Preserving Nature in the National Parks
A History
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Photos
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Top: A National Park Service team
surveys the Lake Mead area for potential recreational uses, 1930s. The
team recommended a new type of park—"national recreation
area"—along the shore of the reservoir being created behind Hoover
Dam. Thus, not long after a reservoir had inundated Yosemite National
Park's beautiful Hetch Hetchy Valley, the Park Service launched its
national recreation area program, in cooperation with reservoir
development elsewhere in the West. (National Park Service Historic
Photograph Collections Harpers Ferry Center, Roger W. Toll, photographer
) Bottom: The military in Yosemite National Park during World War
II. The armed services used a number of national parks for wartime
training exercises, convalescence and recreation. World War II brought
about a drastic decline in public use of the parks and a reduction of
funding that resulted in deterioration of park facilities. The national
parks were left unprepared for the surge of postwar tourism. (National
Park Service Historic Photograph Collections. Harpers Ferry
Center.)
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