GUERNSEY STATE PARK HALS WY-2 25 Lake Side Drive HALS WY-2 Guernsey Platte County Wyoming WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA HISTORIC AMERICAN LANDSCAPES SURVEY National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 1849 C Street NW Washington, DC 20240-0001 HISTORIC AMERICAN LANDSCAPES SURVEY GUERNSEY STATE PARK HALS NO. WY-2 Location: 25 Lake Side Drive, Guernsey, Platte County, Wyoming Guernsey State Park is located in southeast Wyoming, 40 miles west of the Nebraska border and one mile north of the small town of Guernsey. Lat: 42.281595, Long: -104.767374 (South Park Entrance, Google Earth, Simple Cylindrical Projection, WGS84). Significance: Guernsey State Park is an exemplary result of the early collaboration of the National Park Service and the Bureau of Reclamation during the New Deal era in the development of “recreation areas” around western state reservoirs. Funded by federal reclamation projects, these reservoirs were constructed for generating hydroelectric power and providing irrigation. Guernsey State Park served as a prototype for the creation of national recreational development around other Bureau of Reclamation reservoirs in the West including those at (Boulder) Hoover Dam and Grand Coulee Dam. Guernsey State Park was designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 1997. According to Ethan Carr and Susan Begley who authored the NHL nomination for the park, it is: “…an extremely significant and well preserved state park of the period, and epitomizes the artistic quality and high aspirations held for the state parks designed by the Park Service and built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the 1930s.” Description: The park consists of 6,227 acres situated along the east and west banks and wooded hills of Lake Guernsey, a 14-mile long Bureau of Reclamation reservoir on the North Platte River. The park site is between 4,000 and 5,000 feet in elevation. The Laramie Mountains are visible thirty-five miles to the west, particularly Laramie Peak that stands at 10,276 feet tall and was an important landmark to pioneers on the westward journey. The Guernsey Dam constructed between 1925-27, is a 135-foot high embankment that stores water and also controls the flow from other dams on the river. The dam was part of the North Platte River Project which consisted of three dams that irrigated an area 100 miles long and 25 miles wide in Wyoming and Nebraska and was one of the earliest and most successful of the Bureau of Reclamation undertakings. Guernsey State Park is located in an important historic area, within close proximity to Fort Laramie, a major stop along the Oregon, California, and GUERNSEY STATE PARK HALS NO. WY-2 PAGE 2 Mormon trails that followed the Platte River for hundreds of miles through Nebraska and into Wyoming. One of the most outstanding examples of trail ruts in Wyoming is located approximately five miles south of the park outside the nearby town of Guernsey. The area is also rich in archaeological deposits that date from Paleoindian to historic times and include the well-known Hell Gap Site, the Patton Site, and the Spanish Diggings. Important features of Guernsey State Park include numerous stone buildings and structures, and sites. Two National Park Service-designed roads, Lakeside Drive along the east side of the lake, and Skyline Drive which traverses the bluffs of the west side, offer the visitor breathtaking views of the lake and mountains. Significant CCC-constructed stone buildings and structures include the Museum, the “Castle”, and a comfort station known as the “million dollar biffy” as well as various picnic shelters, bridges, culverts, powder magazines, a drinking fountain, and ten trails. An unusual and original park feature is a nine-hole golf course made even more visible by a 2012 wildfire. Guernsey State Park became part of the Wyoming State park system in 1957. The state has employed skilled craftspeople over the years for maintenance and preservation in the park. According to the 1997 NHL nomination: “…the park persists as solid evidence of the degree of craftsmanship, design, and planning that the CCC, the Park Service, and cooperating authorities attained between 1933 and 1942.” History: The basis for the history of Guernsey State Park as one of the earliest national recreation area projects began with the construction of Guernsey Dam in 1925- 27. The dam backed up fourteen miles of the North Platte River which provided an ideal reservoir for a collaboration between two federal entities, the National Park Service and the Bureau of Recreation, to consider for their initial development of what would become later known as national recreation areas. The creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps was one of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first acts as president to provide relief from the Great Depression. The president outlined his ideas for work relief that would also improve and conserve American