National Parks 2 Ethan Carr: the Natural Style and Park Design Charles E

A Publication of the

Foundation

for Landscape Studies

A Journal of Place Volume v | Number ı | Fall 2009

Essays: America the Beautiful: The National Parks 2 Ethan Carr: The Natural Style and Park Design Charles E. Beveridge: Olmsted and Yosemite Lee H. Whittlesey: Yellowstone: From Last Place Discovered to International Fame Anne Mitchell Whisnant: Conundrums of Commemoration: Blue Ridge Parkway’s Seventy-fifth Anniversary Rolf Diamant: Diary for a Second Century: A Journey across Our National Park System in Search of Its Future Paula Deitz: Acadia National Park

Place Maker 18 Henriette Granville Suhr, Garden Creator

Television Review 19 Reuben Rainey: The National Parks, America’s Best Idea A Film by Ken Burns

Memorial 21 Ethan Carr: Hal Rothman and National Park History

Awards 22

Contributors 23 Letter from the Editor Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. cept to the one achieved by by the 1950s their visitor National Recreation Area in drew on his father’s Yosemite Frederic Law Olmsted and facilities had become run- New York City and Golden report when writing key por- Calvert Vaux in their design down and obsolete. In 1956, Gate National Recreation tions of the enabling legis- of the paths and drives in the same year that the Area in San Francisco. Rolf than Carr, a scholar railroad companies as recre- lation for the creation of the Central Park. Here Ethan Federal-Aid Highway Act Diamant, superintendent of the history of ational travel opportunities. National Park Service in Carr discusses the principles authorized the construction of the Marsh-Billings- America’s national Commerce and mapping 1916. Before that date, there of this aesthetic tradition, of the interstate highway sys- Rockefeller National Histori- parks, is guest editor went hand in hand, while art was no governmental unit which he calls the “natural tem, it became evident that a cal Park, provides an for this issue of and photography became a to administer the parks as an style,” as exemplified both in significantly augmented insider’s speculation about ESite/Lines. Our contributors means of revealing western integrated system. With the Central Park and the nation- national park system would the agency’s future steward- include landscape historians grandeur to the rest of the establishment of a federal al parks. be invaluable to a society ship of America’s most and longtime National country. The Northern agency within the Depart- In making improvements with more mobility and remarkable living legacy Park Service employees. In Pacific Railroad funded the ment of the Interior, Con- to the national parks during leisure than ever before. after the Constitution. their essays, they honor participation of artist gress, which had been the Great Depression, feder- Deemed a ten-year effort, the We at the Foundation for the visionaries who sought Thomas Moran and photog- previously intent on creating ally funded Civilian Conser- billion-dollar program – Landscape Studies would to preserve portions of rapher William Henry parks in the western United vation Corps teams used Mission 66 – was designed to argue that the national parks America’s scenic heritage for Jackson in the Ferdinand States, expanded its purview rustic timbers and rough- provide an array of services did not fare well during the the benefit of its citizens. Vandeveer Hayden Survey of to include areas east of the hewn rock, perpetuating the for an estimated eighty mil- Bush years, when there was a In addition, they explore the 1871. Their depictions of the Mississippi. Acadia on Mount style pioneered by the rail- lion annual visitors. Promi- lack of a clear leadership challenging issues facing waterfalls, deep canyons, gey- Desert Island in Maine was road companies who built nent among these services and adequate funding. Our park managers in the twen- sers, and steaming fumaroles the first such park. many of the first park lodges were administrative build- hope is that the ideals of ty-first century. of the Yellowstone region As Paula Deitz explains and visitor facilities. The ings, housing for park the visionary Americans who Frederick Law Olmsted helped make the case for its here, Maine’s coastal scenery New Deal era also saw the rangers, comfort stations, created the national parks can be considered a precur- designation by Congress as had long attracted such National Park Service and more than a hundred and former directors such as sor of such visionaries. As the first national park the landscape painters as embrace automobile park- new visitor centers offering Stephen Mather, Conrad leading Olmsted historian following year. Thus the Thomas Cole, Frederic E. ways. A prime example, as interpretive programs. Wirth, and Roger Kennedy Charles Beveridge points out impetus for creating national Church, Sanford Robinson Anne Whisnant relates, was In addition, the size of the will be revived and perpetu- in his essay, the father of parks was to preserve Gifford, and other Romantic the building of the Blue national park system ated during the administra- America’s municipal parks remarkable natural curiosi- landscape artists. Now pro- Ridge Parkway connecting increased by forty percent tion of Jon Jarvis, President movement wrote a report in ties as tourist destinations tected as a national park, Shenandoah National Park with the acquisition of sev- Obama’s new head of the 1865 on the need to ensure rather than to set aside Acadia became the beneficia- and Great Smoky Mountains enty-eight new sites. As new National Park Service. The public access to Yosemite wilderness for its own sake. ry of a singular act of private National Park. The parkway visitor centers and other signs are good. Jarvis is a Valley’s spectacular scenery. Lee Whittlesey, park histori- philanthropy. In addition to gave a new dimension to amenities were built, the highly qualified career Soon thereafter, in the an for the National Park donating 11,000 acres to the scenic recreation, but like natural style of park design employee who has filled var- wake of the 1868 completion Service at Yellowstone, in National Park Service, John the earlier national parks, it gave way to such practical ious important posts over of the transcontinental rail- chronicling Yellowstone’s D. Rockefeller Jr. worked was vulnerable to exploita- considerations as automo- the past thirty years. His road, government-sponsored history in this issue of with landscape architect tion by commercial tourism. bile parking. At the same appointment has been hailed survey expeditions made an Site/Lines, gives voice to the Beatrix Farrand on laying Whisnant warns against the time, modern architecture by environmental groups array of scenic discoveries. continuing dichotomy: How out the fifty-seven miles of politically allied economic replaced the rustic character and historic preservationists These natural wonders can we adhere to Thoreau’s carriage roads through forces that can result in of the older park facilities. alike. We send him – along served as the stimulus for an dictum “In wildness is Acadia’s unfolding scenery of excessive tourist-industry In recent years, the with all our readers – good adventurous new brand preservation of the world,” forest and shoreline. Their development. National Park Service has green wishes, of tourism, and they were while accommodating those work made movement a fun- As soldiers went off to created parks in large urban quickly promoted by the who need access and visitor damental part of the park serve in World War II, the areas, notably Gateway facilities in order to enjoy experience, similar in con- federally funded economic the parks that were created relief programs that had On the Cover: for their benefit? benefited the national parks Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Yellowstone Falls by Thomas Moran, came to an end. The parks President Courtesy Gilcrease Museum. themselves languished, and 2 America the Beautiful: For Robinson, natural style meant wild gardens of loosely enhanced its solitary and dramatic aspect. To the south, the composed perennial borders, meadows strewn with “natural- straight, quarter-mile-long avenue of the Mall was angled The National Parks ized” masses of bulbs and other flowers, or woodlands with between Vista Rock and the main park entrance, so that the understories of flowering shrubs and ferns. In Olmsted’s case, axis of this one great formal space in Central Park terminated The Natural Style and Park Design the natural style encompassed the varied landscapes of his not on a monument or building but rather on a wild garden. he Irish gardener William Robinson and the Ameri- large municipal parks: the pastoral beauty of meadows, the Although there is no record of Robinson’s response to the can landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted met picturesque scenes created by more densely planted or wooded Ramble, he was extremely taken with the park itself, referring in New York in 1870, the same year Robinson pub- areas, the expansive sheets of water meandering through and to it as “equal and in many respects superior, to anything of lished what would become one of the most influen- around other features of the landscape. But the term also indi- the kind in existence.” For his part, Olmsted later recognized tial gardening books of all time, The Wild Garden. cated Olmsted’s approach to preserving existing scenic land- that there could be “no better place than the Ramble for the TWe know little of the meeting except that Olmsted gave Robin- scapes through minimally intrusive “improvements” – the realization of the Wild Garden,” instructing the park’s garden- son tours of Central Park and Prospect Park, and that the drives, paths, and other public facilities that could make a ers to use Robinson’s ideas in the future management of the two men apparently liked what each had to say to the other large natural area like Niagara Falls into a (nearly) ready-made landscape. about landscape design. There is no record of a personal park. On that April afternoon more than a century later, I was meeting again until 1892, but their correspondence indicates During a recent walk in the Central Park Ramble on a struck by how pertinent the principle of the natural style still a sustained and mutual respect. spring afternoon, I became convinced that this was where is to the way we enjoy and protect our public spaces, whether The basis of this alliance was not shared background, Olmsted and Robinson found common ground in 1870. An we are talking about a landscape in the middle of New York temperament, or training because the two men differed in all embodiment of a semi-divine, nineteenth-century ideal of City or the vast wilderness of Yosemite National Park. Today these regards. Robinson was a true plantsman, who rejected nature, the Ramble was conceived as the center of both the the issues surrounding the management of municipal and gaudy displays of bedded annuals in favor of more informal spatial experience and the iconographic program of the park. national parks systems may seem far apart or even antithetical. compositions of perennials. His influence shapes residential Originally, the landscape was merely a rocky hill rising out But historically both city parks and remote scenic reservations gardening to this day. Olmsted was not really a gardener at of a poorly drained area in the center of the site. But it was were manifestations of the perceived importance of experi- all, but held a wider ambition for what he called the public art crowned by an outcrop promptly named Vista Rock, and the ences of nature and landscape beauty. Olmsted, for example, of landscape architecture. The year he met Robinson, Olmsted area already had an essentially picturesque character that strongly believed that people in cities required access to open, spoke in Boston on “Public Parks and the Enlargement of Olmsted heightened by adding a profusion of flowering pastoral scenery in order to maintain their physical and Towns,” making his most definitive statement on the social shrubs, ground cover, and vines, as well as winding paths and emotional well-being. Urban parks therefore did not merely and environmental goals of urban park systems. He was also rustic shelters and bridges. The Lake, excavated around it, provide an amenity, but were necessary to public health. In in the thick of municipal the case of Yosemite Valley, he argued that government had a politics in New York, strug- “political duty” to assure that such scenes should remain gling to achieve his vision of inviolate and available for the enjoyment of the “body of the a more healthful and beauti- people,” not just the wealthy few. In both cases, as different ful American city. But if they in scale and context as they were, the design of park “improve- differed in their preparations ments” – paths, roads, shelters, and other features – would and aspirations as artists, the allow the public to enjoy natural and scenic beauty in large two men immediately sensed numbers without trampling and destroying the landscapes a common value: a deep they had come to appreciate. belief in the utility and beau- ty of what they would both In 2008 a partnership of academic, government, and nonprofit describe, in different terms, groups organized a two-part conference called “Designing the as a natural style of land- Parks.” At the first half of the conference – which was hosted scape design. by the University of Virginia, where I teach landscape history and preservation – scholars as well as park managers from all over the world were invited to present papers on the history

Trail with rough-hewn rock wall giving visitors access to a view of Half Dome and the Merced River in Yosemite Valley, postcard, ca.1910. Courtesy of Tim Davis. 3 of park design. The second half was hosted by the National remains a critical practice Park Service at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in and subject for inquiry. San Francisco and brought together landscape architects, plan- Landscape design has always ners, park officials, and others to draft a series of statements been the essential activity on future priorities for public parks of all types. (The results that allows the entire project so far can be seen at www.designingtheparks.com, but the of park making – public process is continuing and intended to be open-ended, drawing enjoyment without impair- in new voices and partners.) ment – to succeed, or not. To As a participant in this effort, I have been revisiting the role assure that public parks of the natural style in U.S. park history. Defining the natural remain central in American style is admittedly difficult, as it is neither natural, since it culture and imagination, this involves human manipulation, nor is it a style, since it is not definition of the purpose of restricted to a particular combination of expressive features. design in these settings must Rather, it is an approach to planned landscape intervention be reclaimed. A reconsidera- based on scientific and poetic consultations of the “nature” of tion of what the natural style a particular site: its natural systems, geology, visual qualities, was – and what it might be – and cultural meanings. Or, as Alexander Pope put it rather is a good way to begin. more succinctly, the “genius of the place.” Consider what was, for The natural style was born in eighteenth-century Britain, Olmsted, the primary pur- but its greatest expressions arguably were made in the nine- pose of a large natural or teenth and twentieth centuries, particularly in the United scenic reservation: the expe- States. This is because the natural style had enormous rience of the landscape itself, influence over how Americans conceived and developed the not of museums or cultural systems of large parks and scenic reservations that we like institutions, organized recre- The invention of the automobile intro- park is to create roads, trails, and interpretive experiences in a to think of as “our best idea.” In other words, in the setting of ation, or didactic monu- duced a new challenge for designers of manner that allows the public to fully appreciate the beauty a large scenic reservation natural-style design is synonymous ments that might be sited park circulation systems in the natural and significance of scenery, history, and wildlife without with unimpaired preservation for the purpose of public there. The emotional style, postcard, ca. 1935. Courtesy impairing those resources in ways that would prevent future enjoyment, a goal that is still part of the core mandate of many response to nature and of Tim Davis. generations from having the same enjoyment. The beauty and park agencies today. A reconsideration of this aspect of the scenery provided healthful significance of a landscape should never be narrowly con- natural style seems critical as part of a larger effort to consider benefits that served a broad public interest and therefore strued; there are multiple historical narratives and layers of future park design principles. justified the government creation and management of public commemoration in any historic landscape, for example. But At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a term like parks. The task of the designer was to make those landscape park development should be about facilitating the apprecia- “natural style” or even the word “design” can be viewed with experiences – whether more contrived and created, as at tion of the landscape, not some alternate attraction, program, suspicion in the setting of a national park, where public use Central Park, or previously existing, as at Yosemite – accessible or activity. and enjoyment are seen by some as principal threats to park in a way that assured the preservation of the landscape being As new buildings and other park redevelopments are pro- preservation. Since World War II it has become a common- enjoyed. posed, we should ask whether the new development serves or place that national parks are being loved to death by an enthu- This remains the ideal for what design today can hope to detracts from the primary purpose of the park. New visitor siastic but overly large public. Commercial interests – the achieve in the setting of protected natural and historic land- centers at the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone and at Gettys- snowmobile industry, to cite a notorious example – are always scapes. The natural style is not a question of designing build- burg, for example, exemplify rustic and neotraditional design ready to capitalize on new attractions and uses that may not ings or landscape structures with rusticated finishes or intended to harmonize with landscape settings. But are large, have even existed in Olmsted’s day. And yet most would agree neotraditional themes; it has a more important objective than centralized facilities with administrative and retail space still that without access for people, parks would be eviscerated of promoting one stylistic preference over another. If the experi- what the National Park Service should be building, at least their social purpose, political justification, and diverse cultural ence of the landscape is the principal purpose of a park, then within park boundaries? The new Heritage Research Center at significance. Both sides have a point, and this is why design development for any other purpose – no matter how praise- Yellowstone, for example, is outside the park in an area once worthy that purpose may be – works against the purpose of the dominated by railroad infrastructure, and serves its purposes park. As Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. wrote in 1916, the role of any development in the setting of a large natural or historic

