Creating Grand Teton National Park: A Case Study in Honor of the National Park System’s Centennial
Abstract
In August 1916 President Woodrow Wilson founded the National Park Service (NPS) as a means of preserving the United States’ wildlands, battlefields, and historical monuments. Over the last century this agency has grown exponentially, rising to 409 sites of significance as of 2014. In celebration of this achievement and in time for the National Park Service’s centennial later this year I have chosen to focus on the origin of one site in particular: Grand Teton National Park. This article thus seeks to present a case study of the park’s creation narrative as told through government documents, and to provide a starting place for researchers interested in the National Park System and/or Grand Teton National Park.
References
The National Park Service Organic Act of 1916, U.S. Code 16 (1916), §§ 1 et seq.
“National Park Service Overview,” National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, November 16, 2015, https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/upload/NPS-Overview-2015-update-11-16-15-2.pdf.
US Department of the Interior, Circular of General Information Regarding Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming (Washington, DC: US GPO, 1930), 1.
Robert Scharff, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks (New York: D. McKay Co., 1966), 8.
US National Park Service, Grand Teton: A Guide to Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Washington, DC: US Department of the Interior, 1984), 39.
US National Park Service, Grand Teton, 39; US Department of the Interior, Circular, 4.
Richard C. Davis, ed., “Appendix I. The National Forests of the United States,” accessed April 2, 2016, www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/places/National%20Forests%20of%20the%20U.S.pdf.
US National Park Service, “The Creation of Grand Teton National Park,” 2000, https://www.nps.gov/grte/learn/historyculture/upload/The-Creation-of-Grand-Teton-National-Park_webiste-2000.pdf; Jack Neckles, “Grand Teton National Park 50th Anniversary Newsletter,” 2000, https://www.nps.gov/grte/learn/historyculture/upload/newsletter.pdf.
US Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Public Lands, To Establish the Grand Teton National Park in the State of Wyoming: Report (to Accompany S. 5543), 70th Cong., 2d sess., 1929, H. Rep. 2516, 1.
David J. Saylor, Jackson Hole, Wyoming: In the Shadow of the Tetons (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), 165–67.
An Act to Establish the Grand Teton National Park in the State of Wyoming, and For Other Purposes, Public Law 70-817, U.S. Statues at Large 45 (1929): 1314–16.
US Congress, House of Representatives, To Establish the Grand Teton National Park, 1; US Department of the Interior, Circular, 1. It is important to note that although Jackson Hole is part of Grand Teton National Park today, it was not yet included in 1929.
US Congress, Senate, Committee on Public Lands and Surveys, Investigation of Proposed Enlargement of the Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks: Hearings before the Subcommittee on S. Res. 226, 73rd Cong., 2d sess., August 7 to 10, 1933.
Kendra Leah Fuller and Shannon Sullivan, Grand Teton National Park (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2014), 10.
U.S. President, Proclamation to Establish Jackson Hole National Monument Declared by Executive Order No. 2578 of March 15, 1943, 78th Cong., 1st sess., 1943.
Robert B. Betts, Along the Ramparts of the Tetons: The Saga of Jackson Hole, Wyoming (Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, 1978), 208, 210.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Veto of a Bill Abolishing the Jackson Hole National Monument,” December 29, 1944, The American Presidency Project, accessed April 2, 2016. www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16489.
An Act to Establish the Grand Teton National Park in the State of Wyoming, and For Other Purposes, Public Law 81-787, U.S. Statues at Large 64 (1950): 849–53.
US Congress, House of Representatives, National Park Service Centennial Act of 2016, H.R. 3556, 114th Cong., 1st sess.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5860/dttp.v44i3.6119
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