Chapter 3:
The National Park Service
While all the Rockefellers have pursued their
individual interests, they nevertheless have worked together on joint
enterprises, as for example, their several family foundations in which
they and their children take part.
In this vein should be mentioned the shoreline
projects with which Paul Mellon was so helpful. Cape Hatteras National
Seashore, in North Carolina, was authorized for establishment as a
national seashore area on August 17, 1937. The bill was introduced by
Representative Lindsay Warren, a strong advocate of the protection of
our seashores and of their use as parks. It authorized the assembling of
ten thousand acres to comprise the seashore area and the transfer of
certain lands under public ownership to the federal government. It also
provided that the private lands within the boundary lines of the
proposed area should be acquired by the National Park Service by means
other than purchase with federal funds. In 1937 the state of North
Carolina adopted legislation authorizing the purchase of private
holdings in the area for transfer to the federal government, but this
was not carried out. The state did have title to the land at the tip of
the cape, which was administered as a state park, although this land was
a small part of the total acreage required.
In the spring of 1952, I received a telephone call
from Paul Mellon's office stating that there was a piece of land in
North Carolina that was up for sale and asking whether the National Park
Service would be interested in this acreage as a gift for park purposes.
I was familiar with the land, and actually I didn't think we would be
interested in it; however, I felt that I should have somebody take
another look at it before I gave Mellon our answer. I told him I would
look into it and get in touch with him a little later. A week went by
and I got another call stating that the land in question was no longer
available and wanting to know whether we were interested in any other
land in that section of the country. I immediately replied that we were
interested in Cape Hatteras seashore, which was authorized by Congress,
and that since the state had not bought the land, we would like very
much to interest Mellon in that. The office called me back a day later
for an appointment with Mellon. Ben Thompson, head of the Branch of
Lands, and I had lunch with Mellon at the Hay-Adams House. Mellon didn't
ask very many questions, but I guess he didn't have a chance to, because
Ben and I did most of the talking. The meeting adjourned and I didn't
hear from Paul Mellon for about a week. I began to think that perhaps I
had made the terrible mistake of talking too much. I was relieved to get
a telephone call shortly thereafter inviting me to join Paul Mellon on a
flight over Cape Hatteras; I accepted. A few days after that I got a
call asking whether Mellon could come over to see me. I felt sure as we
talked that he was going to offer to purchase land for us that we had
estimated to cost about one and a quarter million dollars. But I thought
that the state should help buy it, and I told Paul that I would like to
go to North Carolina, talk to Governor Robert Scott, and find out
whether the state would be willing to put in half the cost of the
property if we could get some matching funds. I made an appointment to
see the governor the following week.
In conversation with the conservation commissioner
while waiting to see the governor, I solicited his support, and he
offered to see the governor with me. He also told me that the balance in
the governor's reserve fund was approximately $600,000. This money could
go for the purchase of Cape Hatteras, if Governor Scott and his cabinet
would approve it. I also was informed that the governor would most
likely leave the talking to me and wouldn't say much himself. Most
important of all, I was advised, if he pulled out his plug of tobacco
and started chewing, it would mean he was interested, but if he didn't,
I might just as well give up. I talked for some time to the governor
with no movement on his part. Finally the conservation commissioner
spoke up, but instead of supporting me, as he had led me to believe he
would, he said he felt that if the state did anything, it should buy the
land and keep it as a state park. This got me so irritated that I turned
to him and demanded to know why he had reversed his stand since walking
into the governor's office. With that the governor opened his desk
drawer, picked up a plug of tobacco, and took a chew. Then in a rich
southern drawl he asked me how much money I was talking about. I told
him, and the governor rang for an assistant and asked him how much money
they had in the "kitty." While the man went to find out, Scott gave me a
plug of his chewing tobacco; although it was risky for me to do so, I
took a bite and started chewing. The assistant came back in a few
minutes and said, "You have slightly over $600,000." The governor looked
at me and said, "Mr. Wirth, have you been looking at my books?" I
answered, "I did know how much you had left, but our estimate was still
$1,250,000, and it just happens to match." He smiled and said, "Well,
I'll tell you what I will do. My cabinet meets on Thursday of next week,
and if they approve this I'll let you know."
