Beauty and the beet: The dam battles of Yellowstone National Park

Montana

Volumn 53, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 14-27

  Yochim, Michael J ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 61149731937     PISSN: 00269891     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (78)

1. This phrase was previously used as a subtitle in "The Yellowstone Grab: Beauty and the Beet," The Outlook, 144 (November 3, 1926)
2. Michael Cohen credits Hetch Hetchy with the precedent that national parks were not inviolable in The History of the Sierra Club, 1892-1970 (San Francisco, 1988), 29. There are many accounts of the Hetch Hetchy crisis
3. See Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 3d ed. (New Haven, Conn., 1982), chap. 10
4. Elmo Richardson, "The Struggle for the Valley: California's Hetch Hetchy Controversy, 1905-1913," California Historical Society Quarterly, 38 (September 1959), 249-58
5. and Holway Jones, John Muir and the Sierra Club: The Battle for Yosemite (San Francisco, 1965), 82-169
6. Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West (Seattle, 1999), 91. Reservoirs such as Jackson Lake Reservoir in Wyoming (upstream on the Snake River) were built during this period
7. Gifford Pinchot, Breaking New Ground (New York, 1947), 325-26
8. Gifford Pinchot, The Fight for Conservation (Garden City, N.Y., 1910), 42
9. "The Beauty of Use," Electrical World, December 18, 1920; "Reasons why Falls River Meadows Reservoir Site should be Granted," TS, copy in Irrigation Projects No. 1, July 1919-May 31, 1920 (Fall River Basin) (hereafter Irrigation Projects No. 1), box L-57, National Archives, Yellowstone National Park, Mammoth, Wyoming (hereafter NA, YNP)
10. There is controversy over the proper name for this river, historically called the Falls River, not the Fall River. Paul Rubinstein, Lee Whittlesey, and Mike Stevens, in The Guide to Yellowstone Waterfalls and Their Discovery (Englewood, Colo., 2000), 69, argue that the name has historically been pluralized until lobbying efforts by the State of Idaho recently convinced the United States Board of Geographic Names to redesignate it the Fall River, pursuant to local usage
11. See also Fiege, Irrigated Eden, 97-112
12. Horace M. Albright, as told to Robert Cahn, The Birth of the National Park Service: The Founding Years, 1913-33 (Salt Lake City, 1985), 100
13. and Richard A. Bartlett, Yellowstone: A Wilderness Besieged (Tucson, 1985), 349
14. Addison T. Smith, "Yellowstone Park and the Nation," The Outlook, 145 (January 19, 1927), 78
15. Hugh T. Lovin, "Fighting over the Cascade Corner of Yellowstone National Park, 1919-1935," Annals of Wyoming, 72 (Spring 2000), 14-29
16. [Stephen Mather], Annual Report of Director of National Park Service, 1920 (Washington, D.C., 1920), 28-29
17. John Ise, Our National Park Policy (New York, 1979), 310-11; A bill authorizing the granting of certain irrigation easements in the Yellowstone National Park, and for other purposes, 66th Cong., 2d sess., S.R. 3895 and H.R. 12466. The farmers had a contingency plan if the bills failed: dam Yellowstone Lake and diverting its waters under the Continental Divide via a tunnel. This proposal, though, was never introduced into Congress because such a tunnel would have been very expensive and most people thought Congress would eventually pass the proposal to dam the Falls River. New York Evening Post, September 9, 1920; Livingston (Mont.) Enterprise, December 7, 1919
18. Livingston (Mont.) Enterprise, December 7, 1919; A Bill for the erection and maintenance of a dam across the Yellowstone River, in the State of Montana, 66th Cong., 3d sess., S.R. 459. Mather also details the various Yellowstone Irrigation Association proposals in his 1920 Annual Report of Director, 22-30
19. Livingston (Mont.) Enterprise, March 19, 1920; Yellowstone Irrigation Association, The Lake Yellowstone Project: What Is It? Why Is It?, copy in Irrigation and Dam Proposals, 1920-1921 Scrapbooks, NA, YNP. The Yellowstone Irrigation Association later tried to unite Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah in a collective reclamation raid on the national parks. That coalition, however, was weak at best, so the association focused its efforts on the Yellowstone Lake dam. Ise, Our National Park Policy, 309-11; Northern Wyoming Herald, July 28, 1920, copy in Irrigation Projects No. 3, January 3, 1921-April 30, 1921, box L-57, NA, YNP (hereafter Irrigation Projects No. 3)
20. Bartlett, Yellowstone, 349-52
21. Stephen Mather to Mr. Secretary, January 31, 1920, Irrigation Projects No. 1, NA, YNP. Mather also argued against the dams in the annual report he filed almost simultaneously as director of the National Park Service
22. Arno Cammerer to Horace Albright, July 29, 1919, telegram, Irrigation Projects No. 1, NA, YNP; Horace Albright to Director National Parks, July 30, 1919, ibid
