Steve Mather Of The National Parks

by Robert Shankland

There is the traditional story of how Mather came to Washington to run the National parks, which Horace Albright later said was wrong, though he had a part in keeping the story alive. Here's the traditional, if incorrect, In 1914, Mather observed the deteriorating conditions in several National Parks, and wrote a letter of protest to Washington. Soon he received a reply from Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, a former classmate of Mather's from the University of California. Lane responded, "Dear Steve, If you don't like the way the parks are being run, come on down to Washington and run them yourself." But in later years, Mather's assistant Horace Albright was to In reality, they didn't know each other. Mather had graduated from the University of California with a Bachelor of Letters degree in 1887. Although registered in the class of 1889, Lane never did graduate. Adolph Miller, who knew both men quite well, graduated in Mather's class and affirmed that the two were not personally acquainted until 1914.

368 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1954

Reviews

[Allan]

One of the early biographies on the first director of the National Park Service, Stephen Mather. An interesting read about an individual who is directly responsible for many of the National Parks I now enjoy. "There will never come to an end to the the good that he has done."