wilderness in March 1933 (Salmond 1967, 9-10). Originally called Emergency Conservation Work (ECW), the agency was envisioned as a way to not only provide work relief and confidence to a generation that often felt hopeless, but also to heal land that was suffering from drought and poor usage (Salmond 1967, 4). Plans proceeded quickly, with a bill drafted, amended, voted on, and finally signed into law within the month (Salmond 1967, 23). The first man was enrolled on April 7, 1933 (Paige 1985, 13). The U.S. Army ran the camps, and the Department of Labor and the Veterans’ Administration chose the enrollees. Different federal agencies administered the GUERNSEY STATE PARK HALS NO. WY-2 PAGE 3 actual work depending on location and project type (Stuver 1935, 92). The goal was to put 600,000 men to work on projects around the U.S. (Stuver 1935, 92). The head of the Bureau of Reclamation, Elwood Mead, was originally from Wyoming and was instrumental in the building of Guernsey Dam, along with his good friend Charles Guernsey (Guernsey 1936, 226, 231). Guernsey Reservoir had been attracting locals since its creation in 1927, which was unsurprising given the rarity of large bodies of water in the area. Given the clear need for recreation development at the site and Mead’s familiarity with the area and its natural beauty, Guernsey Reservoir was an obvious choice for a Civilian Conservation Corps camp. The construction of Guernsey State Park was one of the first two projects on which the Bureau of Reclamation, the National Park Service, and the Civilian Conservation Corps cooperated; the other was at Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico. This cooperation was due to the recreational nature of the planned developments; the Bureau of Reclamation owned the land, but the NPS had experience in creating parklands (Martin 1935, 58, Mahoney and Hauff 1994, 35). The federal agencies intended from the start that the park would eventually be put under state control, which occurred in 1957 (Mahoney and Hauff 1994, 35). The CCC arrived at the park in May 1934. Camp BR-9 (Bureau of Reclamation 9) was the first Bureau of Reclamation camp opened in the U.S. (Pfaff 2007, 178). It was joined in July by Camp BR-10 (Pfaff 2010). Bureau of Reclamation camps averaged around 200 men (Stuver 1935, 92), with the camps at Guernsey ranging from 138 to 258 throughout their lifespans (Project Reports on CCC Projects in State and Local Parks, Lake Guernsey Park). Conservation work was at the core of the CCC, and this extended to recreational parks. Underbrush and ground cover could not be cleared to the point of destroying the habitat of small birds and mammals, roads and trails were not to destroy wilderness areas, and exotic plants and artificial landscaping were to be avoided (Paige 1985, 104). However, to the CCC, conservation often meant development, an attitude it inherited from President Roosevelt (Cassity 2013, 69). Wilderness preservation was not the goal; laying the groundwork for economic activity and growth through “wise use” of natural resources was (Cassity 2013, 73). Guernsey State Park reflects this philosophy, as the Depression-era constructions provide amenities to visitors to the man-made Guernsey Reservoir in order to bring visitors closer to nature. The landscape is by no means undisturbed, but the facilities that the CCC built also keep disturbance to a minimum, by encouraging most visitors to stay in the developed areas. Moreover, since the area was developed for outdoor recreation, it is less likely to undergo other, more destructive forms of development (Carr 2005, 162). All of the CCC-era development occurs on the eastern half of the park; Skyline Drive is the westernmost boundary from that time. Despite the development-as- GUERNSEY STATE PARK HALS NO. WY-2 PAGE 4 conservation ethos of the time, the western half of the park was originally left undeveloped to preserve that wilderness untouched. At Guernsey, the bulk of visitors would stay in the developed section but would still have access to the water and to the outdoor recreation that the area offered. This split has meant that, in the modern era, new construction has occurred outside of the original layout in the western half, preserving the CCC landscape while allowing for modern conveniences. The cohesive landscape of the park was developed thanks to the foresight of Thomas Vint, chief landscape architect for the National Park Service. He developed the idea of a long-term, comprehensive plan that would incorporate the various needs of the park from earlier, five-year plans (McClelland 1993). The master plan was based on how people used the park, including favorite lookouts and picnicking spots, and a system of roads and trails was created to connect the important places. Vint also believed that scenery was important for travelers through the park; Guernsey’s master plan embraced the grand vistas of the area to best advantage through the overlooks and the layout of the roads.