field Office
(1927-1932)
Decade of Expansion
(1933-1942)
State Parks
(1933-1942)
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Presenting Nature:
The Historic Landscape Design of the National Park Service, 1916-1942 |
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VII. A NEW DEAL FOR STATE PARKS, 1933 — 1942 (continued)
STATE PARK EMERGENCY CONSERVATION WORK (continued)
THE ROLE OF THE DISTRICT INSPECTOR
The itinerant district inspector was the essential link between the National Park Service and the state park authorities and CCC camps. Working directly for the district officer, inspectors reviewed applications for CCC camps and visited sites proposed for new parks. Once camps were established, they inspected the work carried out by the enrollees under the direction of the camp foremen and superintendent, giving foremen directions and reporting progress and problems to the district officer. The inspectors ensured the high workmanship and consistent adherence to principles of naturalistic and rustic design. They offered critiques of the naturalistic treatments of lake projects, trail construction, and plantings. Initially, the inspectors coordinated the production of plans and drawings developed by draftsmen in the state offices and transmitted instructions for their execution to camp foremen. Then in spring 1934, the park service assigned specialists in architecture and landscape architecture to each camp. These technicians produced the plans and drawings, with the inspector's assistance and approval, and provided routine supervision of ongoing work. As a result, the selection and training of capable camp technicians were crucial to achieving good park design, and this need for technicians opened up innumerable opportunities for recent graduates in landscape architecture, architecture, and engineering to engage in creative work and apply practical skills and knowledge. This collaboration of park technicians and district inspectors worked successfully until the late 1930s, when major reductions occurred in the number of CCC camps and the National Park Service's allotments to fund technical assistance.
Inspectors traveled extensively, often stopping in one park for only one or two days before driving on to the next, which might be several hours or an entire day's journey away. Although they were usually assigned to one geographical region, for example, West Texas or the combined states of South Dakota and North Dakota, parks were generally far apart and sometimes located in remote areas. Assignments changed and varied as the program grew and peaked in the mid-1930s. The inspectors maintained close contact with the state park organizations and with Maier, who himself traveled extensively to the state parks and state park offices and became involved in issues varying from the state acquisition of land to cooperation with the Army, which constructed the camps and managed the men. The inspectors regularly returned to the district office and traveled to state offices to meet with state park authorities.
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| At Big Bend State Park (later national park) in Texas in 1934, one of the first CCC projects was the construction of trails among the Chisos Mountains. (National Archives, Record Group 79) |
In the first enrollment period, May to October 1933, much of each inspector's time was spent visiting proposed sites for camps and preparing plans for work in parks that had already received camps. In 1934, the district inspectors played a key role in inspecting submarginal lands and selecting areas to be developed as recreational demonstration areas. The opinion of each district inspector on important matters of site selection and park development were backed up by Maier, additional inspectors who would visit the sites, and traveling inspectors of extensive experience and knowledge, like P. H. Elwood, who were brought in to make critical judgments or to suggest solutions to difficult problems.
District Inspector George Nason and District Officer Maier played a key role in the establishment of Big Bend National Park through their initial inspection of the territory in 1933, their approval of the early plans for its development as a state park, and the early work of the CCC carried out there under their direction. In fact, Maier's office prepared the report documenting the area's superlative geological and biological features and outlining a plan for its development as a national park, which resulted in Congressional authorization for the park in 1935. This report included essays by national park officials who examined the area according to the criteria for parklands set by the 1918 statement of policy and noted botanists and other scientists who had studied the area. It also included sketches for park buildings suitable to the natural character and cultural traditions of the region, as well as maps showing a system of park roads and hiking and bridle trails to reach the area's most spectacular features and viewpoints. This report was later published under the title Big Bend National Park Project, Texas in an effort to stimulate public and political support for acquisition of the land, which was the responsibility of the state of Texas if the national park were to be realized.
Park development required a sense of planning and a command of the naturalistic, or informal, ideas of landscape design. By the end of the first period, it became clear to Maier and the inspectors that the key to successful park design lay in the hands of camp technicians who could both plan designs for the sites and supervise the work on a day-to-day basis, giving instruction to the men and approving work as it progressed. Some camp technicians were geologists, foresters, archeologists, and wildlife biologists hired by the National Park Service to direct special studies and conservation activities. Generally, however, camp technicians were engineers, who directed trail and road construction; architects, who designed buildings; and landscape architects, who attended to landscape issues such as locating sites for construction, protecting natural features, presenting views, designing structures that were inconspicuous and harmonized with nature, and naturalizing disturbed areas after construction. It was these three groups that were key in the overall park development and had the skills needed to ensure naturalism and quality of workmanship.
