“The National Parks”: Episode Four
By Jeff Pfeiffer
Last night’s fourth episode of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea was “Going Home (1920-1933).”
Superintendent John White talking to tourists at Sequoia National Park, 1930s
The automobile is now an omnipresent feature in our national parks. How many families have packed up the old car and driven into these places over the decades? But as we see in this episode, the automobile was not welcomed by everyone in the early days. As we enter these years, talk begins about whether or not to allow the cars into the parks, an early example of our country’s ongoing love/hate relationship with the auto in relation to our environment. Many park supporters are opposed to this. However, director Stephen Mather and his assistant Horace Albright believe allowing in cars will increase the amount of visitors, and increasing the amount of visitors will lead to the creation of further parks.
Boy, are they right. By 1918, tourists arriving in autos outnumber those by train seven to one. By the end of 1920, the number of people visiting the parks exceeds one million a year for the first time, and “auto camping” becomes a craze. In 1925, Mather has his park superintendents form car caravans to travel on the new park-to-park highway for increased publicity, and at the end of that year park attendance hits 2 million. [Read more →]