4 beautifully without encroaching on park landscapes. The fol- automobiles, the modern tourist has experienced the beauty of who have been engaged in a thoughtful, incremental restora- lowing can therefore be suggested as a first tenet of natural- the landscape while moving through it. In natural-style land- tion of the Ramble since 2007. One of the last major landscape style design: If preserving a natural or cultural landscape for public scapes, transportation has never been merely a matter of components of the park to be restored, the revitalization appreciation is the primary purpose of a park, then development in access, but a way of seeing and being in a place: a mode of per- of this wild garden will be a high point of the Conservancy’s the park should be minimized to that purpose. ception and experience. But over the last thirty years alterna- thirty years of remarkable stewardship. In the areas of the If the experience of the landscape is to be paramount, a sec- tive transportation schemes for parks such as Grand Canyon Ramble already reopened to the public, Conservancy staff have ond tenet of the natural style is this: Any development deemed and Yosemite have often been frustrated or had only limited planted ground cover and understory vegetation, unclogged truly necessary should visually complement, not dominate or dis- implementation. A fourth tenet should state the following: Any stream channels, and stabilized and amended the soil, which tract from, the landscape. The natural style is a design process revised, contemporary version of the natural style should have new for decades eroded into the Lake. Surrounding the Ramble on and a general approach to the site. If a building is planned and perhaps dramatic ideas for circulation – that is, the pattern, three sides, its edges are being restored by using portable cof- with an appropriate program, site, massing, and spatial pace, and content of park visits – at its heart. As park transporta- fer dams to temporarily drain sections of shoreline. This has sequence relative to its surroundings, architectural design tion planners know, alternative circulation patterns and new made it possible for silted-in coves and inlets to be excavated need only support these landscape design decisions in an forms of transportation lead to revised modes of experience and replanted. The project has been planned in stages to avoid unobtrusive way. The new visitor center in the Paradise area of and interpretation. An indication of this potential can be expe- extensive, simultaneous environmental disturbance to the Mount Rainier National Park, for example, reinterprets a rienced at Zion Canyon, where a fleet of buses shuttles visitors thirty-eight-acre landscape that is, among its other qualities, regional rustic architectural idiom for contemporary purposes, in and out of the canyon, transforming the noise and distrac- one of the most significant migratory bird habitats in the but its impressive success is due more to its intelligent place- tion of car traffic into a more appropriately hushed and rever- entire region. ment, which strengthens the spatial experience and pattern of ential atmosphere. As the Ramble is renewed, it struck me that the multiple public use within a historically developed area of the park. New technologies – not only for transportation but for the meanings and historical significance of the landscape are also References to park architecture of the past or to vernacular dissemination of interpretive information – seem always to be being resuscitated and given new immediacy. It is no longer a architecture of the region might or might not be good ideas, on the cusp of offering major shifts in how the public moves Robinsonian wild garden of carefully maintained shrubs and but on their own they do not constitute a natural style of land- through and appreciates parks. Will interpretive displays still ground covers. Since the 1920s, a secondary forest of black scape design based on sound and responsive site planning. be necessary once handheld devices are receiving educational cherries, ash, and other volunteer species has matured and The subject of design may seem somewhat suspect for park programming at specific locations in a landscape? Will the replaced many of the original ornamental plants. But the for- managers, who at times have condemned aesthetic considera- advent of low-emission vehicles change attitudes about the est has itself come to be valued as another vision of wildness – tions as superficial, under the assumption that a concern for impact of personal vehicles? Ironically, one of the most popu- not a naturalistic garden but a product of a natural succession visual composition may be accompanied by a disregard for less lar and successful forms of alternative transportation has been that has reclaimed a rocky piece of Manhattan’s topography. visible ecological disturbances. In the early twentieth century, the historic “gear jammers” – open-top touring buses built The minimal-impact management of this landscape has for example, the extirpation of wolves and other predators was in the 1930s – which have been restored and again take visitors allowed this evolution to take place, and has emphasized the considered desirable, in part because large herds of ruminants over Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park. The integrity of wildlife habitat rather than visual effects. Dead were valued as scenery. This policy had terrible consequences social and technological context for design, of course, never trees are left standing and native plant species are encouraged. for wildlife and forests. But today an appropriate considera- stops changing. And yet principles of the natural style may Today no one would advocate clear-cutting the Ramble in tion for aesthetics can be combined with science-based deci- still have significant application as we continue to revise ideas order to re-create the historic, naturalistic garden it once was; sion making, and this would be consistent with the idea of the about how people arrive, move through, and experience park instead it continues to embody an ideal of nature, but in a natural style. landscapes. contemporary form. It has become a new kind of wild garden, Both Olmsted and Robinson advocated and employed the one in which succession and other natural processes have natural sciences of their era, and were protoecological in their The connection between natural-style design and the preser- been allowed full expression. Here habitat and ecosystem are design approaches. Olmsted in particular had a deep interest vation of natural and historic landscapes may be more obscure showcased – just as picturesque outcrops, shrubs, and other in geology and forestry. If he were alive now, he would proba- today than it was when Olmsted and Robinson strolled effects once were. As an updated vision of wildness, the bly be labeled an ecologist. Advancement in the natural sci- through the Ramble together. But if we accept that the natural Ramble fulfills its place in the larger park composition and in ences, particularly ecological science, has resulted in a new, but style was significant in park history, there are good reasons to the sequence of landscape experiences in ways that a nine- entirely sympathetic, context for the natural style today. A consider how it has evolved over time while retaining funda- teenth-century shrub garden could not. third tenet of the natural style would therefore embody this mental meanings and functions. These thoughts came to mind The revitalization underway in the Ramble today is a pow- requirement: Landscape design must incorporate scientific knowl- last spring as I observed Central Park Conservancy gardeners erful metaphor for the resurgence of the social and environ- edge as well as aesthetic judgment. mental aspirations for public parks once espoused by figures Finally, natural-style design has always been predicated on a such as Olmsted and Robinson and described by them as a specifically modern mode of perception: that of the viewer natural style of landscape design. The definition and appear- in motion. Whether on foot or on horseback, in carriages or in

5 ance of nature may change, but the conviction that the experi- Merced River where the view westward up the valley gave a forbade settling or lumbering in the area and appointed a ence of such landscapes is a necessary condition for human distant glimpse of the bold granite face of El Capitan and the commission of eight men to oversee creation of a public pre- happiness has not: on the contrary, the reasons for preserving entrance to Yosemite Valley. serve. He appointed Olmsted as superintendent and chairman landscapes in ways that allow the public to experience them Within a month of his arrival at Mariposa, he began to of the commission and ordered that all suggestions concern- meaningfully and healthfully have only grown stronger as the explore the scenic wonders beyond the mines, and the follow- ing policy and all requests for use-leases be directed to him. world has grown more crowded and urbanized. A reexamina- ing summer, after the arrival of his family, he spent two weeks Reporting his appointment to his father, Olmsted called tion of the natural style, therefore, can be a logical and inspir- visiting the Mariposa and Fresno groves of giant sequoias. He Yosemite “far the noblest public park, or pleasure ground in ing starting point in the process of renewing our vision of was awed by these ancient specimens, declaring that “you feel the world.” park design today. – Ethan Carr that they are distinguished strangers who have come down to In his new role, Olmsted immediately hired the geologists us from another world.” His experience of their majesty was Clarence King and James T. Gardner to draw up an accurate Olmsted and Yosemite most intense in the chiaroscuro effects provided by night-time survey of the grant. He also prepared a report, which he pre- hen Frederick Law Olmsted embarked from campfires. In such a setting, he recalled, “the scene of the sented to the commission in Yosemite Valley in September New York City in the fall of 1863 to assume his woods was one of the most impressive I have ever fallen upon, 1865, in which he discussed the theoretical basis for scenic new position as general manager of the great the stately trunks of two enormous sequoias a few hundred preservation and proposed specific measures for safeguarding Mariposa gold-mining estate in the foothills feet off lighted up and standing out in a clouded gold color . . . , the landscape of the protected area while providing for public of California’s Sierra Nevada, he thought he perfect columns 170 feet, then lost in general obscurity of access. Wwas leaving behind both his career as a park designer and his foliage.” This experience anticipated his reaction to the sub- The gist of his analysis was that the uniqueness of the Civil War role in preserving the Union as head of the U.S. lime elements of Yosemite Valley itself; there, too, he respond- valley was not due solely to its towering cliff sides and great Sanitary Commission. And yet the principal results of his two- ed to the grandeur of the place most intensely when it was cascades. As he observed: year sojourn in California would be his formulation of a dis- revealed through light and shadow, moonlight and bold shafts There are falls of water elsewhere finer, there are more stu- tinctive style of regional landscape design for the semi-arid of sunlight, creating a sense of drama and mystery. pendous rocks, more beetling cliffs, there are deeper and West and the first comprehensive formulation of a rationale By the summer of 1864 – independent of any involvement more awful chasms, there may be as beautiful streams, as for creating parks from the national domain.1 by Olmsted himself – Californians had secured from Congress lovely meadows, there are larger trees. It is in no scene or Olmsted’s first impressions of the California landscape sur- a grant to their state of Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big scenes the charm consists, but in the miles of scenery rounding the settlement of Bear Valley were hardly promising Tree Grove as inalienable public parkland. Governor Frederick where cliffs of awful height and rocks of vast magnitude for success in either endeavor. The only time during his first Low moved quickly to protect the region. That September, he and of varied and exquisite coloring, are banked and few weeks on the Mariposa Estate that he took any delight in fringed and draped and the scenery was at twilight, when shadows gave the appearance shadowed by the tender of turf to the parched ground and the “vegetable productions” foliage of noble and lovely briefly resembled fully formed trees. Still, after several months trees and bushes, reflected he could write a friend in the East that “there are certain views from the most placid pools, here which are sterner and more awful than any I ever saw and associated with the most before. I don’t love them, but I surrender to them; I feel that tranquil meadows, the most they have got me. I should feel humiliated to live anywhere playful streams, and every else, after having made myself at home with them.” The spot variety of soft and peaceful that he found particularly “sublime in no contemptible pastoral beauty. degree” was a mine on the edge of the deep ravine of the The union of the deepest sublimity with the deepest 1 The information in this article was drawn primarily from documents beauty of nature, not in one and editorial commentary in Victoria Post Ranney et al., eds., The feature or another, not in California Frontier, 1863-1865, The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, one part or one scene or Volume 5 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), and another, not in any land- Charles E. Beveridge and Carolyn Hoffman, eds., Writings on Public Parks, Parkways, and Park Systems, The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Supplementary Series Volume 1 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). Merced River with Half Dome, Yosemite National Park. Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service 6 Digital Image Archives. scape that can be framed by itself, but all around and wher- road to the reservation, patent-medicine purveyors had already editorial “The New-York Park,” published in the Horticulturist ever the visitor goes, constitutes the Yo Semite the greatest defaced picturesque outcroppings with their advertisements. in 1851, with its vision of “a whole people whose system of vol- glory of nature. Olmsted realized how easily a few self-interested men untary education embraces…not only schools of rudimentary could destroy the beauty of a place that should be preserved knowledge, but common enjoyments for all classes in the In this heartfelt (if calculated) paean to the beauty of the for the benefit of the public at large. Accordingly, he was will- higher realms of art, letters, science, social recreations and place, Olmsted was applying the aesthetic he used in his own ing to use the power of government to protect against such enjoyments.” park designs. There was to be no display of specimen objects, profit-making intrusions. “It As part of his demonstration of the however impressive, in this landscape. The experience of the is the main duty of govern- importance of the Yosemite grant as an edu- place was to be a continuous, flowing, and changing one: a ment,” he stated in his cational opportunity and civilizing force, succession of scenes in which the wall of the valley would sel- report, “to provide means of Olmsted returned to a concept he had devel- dom be viewed alone, but would instead be part of a well-com- protection for all its citizens oped after his trip to England in 1850: the posed scene in which the Merced River and its adjoining in the pursuit of happiness United States had the ability, and the meadows, fern-brakes, and woods played a crucial part. against the obstacles, other- responsibility, to disprove the preconcep- Elaborating on this issue in later years, Olmsted recalled that wise unsurmountable, which tions on which the stratified society of the “I felt the charm of the Yosemite much more at the end of a the selfishness of individuals Old World had been built. There the govern- week than at the end of a day, much more after six weeks when or combinations of individu- ing classes had always believed “that the the cascades were nearly dry, than after one week, and when als is liable to interpose in large mass of all human communities after having been in it, off and on, several months, I was going that pursuit.” He had long should spend their lives in almost constant out, I said, ‘I have not yet half taken it in.’” since rejected what he called labor and that the power of enjoying beauty Olmsted’s report carried significant implications for the “the besotted laisser aller either of nature or of art in any high degree, management of the area. No lumbering, grazing, or home- [faire] principle,” which, he requires a cultivation of certain faculties, steading should be permitted. The eminent botanist John believed, sanctioned materi- which is impossible to these humble toilers.” Torrey informed Olmsted that within sight of a trail used by alism in its least responsible As Olmsted had realized during his visitors in the valley floor, there were some six hundred form and gave a decided European travels, and as A. J. Downing had species of flora, “most of them being small and delicate flow- advantage to men possessing taught, the American republic must prove ering plants.” Moreover, within a few acres of meadow, Torrey capital. Such a policy could itself capable of providing its citizens with had found and named three hundred species native to too easily result in perpetua- facilities for the full development of their California. The fragility of much of this valley vegetation dic- tion of power and privilege capabilities. The engrossment by the rich of tated a management policy that would serve the requirements in the hands of the same so many of England’s beautiful landscapes of tourists while protecting the plants as fully as possible. families from generation to must not be permitted to occur in the Olmsted predicted that millions of people would visit the val- generation, whereas he United States. Preservation and proper man- ley in the next hundred years, and he warned that “an injury to firmly believed that “govern- agement of the Yosemite grant would be a the scenery so slight that it may be unheeded by any visitor ment should have in view Descent into Yosemite Valley by crucial test of this ideal. It was this lesson concerning republi- now, will be one of deplorable magnitude when its effect upon the encouragement of Mariposa Trail, Harper’s Weekly 1873. can institutions and the promotion of civilization that each visitor’s enjoyment is multiplied by these millions.” a democratic condition of Courtesy of Tim Davis. Olmsted taught in his Yosemite report – a lesson he combined Professional guidance was needed for protecting both the society.” with a cogent analysis of the beneficial psychological effect of scenic and botanical elements of the valley, and for this pur- It was in these terms that Olmsted viewed the question of scenery. The report was his first formal statement of themes pose he urged that four of the eight members appointed to the scenic preservation. He considered reservations like Yosemite that he would articulate many times during his next thirty-five commission be landscape artists and natural scientists. Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove to be public institu- years as a practitioner of landscape architecture. The danger that individuals would mar the beauty of the tions of popular education of the sort that he had been work- Having instructed his audience how to appreciate the valley in their pursuit of private gain was already evident when ing to foster in the North for over a decade. In justifying the scenery of Yosemite and spelled out a rationale for its preser- Olmsted drew up his report. James Hutchings had laid claim Yosemite grant, in fact, he invoked A. J. Downing’s seminal vation by the government, Olmsted went on to propose mea- to much of the valley and was about to build a sawmill there. sures for its development and management. He called for Governor Low’s proclamation ended that threat, but the cut- immediate establishment of regulations that would protect the ting of trees continued. Commercial activity also accompanied valley from destruction, since careless habits once established the increased flow of tourists in the summer of 1865; along the

