A Symbol of Wilderness: Echo Park and the American Conservation MovementDinosaur National Monument straddles the Utah-Colorado border near Wyoming. It attracted little attention and few visitors until plans to dam the Green River and flood picturesque Echo Park Valley sparked public opposition in the early 1950s. That dam, one of a series proposed by the Bureau of Reclamation, was intended to help regulate the Colorado River, generate hydroelectric power, and create a lake for recreation in northwest Colorado. Echo Park Dam would have threatened part of this national monument, a prospect that alarmed the National Park Service. In July 1950 the writer Bernard DeVoto published his essay "Shall We Let Them Ruin Our National Parks?" in the Saturday Evening Post and spurred nationwide opposition. Soon the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and other organizations embraced preserving Echo Park. By the spring of 1956 the coalition of wilderness enthusiasts and conservation organizations had faced down the dam's proponents and forced Congress to cancel its construction. As Professor Harvey makes clear, the battle to save Echo Park marked the first major clash between preservationists and developers after World War II, a conflict that replays itself in the West with greater intensity each decade. |
Contents
The Peculiar Past of a National Monument | 3 |
The Seeds of Controversy | 23 |
Primeval Parks and the Wilderness Movement | 51 |
Copyright | |
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acre-feet American West areas battle bill Bureau of Reclamation California campaign CCF/BR Colorado River Storage Committee on Interior Congress Congressional conservation conservationists CRSP dams in Dinosaur David Brower Denver Post Dinosaur dams Dinosaur Monument Dinosaur National Monument Echo Park controversy Echo Park Dam evaporation federal Folder Fred Packard Glen Canyon Dam Green and Yampa Green River Harold Bradley HB Papers Hearings hereafter cited Howard Zahniser Ibid Insular Affairs Interior and Insular irrigation June Lodore McKay ment Monu National Park Service national park system Newton Drury NPS Records NPS/CCF O'Mahoney Olaus Murie Oscar Chapman Park and Split Penfold political preserve reservoir Richard Bradley River Storage Project Salt Lake Tribune scenic Secretary Senate Sierra Club Split Mountain Split Mountain dams Stegner tion Untermann Upper Colorado River upper-basin Utah Vernal water and power Watkins Wilderness Society WS Papers Wyoming Yampa canyons Yampa rivers