National Parks The American Experience Preservationists working for the establishment of Olympic National Park, Washington, during the 1930s encountered stiff opposition from lumbermen who were determined to draw the park boundaries closer to the timberline. Jack Boucher photograph, courtesy of the National Park Service All the elements of monumentalism, especially rugged terrain and falling water, are missing from the proposed Prairie National Park in Pottawatomie County, Kansas. Yet it was just such a "monotonous" landscape that George Catlin had in mind when he proposed a nation's park in 1832. That his dream was realized in quite different form attests to the limitations of the national park idea in the United States. Courtesy of the National Park Service <<< PREVIOUS CONTENTS NEXT >>> National Parks: The American Experience ©1997, University of Nebraska Press runte1/photo1-4.htm — 17-Mar-2004