23. J.J. Cotter to Horace M. Albright, July 31, 1919, telegram, ibid.; Bartlett, Yellowstone, 347-52; Albright, The Birth of the NPS, 101-2; Paul S. A. Bickel to Franklin K. Lane, n.d., Irrigation Projects No. 1, NA, YNP. The decoded message was typed on the bottom of the telegram after it was received
24. Robert Sterling Yard, "Hands Off the National Parks," The Nation's Parks, 1 (Summer 1920), 11, copy in Irrigation Scrapbooks, 1921-28, NA, YNP; Robert Sterling Yard, "The Water Power Bill and the National Parks," National Parks Association Bulletin, 10 (June 25, 1920), 1-2 (hereafter National Parks Assoc. Bulletin). Note that the NPA consistently used battle and war analogies in their journal; I have chosen to follow their tradition here
25. Philadelphia Public Ledger, July 23, 1922
26. Yard gave special thanks to the women's organizations in "National Protest against the Walsh Bill," National Parks Assoc. Bulletin, 17 (March 20, 1921), 1-2
27. and "Progress of the War on the National Parks," National Parks Assoc. Bulletin, 13 (November 20, 1920), 1-3. J. Horace McFarland also networked with the country's women's organizations. New York Evening Post, October 2, 1920
28. "Report on the National Parks Situation," Bird Lore, 23 (March-April 1921), 111-12
29. William E. Colby and William Frederic Bade, "Fellow Member of the Sierra Club," Sierra (November 10, 1920), copy in Irrigation and Dam Proposals, 1920-1921 Scrapbooks, NA, YNP
30. Yard, "National Protest against the Walsh Bill," 1-2
31. John C. Miles asserted Yard was the "ringleader" in Guardians of the Parks (Washington, D.C., 1995), 34
32. J. Horace McFarland, "Primrose by the River's Brim," The Independent, 102 (May 8, 1920), 211
33. [Robert Sterling Yard], "The Work Before Us," National Parks Assoc. Bulletin, 11 (September 30, 1920), 6 (emphasis in original)
34. [Robert Sterling Yard], "Now to Defeat the Dangerous Walsh Bill," National Parks Assoc. Bulletin, 19 (May 23, 1921), I
35. [Mather], Annual Report of Director of National Park Service, 1920, 34
36. "Another Hetch Hetchy," The Outlook, 125 (July 7, 1920), 448
37. J. Horace McFarland, "The Yellowstone Park Question," The Outlook, 125 (July 28, 1920), 578. That Hetch Hetchy was particularly vulnerable because it was not accessible by road to tourists was well known to John Muir and its other defenders at the time of the battle
38. Emerson Hough, "Pawning the Heirlooms," Saturday Evening Post, 193 (September 25, 1920), 12, 13, 90, 95, 96, 98, 102
39. [Warren G. Swendsen], "'Desecrating' Yellowstone Park," New West Magazine, 11 (November 1920), 7
40. See also Boise (Idaho) Statesman, April 26, 1920
41. McFarland, "Yellowstone Park Question," 578
42. T. J. Walsh, "Are Special Interests Trying to Exploit the Yellowstone Park?" The Outlook, 126 (September 8, 1920), 68
43. Frank A. Waugh, "The Market Price on Landscape," The Outlook, 127 (March 16, 1921), 428-29
44. Warren G. Swendsen, "'Preserving' the Heirloom," New West Magazine, 11 (November 1920), 6
45. P. S. A. Bickel, "What the Fall River Bill Means," ibid., 8; Yellowstone Irrigation Association, "Lake Yellowstone Project," 8
46. William C. Gregg, "The Cascade Corner of Yellowstone Park," The Outlook, 129 (November 23, 1921), 469-76
47. with a very similar second quote in Gregg, "Cornering Cascades," Saturday Evening Post, 193 (November 20, 1920), 11, 78, 83
48. Gregg's findings were widely reported. See, for example, Mather's Annual Report of Director of National Park Service, 1921 (Washington, D.C, 1921), 18-19
49. See also [Yard], "Now to Defeat the Dangerous Walsh Bill"; J. Horace McFarland, "Exploiting the Yellowstone: Is It Necessary - or Merely Cheaper?" The Outlook, 126 (October 6, 1920), 255-57
50. Stephen Mather, "Do You Want to Lose Your Parks?" The Independent, 104 (November 13, 1920); and Hough, "Pawning the Heirlooms," 12-13, 90, 95, 96, 98, 102. Interestingly, this was the same time period in which park authorities were stomping pelican eggs on the Molly Islands in an effort to decrease pelican predation of cutthroat trout in the lake. While it may seem hypocritical to deplore the flooding of the rookery while stomping on pelican eggs, park authorities probably did not see such a conflict because both mature pelicans and good trout fishing would have been pleasing to park visitors. See James A. Pritchard, Pre-serving Yellowstone's Natural Conditions (Lincoln, 1999), chap. 3, for a look at past wildlife management policies
51. "The Rape of the Yellowstone," Field and Stream, June 1920
52. See also Hough, "Pawning the Heirlooms," 12-13, 90, 95, 96, 98, 102
53. and Mather, "Do You Want to Lose Your Parks?" 220, 221, 238, 239
54. George Shiras III, "The Proposed Yellowstone Dam," Forest and Stream, February 1921
55. Hough, "Pawning the Heirlooms," 12; Yard, "Water Power Bill and the National Parks," 1-2
56. Swendsen, "'Preserving' the Heirloom," 5-6
57. Bickel, "What the Fall River Bill Means," 8
58. McFarland, "Exploiting the Yellowstone," 255
59. Comparisons are also made in McFarland, "Yellowstone Park Question," 578
60. See, generally, Swendsen "'Preserving' the Heirloom"; and Yellowstone Irrigation Association, "Lake Yellowstone Project."