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Cape Hatteras National Seashore was
purchased with funds provided by the state of North Carolina and the
Mellon family. Attending the dedication in 1958 were, left to
right: Assistant Secretary of the Interior Roger Ernst,
Representative Herbert Bonner, of North Carolina, Director Wirth, Paul
Mellon, Governor Luther H. Hodges, of North Carolina, Comptroller
General Lindsay Warren, and three representatives of the private
landowners.
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On Friday of the next week I received a wire from the
governor stating that the funds would be available if we could match
them within ten days. I immediately called Paul Mellon and read the wire
to him. On Monday morning a check for $600,000 was delivered to me to be
deposited and held to match the state's $600,000. I sent a wire to the
governor of North Carolina stating: "I've just received a donation of
$600,000 to be held to match the state's funds. Where is your money?"
Within a week I received a similar check from the state of North
Carolina. We proceeded to buy the land. As it turned out, the $1.2
million was not enough, and we had to go back to Mellon and the state of
North Carolina. Paul Mellon gave us an additional $200,000, and the
state matched it. Cape Hatteras National Seashore was established on
January 12, 1953, sixteen years after congressional authorization.
The money that came from the Mellons through Paul
Mellon was actually from two foundations. Half was from Paul Mellon's
Old Dominion Foundation, and the other half came from his sister's
Avalon Foundation. Those two foundations have since been combined into
one, the Richard Mellon Foundation. The Park Service had made a very
thorough study of seashores in the thirties along the Atlantic and Gulf
coasts as possible national and state seashore areas, and Cape Hatteras
was the only one approved by Congress. Our negotiations with the Mellon
foundations in 1952 and 1953 occurred almost twenty years after those
studies were made. They showed great interest in the seashore projects
at a time when the Park Service was suffering low budget problems that
resulted from the costly cold war. At Paul Mellon's request we presented
to the Old Dominion and Avalon foundations an estimate of the cost of
making a restudy of not only the Atlantic and Gulf coasts but also the
Pacific coast. The foundations provided the funds for this study and
also for a study of the shores of the Great Lakes.
The acquisition of areas for the national park system
and its administration are serious responsibilities that call for
careful planning at a competent professional level. This fact was
recognized early in the National Park Service, and the service takes
credit for establishing and developing the master plan concept. The
master plan as developed by the Park Service is a comprehensive land
mass plan that contains all the basic known facts and needs for the
protection, use, and development of a logical land mass set aside for a
principal purpose or purposes, taking into consideration the
potentialities for adjacent land uses and their effect on the area under
study. A National Park Service master plan therefore consists of many
maps and pages of written material covering every conceivable bit of
information on an area, including its natural features, history and
archaeology, engineering, road construction, developments of all kinds,
forest-fire protection, maintenance, and nearly everything that must be
considered in planning the protection and development of a piece of land
for public use. The input comes from every professional and
administrative person who has an interest in or information on the area
and the surrounding related lands. Of course, the amount of written
material and the number of maps vary from one master plan to another
according to the areas' size, location, purpose, and related
considerations. For instance, the forty acres of Arizona's Tuzigoot
National Monunaent, containing a large Indian pueblo, did not require
the twenty or thirty sheets, three feet by four feet, that Yellowstone
National Park did, with its two and a quarter million acres. The
Tuzigoot master plan does have four or five sheets, however, and was as
thoroughly researched and prepared as the Yellowstone master plan was.
The master plan covers all information necessary to fully develop a park
and maintain it for the use and enjoyment of the people in accordance
with its basic legislation.
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Western Office of Plans and Design staff
reviewing master plans, which control the use, development, and
management of national park system units and are prepared with the
combined help of all those involved.
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Obviously, master plans are not prepared overnight.
In fact, the master plan is a living thing, constantly being altered and
revised to meet changing conditions. Its sole purpose is to insure a
sound, economical, and orderly development of each area of the national
park system in accordance with the purpose for which the area was
established. If the master plan concept had not been in existence at the
time Mission 66 came into being in 1956, we would have been in great
trouble. I don't mean to imply that it necessarily would have been
impossible to carry out Mission 66 without the master plans. The Park
Service was tired of seeing the parks gradually decay during World War
II and the cold war as the result first of nonuse and then of a great
increase in use, both coinciding with lack of funds for administration
and maintenance. The service was ready and willing to tackle anything to
get the job done, even under adverse conditions. But without master
plans that job would have been much more difficult, more expensive, and
less promising than it turned out to be. The whole purpose of Mission 66
was to update and carry out the National Park Service's master
plans.
