Presenting Nature

Cover

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Overview

Stewardship

Design Ethic Origins
(1916-1927)

Design Policy & Process
(1916-1927)

Western Field Office
(1927-1932)

Park Planning

Decade of Expansion
(1933-1942)

State Parks
(1933-1942)

Appendix A

Appendix B

Bibliography

Presenting Nature: The Historic Landscape Design of the National Park Service, 1916-1942

V. A PROCESS OF PARK PLANNING (continued)

THE PLANNING PROCESS IN ACTION: THE STORY OF YAKIMA PARK

Yakima Park on Mount Rainier was one of the first national park villages to be developed entirely through the process of comprehensive planning established in the late 1920s by the Landscape Division. The development of Yakima Park illustrates how the plans were created and used as a tool for coordinating various park service activities and for protecting the landscape. [30]

In the mid-1920s, plans were made to open Mt. Rainier to automobiles from the east and develop visitor facilities at Yakima Park. Also called Sunrise, the area was a subalpine plateau overlooking the moraine of Emmons Glacier, the mountain's largest glacier, and the White River Valley. Stephen Mather himself was enthusiastic about this project, seeing it as a way to relieve crowding at Paradise on the mountain's southern flanks and to encourage greater visitation by connecting the park with cities east of the Cascade Mountains.

The road leading to the village was one of the first park roads to benefit from the improvements and innovations in landscape protection and design made by the San Francisco office in the roads program at this time. It was also the laboratory for developing new specifications and procedures for the design of bridges. The park service's varied landscape concerns and the emerging role of the Landscape Division in planning coalesced as Yakima Park took form. Here advances were made in several programs—from rustic architectural design of buildings by the park service and concessionaire to community development. The plan included a circulation system of loop and spur roads and trails to give the visitor access to spectacular mountain scenery.

As early as 1915, Mather had envisioned opening up the east side of Mount Rainier to visitors. He had corresponded with local groups interested in a Cascades Parkway that would join the new Naches Pass Highway, a state highway that crossed the Cascades and connected the Puget Sound area with the southeastern part of the state. The highway passed through the national forest adjoining the park to the east, and was to travel along the east side of the mountain and connect with a road to Yakima Park.

The development of Yakima Park was just one part of a plan for the east side of the mountain and represents one of the service's first efforts in comprehensive planning. On his last trip to the western parks in July 1928, Mather traveled by horseback to view the site and consider the proposed plans. Accompanying him were Thomas Vint; Superintendent Owen Tomlinson; Henry Rhodes of the Rainier Park Company; Asahel Curtis, chairman of the park's advisory committee; and several other officials.

Yakima Park was located on a high plateau in the northeastern corner of the park, which was characterized by rolling terrain, subalpine vegetation, and two lakes, Shadow and Frozen lakes. For a country broken by such extremes of high mountain peaks and deep canyons, the plateau was comparatively large and level, making it an ideal village site and destination for visitors. The park measured less than one mile long and one-half mile wide. It was bordered by Sunrise Ridge (or Sourdough Ridge) to the north and the White River Canyon to the south. The topography lay in a concave sweep, very steep near the ridge and flattening to perhaps an eight per cent grade in the most level section adjoining the canyon rim." Given the pressing need to relieve crowding at Paradise, Superintendent Tomlinson noted that the area was

one of the extremely few within the park which could be reached by a highway without prohibitive cost, and with topography accommodating enough to make possible adequate facilities to care for crowds of people. Again the people of the surrounding country and others who know something of Mt. Rainier Park were calling for a new "playground" on the mountain. [31]

Several years later, landscape architect Ernest Davidson recalled,

The entire development was one within virgin territory, therefore, it was decided that every possible means be taken that it be well planned in advance. In this manner one of the most interesting of landscape architectural problems within any of the National Parks got under way. [32]

In July 1928, Director Stephen Mather (right), Mount Rainier's superintendent Owen Tomlinson (middle), and Henry Rhodes (left), the president of the Rainier Park company, inspected Yakima Park, a subalpine plateau on the Mount Rainier's eastern flanks, and made plans to develop the area for visitor use and enjoyment. (State Historical Society of Washington)

Davidson enthusiastically greeted the challenge of developing the east side of the mountain. He exclaimed, "The views and scenery are so exceptionally fine that adequate description is difficult. This will be a wonderful development and I would like to help push it, with the hand in its building."

