PIPE SPRING Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History

The National Park Service, Historical Background

Regional Context, 1910s-1920s

Stephen T. Mather played a pivotal role in developing and promoting parks in the West, including those of southern Utah and northern Arizona. It was during Mather's tenure that the standard was set for later Park Service administrators. In Our National Park Policy, John Ise wrote of the Park Service's first director:

Mather was a man of prodigious and explosive energy, a tireless worker, a born promoter, 'a practical idealist of the live-wire type,' with a generous devotion to his job which is reminiscent of some of America's greatest.... Handsome, of winning personality, he commanded respect and admiration and was able to win many friends for the parks.... In his years in the Park Service he gave much of his fortune to the promotion of the parks, and gave of his energies so prodigally that his health broke several times and he died in 1930 at the age of sixty-three, after only twelve years as Director. [334]

One of Mather's favorite methods of promoting parks was to take influential men, senators, representatives, newspapermen, writers, and others who might help promote the parks on trips through some of the parks. If these trips were pleasant, the guests might be inclined to support them thereafter. Even if hardships were encountered on the journey, such as poor road conditions, they might become supporters of increased park financing. One such trip in the summer of 1920 involved taking some members of the House Committee on Appropriations to visit a number of parks. Western cities paid the cost of the trip, concessioners provided free accommodations in the parks, officials of the railroads accompanied them on their respective lines, and Park Service officials acted as guides. The trip was an apparent success for appropriations began to climb the following year. [335]

Mather would effectively employ similar promotional tactics in southern Utah and northern Arizona during his tenure. Two parks key to Pipe Spring's fate were established during Mather's tenure in 1919: Arizona's Grand Canyon National Park (incorporating the 1908 Grand Canyon National Monument) and Utah's Zion National Park (incorporating the 1909 Mukuntuweap National Monument). Pipe Spring National Monument was established in 1923 as was Bryce Canyon National Monument, the latter first administered by the Department of Agriculture until redesignated as a national park in 1928. The details of Pipe Spring's establishment and events leading up to it are considered fully in Part II.

20. Stephen T. Mather, 1923 (Courtesy Zion National Park, neg. 2139).

Railroads were another key player in promoting and developing parks. In addition to providing tourists transportation to parks, they offered special summer rates for travel to parks, provided visitor accommodations, and financed costly publicity campaigns. The Union Pacific System was instrumental in the development of Zion, Bryce Canyon, and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. (Cedar Breaks was also a part of Union Pacific's area tour in the 1920s and 1930s, but was not established as a national monument until August 22, 1933.) The fact that Pipe Spring National Monument was located along an early Union Pacific motorcoach route of the "Grand Circle" tour of Zion, Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon, and the north rim of the Grand Canyon is critical when considering reasons behind its establishment.

Also crucial to an understanding of the development of western parks was Mather's remarkable ability to weave an intricate web of relations between the private and public sectors in order to further the agency's goals. Perhaps nowhere is this better illustrated than in his activities promoting parks in southern Utah and northern Arizona. What were the most important considerations in getting the public to visit parks during the 1920s? In a nutshell, 1) access to information about the parks (publicity); 2) a means to reach the parks (train, auto, or motorcoach); 3) reliable transportation networks to travel on (efficient railroads and good vehicular roads); 4) comfortable places to lodge and dine while visiting the park (pleasant, affordable accommodations); and finally, 5) a pleasant in-park experience. The latter would either ensure visitors' desire to return or prompt them to tell their friends and family about the experience, meanwhile broadening the base of the Park Service's constituents by creating new "converts" to its mission.

Fortunately Mather's infant agency was not required to solve all of these problems single-handedly, nor did it have the financial resources and political clout to do so. State and local communities recognized the value of attracting tourist trade to their regions. During Utah's agricultural depression of the 1920s, a great deal of attention was paid by both politicians and businessmen in campaigns to establish new parks and monuments encompassing the outstanding scenic features of its southern regions. This depression coincided with the birth of auto touring as a national pastime. In the 1920s and 1930s, tourism offered the best hope of reviving depressed agricultural economies. What ensued was a period of extraordinary collaboration between the private, public, and even ecclesiastical spheres, leading to the creation of a number of park units, including Pipe Spring National Monument. Part II of this report explores the means by which these various parties became agents of change in southern Utah and northern Arizona, and examines some of the motivating forces behind their actions.