According to Major Owen A. Tomlinson, former
superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park, in Washington, and
regional director of Region Four in San Francisco, the master plan had
its origin at Mount Rainier in the late 1920s. The occasion was a
meeting at the park called by Director Albright to review the
concessioners' development programs. Chief Landscape Architect Tom Vint
had been requested to bring plans to Mount Rainier for these
discussions. There was a great rustling of tracing paper and pencils and
many long hours of serious plan preparation in the design office in San
Francisco, and they produced a package of plans they called the "Master
Plan for Mount Rainier." While the master plan for Mount Rainier of the
late twenties was not as comprehensive as such plans were by the time
Mission 66 rolled around, it nevertheless had many of the full-scale
master plan's basic ingredients. During the meetings, not only the
concession proposals but also such other master plan subjects as park
boundaries, land acquisition, roads, and Park Service facilities were
reviewed. Albright was so impressed with Vint's master plan concept that
before leaving the park he requested Tom to prepare similar master plans
for each of the areas of the National Park System.
To carry out this directive, resident landscape
architects were assigned to the major parks or groups of parks as funds
became available, with the responsibility of developing and maintaining
master plans. During the summer, while work progressed on approved
construction projects, the long-range master plan would be reviewed with
park staff and visiting officials from Washington and San Francisco.
Major planning decisions in most cases were made in the park during
these summer conferences. Late in the fall, after the weather had closed
down most of the construction and field work, the park superintendents
held staff meetings to review their master plans and the planning
decisions of the past summer. With these data in hand the resident
landscape architect would return to the San Francisco planning office
for the winter. There the professional people in the central design
office and the regional office would prepare the necessary plan
revisions. As the revised plans were completed, copies were sent to the
park and to the Washington office for review and approval. Upon
completion of all revisions, the resident landscape architect would
return to the park in the early spring to resume the master planning
routine for the next season and supervise such developments as might be
going on in the area.
In 1936, when four National Park Service regional
offices were established, Tom Vint's planning staff was reassigned to
the Washington office and the regional offices. Although most of the
personnel of the division were now scattered throughout the regional
offices, they were still under the professional control of the Central
Design and Construction Division with Tom Vint in charge.
The following examples are but a few of many cases
where the policies of protection and preservation of park values were
applied through the master plan. In the early days of Yellowstone the
explorer and his party could camp next to Old Faithful geyser without
greatly harming the natural features because their requirements were
very simple. The tents and log structures required later to accommodate
the stage coach visitor needed permanent sites, and because they were
few in number they were located adjacent to the points of interest. By
the time the bus and automobile arrived on the scene, these overnight
accommodations were well-established facilities, some located within the
geyser area. The 1935 master plan for the Old Faithful area included
recommendations for relocation of the main park road back of all the
existing facilities and for removal of some of the buildings. Portions
of this plan have been accomplished, and eventually, as conditions
permit, other facilities will be eliminated or relocated. The new
development at Grant Village, constructed under the Mission 66 program,
is several miles removed from the West Thumb thermal activities. The
master plan first recommended relocation of these facilities in 1936. It
was twenty years later that the plan was implemented as one of the major
projects of Mission 66. The master plan for Yellowstone contained other
similar relocation projects, including those at the Canyon, Bridge Bay,
and Madison Junction areas.
In nearby Grand Teton National Park a special master
plan report prepared in 1936 recognized the dangers of continued
expansion of facilities along the small lakes at the base of the
mountains. The plan proposed relocation of the main highway on the east
side of the Snake River and the development of visitor facilities along
the north shore of Jackson Lake, far removed from the areas of greatest
natural value. Stage coach access to the lakes and the mountain trails
between the Snake River and the mountains was suggested. Except for the
stage coach proposal, the development has followed the master plan
recommendations.
