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The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920


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U.S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 30, Chap. 377, pp. 993-995. "An Act To set aside a portion of certain lands in the State of Washington, now known as the Pacific Forest Reserve, as a public park, to be known as the Mount Ranier National Park."

U.S. Congress. 55th. 3rd Session.

CREATED/PUBLISHED
United States : District of Columbia : Washington Government Printing Office 1899 03 02

SUMMARY
Establishes Mount Rainier National Park. Includes a provision revoking a previous land grant within the proposed park to the Northern Pacific Railroad, in compensation for which the Railroad is to receive a comparable tract of land of its choice elsewhere.

NOTES
The provision concerning the Northern Pacific was in fact extremely favorable to the railroad, permitting it to exchange lands which were actually worthless for lumbering for unsurveyed lands elsewhere (in southwestern Washington) which contained some of the finest virgin forest remaining in the Northwest. Some contemporary critics consequently charged that the creation of the park was merely a ruse devised to aid the railroad by its friends in Congress. Much of the finest timberlands which the railroad obtained by this exchange were sold in 1900 to the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, solidifying its dominance of the region's lumber industry. (For further details, see Roy E. Appleman, "Timber Empire from the Public Domain," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. XXXVI, No. 2 [September 1939], pp. 193-208.)

Published 1899.

SUBJECTS
Law--United States
National parks and reserves
Landscape protection
Recreation

MEDIUM
0003

CALL NUMBER
KF 50 .U5

PART OF
United States Statutes at Large

DIGITAL ID
amrvl vl010

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