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Dawson-Pitamakin loop hike. GREG LINDSTROM
convince Congress of establishing an independent park service bureau,” Lane said. “Besides that, this is a real opportunity for you to do a great public service.”
After moving to Washington, D.C., where he received an annual salary of $2,750, a small sum for a man who had already made millions, Mather headed west. He spent the next nine months bouncing back and forth between the wilderness of the West and a suite of rooms he leased from the Powhatan Hotel at 18th and Pennsylvania.
In California’s Sequoia National Park, Mather found roads so rutted it was common for passengers to have to bail out and push their vehicles to their nal des- tination. Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park was a stunning landscape that few people saw because local accommodations were nearly non-existent. And in Yel- lowstone, the roads were so steep and so poorly main- tained that lines of cars would get stranded.
Along the way, Mather invited outdoorsmen, busi- nessmen and writers on his western adventures. One night, around a camp re in the Sierras, Mather said: “These valleys and heights of the Sierra Nevada are just one small part of the majesty of America ... But unless we can protect the areas currently held with a separate government agency we may lose them to sel sh inter- est. And we need this bureau to enhance and enlarge our public lands, to preserve in nitely more ‘for the bene t and enjoyment of the people,’ as the Yellowstone act stated. So I ask you writers to go back and spread the messages to your readers. You businessmen to contact your clubs, organizations, and friends interested in the outdoors. Tell them to help nancially and use their in uence on members of Congress.”
In September, Mather arrived in Glacie National Park. It did not take him long to start nding problems, speci cally the location of park headquarters, near Fish Creek. Mather believed it was unacceptable to have the park’s base of operations at the end of a rutted road so deep into the park. “He stamped his feet and shouted that this situation would never do,” recalled his assis- tant Horace M. Albright in a book years later. The park superintendent explained that all of the prime real estate near Glacier’s riverside entrance was privately owned, but Mather was unconvinced.
“Well, if that’s the only problem, I’ll buy it myself,” Mather said, as he went o looking for a piece of land suitable for an administrative building. He soon found a plot and paid $8,000 of his own money to secure it for the government.
Mather and Albright spent the next few days explor- ing the park on horseback and staying at the series of chalets built by the Great Northern Railway. Mather was fascinated by the railroad’s luxurious accommo- dations, especially the massive 155-room Glacier Park
Lodge. Soon after the trip, he directed an assistant to get the plans for Glacier’s lodges and chalets and see if similar accommodations could be constructed at other parks.
By November 1915, Mather had traveled more than 35,000 miles touring the nation’s parks. Upon his return to Washington, D.C. he and an assistant came up with a list of why they believed a park service bureau was necessary. At the top of the list was the construc- tion of better roads so that Americans could enjoy the land that was set aside for them. Mather also believed that a park service could create and implement uni- formed policies as well as serve as a gatekeeper, ensur- ing that the land was preserved for future generations.
Mather and his associates worked tirelessly to con- vince Congress in the summer of 1916 that creating a national park bureau was a worthy cause; no easy task because it was an election year and many of the key players were back home campaigning, Albright recalled later. After a lot of e ort, Mather was able to help push the legislation through Congress and to the president’s desk by August. President Woodrow Wilson signed the law creating the National Park Service on Aug. 25, 1916. Mather was dubbed the agency’s rst director and the bureau was organized the following year.
As director, Mather stayed involved with the details of running the parks, especially Glacier. In the mid- 1920s, Mather played a direct role in the design of Going-to-the-Sun Road. Tasked with drawing up a trans-mountain highway, park engineers had built a direct route over the mountains. But Mather thought it avoided many of the park’s scenic highlights. He believed the road itself should be the destination, not just a way to get from one place to another. He had his engineers redirect the road into the iconic highway it is today.
Perhaps the most legendary tale of Mather in Glacier came from August, 1925. For years, Mather had asked Great Northern Railway o cials to take down a saw- mill used to construct the Many Glacier Hotel. Mather thought the mill was an eyesore, but the railroad con- tinued to ignore him. Finally, on Aug. 25, 1925, Mather went to Many Glacier and directed a trail crew to line the building with explosives and blow it up in front of hundreds of hotel guests. Mather told guests the show was a birthday gift for his daughter, who turned 19 that day, but Great Northern boss Louis W. Hill was livid.
Mather remained director of the National Park Ser- vice until 1929; he died a year later at the age of 62. During his 12 years as director, Mather left an unde- niable mark on conservation in the United States. Gla- cier Park Superintendent Je Mow said the system that Mather helped create remains the envy of the world.
“This system is a model for the rest of the world,”
Mow said. “Other nations look to the National Park Ser- vice for how to protect their own cultural and natural resources.”
Mark Preiss, chief executive o cer of the Glacier National Park Conservancy, said Mather also helped start a culture of philanthropy around the parks when he took $8,000 of his own money to buy Glacier a new headquarters.
Today, it is hard not to think of Mather and the role he played in protecting some of America’s greatest landscapes while looking out across the rugged terrain of Glacier Park. It was that same landscape that Mather stared at more than a century ago when he mused about the importance of the job he was given.
“What God-given opportunity has come our way to preserve wonders like these before us?” he said. “We must never forget or abandon our gift.”
jfranz@ atheadbeacon.com
This story originally appeared in Glacier Journal. Pick up the inaugural issue, which features four separate commemorative covers, at locations across the valley.
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Stephen Mather, unknown location in Glacier National Park and unknown date. MORTON ELROD
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