In 1949 the master plan for Yosemite National Park
proposed the development of the Big Meadows area, outside but
overlooking the Yosemite Valley, for visitor accommodations. This would
gradually phase out the overcrowding of overnight facilities in the
valley. The proposal was based on the intent of reducing the visitor
impact by gradually establishing day use for a major portion of the
valley.
Before Mission 66 the master plans were loaded with
projects of this type that needed financing. Mission 66 provided the
momentum and resulted in a long list of completed projects that improved
protection and the preservation of park values. Many of these projects
involved major road construction, the engineering aspects of which were
handled by the Bureau of Public Roads* under agreements dating back to
the twenties. Over the years the Bureau of Public Roads worked closely
with the landscape architects of the design office and was very
sympathetic to the policies of the service. It followed the approved
priorities and recommendations outlined in the master plans. Differences
of views regarding road standards and safety requirements admittedly
caused some disagreements. The questions of location and design as well
as final approval have always been the Park Service's responsibility. In
the overall performance of its responsibilities, however, the bureau
rendered outstanding service. It provided park visitors with excellent
roads that brought a minimum of complaints.
*The functions of this bureau, formerly in the
Department of Agriculture, were transferred to the Department of
Transportation by act of Congress in 1966 and are assigned to the
Federal Highway Administration.
The U.S. Public Health Service also has provided
outstanding assistance to the national parks in maintaining high
standards for the development and operation of sanitary facilities.
Starting in the middle 1920s, Public Health Service sanitary engineers
have been assigned to work with the design offices and the parks in a
program for improving these facilities and establishing high standards
of maintenance and operation.
In 1954, just before Mission 66, there was another
reorganization of Tom Vint's planning staff that resulted in the
establishment of the Western and Eastern Design and Construction
offices. The planning personnel in the regions were transferred to these
offices, located in San Francisco and Philadelphia. The two offices were
headed by Red Hill, in the West, and Bob Hall, in the East, and here
again were two outstanding professional men in the right place at the
right time. Preparation and upkeep of master plans remained one of their
primary responsibilities, although during Mission 66 the major portion
of their duties was devoted to the design and supervision of
construction projects.
The master plan concept was one of Tom Vint's finest
contributions to the National Park System. He possessed the wonderful
Scottish love of the natural landscape and was completely devoted to the
protection and preser vation of the parks. Through his planning
leadership, recommendations of the master plans were always based on the
preservation of natural features and the placing of required facilities
in locations where they functioned effectively, blended into the natural
landscape, and had minimum impact on the natural scene.
Many of Vint's staff also deserve special recognition
for their contributions: particularly Bill Carnes, who was Tom's
assistant for many years. Later, when Mission 66 was conceived, he was
assigned to head a seven-man task force to develop the project. Every
division of the service was represented on that task force, and its main
job was to assemble a master plan of the National Park System itself,
placing its various elements in a priority system and developing an
orderly program. Bill Carnes's background made him the logical chairman
of the task force, and he and his committee did an outstanding job.
The master plan as developed and practiced in the
late twenties and refined with experience also exerted its influence for
a well-conceived Civilian Conservation Corps program in the thirties.
Its principles were applied to state and metropolitan parks. During the
latter CCC days the National Park Service began a program called "Plans
on the Shelf," which provided complete project plans to be used as soon
as funds became available. It was only partially successful because of
insufficient appropriations during World War II and the long subsequent
delay before Mission 66 supplied adequate funds. In the meantime,
changing conditions had required many plan revisions and, in some cases,
a whole new master plan.
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Tom Vint, chief landscape architect of
the National Park Service for over forty years, caught at play when the
director was away. Photo by Abbie Rowe, courtesy National Park
Service.
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There may be some who claim that the master plans
have led to over development in some of the parks, but there are very
few instances, if any, where this has happened. In fact, the master plan
helped prevent overdevelopment. Horace Albright, while in Washington to
receive the Cosmos Club Award on April 15, 1974, stated that the areas
of the National Park System were in better overall condition than they
had ever been. Had the National Park Service maintained a more
restrictive policy of visitor access, the national park idea would never
have fulfilled its basic responsibility to preserve and maintain the
parks "for the use and enjoyment of the people." The present so-called
overcrowding is but a public expression that parks are essential to
satisfy the people's needs.
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