The construction of the Yakima Park Road was part of a long-term planning effort to open the east side of Mount Rainier to public traffic and entailed coordination with roads of the adjoining national forest and the state highway system. In 1926, the Bureau of Public Roads completed the preliminary survey for Yakima Park Highway. The sixteen-mile road was to connect Yakima Park and the Naches Pass Highway, which was being built by the state of Washington across the east end of the park. Construction of the park road to Yakima Park began on August 26, 1927, through the cooperative agreement with the Bureau of Public Roads. The construction coincided with the Landscape Division's efforts to improve park roads by inserting clauses requiring special attention to the preservation of scenery and landscape values in contracts. Landscape architect Ernest Davidson was assigned the job of supervising the road's construction from the landscape standpoint.

Builders encountered several problems in the construction of Section 3B, which extended from White River Crossing to Yakima Park, and Vint's office responded with a number of innovations. One of these was the development of rubble masonry walls and walkways at Station 55 in what became known as the Sunrise Ridge Loop. Replacing a line of switchbacks, the loop was an outgrowth of a single switchback at the eastern end of Sunrise Ridge. From this point at an elevation of 6,120 feet, on a clear day visitors could enjoy views south to the Oregon mountains and north across the Cascades to Canada. Constructed over two seasons in 1929 and 1930, the loop featured a native stone guardrail of the "mountain" type. Especially designed for this point, this type of rail could be used on other open, precipitous stretches of the Yakima Park Road where log guardrail was not suitable. The loop was immediately praised: "There can be no question that this scenic point is destined to become one of the best known in our country." Parking accommodated at least fifty automobiles, and walks and curbs were installed. The guardrail alone was described as "interesting" to the tourists and as having evoked "favorable comment" for being "in keeping with the surroundings."

The entrance to Yakima Park near the end of the road presented a technical and aesthetic problem. The original survey indicated a series of switchbacks along the steep incline just below the plateau. Preparing plans in winter of 1928-29, Vint's office found a solution for a more graceful and inviting entrance that eliminated the switchbacks and provided access to special points of interest. The result was described: "It follows in long easy curves, a routing near the canyon rim which had no tendency to seemingly bisect the open parklike area, and which affords excellent and unobstructed views." The route was staked and special arrangements were made with the Bureau of Public Roads to preserve the scenery along the route by using modified procedures for blasting and by end hauling the excavated fill.

Four bridges were built along the Yakima Park Road from 1928 to 1931. As a group, these bridges represent the range of types created by the park service to meet the varied needs presented by topography and natural surroundings. The ninety-foot White River Bridge (1928) was a stone-faced concrete arch that replaced an old log-and-sawn-timber truss bridge built many years before. This was the first bridge to be designed and constructed along the road and the first to benefit from the masonry specifications introduced at the time by the Landscape Division. In addition to written specifications in the contract and on the plans, a "sample wall" was made and remade before any stonework was begun on the bridge. In summer 1928, Davidson placed assistant landscape architect Merel Sager in charge of building the sample wall and was greatly pleased with the results. The sample wall showed the type of masonry and the desired sizes, shapes, color, and textures of the stone to be used, giving the foremen and the workers on site a model to follow. The stone for the bridge was cut from a designated quarry near the bridge. Special attention was given to integrating the guardrail coping into the spandrel walls so that they appeared as one continuous and unified surface.

The sixty-foot Shaw Creek Bridge (1929) was constructed of huge logs. The stringers were cut from trees that Davidson had selected on site. Davidson described the design intent of the bridge: "We felt that this would impart a feeling of solidity, strength and durability, as well as being really in better proportion, considering the long span for a log structure." The road engineer reported, "Its rustic appearance lends charm to the primeval setting of this attractive little bridge."

