A Study of the Park and Recreation Problem of the United States

Cover

Contents

Foreword

Supplemental Foreword

Introduction

Recreational Habits and Needs

Aspects of Recreational Planning

Present Public Outdoor Recreational Facilities

Administration

Financing

Legislation

A Park and Recreational Land Plan

A Study of the Park and Recreation Problem of the United States

OUTDOOR RECREATIONAL TRENDS

A brief appraisal of popular forms of outdoor recreation along with an examination of newer trends in this general field, should provide additional knowledge on the recreational wants of people. A study of the policies of agencies engaged in providing this type of recreation should also be of assistance in projecting future programs, since in most instances they have been established after a thorough consideration of needs and objectives. Generally they have had a twofold purpose in mind. They have sought to preserve exceptionally fine scenic resources for future generations, and to make these resources available for the enjoyment of the present generation.

This policy, as it affects the use of national parks, is summarized in the Administrative Chapter. Briefly, it states that, considering recreation in its broadest sense, the field of national parks is limited. The parks cannot attempt to provide recreational facilities of every type. Justifiable forms are those to which the aesthetic values of nature contribute an essential or vital part of the enjoyment. State park policies, also discussed under administration, vary as between States, but in general subscribe to preservation as a wise principle while acknowledging the need to serve a wider range of interests than is practicable in national parks. Local park systems of necessity have had to give first attention to handling the mass requirements of their people, but most of them have also recognized the equally important need of preserving the resources of their areas and particularly of preserving or creating beauty in the out-of-doors.

Figure 6. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

The opportunities offered by the open country for recreation are, for all practicable purposes, unlimited. Almost anything a person does anywhere for recreation, he can, if he chooses, do in the out-of-doors. There are, however, certain activities which gain in enjoyment when offered in a natural setting; others require such a setting. Probably the best way of gauging the importance of various outdoor recreational pursuits is to review the programs of recreational agencies in this field. Studies made during the past few years by the National Park Service, in cooperation with administering agencies, on attendance and use at State and local parks, reports on the uses being made of national parks and national forests, augmented by a survey of recreational preferences of park visitors, offer excellent sources of information on this subject.⁹

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⁹ A list of reports consulted includes: Park Use Studies and Demonstrations, 1938, National Park Service; Activities in National Parks, reports compiled in 1936 by national park superintendents (not printed); Fees and Charges for Public Recreation—A Study of Policies and Practices, National Park Service; and Activities of Users of National Forests, a Report by the United States Forest Service, 1937.

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Figure 8.

All of these studies reveal a surprising national uniformity in the range of outdoor interests and in the popularity of the various forms of outdoor recreation. In practically every report the same group of activities appears. Touring or sightseeing, fishing, picnicking, and swimming generally head the list of favorities, with camping, hiking, boating, nature study, sports and games, and horseback riding following somewhat in that order in respect to popularity. Hunting, though seldom permitted in parks, is a favorite in all interest studies and enjoys a wide participation in most sections of the country. Mountaineering, music, drama, pageantry, arts and crafts, photography, the study of astronomy, sketching and painting—these and many other activities are also included among those offered in some form or other in out-of-door settings.

Activities included in the following discussion are those in which the public have indicated a definite interest and which have been offered successfully in systems at two or more levels of government.

Figure 9. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

Touring and Sightseeing. If records of expressed interest and of participation are an indication of popularity, touring and sightseeing may well be termed America's favorite forms of recreation. The desire to see things sends millions out on the highways each year. Many of this number spend their weekends and vacations traveling, stopping at one place for a few hours or a few days, then pressing on to other points. The allure of far horizons keeps them moving. They swarm to the mountains, seashores, lakes, National Parks and National Forests, to historic sites and State parks. In the winter they go south, giving Florida, the Gulf Coast and California a tourist business that has been estimated in the billions. In the summer they tend to reverse the direction, heading into New England, the Great Lakes region, the Pacific Northwest and mountain sections of the country to spend another billion or so dollars. While many purposes motivate such travel, a study of the records indicates that a large part of it is based on a desire to see the country and its natural beauties and wonders.

