In 1916, President WoODROW WiLSON signed the bill that established the National Park Service. It was charged with managing and maintaining the nation’s system of federal parks and wilderness areas. The Park Service grew out of public concerns about conserving the nation’s natural resources and preserving some of the remaining wilderness areas, such as Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone, the first national park, was established in 1872. The founding of Yosemite National Park followed in 1890. By 1900, the country’s national parks included Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, and Mt. Rainier. They were officially under the control of the U. S. Army. The task of managing the parks was compounded between 1901 and 1909 when President THEODORE ROOSEVELT added 16 million acres of national parkland, some of it through the ANTIQUITIES AcT. After Roosevelt left office in 1909, many of the parks fell into disrepair as no money had been set aside to protect the parks. The result was that poachers and illegal timber operations frequently vandalized the parks. In 1913, Secretary of the Interior Franklin Lane appointed Horace Albright to be
Further reading: Ronald Foresta, America's National Parks and Their Keepers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984); Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997).
—Robert Gordon
National Reclamation Act (Newlands Act) (1902) The National Reclamation Act of 1902 attempted to resolve long-standing disputes involving control and distribution of water in the American West. Between the end of the Civil War and 1900, hundreds of thousands of Americans moved westward, permanently altering the western landscape and creating conflict over land ownership and control over the region’s most precious asset—water. Because much of the western United States is semiarid, water was and is a scarce commodity. As Anglo settlers and recently arrived immigrants moved into the West, conflicts over water and control of land were inevitable. By 1900, largely because of the scarcity of water, large-scale farming operations had gained the upper hand over small, freehold farmers. Nevertheless, conflicts over water remained and persistently threatened to undermine the viability of small - and large-scale farms.
The scarcity of water, when combined with several decades of falling food prices, placed many western farms in a precarious position by the turn of the century. Pressure on the federal government to intervene mounted. In 1901, Democrats in Congress introduced legislation aimed at ensuring that western farmers had the funds to secure enough water. Senator Francis G. Newlands (D-Nevada) sponsored the legislation. He had come to power in Nevada through land speculation and championing the construction of dams and water projects. President Theodore RooSEVELT and his secretary of the interior, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, also supported the reclamation bill, but other Republicans, including the influential Speaker of the House, Joseph Cannon, opposed its passage.
Largely due to Roosevelt’s support, the legislation passed the House and Senate, and it was signed into law in 1902. In its final version, the legislation pooled the proceeds from the sale of public land in 16 western states into a fund that would then be used to build irrigation projects throughout the West. The Reclamation Act gave final responsibility and authority over the construction of these large-scale projects to the federal government. It was hoped that, once the projects were completed, farmers and landowners would be responsible for their maintenance and upkeep and that within 10 years the proceeds from land sales and water usage rights would offset any construction costs. The bill’s authors thought that limiting land sales to 160-acre parcels would encourage settlement and family farming. Because of the size and expense of the irrigation projects, however, the expense and upkeep frequently fell to the federal government and the newly created Federal Bureau of Reclamation. Several projects began almost immediately after the legislation was enacted, including the Newlands Project and construction of the Salt River Dam.
Over the long term, the Reclamation Act had a tremendous impact on the development of the modern West. It paved the way for the construction of aqueducts and massive dams, including the Hoover Dam in Colorado, the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, and the Glenn Canyon Dam in Dinosaur National Park. In addition, because the acreage limitations were not strictly followed and access to inexpensive water never materialized, its impact on family farming remained limited. Instead, the construction of these aqueducts and dams enabled large-scale corporate farmers to secure a sufficient water supply for crops hundreds of miles away, giving them a competitive advantage over small, independent farmers.
Further reading: Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (New York: Viking, 1986); William D. Rowley, Reclaiming the Arid West: The Career of Francis G. Newlands (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996).
—Robert Gordon
World History