The 132-foot Frying Pan Creek Bridge consisted of a steel arch with masonry abutments. Steel was used when local conditions made concrete spans impractical. The masonry abutments, however, helped create a smooth transition between the natural setting and the manmade construction. Vertical jointing of the steel panels of the arch somewhat relieved the smooth steel surface.

The eighty-foot Klickitat Bridge (1931), like the White River Bridge, was a stone-faced arch that required the training of masons. This bridge was placed fifty feet above the water between the precipitous solid rock walls of the creek in a dense forest. Noted for its exceptional beauty, the site was located just above the White River Entrance to the park. For these reasons, special care was given to the clearing of the site and the construction of the bridge. All operations, including the construction of a temporary bridge, were confined to the right-of-way, and no tote roads were allowed. A stone-faced arch ideally suited the site and setting, and detailed drawings were made by Vint's office for the masonry facewalls and the arch ring. Workmen were able to cut the ring stones for the arch from a nearby granite ledge following the shapes and sizes of stone indicated on the large-scale details provided by Vint's office. Davidson said the bridge "admirably fit its site and contains some of the best masonry work in Mt. Rainier Park."

White River Entrance checking station was situated near the site of the Klickitat Bridge at the park boundary in the late 1920s. In 1931, the boundaries of the park expanded to include the territory east to Naches Pass and the Tipsoo Lake area, where westbound travelers through the national forest got their first view of the ice-capped mountain. The entrance was a minor developed area with a combined ranger station and checking point at the side of the road. It included a parking area and comfort stations situated below the grade of the parking area and behind the screen of the trees. The site's natural vegetation of dense trees was preserved and cleared only to edge of the building sites and parking area. A service road connected to an area for housing road crews and storing equipment. Like the station built at the Nisqually Entrance several years before, the station was constructed of logs and had a porte cochère for weather protection. The contours of the site allowed for enlargement if necessary.

Several precautions were taken to minimize the effects of the construction on the natural features. Road construction camps were placed on the right-of-way to prevent damage to the surrounding landscape. A "log protection rail" was designed as a movable guardrail "to prevent damage to landscape values" and was placed about all tree groups in danger of being damaged by construction. It was also placed along stretches of highway where motorists were apt to drive off the road upon the soft volcanic ash soil but where heavy log guardrail was not needed for safety. The log rails were also used as barriers to limit parking in the picnic grounds and double as park benches. To prevent stones and soil from rolling beyond the toe of fill slopes, road engineer W. T. Utz developed a technique of creating windrows along the toe of the slopes with smaller trees cleared from the right-of-way. The windrows blocked the fall of the earth and debris during construction and prevented any damage to the vegetation beyond the slope. Two quarries providing crushed stone for surfacing the roads were located; one was inside and the other outside the park. Areas where stone was removed along the roads, called quarry banks, were shaped and sloped to a naturalistic form after construction.

During his visit in July 1928, Mather became concerned with the destruction caused by extensive dynamite blasting. Careless excavation at Yakima Park Road in Mount Rainier and along Going-to-the-Sun Highway in Glacier led to increased supervision of road construction by the park service's landscape architects. Soon after, provisions designating certain areas for special excavation procedures appeared in all road contracts. Particular concern arose over the destruction that blasting methods such as sidecasting and "shooting" would have on the landform and surrounding trees and vegetation. Likewise, when the burning of cleared timber got out of control, stricter regulations were placed on burning.

Landscape architects recognized the fragility of the subalpine meadows from the beginning and made efforts to transplant sod after grounds were graded. Native shrubs and trees were transplanted. Wood guardrails were placed along forested sections of the road where stone would have been out of place. Logs of Douglas fir and western red cedar were used for posts measuring fourteen to sixteen inches in diameter and eighteen inches high and for rails ten to eleven inches in diameter.