Figure 10. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

Picnicking. Next to sightseeing, picnicking attracts the widest participation among outdoor activities. The picnicker comes to the parks (several million strong each year) with his family or with a group of families, or he joins with members of his lodge, his Sunday school class or some other organization in staging a barbecue, a fish fry, wiener roast, or a big group dinner. While he is on a picnic, he may do anything from playing catch to climbing a mountain, but to him that is all a part of the picnic. He often wants to play games, particularly if he is with a group, and therefore likes some open space near at hand. He is also fond of swimming, and for this reason likes to spread his lunch as close to the beach as possible.

The popularity of picnicking is attested by the fact that 48 percent of the preference questionnaire replies listed it as a favorite and that there were almost twice as many State park visitors picnicking, taking the country as a whole, as there were engaging in any other activity. The average for southern parks, and for local parks in all sections of the country, was smaller, but in these instances it ranked close to swimming in the number of participants. Significant too is the fact that 211 of the 238 State and local systems reporting in the Fees and Charges Study offer picnicking. It is also provided widely in national forests and in some of the national parks.

Water Sports. Among the more important activities included under water sports may be listed swimming, diving, water games of all sorts, carnivals and swimming meets, canoeing, rowing, sailing, motor boating, and regattas. The fact that more than half the visitors to recreational areas participate in one or more of these various forms of recreation is only one of the many evidences of the importance of this natural resource to people's enjoyment of the out-of-doors, both as a means of active recreation and as a component of attractive landscape. Water sports are features of most resort programs and are offered at thousands of privately operated facilities. Among park agencies reporting in the Fees and Charges Study, 219 offered swimming, 102 rowing, 75 canoeing, 52 motor boating, and 35 sailing. In the preference survey, swimming was voted the most popular of all outdoor sports, while boating was eighth.

Though not depending directly on water, beach activities may well be considered a part of any good water sports program. As a matter of fact, many who are counted as bathers seldom if ever go in the water, while actual statistics reveal that at no time does the average number of swimmers, paddlers, and waders exceed 50 percent of those in bathing suits. More than half the average swimmer's time is spent on the beach, in sun-bathing and in playing volleyball, badminton, shuffleboard, horseshoes, paddle tennis, and informal games. For this reason, beaches and adjacent playfields are seldom large enough to accommodate the demand or open space.

Hunting and Fishing. The values derived by the American public from hunting and fishing are numerous and far reaching. They have fostered a wider interest in and appreciation of conservation. The money spent for transportation, guides, and equipment has been estimated at from 1 to 2 billion dollars annually. The fact that 6,900,000 angler licenses and 6,806,291 hunting licenses were issued in 1936-1937, indicates the popularity of these sports. In addition, many States do not require a person to have a license to hunt or fish on his own property, and in some States various exceptions are made, i. e., for women, children up to a certain age, and persons over 65, for small game and predators. Exceptions are also made within certain counties.

Figure 11. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

While hunting is prohibited almost universally in parks, because of the dangers involved and conflict with other uses, fishing is recognized as an excellent park activity. The Fees and Charges Study shows that 133 State and local systems out of the 238 agencies included offer fishing. It is one of the favorite sports of visitors to national parks and national forests.

Hiking, Climbing, Packing, and Horseback Riding. These activities have been grouped together since they have certain fundamental characteristics in common. They involve the use of trails as a primary facility, take people away from crowds, and bring them into an intimate contact with nature. To many, these are the most satisfying of all types of activities carried on in the open. They particularly appeal to those of a vigorous, adventurous nature and to those who love solitude or the companionship inspired by quiet woods, towering mountains, fast-moving streams and expansive deserts.

