Heather Hansen - Prophets and Moguls, Rangers and Rogues, Bison and Bears: 100 Years of the National Park Service

PROPHETS AND MOGULS,

RANGERS AND ROGUES,

BISON AND BEARS

YEARS

OF THE

NATIONAL

PARK SERVICE

PROPHETS AND MOGULS,

RANGERS AND ROGUES,

BISON AND BEARS

Heather Hansen

Foreword by

Jonathan B. Jarvis , Director, National Park Service

Copyright 2015 by Heather Hansen

Foreword 2015 by Jonathan B. Jarvis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Printed in China

18 17 16 15 5 4 3 2 1

Copy editor: Kris Fulsaas

Design, layout, and cartography: John Barnett, www.4eyesdesign.com

Cover photographs (front, clockwise from upper left): Stephen Mather in Glacier National Park, 1920s (NPS Historic Photograph Collection, photo by T. J. Hileman); St. Mary Lake, Glacier NP (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Carol M. Highsmith Archive, LC-DIG-highsm-14289); bison in rut (Creative Commons, photo by Neal Herbert); a cannon captured from the French, Springfield Armory National Historic Site (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-det-4a12241); Everglades aerial (NPS Digital Image Archives); back: driving through the Tunnel Log in 1957, Sequoia National Park (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-matpc-23254); a proud new junior ranger in Joshua Tree National Park (NPS Photo by Kurt Moses)

Frontispiece: Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir on Overhanging Rock at Glacier Point, near where they camped in Yosemite in 1903. When imploring Muir to be his park guide, the president wrote,... I want to drop politics absolutely for four days and just be out in the open with you. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-107389)

Excerpts from The Wilderness Letter from The Sound of Mountain Water by Wallace Stegner (on ) are copyright 1969 by Wallace Stegner. Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

National Park Foundation brand marks are registered trademarks of the National Park Foundation, and are used under license by Mountaineers Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hansen, Heather.

Prophets and moguls, rangers and rogues, bison and bears : 100 years of the National Park Service / Heather Hansen ; foreword by Jonathan Jarvis, director, National Park Service.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-59485-888-8 (paperback)ISBN 978-1-59485-889-5 (ebook)

1. United States. National Park ServiceHistory. 2. National parks and reservesUnited StatesHistory. 3. United States. National Park ServiceOfficials and employeesBiography. I. Title.

SB482.A4H34 2015

363.680973dc23

2015007674

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-59485-888-8

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-59485-889-5

This 1872 photograph of the lower basin of Mammoth Hot Springs was among the first images of Yellowstone National Park seen by average Americans.

CONTENTS

A trail beckons visitors into the cool recesses of Muir Woods.

Spring meltwater thunders down countless tributaries at Mount Rainier National Park.

Government-sponsored messages, such as this one, promoted conservation during the Great Depression.

FOREWORD

MANY THINGS SEEM to divide us as a nation: socioeconomic status, political leanings, religion, ethnicity, or income. But the theme behind the National Park Service, Americas best idea, can surely unite Americans with a sense of wonder and pride. Our mission at NPS is unique among government agencies. As the stewards of the national experience, the keepers of cultural memory, and the guardians of world-renowned landscapes, for us not only is it an honor to serve but an awesome responsibility. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor wrote, Theres no better route to civic understanding than visiting our national parks. Theyre who we are and where weve been. The social challenges and ecological shifts we continually face as a nation require the actions of informed, engaged, open-minded individuals who can look to national parksour most underutilized classroomsfor guidance and inspiration.

The park system is the biggest real-world science laboratory on the planet, and an eyewitness to American history. The parks have no equal in their ability to teach about past and present. They provide endless opportunities to explore subjects like human rights, labor, immigration, climate change, and a host of other topics that are relevant today.

This bookwritten by a journalist looking from the outside ingives us a better understanding of what the NPS offers society as a whole, as well as insight into a century of the agencys foresight, tribulations, and triumphs. It underscores the social identity, economic impacts, and quality of life that parks and monuments afford the public. It reminds readers that we all have access to secret and incredible places that can be life-changing. And it presents a vision of our work that speaks to the legacy of the NPS and its ongoing relevance to our lives.

National parks must be, in the minds of coming generations, as treasured and vital as they were to the generations that have sustained them. And the work of the National Park Service must continue to touch communities and improve peoples livesour success during the next century depends on it and, in a way, the success of our country depends on the NPS achieving this higher calling.

Since its creation in 1916, the National Park Service has grown, learned, adapted, and become even more important to civil society. In 1970, Congress reaffirmed this mission by stating that the national parks are cumulative expressions of a single national heritage. I fear at times that this heritage has become frayed and realize that the NPS is needed more now than ever before. For the first century, citizens worked hard to save the parks from people who saw them only as a commercial commodity. Now perhaps the national parks will save us by reminding each American that we are citizens of a country with high ideals, who have a history of respect and restraint and the ability to be inspired through contact with nature in wild places.