7 would be hard to break. In order to provide access while at the Although he visited the area in 1886, while planning the Yellowstone: From Last Place Discovered same time acting “to reduce the necessity for artificial con- Stanford University campus, he seems to have intentionally to International Fame struction within the narrowest practicable limits,” he proposed avoided returning to Yosemite Valley. Soon after, however, a ince its founding in 1872, Yellowstone National Park a narrow carriage path circling the valley by a course that rising chorus of dismay at the spoliation of the valley’s land- has been renowned for the quality and quantity of its would intrude as little as possible on the landscape. He also scape led to a campaign by concerned observers against the natural and cultural features. It has been designated a proposed construction of five cabins at the points most fre- permissive and lax policies of the commission. Ralph World Biosphere Preserve and a National Heritage Site. quented by visitors. The cabins would be let to tenants who Underwood Johnson, publisher of the Century Magazine, It is routinely proclaimed one of the world’s most were responsible for offering free resting space and facilities appealed to Olmsted for assistance, but he felt too far removed Sextraordinary places, and it appears on nearly everyone’s life- for visitors and providing rental of tents, camping gear, and from the situation to comment effectively. He did, however, time-pilgrimage checklist. It is also a place that was decreed cooking utensils. The cost of these minimally invasive alter- draw up and publish a brief paper in 1890, entitled by Congress to be kept “unimpaired for future generations.” As ations was very little: a projected $6,600. But Olmsted was not Governmental Preservation of Natural Scenery, in which he dis- a National Park Ranger at Yellowstone, I saw the consequences merely committed to protecting the land; he was equally com- cussed development of policies related to the cutting of trees of this promise every time I watched my little daughter Tess mitted to bringing people there to experience it. Steamboat and programs for replanting them.2 play in the park with her friends. Because it was the first service easily carried visitors the seventy-five miles from San By this time, he had been involved for a decade in the cam- national park ever established, its history is generally instruc- Francisco to Stockton, but there remained an overland journey paign to create a scenic reservation at Niagara Falls – first as a tive, and this spring’s National Park Week (April 18-26, 2009) of nearly one hundred miles. He therefore called for an appro- leader of the effort and then in 1887 as co-designer with his led me to reflect on Yellowstone’s dramatic beginnings. It was priation by the state legislature of an additional $25,000 to old partner Calvert Vaux of the land ultimately set aside for already internationally famous by the mid-1870s – before it facilitate construction of a good carriage road from Stockton protection by the State of New York. At Niagara he found the could be reached by railroad, and when few Americans had to Yosemite Valley. This costly scheme would prove the undo- same combination of widely varying landscape elements – in even seen it. ing of his vision. this instance, torrential rapids, tremendous falls, and rich pro- One of the great riddles of Indian history is why local tribes When Olmsted read his report to the Yosemite Commission fusion of native vegetation – that constituted the special charm did not inform white people about the place. While ancient in the valley on August 9, 1865, his conclusions impressed vis- of Yosemite. The problem was similar – how to provide access humans and, later, at least twenty-six Indian tribes visited iting newspaper editors from the East. The response of the and necessary facilities with least disruption of the landscape. Yellowstone over the centuries, they did not pass along infor- state government was far less positive. Three members of the In his response to Johnson’s appeal – Olmsted’s last statement mation about it to Euro-Americans the way they did about Yosemite commission were also commissioners of the Califor- on Yosemite – he quoted telling advice from his Niagara report other locations in the American West. Nor did they pass along nia Geological Survey, which was itself seeking new appropria- of 1887 that crystallized his final recommendation for both to westward-bound whites what must have been well-estab- tions. They convinced Governor Low to suppress Olmsted’s sites and for scenic reservations in general: lished myths and legends about this strange land. Although we report and budgetary request. The only verbatim portion of are not quite sure why, it seems likely that Yellowstone was Having regard to the enjoyment by visitors of natural his report that reached the general public during Olmsted’s considered a sacred place and therefore not something to be scenery, and considering that the means of making this lifetime was the description of the special landscape qualities shared. Historian Hiram Chittenden wrote in 1895: “It is a sin- enjoyment available to large numbers of them will unavoid- of Yosemite Valley that he published in the New York Evening gular fact in the history of the Yellowstone National Park ably lessen the extent and value of the primary elements of Post of June 18, 1868; the report itself was virtually lost to the that no knowledge of that country seems to have been derived natural scenery, nothing of an artificial character should be world for the following half century. Not until 1916, when from the Indians . . . . Their deep silence concerning it is allowed a place on the property, no matter how valuable it Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. turned to the only existing copy of therefore no less remarkable than mysterious.”1 might be under other circumstances and no matter at how his father’s document for inspiration and phraseology as Eventually Euro-Americans found Yellowstone – fur trap- little cost it may be had, the presence of which can be he composed the enabling legislation for the National Park pers in the 1820s and ‘30s and gold prospectors in the 1860s – avoided consistently with the provision of necessary condi- Service, did Olmsted’s carefully developed rationale finally but these travelers also did little to pass on their knowledge. tions for making the enjoyment of the natural scenery serve its intended role. Published several times since then in Difficult mountain geography, the presence of deep snow for available. its entirety, the report has become an important part of the much of the year, the Civil War, and the lack of information body of design doctrine that has informed the Olmsted revival – Charles E. Beveridge from Indians all contributed to the area’s obscurity. When of recent years. Yellowstone was finally “rediscovered” by Euro-Americans in Olmsted returned to the East in October 1865, resigned 1870, it was effectively the last place in the American West to be from the Yosemite Commission in October 1866, and was not explored and opened – and that was arguably fortunate. officially involved with setting policy for the grant thereafter. Otherwise settlers would have claimed the land and we proba- bly would not have had today’s protected national park.