The popularity of these sports may be judged by the fact that 150 groups with over 50,000 members now promote such activities, that 364 cities report hiking as an important feature of their programs, that attendance and use studies on national, State, and local parks list them among the popular forms of recreation offered, and that over 30 percent of those filling out preference questionnaires include one or more of these activities as a favorite. They constitute important features of camp programs and are engaged in widely by vacationists at resort areas.

Winter Sports. Among the activities included under winter sports are skating and ice games, ski running and jumping, snowshoeing, sleighing, tobogganing, and ice boating. Since they are dependent upon suitable conditions of snow and ice, the possibilities for enjoyment of these activities are limited to the northern and mountainous sections covering roughly two-thirds of the country, where precipitation and temperature are propitious.

A review of statistics reveals the growing interest in these cold weather sports. It has become so great in recent years that millions of dollars of private capital have been poured into the manufacturing of equipment, provision of facilities, and lodging for the crowds of people who flock to snow areas on weekends. Snow trains now run on regular schedules out of the larger urban centers throughout the northern section of the country. Public recreational agencies have had to give increasing attention to their winter sports activities. The Fees and Charges Study revealed that most systems in the colder regions of the country provide ice skating, skiing, tobogganing, and snowshoeing. Almost a million visitors to national forests during 1937 went for winter sports, and national park superintendents report a growing interest in these activities.

Nature Studies. While not yet a widely popular activity from the standpoint of participation, the study of natural sciences as a form of recreation is becoming increasingly important. It has long been a feature of the National Park Service program and is now offered at most of the national park and monument areas. Through this program the Service feels that a contribution is being made to the enrichment of the lives of park visitors because opportunities are provided whereby the visitor may learn about his natural environment and the laws of life. It is a program that helps to make education a continuous process, that emphasizes avocational pursuits, that stimulates the proper use of leisure time.

The Indiana State Park System now employs naturalists at six of its areas, while Iowa and Missouri have recently initiated interpretative programs on selected parks. Palisades Interstate Park in New York and New Jersey and the American Museum of Natural History have been jointly conducting an extensive museum and nature trail program for a number of years which now handles over half a million participants. The Cleveland (Ohio) Metropolitan Park System, Oglebay Park at Wheeling, West Virginia, and the National Capital Parks show examples of excellent local programs. The Fees and Charges Study revealed that 150 State and local agencies now offer nature education as a recreational activity. It is an important feature of programs being conducted by schools, colleges, recreational agencies and interest groups, garden clubs, and numerous other public and quasi-public groups. Most camping programs emphasize nature study along with pioneering and woodcraft and other activities which exploit the educational features of the natural environment. The success of this activity, so peculiarly suitable to the naturalistic area, is dependent largely on the quality of leadership and on wise planning and organization.

Music and Drama. Of all the arts, music and drama are probably the most universal in their appeal. That they lend themselves to outdoor participation and enjoyment has long been recognized, but only in recent years have park agencies realized the possibilities of these forms of recreation in developing programs of use. They are particularly important as activities on areas located within a few miles of the using public or which accommodate a large number of vacationists. Music is the lifeblood of many camp programs; it arouses drooping spirits on a hike and enlivens informal gatherings in the lodge of an evening. A campfire program is largely music. Music is also an important feature of such occasions as the Laurel Festival at Pine Mountain State Park, Kentucky, the Easter Services in Zion National Park, Indian rituals in the Grand Canyon and on reservations and, coupled with drama, it constitutes an indispensable element of historical pageants which are being staged by the score in park and forest areas.

Most music and much of our drama can be produced as well in a natural setting as inside a building and often with more satisfaction. Beethoven's Sixth Symphony the Pastoral—was inspired entirely by nature's notes, colors, and harmonies. Played in the out-of-doors, the environment should contribute to its meaning and the enjoyment derived. The Passion play is enacted in as natural a setting as is feasible with the mechanics of the play. The rural setting and the "drive through the country" in approaching Oberammergau prepares one for the fullest enjoyment of the play itself. The property man in Midsummer Night's Dream has few worries when he goes beyond the restricting influence of the "four walls."