Engineer Utz reported,

Autumn paints the mountain maple, ash, and huckleberry vivid red, orange, and yellow. The sheer beauty of it all is startling enough to make even the most languid sit up and take notice: Nor is this all. Man has contributed his bit in the bridges Deadwood, Klickitat, Shaw, Creek, Frying Pan and White River, and in the rustic station—all fit their environment perfectly. [33]

Since the earliest planning of Yakima Park, it had been understood that the hotel would occupy a prominent site on the rim overlooking the White River Valley. When Davidson's first four plans, presented in January 1929, showed the hotel group (which now called for 600 cabins and a lodge) in this position, Vint immediately opposed them on the grounds that they limited public access to the most scenic viewpoints and barred automobiles from reaching the Shadow Lake and Burroughs Mountain areas. Two plans drawn by Davidson in March 1929 moved the development away from the rim and across the plaza. Davidson laid cabins out in a curvilinear fashion and spread development out to the east or to the west of the administrative center. The Rainier Park Company, however, wanted space for 600 cabins in the village and not at one end or the other. Vint's office offered a compromise plan in September, but it was unacceptable to the concessionaire. In all, Davidson drafted eight plans before one was finally agreed upon by the concessionaire and the park service in April 1930.

The view of Yakima Park in the 1931 General Development Plan for Mount Rainier National Park shows the results of the initial construction. Visible are the concessionaire's cabin cluster, the park administration and maintenance buildings, and the layout of roads and campsites for the new campground. (National Archives, Record Group 79)

Vint commented on the version preferred by the concessionaire:

From a landscape point of view we are disappointed in the development of Yakima Park because the size of the developments that must be provided are of such large scale that they cannot be submerged sufficiently to preserve the original beauty of the park. Further, due to loose soil and thin ground cover, artificial planting will be necessary in the most used areas to stabilize the soil. [34]

It was finally decided to place the lodge and cabins on the north side of the village plaza away from the rim, "thus removing all construction away from that area between the road and the canyon rim." An area to the northwest of the plaza well beyond the administrative group was reserved for future development. Davidson remarked,

The final point is that the plan was adopted, followed and to date has proven satisfactorily workable with a smaller amount of landscape damage to natural conditions than such development usually involves. [35]

The government buildings were laid out on two sides of a triangular parking plaza. As with previous village developments, native materials were used and an architectural theme sought for the buildings. The most prominent and first to be built was the administration building, or park headquarters, called the blockhouse. Davidson sketched the design for the building in winter 1929, and A. Paul Brown, a new draftsman in Vint's office completed the working drawings in February 1930. Davidson described his sources:

Some time was spent on consideration of a suitable type of Government headquarters building. . . we wished to build into the structure as much of local or historical interest as might be secured without sacrificing other values. Yakima Park was known as a summer rendezvous of Yakima and other Indian tribes. Since their "architecture" offered no possibility of adaption, the next step was taken to the time when white pioneers of the locality erected buildings for protection against Indians or other enemies. The Historical Museum at Tacoma was searched for pictures of old structures, with a log blockhouse type in mind, which seemed quite adaptable. [36]

The log blockhouse thus established the architectural theme for the village. Davidson then worked out what he called a "modified" form of this "rustic architectural treatment" for the government utility structures. He remarked, "The combination of local stone with logs and shakes provides a touch of similarity which identifies the Government structures and makes a harmonious development."

Lookout Point on the loop trail above Yakima Park, as it appeared in 1932, was developed as a curvilinear observation bay with a battered masonry retaining wall and parapet. Walls were backfilled and surfaced with gravel from local rockwork to provide a safe, flat terrace that could accommodate large groups of visitors on foot or horseback. (National Park service Historic Photography collection)

Details for locating the buildings, grading the area, and laying out walks and trails were worked out on a plan of the village drawn to a scale of one inch for every 40 feet. Davidson staked out the roads and all foot and bridle paths. The government campground was located beyond the village on its own loop road. To provide parking and picnic areas for two to three thousand Sunday cars, roads beyond the entrance road and plaza were built. Spur roads ended in loops for parking and turning. The spur to the Shadow Lake area was developed for picnicking and provided trails to points of scenic beauty, and several lookouts were developed with observation terraces having naturalistic stonemasonry walls.