2 Governmental Preservation of Natural Scenery will be published in Ethan Carr and Amanda Gagel, eds., The Early Boston Years, 1882- 1890, Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Volume 8 (Baltimore: The 8 Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming). The wonders and curiosities of Yellow- Northern Pacific Railroad brochure, Yellowstone appeared between 1872–1883. In addition, the stone were so amazing that even the 1869 1884. Courtesy of the National Park largest Yellowstone bibliography reveals at least 209 published Folsom party and the 1870 Washburn party – Service. magazine articles published during the same period. These the parties that received credit for its white statistics do not include government documents, book chap- discovery – were not initially believed. David If this editor in Boise, ters, individual letters, or items that were published in Europe, Folsom stated on his return that he “was Idaho, could not believe in fed by the great number of wealthy European travelers who unwilling to risk his reputation for veracity by Yellowstone geysers, then visited the park. Those miscellaneous productions number in a full recital…of the wonders he had seen.” who could blame those in the hundreds. N. P. Langford of the Washburn party stated eastern cities for doubting Along with the sheer volume of articles came glowing to traveler Charles Whitmell that 1870 news- that the strange wonderland praise that hardly any place could live up to. Only one year papers portrayed him as “the biggest liar in existed? after Congress’s act to establish the protected area, the New the West.” 2 Indeed the New York Times It required a third expedi- York Times proclaimed that “it is only necessary to render the sneered that Langford’s submitted magazine tion – the 1871 Hayden Park easily accessible to make it the most popular summer article “reads like the realization of a child’s Survey – to fully document resort in the country.”6 Over and over we read sentences like fairy tale.” 3 Walter Trumbull of Langford’s the glories of Yellowstone “Every person in our estimation should visit the Yellowstone.”7 party wrote an account for Overland Monthly with photographs and scien- Poetic language in the style of an intricately worked quilt was magazine that the editor of the Boise Tri- tific reports so that people in vogue and produced lines like these describing Weekly Statesman blasted as fiction: could believe they were real. Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon: But even expedition artist A great fault of our western literature is its The whole gorge flames. It is as though rainbows had fallen Thomas Moran worried that gross exaggeration and its vulgar straining out of the sky and hung themselves like glorious banners. the colors with which he for effect. Simple people are astonished The underlying color is the clearest yellow. This flushes painted were so bright that (which generally seems to be the purpose onward into orange. Down at the base the deepest mosses people might think him a of the writer), but sensible ones are dis- unroll their draperies of the most vivid green; browns, liar.5 Fortunately W. H. gusted with this style of “old trapper” sweet and soft, do their blending; white rocks stand spec- Jackson’s photos and those lying. We are of the opinion that when Mr. tral; turrets of rock shoot up as crimson as though they of Joshua Crissman could Walter Trumbull saw that column of water were drenched with blood. It is a wilderness of color. It is not lie, so Congress declared from the Beehive [Geyser] spouting up two impossible that even the pencil of an artist can tell it.8 Yellowstone the world’s first feet in diameter to an altitude of 230 feet national park on March 1, he must have been under the influence of 1872. Originally singled out an element more inspiring than Rocky because of its unique 200- Mountain water. And that other five foot feet-high geysers, the new column from the Giantess [Geyser] spout- 1 Hiram M. Chittenden, The Yellowstone National Park: Historical and park soon revealed other ing up two hundred feet, and falling in Descriptive (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke Company, 1895), 8, 99. For astounding features, includ- drops and spray and shrouded with golden those interested in more on this subject, I’ve written about it in the ing huge lakes, colorful second chapter of my book Storytelling in Yellowstone: Horse and mist is equally tough. Now we like good canyons, petrified trees, tall Buggy Tour Guides (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, healthy exaggeration; it indicates the poeti- waterfalls, large mammals, 2007) and in “Native Americans, the Earliest Interpreters: What is cal temperament, and lends a change often and thousands of hot Known About Their Legends and Stories of Yellowstone National to a dull, practical subject, but this is a lit- springs. Park and the Complexities of Interpreting Them,” George Wright tle too clumsily done. We suggest to Walter Once Yellowstone was Forum 19, no. 3 (2002): 40-51. that he knock off a hundred feet or so and 2 Aubrey L. Haines, Yellowstone National Park: Its Exploration and known to the world, newspapers and magazines quickly made call the balance steam.4 Establishment (Washington: GPO, 1974), 54; Charles T. Whitmell, “The it famous, despite its remoteness. Initially all travel was on American Wonderland, the Yellowstone National Park,” Report and horseback, over what the New York Times referred to in 1873 as Transactions of the Cardiff Naturalists Society 17 (1885): 102. “wild and difficult bridle-paths.” A search today of one online 3 New York Times, October 14, 1870. archive shows that at least 1,336 newspaper articles about 4 TriWeekly Statesman (Boise, ID), June 6, 1871. 5 Brooklyn (NY) Eagle, August 14, 1883. 6 New York Times, March 12, 1873. 7 Daily Gazette and Bulletin (Williamsport, PA), September 29, 1884. 8 Rev. Wayland Hoyt, 1878, quoted in Whittlesey, Storytelling in Yellowstone, 191. 9 Many writers made much of their inability to do justice to “no longer questioned” the park’s “right to fame.”10 stone’s elk numbers through planned hunting by rangers; then Yellowstone’s wonders in words. They stated that seeing the By 1897, Yellowstone was a grand tourist success. It had six a seeming lack of grizzly bears in the 1970s stimulated nation- place was the only thing adequate for understanding: hotels and numerous smaller lodging facilities. It received al discussion. The huge fires of 1988 provoked massive public- 10,000 visitors per year who were transported around its 140- ity and continuing media scrutiny. A proposed gold mine in The exuberance and…profligacy with which nature has mile loop in four-horse stagecoaches. At least two dozen books the park in the 1990s made environmentalists so angry that dumped out into this National Park the grand, gorgeous, had been published about it and the park’s existence was President Clinton intervened and declared that “Yellowstone is and awful creations of her infinite power fill the tourist taught in geography classes the world over. Geologists and more valuable than gold.” with unspeakable awe and amazement, and furnish such other scientists came from around the globe to study it. In 1995, the reintroduction of wolves and the revelation of illimitable material that the pen is puzzled both for a During the twentieth century, promotion of Yellowstone hundreds of new waterfalls in 2000 garnered still more pub- beginning point and a language to convey even a feeble grew more intense and more sophisticated. The first motion licity for the park. The spectacular combination of grizzly description. The boldest and most successful effort of the picture of the park was filmed in 1897, but between the 1970s bears, wolves, and other large mammals in the Yellowstone’s ablest exaggeration would fall far short of the…realities that and the end of the twentieth century so many commercial Lamar Valley has caused that area to become known as the meet the eye at every step in this “goblin land.”9 films were produced about the park that they are difficult to “American Serengeti.” It attracts continuing attention from the With so many glowing reports emanating from the press, it count. A search of our online newspaper archive at Yellow- national media and park visitors. Arguments about “harvest- is not surprising that Yellowstone was already famous by the stone shows that at least 125,917 newspaper articles about the ing” small amounts of bacteria from hot springs and about time its railroad arrived in 1883. The Northern Pacific Railroad park or mentioning it were published from 1884 to 2008. drilling outside the park for thermal energy continue to annoy (NPRR), extending its line across the Dakotas and Montana in Beginning in the 1950s, television producers also promoted park purists today. It is impossible to guess what aspect of what was effectively the nation’s second transcontinental rail- the park worldwide. I saw Yellowstone on television during my Yellowstone will be next to claim our attention. road, reached Livingston, Montana, in 1882. That was only childhood in faraway Oklahoma, not knowing that my daugh- Those early Indians, explorers, newspaper editors, survey- about fifty miles north of Yellowstone Park, so the NPRR made ter – little Tess – would grow up there in the 1990s. ors, railroad passengers, and stagecoach tourists would proba- immediate plans to build a branch line south. Working for Various crises and controversies in the twentieth century bly have been amazed to know the extent of their park’s eight months, the company kept the park in the news. After scientists proposed keeping eventual fame and the numbers of people who would ulti- laid the last iron on August 30 Old Faithful erupting, Yellowstone Yellowstone natural in the Leopold report in 1963, their find- mately visit it. Today, as America and the world become more and ran its first regularly- National Park. Photograph by Craig ings were widely debated in the press. In the mid-1960s, many and more urbanized, Yellowstone National Park looms as scheduled train to Yellowstone Mellish. Americans became angry over artificial reduction of Yellow- something truly unusual and desirable for visitors seeking on September 1, 1883. This natural wonders, elusive wilderness, hoped-for inspiration, marked the first time in necessary solace, intellectual stimulation, and emotional reju- American history that a rail- venation. Although its railroads are long gone, it still witnesses road company built tracks three million visitors per year thronging its five entrances. specifically to a tourist destina- Tourists from other countries routinely include it in their tion. It was appropriate that plans, and, as one 1885 visitor wrote, “every American must see the place so honored was the it once before he dies.” world’s first national park. The fact that Indians may have kept it a secret, that many Eventually four other railroads nineteenth-century white men could not find it or penetrate it, would offer service to the park, and that numerous others did not believe in it at all were but for eighteen years the lucky breaks for Yellowstone during its journey to protection. NPRR was the only one. Nearly Those breaks were also fortunate for the rest of us. May my ninety thousand visitors rode daughter, your children, and all other children play in it, love its trains to the park in the it, and help us protect it “unimpaired for future generations.” first fourteen years, many of – Lee H. Whittlesey them wondering, as did 1907 visitor Elizabeth Rowell, “Would Yellowstone equal its reputation?” Her party soon 9 “Acres Upon Acres of Hot Springs,” New York Times, August 31, 1883. 10Elizabeth Rowell, “Ten Days in the Yellowstone,” Alaska-Yukon Magazine (August 1907): 475. The Northern Pacific Railroad’s history for Yellowstone is in Lee H. Whittlesey, A History of the Mammoth Village in Yellowstone National Park: Culture and Nature at Mammoth Hot Springs (Yellowstone National Park, WY: National Park Service, 10 forthcoming), 55. Conundrums of Commemoration: perspectives. In particular, there is an unacknowledged divide In this context, the parkway’s most fervent supporters in Blue Ridge Parkway’s Seventy-fifth Anniversary between those whose focus is scenery and conservation and 1934 were not conservationists but persons associated with n 2010, the Blue Ridge Parkway will celebrate its seventy-fifth those whose interest lies in promoting regional tourism. Asheville’s media, hotel, and business community, who were anniversary. As the author of Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue These divergent agendas have coexisted uneasily throughout banking on the fact that a new parkway would drive streams of Ridge Parkway History (2006), I was invited to take part in the parkway’s history, and were a major focus of my book. But tourists through Asheville on their way to the Smokies. Not the planning for this event, but mobilizing history for cele- I didn’t fully appreciate that the board would so accurately long after the parkway was approved for federal funding in late bratory purposes, I have learned, can present unforeseen reflect the power relations among the park’s original stake- 1933, however, North Carolina and Tennessee plunged into a Ichallenges. Anniversaries are purportedly about remembering holders. How does a historian who is aware of how these agen- yearlong conflict over its route. North Carolina’s preferred and reflecting upon the past, but celebrations take place das have route looped south around in the present, and are planned and shaped by contemporary shaped the Asheville while Tennessee’s issues and stakeholders. My role in this particular event is parkway in turned northwest at Linville especially delicate because powerful interests similar to those the past and hugged the state line on that influenced the parkway’s founding and development negotiate the Tennessee side, heading still threaten its future. them in the towards the Smokies at A product of the Great Depression and New Deal, the Blue present? Gatlinburg. Ridge Parkway connects Shenandoah National Park with Great The ten- The Tennessee route Smoky Mountains National Park. Carved from national forest sions inher- completely bypassed Ashe- and private lands, with 469 miles of glorious mountain views, ent in the ville and the city’s boosters campgrounds, and hiking trails, the parkway has been the parkway first were determined to avoid most visited site in the national park system since just after emerged in such an outcome. Fortunately World War II. This triumph of automobile-related engineering 1933, when for them, scenery was on and landscape design was part of a coordinated system of boosters their side. The North southern Appalachian parks that brought the national park from three Carolina route, laid out by idea traditionally associated with the western public domain to states gath- the state’s skilled highway the more heavily populated eastern United States. To protect ered in locating engineer R. Getty views from the parkway, the National Park Service stringently Virginia sen- Browning, clung near the limited access to it; the road’s completion also required liberal ator Harry F. ridgetops and soared above use of state powers of eminent domain, which sparked numer- Byrd’s Wash- 5000 feet. The Tennessee ous conflicts with local political and business interests in the ington office route, on the other hand, southern Appalachians. At the same time, the parkway repre- to hammer out their vision for a federally funded scenic “park- Traffic jam at Mabry Mill, Blue Ridge lurched up and down the sented the success of some of those same interests in securing to-park highway” to link Shenandoah and the Great Smokies. Parkway, 1963. Courtesy Blue Ridge mountains and crossed federal funding for the development of a key travel attraction. While Virginia’s Skyline Drive, being built in Shenandoah, pro- Parkway. several streams. In the face More than a year ago, Blue Ridge Parkway partner organiza- vided a model of a stunning ridgetop road, it became clear of an early decision by tions formed a new nonprofit – Blue Ridge Parkway 75, Inc. – early on that business interests would also drive the parkway’s a federal committee in favor of the Tennessee route, North to coordinate plans to celebrate the parkway’s seventy-fifth development. “The greatest industry in the world,” North Carolina’s boosters pressed interior secretary Harold Ickes anniversary. Blue Ridge Parkway 75 includes representatives Carolina senator Robert Reynolds told those convened, “is not and President Franklin Roosevelt to adopt their mapping from the National Park Service, the states of Virginia and the building of automobiles, the steel, the mill or the tobacco instead. When the dust settled, Roosevelt and Ickes agreed. North Carolina, several private nonprofit parkway volunteer industry, but . . . the tourist industry.” For a time tourism and scenery coexisted peacefully. But and fundraising organizations, and several land trusts and By 1934, however, that great southern Appalachian tourist even in the 1930s some voices cautioned that their interests conservation groups. Also represented are universities, com- industry was spiraling down fast. Asheville, North Carolina, were intrinsically opposed. Writing to Ickes in 1933, Knoxville munities, and especially the travel and business sector in the known since the late-nineteenth century as the “Land of the conservationist Harvey Broome (two years later a founder of mountains: Biltmore Estate, Luray Caverns, Grandfather Sky,” had recently invested lavishly in city infrastructure to the Wilderness Society) warned that “a skyline link would split Mountain, the Blue Ridge Parkway Association, Blue Ridge welcome tourists to grand new hotels. When the regional real- the whole mountain region wide open, and with the cleavage Host, Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau, and estate market collapsed, western North Carolina’s largest bank would vanish much of the spell of the primeval.” Businesses, Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau. failed, taking millions of dollars in city funds down with it. he argued, would soon follow as “service stations of all kinds Everyone involved shares the goal of protecting and pre- Asheville’s resulting crisis lingered for decades. would necessarily have to be dragged up from the valleys serving the parkway for the next seventy-five years and beyond. to meet the needs of the motorists.” The combination of the But hidden within that broadly shared outlook are divergent road, cars, and service stations, “all extraneous to the wilder-

