Cover Page

Preface

Introduction

In Search of an Identity

Photofile

Bibliography

Notes

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

National Park Service Uniforms In Search of an Identity 1872-1920	Number 2
In Search of an Identity (continued)

Walter Fry, 1920, Sequoia National Park. Taken while Fry was guiding House Appropriations Committee during visits to national parks in 1920. He is wearing the 1920 uniform with Army wrap-leggings. NPSHPC - J.W. Good Album - HFC/92-40-1

The fall of 1907 also saw the first documented request for a "park service" uniform. Walter Fry, now ranger-in-charge at Sequoia and General Grant national parks, asked the secretary of the interior to authorize a ranger uniform on the pattern of the Forest Service, but made out of cadet gray wool with bronze eagle buttons. He enclosed material samples of cadet gray wool from the Charlottesville Woolen Mills in Virginia. He felt that the uniform "would add much to the comfort and appearance of the Ranger." [13]

In response to Ranger Fry's request, Acting Secretary Thomas Ryan stated that he had made inquiries and found that the Forest Service rangers purchased their own uniforms. He asked whether the rangers at Sequoia and General Grant would be willing to do the same. Fry said they would provided that "Cadet Gray cloth is adapted." [14]

The following February Assistant Secretary Frank Pierce sent letters to other parks relating Fry's request and informing them that the department was considering "the advisability of extending to the rangers in other parks, if desirable, the same privilege." He wanted to know whether rangers would pay for a uniform if one were authorized. Based on the cost of the Forest Service uniform, he estimated that for coat, trousers, overcoat, and "Stetson hat" the cost would be $38. [15]

Col. Albert R. Green, superintendent, Platt National Park, 1907-1909. NPSHPC - CHIC/2412 Maj. Harry Coupland Benson, assistant superintendent, Yosemite National Park, 1905-1908. Photograph was taken in 1910 after his promotion to Colonel. NPSHPC - YOSE/RL-2477

The answers to the inquiry were as varied as they were interesting. With but one exception, the superintendents agreed that the uniforming of the park rangers was a good idea. One who favored uniforms thought they should be voluntary, and another thought that superintendents should be exempted. Superintendent Albert R. Greene of Platt replied that the rangers there had been wearing a uniform of sorts for several years. It consisted of blue denim or olive drab wool shirts and khaki canvas breeches and leggings, at a cost of $8.80, for summer and olive drab wool coat and breeches and leather puttees, at a cost of $27.85, for winter. The latter was "made to measure" and furnished by the M.C. Lilley Company of Columbus, Ohio. [16] The lone dissenter was Maj. Harry Coupland Benson at Yosemite National Park. "I do not beieve [sic] it a good plan for the Rangers to appear in uniform for, from the nature of their duties, they should be as inconspicuous as possible," he stated. "They have badges under their coats which they can show in case they need to make arrests, seize guns, etc., and they would be much more apt to get information of wrong doing by appearing as an ordinary mountaineer than by appearing in a light uniform, visible from a great distance." He also considered cadet gray "a bad color to show dirt." [17]

Even though the rangers in all of the parks queried had expressed willingness to purchase uniforms at their own expense, Assistant Secretary Pierce replied to the superintendents on March 17, 1908, that "the Department, after due consideration of the matter, does not deem it advisable at this time to adopt any uniform for employs in the several National Parks." [18] He told Superintendent Greene that the department had no objection to the clothing adopted at Platt.

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