The ECW state park program was enriched as men with national park experience accepted assignments in state park work. One such individual was Halsey Davidson, who was the ECW landscape architect at Mount Rainier in 1933 and 1934 before becoming a state park inspector. Since assignments in camps were only for six-month periods and many northern camps closed for the winter months, landscape architects and architects frequently changed positions. There was a great deal of movement from national park work to state park work and from one area of the country to another. Over time experienced camp technicians became qualified for inspector work.
Assignments were often political in nature too, with local congressmen and senators appointing people from their districts., For example, a U.S. congressman from El Paso recommended local architect William Wuehrman for appointment to Big Bend in May 1934. The CCC program was not as politically motivated, however, as the civil works projects that were administered through state offices and provided vast numbers of jobs for skilled workers in local areas. Although a number of recreational facilities, such as artificial lakes and park refectories, were constructed in state parks in 1934 under the brief Civil Works Administration program, it was not until 1936 with the establishment of the Works Progress Administration that such projects came under the review and supervision of the National Park Service. Informal occasions arose, however, where park inspectors traveling in the vicinity of a project or inspecting CCC work in the same park where a dam was under construction would review the work in progress and offer technical advice.
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| New Deal programs elevated the design of picnic shelters to a fine art. The shelter at Iowa's Backbone State Park reflects the fusion of National Park Service principles, CCC craftsmanship, and the talent and ingenuity of state park architects such as Ames B. Emery. (National Archives, Record Group 79) |
By 1933, some states had organized park systems and established positions for park designers, while others had few developed parks and no statewide system. It was necessary, therefore, that the state park ECW program adapt to the existing state park structure and coordinate activities with state park authorities. As a result, the landscape architects or architects already employed by some states or local governments were involved in planning parks and designing park structures under Emergency Conservation Work. Wherever possible, the park service had designs drawn up by designers or private practitioners working for the state or local park organization. In this way, the ECW program gained the service of experienced park designers such as Arthur Shurtcliff, who was designing buildings and developing plans for Blue Hills Reservation near Boston, and the firm of Hare and Hare, which worked on the Fort Worth Park in Texas. The diffusion of ideas coming from experienced state park designers enriched the overall program and was viewed by Maier, Good, and others as essential to maintaining the vitality and individuality of state park design.
Speaking before state park officials in 1935, Maier called upon the use of landscape designers in private practice to broaden the character of park structures:
While the National Park Service under this program assists to a major extent in furnishing landscape architects and architects as inspectors and technical foreman, it also encourages the States in securing competent professional service from private practice. We are most anxious that State park officials engage professional technical service on a fee basis to cooperate and even take a major hand in the development under the State Park Emergency Conservation Work. And this should be an integral part of the program and will tend to lessen the threat of standardization. [21]
In Park Structures and Facilities of 1935, Albert Good noted the need for professional designers of"consummate skill" and "rare good judgement" in adapting designs to the conditions of a particular location. These persons were considered to have "the best judgement available" to determine the style most appropriate to an area. He wrote,
The most completely satisfying subjects, included herein are so, not as a result of chance, but because training, imagination, effort, and skill are conjoined to create and fashion a pleasing structure or facility appropriate to a particular setting. Who then, but those of professional training and experience are equipped to decide that a perfect structural interpretation for one setting will sanction adaptation for another, and in what detail or degree modification will make the most of the conditions presented by another environment. [22]
Davis Mountains State Park was one of the early parks to show the direct influence of national park experience. Creative, spacious, and well-hidden picnic grounds were developed, in which each unit was a rustic grotto or alcove reached through natural rock outcroppings, offering views, natural shade, and the amenities of campstove, table, and benches. Even the comfort station was camouflaged by design, stone material, and vegetation. The "premier" picnic site, with an eighteen-foot banquet-sized table, was an outdoor alcove reached by stone steps inserted into the narrow space between two rock outcrops and descending to an earthen terrace made flat by large flagstones laid against the natural rock outcrop. Natural rock walls and thickets of vegetation enclosed the site on three sides, revealing a spacious view north and east of the valley and hills beyond. Carefully screened from view by vegetation were the road below, a "gateway" cut through the mountaintop, and the naturalistic stone comfort station one hundred yards away on the adjacent hillside. Also at Davis Mountains, a lodge in the pueblo style was constructed using adobe blocks made on site by traditional methods.
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Last Modified: Mon, Oct 31, 2002 10:00:00 pm PDT
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