11 ness,” would turn the road’s surroundings into “but a mockery Viaduct that carried the of the fresh, green, inviolate nature such a road is supposed to parkway around Grand- reveal.” father’s rocky shoulders, the Broome rightly foresaw how hard it would be to promote cost was high: a parkway business development while also preserving natural scenery. conceived in the public In the late 1930s Little Switzerland resort developer and state interest and paid for with supreme court justice Heriot Clarkson lobbied North Carolina public funds was reshaped highway officials, launched a public relations campaign, and according to the demands of ultimately filed a lawsuit to force changes in the parkway’s a single well-connected pri- protective 800- to 1,000-foot right-of-way through his proper- vate developer. ty. Well-connected throughout North Carolina political circles The episode raised the and originally a parkway supporter, Clarkson commanded a disturbing prospect that the level of attention from the highway commission that many public interest may not other landowners could not attract; commission officials made prevail over the private and several concessions to reduce the damage the parkway would commercial goals of those inflict on his development. who own land near the park- Eventually, the case wound its way through the court sys- way or have political power tem, right up to the North Carolina Supreme Court, and over it. Just a few years ago, Clarkson recused himself. Upholding a county superior court Republican congressman decision, the supreme court in 1939 agreed to a settlement that Charles Taylor sponsored the reduced the right-of way through Little Switzerland to 200 feet parkway’s new Asheville (the narrowest in North Carolina), opened an unprecedented visitor center. Although the four access points from the resort to the road, and awarded building is now run by the Clarkson $25,000 for eighty-eight acres of land. At about $281 National Park Service, much per acre, this payment far exceeded the average of $37 per acre of it is clearly designed to that North Carolina had paid for all parkway lands it had induce parkway travelers to purchased up to that time. The narrow right-of-way also had visit commercial attractions an additional benefit for Clarkson. With a parkway entrance Pastoral scene in Doughton Park, Morton also chafed at throughout the region such as Grandfather Mountain, the fronting on his Switzerland Inn, he could advertise Little Blue Ridge Parkway, 2008. Photograph park service attempts to Biltmore Estate, and the casino at Cherokee. More recently, a Switzerland as the “Only Resort Directly on the Blue Ridge by David E. Whisnant. impose fees on the scenic Florida-based private developer has acquired a lease on lands Parkway.” The traveling public’s experience suffered, as numer- road, as well as its Mission just off the parkway near Roanoke, where there had formerly ous buildings associated with the resort crowded the parkway 66-era plans to build what he called “socialized” lodging and been a “living history” park. Because the park’s historic aims view. food-service facilities on the parkway. Enraged, he and his had been seen as consonant with the spirit of the parkway, The fragile early alliance between parkway planners and fellow mountain-tourism boosters in the Blowing Rock and a connector road had been built in cooperation with the regional tourism interests further deteriorated in the late Boone area proclaimed in a flyer, “We are Not Going to Sit National Park Service in the 1980s. But the Florida developer 1940s when Grandfather Mountain owner Hugh Morton Still while the Tourist Business Is Sold Down the River.” In the has recently debuted plans for building a fantastical commer- accused the park service of failing to build up the regional late 1940s and early 1950s, the parkway superintendent tried cial resort named “Blue Ridge America” on the site. Complete tourism industry that had, as he correctly noted, been central to devise ways to inform travelers about nearby accommoda- with luxury spa, sprawling village complex, cable car, swanky to the parkway’s founding. This form of boosterism, although tions, but he nevertheless remained wary of making the park- hotel, riverside light-show pageant, super-big zip line, and a force behind the parkway and many national parks, was not way “a publicity agent for private interests.” golf course, Blue Ridge America – unlike other local accom- written into the park service’s mission in 1916. But Morton, In the mid-1950s, with the route of the parkway complete modations – would be easily accessible from the parkway. The who had recently opened his own nearby travel attraction – the except for the “missing link” on Grandfather Mountain, developer has predicted that the proposed resort, which is Mile-High Swinging Bridge – resented policies prohibiting Morton lambasted park service plans for building the parkway obviously very much out of character with the rest of the park- commercial signage along the parkway that would direct visi- high along Grandfather’s slopes. Launching a statewide media way, would be “like a national park on steroids.” Unfortunately, tors there. blitz and mobilizing his connections with several governors as it is controlled by an array of public entities, both state and and other top state officials, Morton by 1968 had shoved the local, the park service has only modest influence over deci- parkway down the mountain to a location less likely to inter- fere with his travel attraction. Although the final route, which was completed in 1987, included the stunning Linn Cove 12 sions about the site. Even if the developer’s plans fail to mate- how powerful tourist interests – most prominently Grand- Diary for a Second Century: rialize, the park’s future remains uncertain. father Mountain’s Morton – manipulated the parkway for their A Journey across Our National Park System But in commemorative moments we tend to elide both his- own benefit. Morton died in 2006, but well-placed friends in Search of Its Future torical conflicts and persistent differences, instead emphasiz- of his throughout North Carolina have tried to influence the ing harmony, shared goals, and a sense of forward progress. discourse and tone of the parkway commemoration. Solstice Canyon How can the historian meaningfully participate in this In the fall of 2008, at my suggestion, Blue Ridge Parkway 75 t is late August 2008 in Solstice Canyon in Santa Monica process? Reminding everyone of past disagreements among organized a public discussion of the parkway’s past and future; Mountain National Recreation Area in southern California, constituencies now working together and of complicated it was held in Roanoke, Virginia, where the threat of encroach- and the streamside oaks provide some welcome shade. This power relationships that persist in the present raises one’s risk ment on the parkway is particularly severe. I presented the is the first meeting of the National Parks Second Century of being seen as a spoiler or, worse, being marginalized to the political and social history of the road, University of Georgia Commission, and the commissioners are spending this point of having no effect on the celebratory programs, events, landscape architect Ian Firth explained the evolution of park- Iwarm afternoon in the field seeing things they never expected or projects relating to the upcoming anniversary. But by play- way design, and parkway planner Gary Johnson talked about to encounter in a national park. Following a brief amphithe- ing along, I fear I may unwittingly reinforce an essentially current management issues. We have emphasized that many ater orientation by Henry Ortiz, who is the Science Coordina- commercial vision for the parkway’s existence. I see no reason parkway challenges have roots in parkway history and that tor for the Los Angeles Unified School District, we make our for participating in the creation of bland and uncritical being fully aware of history provides us with valuable tools in way to the water’s edge where three dozen or so young rhetoric, consensus history, and system-serving processes that the present. I highlighted the ongoing risk of commercializa- “EcoHelpers,” recruited from inner-city East Los Angeles, are fail to address the serious problems of encroaching develop- tion by noting that Hugh Morton had exercised dispropor- carefully planting trees and shrubs. Most of these kids are ment and the ongoing fights for access and commercial tionate power over parkway development in the 1950s and from single-parent homes, and today is family day for the benefit. Thus, I am forced to ask myself how can I retain my 1960s. What I didn’t say was that, with two representatives on EcoHelpers. Alongside their parent and a sibling or two, shov- integrity as a scholar while being a good team player? the Blue Ridge Parkway 75 board, Grandfather Mountain con- els in hand, they are hard at work. National Park Service (NPS) As a first step towards resolving this dilemma, I have had to tinues to have disproportionate influence on our discussion biologists share encouragement, advice, and a strong arm accept that, rather than engaging in paradigm-shifting analy- of the parkway. when needed. This is clearly not the stereotypical family visit sis, I often need to function simply as a compendium of park- During the question period, one of the board members to a national park. The pride and stewardship associated way facts – facts that are used in developing lists of potential from Grandfather accused me of unfairly maligning Morton, with this program suggest not only positive outcomes for par- sponsors, guests, or honorees, writing commemorative legisla- with whom he had worked since the early 1970s. My analysis, I ticipants but also a deeper level of public engagement in the tion, creating a timeline of key dates for the Web site, or devis- responded, accurately represented the historical record, and park itself. ing a reenactment of a key event. But even that has proved did not purport to address his later experiences. The moment The National Parks Second Century Commission, funded complicated. passed, but the edge of conflict apparently made some in the through a grant to the National Parks Conservation Associa- From the commemorative standpoint, the most important audience uncomfortable. tion, has two main responsibilities: producing a report out- issue has been: “When did the parkway begin?” “Begin” in this Shortly afterwards, someone else involved with planning lining a vision for the NPS and national park system, and case has many possible meanings: November 16, 1933, when the celebration told me that in a time of budget woes, a critical shaping an action agenda for the administration and Congress. federal funding was approved, September 11, 1935, when the staffing shortage, and development pressure, my talks on park- There are five commission meetings scheduled – in Santa first contract was let, September 19, 1935, when the first shovel- way history should seek to inspire stewardship by instilling a Monica, Lowell, Yellowstone, Gettysburg, and Great Smoky ful of dirt was turned, or June 30, 1936, when the project was message of “hope and joy.” But history, as we know, is not full Mountains – and each will highlight challenges and opportu- approved by Congress and named Blue Ridge Parkway. It of hope and joy, and the history of the parkway is still being nities specific to these parks and common to parks across seemed that the group wanted the “first shovelful” date, which written: policies implemented now will shape our experience the system. The report is expected to be completed by fall of a contemporaneous letter that I uncovered unambiguously in the park for the next seventy-five years. A message of blind 2009, coinciding with the broadcast of the Ken Burns docu- places on September 19. Unfortunately, my answer differs from optimism would leave those who love the parkway ill-equipped mentary The National Parks, America’s Best Idea. what is emblazoned on at least two metal plaques installed to make the difficult decisions necessary to protect it from The Commission is co-chaired by former US senators along the parkway, as well as from the widely publicized date those who would elevate private interests over the public good. Bennett Johnston and Howard Baker and staffed by retired used for the fiftieth anniversary celebration: September 11, A key task for those who participate in the commemoration is NPS chief of policy Loran Fraser. Jon Jarvis, Pacific West 1935. And so conventional wisdom and inground historical to face the parkway’s future prospects honestly. To meet that regional director, is the NPS point of contact. I’ve been asked markers carried the day, and the new Blue Ridge Parkway 75 challenge, forthright work by historians is essential. to work with Jon to capture lessons learned from the commis- website asserts that “on September 11, 1935, construction of the – Anne Mitchell Whisnant sion’s national park visits and conversations with park and first 12.5-mile section began near Cumberland Knob in North program staff, subject-area experts, and park constituencies. Carolina.” Somewhere along our route through Santa Monica we stop on More significant and distressing have been the ongoing a ridgetop, part of a slender corridor of open land recently interactions with tourism industry representatives, who make up a large percentage of board members. My book criticizes 13 traversed by a radio-collared cougar. The cougar has threaded partnerships. We gather in the Wannalancit Mill to hear Lowell other underserved populations to a deeper level. The national its way past some nearby subdivisions to reach another of the superintendent Michael Creasey and partners from University park is accomplishing this by engaging young people, first rugged ridges that envelop this vast landscape. Denny Galvin, a of Massachusetts Lowell and Middlesex Community College with programs and then with jobs. Former NPS director Roger commissioner and former NPS deputy director, reminds me discuss their deep long-term relationship, a relationship that Kennedy once said, “Resource protection has to walk out of that it was in 1979 that he and I drove these mountain roads is not only changing Lowell but also changing the way nation- the park in the heart of the visitor.” The values of the park are together when, as a very young landscape architect, I was al parks are perceived. The establishment of the park in the enhanced when they are also perceived as being part of a larg- assigned to organize a planning team for Santa Monica. The 1970s, they explain, was a crucial step not only in the environ- er set of cultural and community values. Park constituencies ink on the enabling legislation was barely dry, and it took an mental, social, and economic renaissance of Lowell but also in are created and strengthened not only from visits and recre- entire day’s drive for us to traverse this archipelago of future the transformation of the municipality into what they call an ational experiences but also through community cooperation, parkland, all the while thinking that Santa Monica was going “educative city,” built on an ambitious program of park/college service, and reciprocity. to present the NPS with one of its most complex and difficult civic learning and community service projects. challenges to date. Each partner in the collaboration brings something differ- Mammoth Hot Springs But now it is thirty years later, and Denny and I are listen- ent to the table, and these relationships are often based on It is January and deep winter in Yellowstone National Park. ing to Superintendent Woody Smeck explain how one of the years of mutual effort and personal trust. Creasey describes The function room in the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel is most densely populated places in the United States can sup- the park as the hub of a much larger network of community packed for the third meeting of the Second Century Commis- port a viable population of mountain lions. He also describes and regional partners. He defines his success by how effective sion. It is warm inside, but outside the temperature is ten the critical role played by his partnerships – a seamless net- the NPS is in enabling the success of key partners. But we below and it is snowing. For those of us who work in smaller work of private, local, state, and national parks programmati- were also reminded that afternoon in the Wannalancit Mill national parks, Yellowstone seems like a country unto itself. cally and physically linked to communities throughout that partnerships, even those that appear most successful, only Stealing a glance out the historic hotel’s windows is a quick metropolitan Los Angeles. Many members of these communi- remain strong and durable if the partners can work through reminder of the scale of this landscape. ties, particularly those who have been traditionally under- the inevitable leadership and organizational transitions that Our venue is particularly fitting, because this commission served by park agencies, are not only using these parks but occur. This is not easy, particularly for the government part- meeting will be largely focused on landscape-scale conserva- gradually becoming their most committed stewards and advo- ner. tion. The relative isolation of national parks in the nineteenth cates. Back in the early 1990s, I spent a year at Lowell National and twentieth centuries, a characteristic of their original rural When people ask why the Second Century Commission Historical Park as acting superintendent, and I still have settings, is over. An invited panel of scientists, academics, and chose Santa Monica as the venue for its first meeting, the friends among the staff there. But I quickly sense that the park resource managers reminds the commission that even large answer now seems obvious. If a national park can be so trans- is in some way fundamentally different, and the shift becomes national parks such as Yellowstone cannot adequately protect formative and meaningful in this environment, with its com- a little clearer that evening after dinner when the commission and manage wildlife that crosses boundaries with regularity. plex mosaic of land uses and agency jurisdictions, intense is entertained by the Angkor Dance Troupe. Lowell has the National parks, small and large, are only a part of much larger urban and suburban pressures, and so many diverse commu- second largest Southeast Asian population in America, and the ecosystems. nities, perhaps there is reason to believe that all national parks Angkor Dance Troupe, an intergenerational organization based The panel members describe how landscape fragmentation can make similar positive contributions no matter what their at the park’s Patrick Mogan Cultural Center, is performing in and habitat encroachment are accelerating throughout the setting, how they are constituted, or what communities they traditional Cambodian dress. American West. In the serve. The troupe’s director is Duey greater Yellowstone ecosys- Kol, a capable and efferves- tem, the statistics are partic- Wannalancit Mill cent young Cambodian- ularly alarming. From 1990 A brisk October breeze blows through the open sides of the American woman who also to 2007, there was a 62% trolley as we complete our urban journey across the city of happens to be, in her day population increase and a Lowell to the oversized wooden doors of Wannalancit Mill. job, a national park ranger. corresponding 350% increase The red brick mill – now partly University of Massachusetts The NPS in Lowell has taken in developed land. Many conference center, partly NPS museum – functions like much its relationship with the large tracts of private open of Lowell National Historical Park, as a great civic collabora- Cambodian community and land, farmed and ranched tion. For its second meeting, the Second Century Commission for generations, are being has come to the historical park and nearby Essex National broken up into rural subdi- Heritage Area to look more closely at the broad universe of visions and “ranchettes.” The impact of these trends on Minerva terrace and springs, biodiversity is all too clear. Mammoth Hot Springs. Photograph courtesy of the 14 National Park Service. In recent years, parks have lost up to 40% of their wildlife. McPherson, Princeton professor and preeminent Civil War of national parks in the context of helping people live “decent While consensus is relatively easy to reach on defining the scholar, to the summit of Little Round Top. On this early and dignified lives.” challenges, agreeing on the right approach to landscape-scale spring day in March, we look over hallowed ground as far as • People’s connections with their national parks are changing conservation is more elusive. The panelists stress the impor- the eye can see. Jim has given this tour countless times, but his in fundamental ways. Traditional patterns of use, from episod- tance of using sound science and research in planning and great passion for this place and its many stories has each one ic school field trips to annual family vacations, are being aug- policy development. Several urge the commission to recom- of us transfixed. mented by a higher level of sustained engagement. There are mend stronger federal interagency coordination and more The day before, the commissioners reflected on their expe- more youth service learning programs, like Santa Monica’s consistency – particularly in a region like the Greater Yellow- riences with the national parks. Like McPherson on Little EcoHelpers initiative; more park and school collaborations, stone ecosystem where the national park is part of a mosaic Round Top, each had an emotional connection to the national such as the All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventories at Great Smoky of federal lands. Others make the case that, given the vastness parks they knew. One commissioner said that the national Mountains and the Civic Collaborative at Lowell; more public- of these larger landscapes surrounding parks and preserves, park system represents “an uncommon commitment to a private alliances, like the Greater Yellowstone Coalition; more conservation has to become a shared objective for stakeholders greater public good,” and the “immersion in something funda- friends groups serving individual parks; and a growing uni- throughout the region. They encourage the commission to mentally important to being a human being.” They all seemed verse of community and philanthropic partnerships – the strengthen the capacity of the NPS and partners to work coop- to agree that as the nation’s portfolio of parks has expanded in Gettysburg Foundation, for example. eratively with land trusts, private landowners, and local gov- size, diversity, and complexity, the imprint of parks on the • This journey has reinvigorated my appreciation for being ernments. Stephanie Meeks, a former executive of The Nature public life of the nation has been expanded as well. The part of a system. People suggest that the NPS often behaves Conservancy, summed it up this way: “We have learned that we national park system has become a much larger civic endeavor, like a loose confederation. We have seen, however, what can be cannot do conservation around these communities or for assuming a higher public purpose than envisioned by its achieved when the NPS and its partners act cohesively. The them; conservation will be successful only when considered founders in 1916. coordinated efforts of Civil War park superintendents is a and undertaken with them.” This change is evident in the new visitor center, a partner- notable example. There is great power in sharing ideas, inno- We have a guided field trip out to Norris Geyser Basin and ship project of the national park and the private Gettysburg vations, and experiences. There is a particularly urgent need to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in a couple of snow Foundation. For the first time, the stories of postwar reconcili- reinvigorate international park exchange programs at a time of coaches that the park owns and operates. When we enter the ation and battlefield reunions are told in the larger context of great global environmental stress on protected areas. Norris overlook, one of our coaches throws a track. We file out reconstruction, segregation, and African-American disenfran- • Horace Albright, the legendary NPS director, when he was of our disabled vehicle, trying to ignore the freezing tempera- chisement. The visitor center exhibits, together with NPS edu- nearing retirement, cautioned his staff: “Do not let the Service tures, and a park interpreter gamely tries to redirect our atten- cational programming, represent a seismic shift in the way the become just another government bureau.” Today, the effects of tion to the magnificent geyser field before us. It’s a long way NPS interprets the Civil War. What we see at Gettysburg is the growing centralized control, standardization, and privatization back to Mammoth, and we keep glancing over our shoulders at culmination of a concerted system-wide initiative begun in are threatening to bring about precisely what Albright warned our NPS drivers, who are examining the damage. As it turns 1997, when superintendents of Civil War sites decided to against. It would be ironic if, in the name of efficiency, compe- out, our drivers not only operate these complex machines but embrace the very best current scholarship and introduce the tition, and risk avoidance, we undermine the very relation- also know how to repair them, even in the field. So with causes and consequences of the war into their interpretative ships with long-term private-sector partners so vital to the some ingenuity, they do just that – while we are treated to an programs. In a larger sense, what we are seeing at work at success of each park the commission visited. extended talk on Yellowstone geology. As we gratefully climb Gettysburg is the national park system’s potential in its next As the National Parks Second Century Commission heads back on board the repaired coach, I am reminded how much century to help people find broader context and meaning in into its final meeting at Great Smokey Mountains National we depend on experienced, professional NPS staff who know a the world around them. Park and prepares its recommendations to the American peo- lot – about a lot of things. On the return trip, I sit next to our ple, the “national-park idea” is once again being reinterpreted driver and learn that he is not only a snow coach driver and From my vantage point on Little Round Top I have started to and reinvigorated for the times we live in, as it should be. mechanic but also a plow and a backhoe operator, backcountry reflect on a few of the lessons I have gleaned so far in my Commissioner Milton Chen, early in this journey, made the carpenter, and forest firefighter. Not a job I would outsource. National Parks journey from California to Pennsylvania: observation that “national parks build human capital.” My own • National parks serve all Americans. We have seen in parks, hope is that national parks will continue to appeal to our best Little Round Top such as Santa Monica and Lowell, a vigorous commitment to instincts: love for the American landscape; respect for nature The fourth meeting of the Second Century Commission takes broadening engagement with diverse communities and demo- and the lessons of history; and the possibility that, through us to the rolling Pennsylvania countryside of Gettysburg graphic groups who have not been traditional park users. acts of intentional conservation and stewardship, we might National Military Park. We follow commissioner James Ultimately these efforts can make our parks increasingly acces- raise the bar on our responsibilities to each other and the sible, welcoming, and relevant. In this regard, I remember world around us. – Rolf Diamant filmmaker Ken Burns describing the national parks to the commissioners as a “regenerative force” in the twenty-first century. In a similar vein, the author Barry Lopez has written 15 Acadia National Park Artists often manipulated scenes by adding symbolic traces land and mountain trails. Realizing that his mission required ike the vast deserts of the West, the mountainous of human settlement – deserted houses or abandoned boats – an entity with funds to purchase land, he followed the advice coast of Maine was viewed in the nineteenth century that further enticed viewers by placing them psychologically of his landscape architect son, Charles Eliot Jr. and in 1901 as an untouched wilderness, even though it had been within the frame. On the whole, though, the painters accurate- formed the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations well trodden and physically altered by native Indian ly portrayed the lone lighthouses, scattered islands, and rocky (HCTPR) with himself as president and his Boston friend populations. Scattered travelers and government headlands under violet-streaked skies. Then, as now, a patient George D. Dorr as director. Dorr was a fortunate selection; Lexpeditions were overwhelmed by the ruggedness and aus- gaze was required to capture the subtle and transitory atmos- until his death in 1944, he devoted his entire life and financial terity of the landscape, and their appreciation for what we pheric changes that altered one’s perception of the Maine resources to establishing and maintaining the park. might call the American Picturesque ultimately led to the landscape. When the Maine legislature withdrew the charter of the creation of the national parks. Artists found these coastal Thomas Cole and his student Frederic E. Church were HCTPR in 1913, Dorr, with undimmed determination, sought views particularly uplifting when they were enhanced by the prominent among the artists who made expeditions to the government protection in Washington. Although he made his dramatic rhythms of rough surf and spectacular sunsets. island. The two often painted the same scenes – images that approach at a difficult stage of World War I, on July 8, 1916, Landscapes painted by pioneer artists visiting Maine’s have since become iconic views of Acadia. Both Cole’s Sandy President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation establishing Mount Desert Island as early as the 1830s attracted urban Beach, Mount Desert Island, Me. of 1844 and Church’s Coast at the Sieur de Monts National Monument. Only weeks later, on dwellers to these regions. The summer colonies grew to Mount Desert Island (Sand Beach) of about 1850 capture the con- August 25, the National Park Service was founded, and Dorr such proportions later in the century that they threatened trast between jutting boulders of pink granite and the only grasped the opportunity to designate Mount Desert’s conser- idyllic views, and wealthy, established summer residents smooth sand on the island. Cole’s 1845 scenes of waves crash- vation areas a national park. With political savvy, he supported took measures to preserve the landscape. The eventual ing against rocks in Frenchman Bay and Church’s sunset the name Lafayette National Park for a country currently result, the 35,000-acre Acadia National Park, incorporates paintings of the 1950s are testaments to the extraordinary defending France, and the park was established by an act of most of the landmark mountains that sweep down to the sea artistic response inspired by Mount Desert Island. Congress on February 26, 1919. The name was changed to (the “sleeping giants” recorded by artists), as well as the tip Cadillac Mountain, the highest on the island, figured fre- Acadia National Park in 1929. of Schoodic Peninsula across Frenchman Bay and some off- quently among the painters’ subjects, and Sanford Robinson This story is well told by Ann Rockefeller Roberts in her shore islands, including Isle au Haut, in the Atlantic Ocean. Gifford even places an artist sketching on a rocky perch at its book Mr. Rockefeller’s Roads: The Untold Story of Acadia’s The park’s name also recalls the earlier French claim on summit, looking out toward the horizon. In 1896, Childe Carriage Roads & Their Creator. In 1908 her grandfather John this region as a colony extending from Maine into the Hassam portrayed the mountain in an Impressionistic haze D. Rockefeller Jr., then in his twenties, first came to Mount coastal regions of Eastern Canada – the “Acadian land” with from the vantage of Frenchman Bay. Desert with his young family. Eventually he would donate the “forest primeval” made famous by Longfellow’s poem While most artists worked on land, Fitz Hugh Lane painted 11,000 acres to the park, almost one-third of its territory. “Evangeline.” The Portuguese explorer Esteban Gomez was and sketched on ship deck, capturing statuesque masts and “Between 1913 and 1940, a period of twenty-seven years,” the earliest European to enter Mount Desert’s Somes Sound, sails and luminous effects on water. His 1852 Entrance of Somes Roberts writes, “my grandfather designed and constructed sailing from Spain in 1525 in search of the Northwest Pas- Sound from Southwest Harbor depicts the deep channel of water fifty-seven miles of carriage roads on Mount Desert Island, sage to the Pacific. But in 1604 the French navigator Samuel formed during the ice age there, the only fjord on the East Maine, as part of his effort to offer the public a way to experi- de Champlain became the first to chart the island, acting on Coast and the location in the 1770s of the first permanent ence nature.” He was undoubtedly inspired by his father, who behalf of Pierre du Gua, Sieur de Monts, who had a royal colonial settlement on the island. Very little had changed had built carriage roads on his New York and Ohio properties. land grant from Henry IV for “La Cadie,” the Indian name when Richard Estes painted “A View of Somes Sound” in 1995, A major feat of landscape architecture, engineering, and meaning “The Place.” Champlain named the island l’Isle des more than one hundred and forty years later, and that was the construction, the carriage roads also opened possibilities for Monts Desert, the island of barren mountains. Their silhou- principal point of the show – the scenic experience of Maine architecture that complemented the natural settings. In the ettes form an undulating landmark when seen from the sea. has been preserved. rustic stone bridges – no two alike – that pass over vehicular A decade ago, Pamela J. Belanger, Curator of Nineteenth- roads and span streams and deep ravines, Roberts sees a con- Century American Art at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Once a wilderness area is engaged by man, it ceases to be in a nection to a European countryside of the past. Even the gate- Rockland, Maine, mounted an engaging exhibition entitled natural state. Its future hangs between those who fight to pro- houses at the carriage road entrances were designed to “Inventing Acadia: Artists and Tourists at Mount Desert.” In tect it for its beauty and the encroachments of civilization. By resemble French hunting lodges by the New York architect the catalogue, Belanger and other essayists documented the 1900, fearing the consequences of the latter, Charles W. Eliot, Grosvenor Atterbury, who had already built a barn complex on migration of the Hudson River school painters to coastal president of Harvard University and a summer resident of Rockefeller’s estate in Tarrytown, New York, in the style of Maine and placed their work in the social, cultural, and aes- Northeast Harbor, took his case for conservation to local vil- eighteenth-century French nobility. thetic context that explained the popularity of their exhibi- lage improvement societies. These societies, which still exist For advice on landscaping the carriage roads, Rockefeller tions in cities, where they were viewed as vicarious voyages today, were already establishing and protecting Maine’s wood- turned to landscape gardener Beatrix Farrand, who lived at into seemingly uncharted territories. Reef Point in Bar Harbor and was also designing “The Eyrie,” the Rockefeller’s garden at their home in Seal Harbor. In the late 1920s Rockefeller and Farrand would drive through the 16 park in a four-wheeled buckboard carriage to inspect the for the “beautification of Acadia National Park.” “I do not know Today, no sooner does a visitor drive over the causeway con- plantings. Farrand responded to these outings with closely when I have spent an entire half day in so carefree and enjoy- necting the mainland to the twelve- by fourteen-mile island typed “Road Notes,” offering advice in her usual direct lan- able a manner as last Sunday afternoon,” he wrote in May 1929, than cedar signs appear with directions for entering park guage and listing her suggestions for appropriate trees and early on in their long road correspondence. “To feel that I roads. During my summers in Maine, I always begin with the plants – sweet fern, wild roses, sumac, goldenrod, and bush could talk as frankly as I did about park matters, with the per- sweep of the Ocean Drive, a segment of the circular park road blueberry – along with directions for how and where to plant fect assurance that nothing that was said would go further, that begins just outside the town of Bar Harbor and offers them. In a note of November 4, 1930, she wrote: added much to my satisfaction and sense of freedom in the immediate access to the landscapes made famous by nine- talk.” teenth-century artists. On the south and west sides of the road opposite the view The collaboration was a close and dedicated one. In 1941, at The sand beach of Cole and Church may be densely popu- young spruce should be used, and later on, as pitch pine is the season’s end, the two tried unsuccessfully to make a ren- lated with bathers on a good day, but one can still appreciate available. The north slope of the hill could be gradually dezvous for a final carriage ride up Day Mountain. Rockefeller its curved outcropping of granite and the nearby rock chasms planted with these giving a splendid Chinese effect to this responded with the courtly congeniality that characterized that invite the crashing waves. The road passes by Otter Creek, superb northern prospect. These pitch pine will never their rapport. “Whatever happens to the world,” he wrote, “Day where Church painted a lone figure on a rocky beach, and pro- intrude on the view any more than they do on the Shore Mountain will be standing next summer and I much hope we ceeds along coves and inlets, the view opening out to the glit- Drive where they add a great picturesqueness to the posi- can drive up it then.” Throughout their long association, how- tering sea with bobbing lobster buoys before coming under tion. ever, neither abandoned a formality and reserve instinctive to cover of woodland. In one of Beatrix Farrand’s letters to John Throughout these notes, she urged Rockefeller “to vary the them both. One August, Mrs. Farrand wrote: “It was only with D. Rockefeller Jr. she wrote, “May I add that the Ocean Drive road planting in height and quality and type of material, what I thought great self-control that I passed you the other seems to me to be a real masterpiece.” (The best view of as these varieties are usually shown in natural growth.” When day on your way homeward from an evidently brisk walk. I Frenchman Bay and the Porcupine Islands is, in fact, from her directions were not followed, she expressed displeasure, wanted to stop and say how do you do to you and to tell you Shore Path, the public walkway along the coast just behind particularly when trees were planted in straight lines. Such what a pleasure it has been to work over the lodges and their Farrand’s Reef Point property back in Bar Harbor.) moments, however, were infrequent. She wrote to Rockefeller surroundings.” Horticulturists on the Island have observed At the heart of the park, the Abbe Museum, filled with local in 1933, “Again I want to thank you for the way in which you what may still be traces of her handiwork in such selections as Indian artifacts, maintains its original Spanish Colonial are so consistently upholding my judgments and helping with the American bittersweet (Celastrus scandens) around the Revival building, now complemented by larger premises in Bar the ease of carrying on the work to which I look forward as bridges that serve as overpasses for the carriage roads. Harbor. The Sieur de Monts Spring covered with a Florentine- one of the great pleasures of style canopy near the museum in the park was dedicated by the Island days.” Certainly he Dorr to the man who established “New France” in North took pleasure in the results: America. Further on, the Wild Gardens of Acadia bring an “For the first time [I] could assortment of native plants to the public eye in a very straight- understand why you are so forward arrangement. partial to wild cherries and Driving across the island, one observes clusters of cars pear trees. The blossoms cer- parked here and there; their owners have taken to the trails tainly are lovely.” throughout the park. These paths are beautifully maintained Every six months, Mrs. and clearly marked, making it difficult to lose one’s way. All of Farrand forwarded a detailed the park roads lead to Mount Cadillac. From its heights, one accounting of the number can see expansive views of the sea, the distant hills, and the of drives, days in the field, island’s unusual rock formations, which derive from its com- office consultations, and plex geological origins. stenography hours. With There is nothing more suggestive of future possibilities a few exceptions, the amount than a Maine sunrise seen from the peak of Mount Cadillac, owed was always the same: when the first gleam of light pours over a watery horizon and “No charge.” Rockefeller, of turns the world into a blush of pink. In that quiet moment course, was deeply apprecia- under a streaked sky, time appears to expand into timeless- tive and enjoyed their team- ness. It was moments like this that inspired a generation of work “in the public interest” painters to make palpable the wonders of the Maine landscape and benefactors to preserve the experience for future genera- Otter Cliff, Acadia National Park. tions. – Paula Deitz Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service Digital Image Parts of this essay are based on earlier ones by the author Archives. that have appeared elsewhere. 17 Place Maker ago. Among them are a group of magnolias developed to ing department, serve as a fashion coordinator, and – in what thrive in this climate zone. Like other hybrid botanical speci- turned out to be the most important part of her job descrip- mens, the magnolias have honorific variety names as well as tion – design model rooms to display furniture. Because species names. “That one is Elizabeth, and over there is Judy,” Davidson was more interested in furniture retailing than fash- Henriette Granville Suhr, Garden Creator Suhr says, referring to Elizabeth Scholtz and Judy Zuk, two ion merchandising, Suhr’s imagination was given free rein. t is the last day of April, and my friend Marge Sullivan and widely-esteemed former presidents of the BBG. At Rocky Hills With his support she went on to do nothing less than revolu- I are trying to keep up with Henriette Granville Suhr, the such arboretum specimens are never merely showcased; they tionize the way Americans went about decorating their homes. energetic proprietor of Rocky Hills, who has offered to give are planted in logical groupings that meld into an overall Suhr suggested that Bloomingdale’s display its towels us a personal tour of the thirteen-acre garden she and her landscape composition. After we have passed through the according to colors rather than brands, a change that led man- late husband created on the steep declivities of their prop- magnolia grove, Suhr’s cane rises a few feet off the ground as ufacturers to offer what she calls a rainbow array. This allowed Ierty in Westchester County. As she describes the brambly she points out how small a particular tree was when it was first customers a wider range of choice and thus more creativity in overgrowth that covered the site when they bought it in the planted. It now towers overhead. Life and death, growth and their bathroom decor. It perhaps sounds trivial today, but this 1960s, she points with her walking cane to first one area and decay – these themes are the subtext of this garden story. was at the time a merchandising revolution. Yet, Suhr’s greater then another. Carpeting the ground is a pale blue wash of Suhr’s own story is as remarkable as the garden’s, and one contribution to home style was the design of model rooms forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvaticus). “They spread everywhere, that has demanded the same kind of innate resilience and that were changed four times a year. So popular did these and we like that, so we don’t try to contain them in one spot,” ability to turn radical change into opportunity and good for- become with shoppers – whether they were planning to buy Suhr explains. Their unchecked abundance puts me in mind tune. Born in Vienna, she moved with her parents and sister to furniture or not – that each season’s new display was greeted of what another gardening friend of mine, Lynden Miller, Paris in 1938 and then in 1941 to the United States. In Paris she with the same anticipation as the opening of a play on calls such happy horticultur- attended Parsons Paris School Broadway. al riotousness: “careless of Design, and she credits the It is hard now to remember that in those days, long before rapture.” school’s American affiliation craft items from countries around the world were being sold Our progress through the with her ability to land a job at by mass-market retailers, shawls and throw pillows from India garden is punctuated by sev- Macy’s upon her arrival in or a mirror frame from Provence would have been novelties in eral pauses. Each one is fol- this country. Because furniture creating the ambience of a room. Her contract with Bloom- lowed by a comment: that styles were often sketched ingdale’s allowed Suhr to travel two months out of the year; group of tulips did well last rather than photographed in during these forays – usually in the company of her husband year but doesn’t look quite those days, I am curious to William, a noted art conservator known to one and all as right this time around; the know whether her drawing Billy – she quickly developed an eye for spotting just the right ferns declined here after a ability was an advantage in accents for her upcoming display rooms. particular tree fell down and planning the garden at Rocky More important than these inspired touches, however, was had to be replaced by a more Hills. “No,” she says emphati- Suhr’s embrace of the new when modern art, architecture, and sun-loving species; over cally, “I never designed any furnishings were just coming into their own in the postwar there are some new irises part of the garden on paper era. Bloomingdale’s became the first place in America to sell but she is still trying to because I think in three dimen- the furniture of Finn Juhl, the distinguished Danish designer. decide what to plant next sions. Instead I walk around Suhr’s “At Home with Scandinavian Design” display room in year just beyond them. My and ask myself what needs to 1957 was one of the harbingers of the more relaxed style of eye travels up the sharply rising slopes to the edges of the be planted and what needs to be removed to make it interest- contemporary living long championed by industrial designer garden. There are great embankments of huge old rhododen- ing – both in a horticultural sense and as a whole landscape.” Russel Wright and textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen. (Like drons and numerous kinds of azaleas. Above are some very Suhr’s job at Macy’s was followed by a brief stint at Lord & Suhr, both Wright and Larsen allowed their genius as modern tall conifers that loosely enclose the property while screening Taylor, and then in 1949 she was hired by Bloomingdale’s designers to spill over into the garden [see Site/Lines, vol. 1, the road and neighboring houses. chairman Jed Davidson to run the department store’s decorat- no. 1].) Today Larsen, her friend for over fifty years, says, “Hen- Within the garden are several botanical rarities, gifts to riette had such a light, deft hand in creating change with Suhr from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) when it imagination and authority. She was illustrating an easier new closed its Westchester County research center twenty years lifestyle and at the same time teaching us connoisseurship.” This combination of a casual, unpretentious, modern lifestyle with connoisseurship was revelatory to those who

