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

VII. A NEW DEAL FOR STATE PARKS, 1933 — 1942 (continued)

THE END OF THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS

Although there were several attempts to establish the Civilian Conservation Corps as a permanent agency, they failed, and with the entry of the United States into World War II, the CCC ended. The CCC program had experienced a steady decline with greater and greater cuts each year after 1936. By 1938, the National Park Service had 77 camps in national parks and 245 camps in state parks. In 1939, the CCC lost its status as an independent agency and was consolidated with other federal relief programs into the Federal Security Agency on July 1, under the Reorganization Act of 1939. At the end of 1939, when faced with still more cuts to the supervisory force, Conrad Wirth created central service units within the National Park Service regional offices to handle design and technical matters and abolished the positions within the individual camps. Designers became further detached from the natural sites and settings for which they were to design harmonious structures. As the United States became more involved in preparation for war in 1941, additional camps were transferred to wartime preparation and training, and the National Park Service lost 133 CCC camps between September and November 1941. On December 24, 1941, the Joint Appropriations Committee for Congress recommended that the CCC be terminated by July 1, 1942, and subsequent efforts by President Roosevelt to extend CCC funding failed. [90]

A number of administrative changes had occurred by the end of the CCC period. Diminishing funds and staff at the regional level meant that regional landscape architects and architects spent less time in the parks and had less familiarity with the parks. Marked changes occurred in the attitude of park designers and advocates by the end of the CCC period, and the Craftsman ethic and attention to detail that had guided the design of structures gave way to a functionalism in design that advocated modern materials, streamlined forms, and mechanized technology.

In 1956, with the implementation of Mission 66, the National Park Service once again gained Congressional and Presidential support and the funding to develop facilities on a large scale. But the hiatus in time between 1942 and 1956 had been too great, economics too drastically changed, and the trends of park visitation too different to recapture the spirit and character of the park design of the 1920s and 1930s. While adherence to principles of naturalism such as avoiding straight lines and right angles in all aspects of design continued, the character of park structures, roads, and trails changed without the craftsmanship, primitive tools, training, and carefully worked out specifications that had been so important during the New Deal. The design of park roads perpetuated the lessons of Hull, Vint, and the parkway builders of the 1930s, but the treatment of bridges, culverts, overlooks, and tunnels received increasingly less individual attention and succumbed to modern materials and solutions deemed appropriate for a particular park but not necessarily a particular site. Practices of planting and transplanting native trees, shrubs, and other plants continued, but on a smaller scale without the massive labor force once provided by the CCC. While stonemasonry with native rock continued to be practiced, concrete surfaces were often left unfaced and the lines of masonry joints and the shape and size of stones became more regular. Stone for curbs, guardrail, and structures was now cut by machine and lacked the surface textures and irregularity of hand-cut stone. While vistas continued to be a driving force in design, the most important view became that seen through the large window of plate glass and metal sash of the modern visitor center. Master planning continued to guide the development of national parks for many years, but the ideas about the location of buildings and roads had changed. Mission 66 would forge its own expression.

The legacy of the formative period of landscape design of the National Park Service, from 1916 to 1942, has endured. Numerous rustic and naturalistic buildings, bridges, and other structures built in the 1920s and 1930s still serve visitors today. And countless miles of park roads and trails and hundreds of scenic overlooks continue to present visitors with the pictures of nature.

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Last Modified: Mon, Oct 31, 2002 10:00:00 pm PDT
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