61. [Yard], "Now to Defeat the Dangerous Walsh Bill," 1-4
62. Horace M. Albright, "Memorand[a] for the Files re Yellowstone Lake dam - Walsh Bill No. 4529," February 23, 24, 1921, Irrigation Projects No. 3, NA, YNP. Although Smith reintroduced the bill the following year, it did not go anywhere
63. Olmsted's testimony is reported in full in Frederick Law Olmsted, "Fundamental Objections to the Walsh Bill," National Municipal Review, 10 (May 1921), 270-71
64. Payne quoted in Robert Sterling Yard, "One Substantial Victory for National Parks," National Parks Assoc. Bulletin, 16 (March 20, 1921)
65. Ise, Our National Park Policy, 313
66. Aubrey L. Haines, The Yellowstone Story, rev. ed., 2 vols. (Niwot, Colo., 1996), 2:343-44
67. Miles, Guardians of the Parks, 33
68. An Act To Amend an Act Entitled 'An Act to Create a Federal Power Commission..., 66th Cong., 1st sess., S.R. 369, March 3, 1921
69. Yard, "One Substantial Victory for National Parks," 1. National Parks Assoc. Bulletin, vols. 10, 11, 14-16, have references to the Water Power Bill
70. See also Robert Shankland, Steve Mather of the National Parks (New York, 1970), 214
71. Horace Albright to George Horace Lorimer, December 4, 1920, Irrigation Projects No. 2, June 1, 1920-December 31, 1920, box L-57, NA, YNP; Arno Cammerer to Horace Albright, May 26, 1923, Irrigation Yellowstone Lake, F.Y. 1923 and 1924, ibid; Christian Science Monitor, February 5, 1921
72. As quoted in [Robert Sterling Yard], "Harding and Work to Protect National Parks," National Parks Assoc. Bulletin, 34 (July 6, 1923), 1-2
73. and Haines, Yellowstone Story, 2:344. An article about Hill's speech made the Associated Press and was printed in newspapers nationwide. See Irrigation Scrapbooks, 1921-28, p. 59, NA, YNP, for copies of many of these articles
74. Yellowstone National Park Boundary Commission, Message from the President Transmitting the Final Report of the Yellowstone National Park Boundary Commission ..., 71st Cong., 3d sess., 1931, H. Doc. 710, p. 9; Lovin, "Fighting over the Cascade Corner," 28
75. Robert Sterling Yard, "New Tricks to Grab Yellowstone," National Parks Assoc. Bulletin, 14 (June 1938), 11-12
76. Dan W. Greenburg, "Study of Proposed Damming of Yellowstone Lake," report submitted to Wyoming governor Leslie A. Miller, copy in file 660-05.4, Proposed Damming of Yellowstone Lake, box D-225, NA, YNP; [Robert Sterling Yard], "Save the Yellowstone," National Parks Assoc. Bulletin, 65 (June 1938), 9
77. [Robert Sterling Yard], "The Fight for Yellowstone," National Parks Assoc. Bulletin, 66 (December 1938), 9; Bardelett, Yellowstone, 35S
78. Tom Barker to National Park Service, August 13, 1991, files of John Varley, Yellowstone Center for Research, Yellowstone National Park, Mammoth, Wyoming; Stanley L. Ponce to Tom Barker, August 28, 1991, ibid.; [Robert Sterling Yard], "The Fight for Yellowstone," 25