18 were invited to the Suhrs’ dinner parties in their simple, plain Television Review these realities again and historical figures, but he (except for accents of color, craft objects, and some works again: the eviction of Native avoids docudrama’s gim- of art), eminently livable country house. No one else back then Americans from their lands, micky use of actors to depict served smoked salmon, European cheeses, and fine wines the wanton slaughter of them on screen. Skillful edit- from Bordeaux. But the luncheons and dinners at Rocky Hills The National Parks, tinguished group of advisors, wildlife, the destruction of ing creates a well-paced nar- were given not to impress but to educate. The guests were America’s Best Idea including historians William natural resources for short- rative that keeps us engaged often the conservators who worked with Billy Suhr at the Frick (PBS, 2009) Leuchtenburg, Alfred Runte, term profit, the indifference through abrupt contrasts, Collection or people like Larsen who were part of Henriette’s A Film by Ken Burns Paul Schullery, and William of Congress towards these foreshadowing, flashbacks, world of interior design. “What we were really learning there Cronon, to explore the role national treasures, and the and informed expert and lay was civilization,” Larsen recalls. Ken Burns refers to himself of the national parks in degradation of the parks’ commentary. If Rocky Hills is a living work of art, Henriette Suhr’s pas- as “an emotional archaeolo- shaping American identity. beauty by concessionaires Filmmaking is teamwork, sion is fired by the garden’s continual change, with all the gist,” and for the past six American identity has and visitors. Yet his overall and for The National Parks opportunities for reconfiguration that this implies. Suhr says years he has wielded his cin- been Burns’s principal pre- treatment of 150 years of the Burns has assembled a that if there were such a thing as unalterable perfection, she ematic spade to excavate the occupation throughout his history of the parks is an group of individuals who would probably stop being a gardener. Always in a state of history of America’s national career. In this new series, he optimistic celebration of the have worked with him to transformation, Rocky Hills is for her a reservoir of memory, parks. The result is a six-pro- presents the creation of the fundamental democratic val- great advantage on earlier an ongoing activity, and a challenging area for future horticul- gram, twelve-hour epic, The national parks as an expres- ues embodied in the nation- projects. The excellent script tural creativity and experimentation. National Parks, America’s Best sion of democratic values al parks’ vision. The series’ of historian and filmmaker Fortunately, Suhr has found a way to extend the garden’s Idea, scheduled to air this as radical as the Declaration subtitle, America’s Best Idea is Dayton Duncan, Burns’s life beyond her own. The Garden Conservancy has made fall on PBS. As is the case of Independence, pointing a bit of hyperbole (I would coproducer, skillfully com- Rocky Hills one of its preservation projects, meaning that the with many of Burns’s docu- out that our country’s most vote for the Constitution), plements the artistry of chief conservancy is working closely with Suhr and the Westchester mentaries, it will be accom- remarkable natural land- but it expresses the tenor of editor Paul Barnes and the County Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation panied by a book, DVD, and scapes and significant his- the series. exquisite 16-mm cinematog- (the garden’s future proprietor) to ensure that it will be a place extensive educational web- toric sites are owned not by Burns has not departed raphy of Buddy Squires. This to educate garden enthusiasts in years to come. In this way it site. royalty or the rich but by the from the basic film style ensemble of talent has pro- will follow the paradigm of Wave Hill, the remarkable garden This new series is Burns’s American people. As he did unveiled for PBS viewers in duced a masterful, carefully in Riverdale created by Suhr’s friend and mentor Marco Polo most engaging work since in his American trilogy, The his 1982 program on the researched popular history Stufano on the twenty-eight-acre estate that the Perkins- his remarkable The Civil War, Civil War, Baseball, and Jazz, Brooklyn Bridge and refined of the parks, employing the Freeman family deeded to the New York City Department of broadcast nineteen years ago Burns focuses on the values in his later documentaries. power of film to stir emo- Parks in 1960. It goes without saying that those charged with on public television, which and experiences that unite He blends the classic tions and to enliven history taking care of Rocky Hills will have to cope with increased vis- attracted 14 million viewers us rather than on those that Hollywood narrative style through narrative suspense itation and raise operational funds to staff and support the on the first night and 40 divide us. He once remarked of a John Ford, whom he and resolution. The film’s garden, if they are to maintain the level of horticultural excel- million total by the end of in an interview, “there is acknowledges as an influ- use of broad themes and lence that Suhr and Timothy Tilghman, her talented head the five-part series – the more Unum than Pluribus in ence, with incisive voice- personal narratives enables it gardener, now provide. Something impossible to provide will largest audience ever for the my work.” overs. Numerous archival to reach a wider audience be Suhr’s own gardening taste and creative genius. As with PBS network at that time. Burns’s previous docu- photos, which are skillfully than the more analytical and LongHouse, Jack Larsen’s East Hampton garden, which is now The National Parks shows mentaries do not avoid the panned, zoomed, or tilted, comprehensive scholarship operated by its own not-for-profit corporation, the hope must Burns at his best, reflecting dark shadows of American are intercut with newsreels of professional academics, lie in a future gardener having the imagination and willing- his thirty years’ experience history, however, and in The and home movies and who often emphasize ness to experiment with new ideas. As Larsen says, “Gardens producing documentaries as National Parks he returns to accompanied by emotionally abstract economic or social are not still lifes. They are never static arrangements but diverse as Frank Lloyd Wright charged music, from popular trends. Burns has correctly always changing.” – Elizabeth Barlow Rogers (1998) and The War (2007). In songs to hymns. Burns also typical fashion, he draws includes readings from upon the expertise of a dis- the letters, diaries, and con- temporary publications of