Arts and Crafts. While arts and crafts are not as yet generally provided in outlying parks, there are examples of their popularity when so offered. Pokagon State Park in Indiana established a craft shop as a "happy solution to the problem of what to do after hiking, riding, fishing, or just loafing." It had an immediate appeal to many who here found an opportunity to ply their hobbies during their vacation. Arts and crafts are important parts of most camping programs and are offered in many local parks. The Fees and Charges Study, as an example of this, showed that they were offered by 131 municipal, 5 metropolitan and county, and 3 State park systems.

The value of these activities to a park visitor can be visualized when it is considered that any natural area offers the artisan an unlimited range of suggestions for the creation of new designs. Patterns of leaves, ferns, snowflakes, ripples on the sand and water are infinite. Shells, beetles, insects of all descriptions display excellent examples of line, symmetry, color, form, and rhythm. The hills, trees, clouds, sunsets, and large water surfaces have inspired many of our art treasures. The park then, offers a source of inspiration to the artisan. He may translate this inspiration into design either in his own or the neighborhood craftshop. The sketching and painting of birds, plants, and landscapes, and the photographing of these same objects are examples of arts which draw inspiration from the out-of-doors.

History and Archeology. Interest in these subjects as they are represented by historic and archeologic sites has grown so amazingly in recent years that certain States have become tourist centers largely because they contain within their boundaries the scenes of important American events. The task of those concerned with this phase of the recreational program has become one of protection, restoration, and interpretation. Interpretation is being carried out through museums, markers, literature, and, at important sites, an alert guide service. With the creation of the Branch of Historic Sites in the National Park Service, the preservation of American sites and artifacts and their interpretation became an important feature of the national park program. Many States have included a like responsibility in establishing conservation or park departments.

But interest in history is being extended beyond the strictly historic site and its interpretation. Pageants relating the history of a community, a State or even a region, are becoming popular features of the outdoor recreational program. Monte Sano State Park in Alabama, for example, recently staged such an historical pageant which was attended by more than 10,000 people. When it is known that this area is located in a relatively thinly settled section, and that its average daily attendance amounts to only a few hundred, such a crowd becomes additionally important as a gauge of interest in such events.

Camping. Camping is one of the most popular forms of park recreation, because it offers opportunities for vacations in the open at low cost, and the opportunity to participate in many other forms of outdoor recreation. For those interested in young people, organized camping offers a controlled situation with unlimited possibilities for education and the development of physical health. These factors are chiefly accountable for the fact that facilities for individual and organized camping are provided in many National, State, county, and metropolitan parks and forests.

Individual family camping is practiced extensively in national parks and forests and in some State, county, and metropolitan parks. Permits are issued to a family to pitch a tent or park a trailer at a designated site and to live there for a specified time. The tent sites are generally provided with a table and fireplace. Sanitary facilities, safe water supply and sometimes bathing facilities are provided by the area administrative agency. Scattered individual campsites, of necessity, have been replaced largely by campgrounds, ranging in extent from half a dozen to several hundred individual campsites.

Campgrounds have been provided extensively in the West, particularly in the public parks and forests. Their present number in the East is comparatively limited, but steadily increasing, and in the Northeast vacation camping is attaining very large volume. The few that are provided near large centers of population are heavily used, and such data as are at present available indicate that many more should be provided for vacation use.

Campgrounds are also used for informal group camping by church societies, farm women's clubs, family reunion associations, and other groups that desire to have their members camp together in a place where they may be afforded a limited amount of privacy. Their activities and leadership are entirely informal, as is their program. In these and other ways, camps of this type differ from the organized camp.

Organized camps, which were first established as private enterprises during the latter part of the nineteenth century, now are conducted in all parts of the country by a great variety of public, semi-public and private agencies which serve all classes of the population. Organized camping, which was first designed to give city children a taste of life in the woods or a fresh air outing, has now become a definite educational movement.

