Manipulating Nature's Paradise National Park Management under Stephen T. Mather, 1916-1929 by Richard West Sellars Controversies over national parks continually make headlines as the National Park Service encounters public debate on fire control, restoration of wolf popu­ lations in Yellowstone, intensive development of the Yosemite valley, and other issues. Such debates raise fundamental ques­ tions concerning the purpose of the parks: Why were they set aside by Congress? Were they primarily meant to be vacation areas for public enjoyment? What role should science play in caring for the parks, and how much effort should be made to preserve their natural conditions? When the National Park Service came into being in the early C _Z twentieth century the answers to Z these questions seemed quite i clear. They were heavily > weighted in favor of public use < ~r and enjoyment rather than pres­ U z o z= ervation, and they fostered X x management practices that rr altered the national parks forever. o o rc Tourists at Beryl Spring, •>,p Yellowstone Park, 1920 Spring 1993 been to preserve park resources such as wildlife, fish, and forests in their natural condition.2 But a close look at early park service management dis­ closes substantial flaws in that assumption. In fact, the new mandate to leave the parks unimpaired changed the direction of national park management very little from the pre-1916 focus on preserving the parks' scenery and popular game animals and providing good fishing opportunities for public enjoyment. Stephen T. Mather, the Na­ tional Park Service's principal founder and first director, generally adhered to the policies and practices set by the United States Army and civil­ ian superintendents who had overseen the parks in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu­ ~f. ries before Congress created the park service. 2 Instead of setting new directions for park manage­ ment, the immediate effect of the Organic Act was to strengthen national park leadership. It brought the parks under efficient, coordinated supervision and enabled Mather to accelerate park develop­ ment for public use and enjoyment. -' s National park management under Mather's Stephen T. Mather, ca. 1922 direction from 1916 to 1929 should be considered the park service's initial administrative interpreta­ tion of its legislative mandate, reflecting the A fter establishing Yellowstone National service's perception of Congress's true intent re­ I—\ Park in 1872 and subsequently other garding the parks. As the Organic Act's chief -JL. J\. parks such as Sequoia, Yosemite, and proponent, Mather surely had a clear understand­ Glacier, Congress created the National Park Ser­ ing of congressional intent. And, indeed, wide­ vice in August 1916 to oversee this growing sys­ spread support of his administration of the parks tem of scenic reserves. The 1916 legislation, known suggests that the service met its mandate much as the park service's Organic Act, mandated that as Congress and the public wished.2 the national parks be treated differently from other Nevertheless, extensive alterations of the parks' public lands where extraction of natural resources natural conditions occurred during Mather's ten­ was encouraged to enhance America's economic ure. The National Park Service did not follow a growth. The park service was given a truly distinc­ policy of noninterference with nature, nor did it tive mandate: limit its operations to park protection activities, to conserve the scenery and the natural and his­ such as patrolling boundaries or attempting to toric objects and the wild life therein and to pro­ stop vandalism to natural features. Instead, under vide for the enjoyment of the same in such man­ Mather the service manipulated nature in the ner and by such means as will leave them unim­ 1 parks in two fundamental ways—through devel­ paired for the enjoyment of future generations. opment and construction to accommodate tour­ The charge to leave the parks "unimpaired" ism and by direct interference with flora and fauna. became the principal standard for national park Stephen Mather, a wealthy Chicago business­ management. Today, some observers assume that man educated at the University of California, had this mandate has from the beginning meant that [National Park Service] are to reduce development and promote pres­ the National Park Service's primary purpose has ervation of resources" (p. 65). Similarly, Robert B. Keiter, "National Park Protection: Putting the Organic Act to Work," in Our Common 1. Hillary A.Tolson, IMWS Relating to the National Park Service, the Ijinds: Defending the National Parks, ed. David J. Simon (Washington, National Parks and Monuments (Washington. D.C.: National Park Ser­ D.C.; Island Press, 1988), 81, argues that the Organic Act "sets forth an vice, 1933), 10. impressive, unambiguous resource preservation mandate." And Alston 2. Historians of the national parks take differing views of the Chase, in Playing God in Yellowstone: The Destruction of America's First Organic Act's primary purpose. John Lemons and Dean Stout, argue in National Park (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), 6, comments that "A Reinterpretation of National Park Legislation," Environmental Law the National Park Service's "sole mission is preservation." By contrast, (Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College), 15 (Fall 1984), Alfred Runte, in National Parks: The American Experience (1979; 2nd 53, 65, that the Organic Act's primary mandate is to preserve park ed. rev., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 82-105, empha­ resources: "the purpose of natural parks is to preserve pristine ecologi­ sizes the parks' tourism and economic potential as key motivating cal processes" (p. 53); and that "the most basic fiduciary duties of the factors for the legislation establishing the National Park Service. 4 Richard West Sellars joined the campaign for a national parks bureau develop the parks and thereby increase their ac­ early in 1915. Polished and at ease with the rich, cessibility and popularity. powerful, and famous, he was also frenetically Working closely with his top assistant, Horace enthusiastic. His biographer referred to him as M. Albright, who had a pervasive influence on "the Eternal Freshman" who was "almost patho­ national park policy during this period and who logically fraternal."' Mather developed an intense became the park service's second director, loyalty to the national parks, and soon after pas­ Mather succeeded in his transformation of the sage of the Organic Act his friend, Secretary of the parks, which he had proclaimed in 1916 to be Interior Franklin K. Fane, appointed him as the "greatly neglected."7 By the time his health forced National Park Service's first director. Fervently him to resign in January 1929, the parks had idealistic in his drive to preserve America's great undergone extensive development involving vir­ scenic areas, Mather devoted his energy, and tually every type of construction needed to sup­ much of his own money, to effective promotion of port tourism and park administration. Shortly af­ the national park cause, using finely honed busi­ ter Mather's resignation, Albright summed up ness skills that had enabled him to amass personal park development that occurred before and dur­ wealth as head of a borax company with mines in ing Mather's tenure by reporting that the service the West. was responsible for "1,298 miles of roads, 3,903 As one of his principal goals, the aggressive miles of trails, 1,623 miles of telephone and tele­ new director sought public acceptance and sup­ graph lines." Furthermore, national parks had campgrounds, museums, park office buildings, port for the parks by opening them to greater 8 tourism to increase their popularity. He asserted and many other facilities. that with national parks, "the greatest good to the In effect, during the Mather era the service greatest number is always the most important came to regard national parks as being factor determining the policy of the service."5 In "unimpaired" as long as their development was his crusade to popularize the national parks he restricted to that which supported tourism and courted their chief constituencies, the tourism was fitting to the natural scenery. That is, parks industry and the traveling public. Railroad compa­ must be appropriately developed for tourism. With nies had for several decades campaigned to attract highways winding through majestic park land­ vacationers to fill the hotels they built in or near scapes and with rustic log and stone buildings and Yellowstone, Glacier, Mount Rainier, and other bridges, much of the development was designed parks." And the emerging fascination with auto­ to harmonize with the scenic beauty and thus mobile travel fit perfectly Mather's plans to seemed not to impair the parks. For instance, the Samuel T. Woodring, chief ranger at Yellowstone National Park; Stephen T. Mather, head of the National Park Service; and Horace M. Albright, superintendent of Yellowstone, (left to right) stand with their x hands on a gate made •< from elk antlers at opening ceremonies of Yellowstone National Park's northern •}. entrance in 1926. s - =r | X 3 Montana The Magazine of Western History Spring 1993 service in the 1920s constructed rustic-style head­ feasible the parks should be developed for winter quarters buildings in parks such as Sequoia, Grand sports; and beginning during the last weeks of Canyon, Glacier, and Mount Rainier. Ranger sta­ Mather's directorship Horace Albright led an ag­ tions were built in many parks, some in a "trapper gressive campaign to host the 1932 Winter Olym­ cabin" style suggestive of the fur trade era and pics in Yosemite. Although the service lost out to particularly favored by Mather. And park conces­ Lake Placid in this effort, Yosemite initiated a sionaires often erected splendid rustic structures winter sports carnival in 1931 using facilities de­ including Sequoia's Giant Forest Lodge, the Phan­ veloped during Mather's time, such as a toboggan tom Ranch in the depths of the Grand Canyon, and run and ice rink, to attract hundreds of off-season the spectacular Ahwahnee Hotel in the Yosemite tourists.12 9 valley.