19 characterized himself as a tion. This last initiative, end- park system, including the Their words give the docu- Terry Tempest Williams to dramatically enlarge the kind of Homeric bard telling ing in 1980, more than dou- reintroduction of wolves. mentary a welcome intimacy. reminds us of the restorative park system without stories around an electronic bled the park system’s Perhaps the most power- Park ranger Shelton John- power of scenic beauty, and Congressional approval? The campfire of millions of indi- acreage to a grand total of ful contributor to the docu- son’s descriptions of his Dayton Duncan illuminates scroll of issues constantly vidual television sets. about 83 million acres, com- mentary, however, is the experiences of nature in the development of the park unrolls. The sweep of Burns’s prising 54 national parks and landscape itself, which is cap- Yellowstone and Yosemite idea over time. A series of recurring chronological narrative 291 additional “units,” tured here with by far the are especially powerful. Burns studiously avoids themes also unifies this encompasses the early park including national historic best cinematography of any Historian William Cronon simplistic partisanship when twelve-hour epic. These movement of the mid- to sites, national monuments, of Burns’s works. In a few provides nuanced commen- presenting controversial include the role of dedicated later-nineteenth century and national seashores. shots, especially those of the tary on such issues as policy issues and invites us to make and visionary individuals in under the leadership of The spine of this far- magnificent Grand Canyon disagreements between up our own minds. Was it creating and protecting the Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. ranging narrative consists of of the Yellowstone River, the preservationists who would right to dam Yosemite’s parks, the constant threat to and, later, John Muir; the the stories of the creation color correction is a bit exag- set aside the parks as sacred Hetch Hetchy Valley to pro- the parks of rapacious com- setting aside of state and of the individual places of gerated, but this is a minor spaces (John Muir, for exam- vide San Francisco with a mercial interests, the effect federal land for scenic parks the park system – its large flaw. Burns and his produc- ple) and conservationists (for much-needed water supply? of different modes of trans- in the late-nineteenth and scenic wonders likeYosemite, tion team have gone to extra- instance, Gifford Pinchot), Did Theodore Roosevelt portation in providing access early-twentieth centuries; Yellowstone, and Crater ordinary lengths to film who advocate for intelligent overstep the bounds of exec- to the parks, the reformula- the establishment of the Lake, and smaller historic landscapes and animals at management of their natural utive privilege when he tion of the park idea by vari- National Park Service in 1916 sites like Mesa Verde and the all seasons, under the most resources. Environmentalist invoked the Antiquities Act ous generations, and the to manage the emerging Lincoln Memorial. These favorable challenges of dealing with an system; and the rapid expan- stories often highlight rela- lighting con- ever-expanding park system. sion of the system under tively little known individu- ditions. Additional themes include Franklin Roosevelt’s admin- als who played a major part Often the the controversies over the istration to include addi- in establishing or protecting camera acquisition of parkland tional historic sites and the parks, such as George remains between local or state inter- monuments. The documen- Masa, a Japanese immigrant fixed on a ests and the federal govern- tary continues with the post- whose photographs were an beautifully ment and the paradoxical World War II increase and important aid in the struggle composed mission of the National Park upgrading of the parks sys- to protect Great Smoky scene, allow- Service to make the parks tem under the Mission 66 Mountains National Park ing us the readily accessible while also initiative; the postwar from the timber industry; freedom to preserving them for future emphasis on including more Marjory Stoneman Douglas, scan and generations. Throughout notable historic sites; the a journalist and author who absorb its Burns reminds us that the application of rigorous sci- crusaded for the establish- details. way we treat our parks has entific knowledge to park ment of the Florida Ever- Individual served as a mirror of our- management policies in the glades as a national park; commenta- selves as a people, reflecting latter part of the twentieth and George Melendez tors supple- us as both sensitive stewards century; and the extension of Wright, a park ranger who ment this of the landscape and short- the system into urban areas. advocated for the protection history with sighted despoilers of our It concludes with the last and scientific management insightful priceless heritage. major expansion of the sys- of wildlife throughout the observations, tem, the incorporation of often sharing federal lands in Alaska dur- their own ing the Carter administra- experience of the parks. A man and woman lounge on Eagle Rock in Yosemite National Park, circa 1902. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and 20 Photographs Division. Burns’s first four pro- ject by suggesting that at Memorial Some future national parks were initiated as national mon- grams emphasize the history present we should attend to uments by executive order so as to protect sites while the of the parks to 1933, leaving restoring our existing parks lengthy advocacy campaigns for park legislation were orga- only the last two programs to to their former excellence. nized. Theodore Roosevelt declared the deal with the complex period True to his approach, Burns Hal Rothman and National Park History Grand Canyon a monument in 1908, for from Roosevelt’s New Deal to leaves it to us to reflect on Hal Rothman, who died in 2007 at the age of example, and Franklin Roosevelt declared the Carter administration. this issue. However, a few forty-eight, was one of the best known envi- the Grand Tetons a monument in 1943. Both Without a doubt much of more opinions from some of ronmental historians in the field. He was a became parks later after the more lengthy the most engaging personal today’s creative thinkers trenchant analyst of the cultural effects of legislative process. The ease with which narrative material is in the on the subject, such as Park tourism (Devil’s Bargains, 1998), and he these national monuments were designated, early history – John Muir’s Service veteran Jon Jarvis, became a national expert on the history of however, did not guarantee later appro- nature mysticism and his recently nominated by Las Vegas, a city he had made his own after priations for their management. Rothman complex relationship with President Obama to be the moving there in the 1990s (see Neon observed that after the creation of the Theodore Roosevelt; the fas- new director, and Dwight T. Metropolis, 2002). Reporters and commenta- National Park Service in 1916, the agency cinating arc of Roosevelt’s Pitcaithley, retired chief his- tors frequently sought him out when per- concentrated on its scenic parks to the development from colorful torian of the Park Service, plexed by the quirky complexities of that detriment of the less-visited monuments, hunter sportsman into a pas- would serve as a useful cata- city. But Rothman began his career writing establishing what he characterized as “sec- sionate parks advocate; the lyst. national park histories – some paid for by ond-class sites” within the national park sys- pathos of Steven T. Mather, Coincidentally, on the day the National Park Service – and invigorated tem. Perhaps Congress was less inclined the Park Service’s dynamic I completed this review, two the field in the process, raising the academic to provide money for the operation of those first director, who cured his stories in the New York Times and critical standards of such work even as sites that it had not created through the leg- bouts of deep depression by were devoted to our national he became better known for his other books. islative process. In any case, only with the immersing himself in the parks. One report highlight- Opinionated and brilliant, Rothman emergency spending programs of the New park landscapes he was striv- ed a recent controversy over shook up the staid world of military and Deal, when the government was actively ing so ardently to acquire elk hunting in Theodore administrative historians he encountered at the National Park looking for public works projects, were some of these imbal- and preserve. However, with Roosevelt National Park in Service in the 1980s. He had little patience for the shibboleths ances addressed with extensive restorations and remarkable only two programs to cover North Dakota; the other and platitudes that characterized much writing on the parks facilities, such as the complex of Pueblo Revival buildings at the period from 1933 to 1980, focused on the stealing of before then, and his first book, Preserving Different Pasts: The Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico. And it was not Burns is forced to touch rocks by tourists in Acadia American National Monuments (1989), set a standard and some- until the National Park Service’s “Mission 66” development a bit lightly on key issues of National Park as a serious thing of a pattern for his approach. The national monuments program of the 1950s and 1960s that all the “units” of the the Carter administration, problem marring the land- were a particularly apt subject for Rothman in this regard. national park system were brought up to a minimal level of especially the question of scape. It is to be hoped that While Congress legislated parks into existence, presidents service, with utilities, housing, and the requisite visitor center. whether the rapid growth of some of the individuals established national monuments by executive action, as autho- Rothman reveled not only in the personalities and conflicts the park system during the involved as well as members rized through the 1906 Antiquities Act. The early national that swirled around the parks’ creation but also in the human 1970s and ’80s should be of Congress will gather monuments were created to protect archeological ruins, stories that determined their management and meanings. One continued or slowed. around the electronic cam- unique geological features, and other sites of “scientific value” central character of Preserving Different Pasts was Frank “Boss” A more extended treat- pfire this fall to partake of in the western public domain. Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, Pinkly, who became the first superintendent of the Casa ment of recent thinking on Burns’s outstanding epic declared a national monument in 1906, is prototypical. Grande National Monument in Arizona in 1918. By 1923 he the role of parks in the history of our remarkable But Rothman also argued that the untold story of the headed the Southwest National Monuments Office of the twenty-first century would national parks. national monuments revealed “the story of federal preserva- National Park Service, overseeing a dozen others. Pinkly also have been a valuable – Reuben Rainey tion from inside the government.” He maintained that, since earned his nickname; he was a pugnacious and successful addition. Near the end of the they were the products of executive rather than legislative advocate for the underfunded but numerous archeological last program, Terry Tempest action, government intentions for this “inside” form of preser- sites under his care. He advocated for better protection, more Williams introduces the sub- vation were more plainly discernable than in national parks. research, and adequate visitor services for the dispersed sys- Accordingly, he argued that the monuments “became a dream- tem of monuments. He organized a capable staff on shoestring land for those with preservation-oriented agendas.” Rothman’s budgets and fought for attention for his sites, which were compelling thesis would become typical of much of his writ- becoming increasingly popular among the first generation of ing: iconoclastic, original, and scrupulously researched.