Facilities for organized camping are provided in many State, county and metropolitan parks. These camps meet the needs of nonprofit agencies which are normally able to provide funds for leadership and operation but who need assistance in obtaining camp sites and structures. Camp facilities on public areas make it possible for these agencies to give many children and adults the educational and recreational advantages inherent in a modern camp program. Many camps of this type have been provided during the past few years.

During that time the organized camping movement has gone forward with a strength and vigor greater than at any time in its history. New interest and activity in this field are evident in all parts of the country, and with these has come a better understanding of the opportunities camping offers for recreation, education and the conservation of human resources. We find schools, churches, stores, industries, labor unions, cooperatives, and public and private agencies representative of every phase of our national life, sponsoring new camping enterprises.

The varying objectives of this variety of camping agencies make necessary the provision of facilities of different types. However, as it is not practical to provide for all the special needs of individual agencies, it has been found that camps of three types will meet the basic needs of most camping organizations.

For the average large city organizations operating a camp from year to year for the full summer season, camps with a capacity of approximately 100 are the ideal size. This camp should have a full complement of structures with cabins arranged in small and well separated groups for housing the campers. Some of these buildings should be designed for year-round use. For agencies conducting camps for smaller groups and shorter periods, camps with a capacity of approximately 50 campers and with only the most essential structures, such as the dining hall, bathhouse, infirmary, and campers' cabins, are satisfactory. For those agencies desiring to carry out a program of primitive camping, camp sites designed for groups of approximately 25 campers should be provided. These groups will provide tents for housing the campers so that in most cases only water supply and sanitary facilities will be required. Where a number of groups of this type camp together under central leadership, such as Boy Scout troop camps under local council direction, certain minimum central facilities, such as cooking and dining shelter and storehouse, hot shower house, and infirmary, are desirable.

Primitive camp facilities, although the easiest and least expensive to provide, do not meet the needs of all camping agencies. While this type of camp provides a valuable experience for the campers and comes closest to being what is generally known as "real camping," the trained leadership necessary to carry it out on a wide scale is not at present available. In addition, many parents have not been educated to the point where they are willing to permit their children an experience of this kind. Nonetheless, there is a definite trend toward camping of this type, and most camping agencies are making it a part of their programs. Some primitive camping is considered necessary for satisfactory conduct of all organized camps.

One of the newer types of organized camping is the travel camp. Sponsored by schools, Scouts, and private agencies, young people are starting out in increasing numbers to learn at first hand about their country, its people, and their problems. These travel camps vary from an overnight automobile trip to a nearby historical area, to transcontinental tours of two months' duration. The emphasis on travel adventure and primitive camping as a major activity for senior members of scouting organizations has also played a part in increasing the number of traveling groups of young people who visit the national parks and historic sites. Private summer camps have likewise turned to recreational educational travel as an activity for older campers. These long-established agencies interested in making inexpensive travel possible for young people have recently been joined by another, the American Youth Hostels, Inc., which is endeavoring to provide hostels and promote bicycle and foot trails for youth groups.

Traveling youth groups of necessity need to make their trips at little expense, and so are unable to use the overnight accommodations so far provided in the parks. Those that are able to purchase and carry with them the necessary camping equipment make use of the free public camp grounds, but many are unable to do this.

For youth and adults who travel the parks afoot, simple, inexpensive overnight accommodations are needed which might be known as trail lodges. Facilities of this type located on public areas should be kept open to use by all groups on an equal basis and without regard to affiliation with any one organization. Radiating from these lodges, trail systems of varying length and difficulty should be provided, along which shelters and cabins would be spaced an easy day's hike apart. These would enable foot travelers to see the more extensive scenic areas at minimum expense.

Experience and existing data point to the need for more camping facilities of all kinds on public areas. Reasonable developments for individual camps, informal group camps, short-term and seasonal organized camps and for travel camping may be provided in most of our forests and parks with assurance that they will serve and be appreciated by an ever increasing number of the American People.

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Last Modified: Mon, Aug 9 2004 10:00:00 pm PDT
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