Numerous engineering and landscape problems were solved in the development of Yakima Park. Telephone and other wiring was placed underground. A power plant operated by turbine engines (in keeping with the policy for the noncommercial development of streams) was placed out of sight along a spur road. A gravity-driven system of water was installed throughout the area providing water from the reservoir at Frozen Lake by underground pipes to the village and to outlying picnic areas and campgrounds. A system of sewerage was also installed connecting comfort stations and buildings throughout the park. Government and concessionaire's facilities around the plaza included a lodge, a multitude of cabins, a check-in station, an auto camp, a comfort station, headquarters buildings, a gas station, and several garages. Davidson had staked out the trails and spur roads to the outlying picnic areas and had located observation lookouts, trail bridges, and comfort stations outside the village. The campground was laid out in loop fashion on several tiers and was located just north of the administration building.

By 1930, the road was complete, including an extensive scenic overlook at Sunrise Point, which afforded views east to the mountain, north to Canada, and south to the Oregon Cascades. The concessionaire's lodge and cabins and the park administrative building were in place. By July 1931, Yakima Park had sufficient camping, sanitary, and other facilities. It was ready to be opened.

The innovations that occurred during the development of Yakima Park reflected the extent to which the National Park Service's planning process and policies for integrating roads, trails, buildings, and scenic values in planned developments had evolved. The concessionaire's lodge and cabin court were built away from the rim of the canyon overlooking the Emmons Glacier, the White River outflow, and the ridge to the north. The plaza was defined by a large parking area bounded on two sides by space for park buildings and visitor services to be built in phases. Telephone lines were placed underground. A modern power plant was located away from the village screened by trees. A network of foot and horse trails with scenic overlooks connected the village with the canyon rim to the south and the ridge to the north. [37]

Although Davidson considered the development of Yakima Park to be one of the service's most interesting architectural problems, and every possible means had been taken for its careful planning, he had reservations about the final result. He wrote,

It is true that, purely from a landscape viewpoint, the whole development might be classed as a failure since the area is far less attractive than it was before the first idea of development took root. On the other hand, from a purely landscape viewpoint, the project may be considered one of the greatest successes since the general appearance and result is far superior to those other developments with which comparison may be made, and 'just grew' like topsy.

Hundreds of thousands may now easily see and enjoy the beauty of Yakima Park. Their spontaneous exclamation of delight, their almost universally expressed approval of the development, their manifest enjoyment and benefit of the area and the park are sufficient indications that good work has been accomplished. [38]

Photographed on a Sunday afternoon in the early 1930s, the picnic loop outside the Yakima Park village was the "end of the road" and attracted thousands of visitors the first season. A trail led to alpine trails and a nearby overlook offering splendid views of Emmons Glacier and Burroughs Mountain. (Mount Rainier National Park Library)

The construction of Yakima Park required the collaboration of engineers and landscape architects. The engineering feat was accomplished under extreme difficulty, for all supplies were hauled over fifty-five miles of mountain road still under construction. Resident engineer R. D. Waterhouse, who had worked in the park for four seasons and was well acquainted with the problems of terrain and climate, directed construction. Two assistant engineers with crews of five men each were employed on the Yakima Park development project. Superintendent Tomlinson praised the work of this team for its speed and efficiency "in the face of many difficulties." By the end of 1930, $97,150 had been allocated for the Yakima Park development. Of that, $3,000 was allotted for comfort stations, $15,200 for a sewer system, $14,000 for the water-supply reservoir, $19,350 for campground development, $5,000 for the administration building, $15,000 for parking areas, $15,000 for subsidiary roads, and $10,000 for foot trails. Additional money in 1931 extended the roads, trails, and water system and built a generating plant and electrical system.

Vint had visited the park several times during the year. He and Davidson directed all landscape matters in connection with the location and construction of roads and trails and the construction of bridges, buildings, and other improvements, including the extensive improvements of the Rainier Park Company The work of landscape naturalization, village improvements such as stone stairways and curbs, and the construction of campstoves and an amphitheater for the campground were accomplished after 1933 by the Civilian Conservation Corps.

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