21 automotive tourists. In Pinkly, “an intense, assertive man, who lation establishing the park. Burton was neither an outdoors- Awards prided himself on his candor” – Rothman discovered a kin- man nor was he previously known as a park advocate; instead, dred spirit, and he brought his accomplishments back to life he rose to power as a champion of organized labor and iden- for all of us. tified himself with the needs of his urban, blue-collar con- In later books as well Rothman found a neglected topic and stituents. But once Burton was convinced of the overall The Foundation for Land- John Dixon Hunt exploited its potential with energetic and critical purpose. The purpose of expanding the national park system, his legislative scape Studies is proud to The Venetian City Garden: New Urban Park: Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Civic acumen and deal-making ability forever changed the politics announce the recipients of Place, Typology, and Environmentalism (2004) examined this particular park’s history of federal park-making. the 2009 David R. Coffin Perception while also extracting original conclusions about the evolution Following the political success of the 1972 act, Burton was Publication Grant, given for Publisher: Birkhäuser of the national-park idea as a whole. responsible for other national park legislation, culminating in research and publication of a A history of the Venetian The Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco the Omnibus Bill of 1978, which included over 100 individual book that advances scholar- garden as a representation of and Marin County was established in 1972 together with its park projects. In a classic case of logrolling (later derided as ship in the fields of garden the city’s unique cultural and counterpart, the Gateway National Recreation Area in New “park-barrel” politics), Burton secured the votes of a diverse history and landscape environmental conditions. York and New Jersey. Other urban national parks, such as array of legislators by locating parks in their districts. Much studies, and the 2009 John Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia or the good came out of the act: three new national parks, nine his- Brinkerhoff Jackson Book Judith K. Major Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, had been toric areas, many park expansions, national trails, wild and Prize, awarded to recently The Evolution of a founded decades earlier, and were historic sites dedicated to scenic river designations. Together this accounts for nearly a published books that have Landscape Critic: Mariana the interpretation of the founding and westward growth of the tripling of the acreage under federal wilderness protection. made significant contribu- Griswold Van Rensselaer nation. But the urban recreation areas of the 1970s had come Burton then pushed through the 1980 National Parks and tions to the study and Publisher: University of about through very different political motivations and for Recreation Act, which added Channel Islands National Park understanding of garden Virginia Press other purposes. With the slogan “parks for the people, where and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site to the history and landscape the people are,” the urban national parks of the 1970s originat- system, to name just two of the many vital projects funded. An studies. The first full-length study ed in the idealism of the Great Society. Their founding sug- unlikely and relatively little known champion of national of the artist, architect, critic, gested that a profound change was taking place in the parks, Burton left a personal legislative record that has no par- 2009 David R. Coffin historian, and journalist institutional culture of the National Park Service, which had allel. He died in 1983 at the age of fifty-six, just as the era that Publication Grant Mariana Griswold Van been associated chiefly with the preservation of outstanding allowed for such sweeping environmental reform ended. Rensselaer and her writings scenic areas and the nation’s historical shrines. Grounded in the analysis of specific places, events, and per- Lawrence Halprin on landscape gardening. Rothman analyzed in detail the convoluted local and con- sonalities, Rothman’s books about our national parks and A Life Spent Changing Places gressional politics of the 1960s and early 1970s that brought monuments demanded that the reader reconsider comfortable Publisher: University of Janet Mendelsohn and federal parks to urban centers. The growth of neighborhood certainties. They also raised expectations substantially for gov- Pennsylvania Press Christopher Wilson, Editors activism – in this instance mainly the People for a Golden ernment-sponsored histories of this type. As a professor of My Kind of American An autobiography by one of Gate National Recreation Area – and the political strength of history at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Rothman was Landscape: J. B. Jackson the world’s leading land- Bay Area environmental groups led to a new level of influence responsible for mentoring a generation of scholars who con- Speaks scape architects, environ- in Congress for park supporters. During the Progressive Era, tinue to contribute to this field. Many of their reports are pub- Publisher: Center for mental planners, and urban the Bay Area had produced many of the most passionate advo- lished by academic presses, generating further interest, new American Places design innovators. cates of the national park movement. Rothman argued that dissertation topics, and in-depth studies that, like Rothman’s, A multimedia compilation in the 1970s a new generation of regional advocates achieved expand our understanding of the multilayered significance of of the teachings, writings, national leadership and reinvented the national park idea. the national park system. drawings, and photographs Originally about 34,000 acres, the Golden Gate National In a January 2007 interview with the editors of Environmen- of the cultural geographer Recreation Area now encompasses spectacular parkland on the tal History, Rothman stated: “National parks have never been John Brinckerhoff Jackson. city’s waterfront, many significant historic sites, and regional preservationist vehicles; they have always been political cre- reservations in Marin County, as well as the Presidio, a former ations, products of the politics of Washington, D.C., and its military base. It became a prescient model of a twenty-first interactions with the local level. Casting national park histo- century national park, one characterized by complex partner- ries in this light has been my greatest contribution to the ships of governments, organizations, and the private sector. field.” Although this was but one aspect of his intellectual In this case, the extraordinary personality central to the achievement, in this special issue of Site/Lines it is appropriate story was Democratic representative Phil Burton from to acknowledge that Hal Rothman’s challenging reinterpreta- California, the author and political force behind the 1972 legis- tions gave the study of national park history a contentious rel- evance it very much needed. – Ethan Carr 22 Contributors

2009 John Brinckerhoff Daring to Look: Dorothea Charles Beveridge, Ph.D., Rolf Diamant is superinten- at the University of Virginia. Names (1988); Wonderland Jackson Book Prize Lange’s Photographs Hon. ASLA, is series editor of dent of Marsh-Billings- He is a former chair of the Nomenclature: Myth and and Reports from the Field The Papers of Frederick Rockefeller National Department of Landscape History in the Creation of A Genius for Place: By Anne Whiston Spirn Law Olmsted, sponsored by Historical Park. He writes Architecture and the author Yellowstone National Park American Landscapes of University of Chicago Press, the National Association for about conservation history, of a wide range of studies on (with Paul Schullery, 2003); the Country Place Era 2008 Olmsted Parks and pub- parks, and protected areas, nineteenth- and twentieth- and Ho! for Wonderland: By Robin Karson lished by the Johns Hopkins and is a contributing author century American landscape Travelers’ Accounts of Yellow- University of Massachusetts The Master List of Design University Press. He is the of The Conservation of architecture. His most recent stone, 1872-1914 (2009). A Press, 2007 Projects of the Olmsted author, with photographer Cultural Landscapes (CAB book, coauthored with J. C. History of Large Mammals of Firm, 1857-1979 Paul Rocheleau, of Frederick International, 2006), Recon- Miller, is Modern Public the Yellowstone Region, 1806- Islamic Gardens and By Lucy Lawliss, Caroline Law Olmsted: Designing the structing Conservation: Finding Gardens: Robert Royston and 1885 (with Paul Schullery) Landscapes Loughlin, and Lauren Meier American Landscape (Rizzoli, Common Ground (Island the Suburban Park (2006). He will be published in 2010. By D. Fairchild Ruggles National Association for 1995). Press, 2003), Wilderness is also coexecutive producer Penn Studies in Landscape Olmsted Parks, 2008 Comes Home: Re-wilding the of GardenStory, a ten-episode Anne Mitchell Whisnant is a Architecture, 2007 Ethan Carr, Ph.D., FASLA, is Northeast (University Press documentary for public tele- historian and author of the Reuben M. Rainey of New England, 2001), and vision. Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Professor of the History of Twentieth-Century New Ridge Parkway History (UNC Landscape Architecture at England Land Conservation: A Lee Whittlesey is park histo- Press, 2006). She is currently the University of Virginia. Heritage of Civic Engagement rian for the National Park director of research, com- He has written two books on (Harvard University Press, Service at Yellowstone. He is munications, and programs the history of American 2008). the author, co-author, or edi- for the Office of Faculty park planning and design: tor of ten books and more Governance at the University Wilderness by Design (Univer- Paula Deitz is editor of The than twenty-five journal arti- of North Carolina at Chapel sity of Nebraska Press, 1998) Hudson Review, a magazine cles, including: Storytelling Hill, where she holds and Mission 66: Modernism of literature and the arts in Yellowstone: Horse and adjunct faculty appointments and the National Park published in New York City. Buggy Tour Guides (2007); in history and American Dilemma (Library of Ameri- As a cultural critic, she A Yellowstone Album: Photo- studies. With her husband, can Landscape History, writes about art, architecture, graphic Celebration of the First David Whisnant, she also 2007). He is currently editing and landscape design for National Park (1997); Death conducts contract historical the eighth volume of The newspapers and magazines in Yellowstone: Accidents and research and writing for Papers of Frederick Law here and abroad. Of Gardens, Foolhardiness in the First the National Park Service Olmsted, which covers the a collection of her essays, National Park (1995); Lost in through their small consult- period from 1882 to 1890, will be published in the near the Yellowstone: Truman ing firm, Primary Source during which time Olmsted’s future by the University of Everts’s Thirty Seven Days of History Services. Their most office, called Fairsted, was Pennsylvania Press. Peril (1995); Yellowstone Place recent project (in process) established in Brookline, is a historic resource study Massachusetts. Reuben Rainey, Ph.D., is for Cape Lookout National William Stone Weedon Seashore. Professor Emeritus in the School of Architecture

23 Foundation e ok Y10024 NY York, New West 81st Street 7

for Volume v, Number i Fall 2009 LandscapeStudies

Publisher: Foundation for Landscape Studies Board of Directors: Vincent Buonanno Kenneth I. Helphand Robin Karson Nancy Newcomb Therese O’Malley John A. Pinto Reuben M. Rainey Frederic Rich, Chairman Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Margaret Sullivan

Editor: Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Guest Editor: Ethan Carr Associate Editor: Alice Truax Assistant Editor: Margaret Sullivan Copy-editor: Margaret Oppenheimer Designer: Skeggs Design Contributors: Charles E. Beveridge Ethan Carr Rolf Diamant Paula Deitz Reuben Rainey Anne Mitchell Whisnant Lee H. Whittlesey

For more information about the Foundation for Landscape Studies, visit www.foundationfor landscapestudies.org.