American*-/
ng and
Civic Annual
anmn
352 A5 1957
reference
collection
book
59-02751
u
Kansas city
public library
Kansas city,
missouri
From the collection of the
Prejinger
v JUibrary
San Francisco, California
2006
AMERICAN PLANNING
AND CIVIC ANNUAL
I
Capitol Building of Arkansas commands the view of downtown Little Rock
along Capitol Street.
Winrock Farm, Winthrop Rockefeller' s farm on Petit Jean Mountain over-
looking the Arkansas Valley. The last session of the Conference is scheduled
to be held here.
Old State House, Capitol of Arkansas 1836-1910
Gideon Hyrock, Architect
Territorial Restoration, Capitol of Arkansas Territory
1820-1835
Magazine Mountain, the highest point between the Alleghenies and the
Rocky Mountains, near Paris, Ark.
Lake Bailey at Petit Jean State Park, located sixty miles west of Little Rock.
One of Little Rock's finest ante-bellum homes, built in 1840 Jor Albert Pike,
lawyer, poet, Masonic leader and Confederate GeneraL
PHOTOS COURTESY ARKANSAS PUBLICITY AND PARKS COMMISSION
Lake Catherine State Park, serene beauty between Hot Springs and Mahern*
AMERICAN
PLANNING AND CIVIC
ANNUAL "j
A RECORD OF CIVIC ADVANCE IN THE FIELDS OF
PLANNING, PARKS, HOUSING, NEIGHBORHOOD IM-
PROVEMENT AND CONSERVATION OF NATURAL
RESOURCES, INCLUDING ADDRESSES DELIVERED
AT THE NATIONAL CITIZENS PLANNING CON-
FERENCE ON MAIN STREET 1969, HELD IN LITTLE
ROCK, ARKANSAS JUNE 9-12, 1957, AND ADDRESSES
DELIVERED AT THE 37TH ANNUAL MEETING OF
THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON STATE PARKS,
HELD AT LAKE ITASCA STATE PARK, MINNESOTA,
SEPTEMBER 18-21, 1957, INCLUDING THE ROLL
CALL OF THE STATES.
EDITED BY
HARLEAN JAMES and
DORA A. PADGETT
AMERICAN PLANNING AND
CIVIC ASSOCIATION
901 UNION TRUST BUILDING, WASHINGTON 5, D. C
1957
THE AMERICAN PLANNING AND
1 CIVIC ANNUAL is sent out to all paid
members of the AMERICAN PLAN-
NING AND CIVIC ASSOCIATION and
the NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
STATE PARKS, who may purchase extra
copies for $2 each.
The public may purchase past American
Planning and Civic Annuals as well as the
current ANNUAL for $3 each.
Mount Pleasant Preu
J. HORACE MCFARLAND Co.
llarrisburg, Pa.
RsfV
AT
AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ASSOCIATION
PAST PRESIDENTS
J. HORACE MCFARLAND FREDERICK A. DELANO HORACE M. ALBRIGHT
OFFICERS AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES
HORACE M. ALBRIGHT, New York, N. Y., Chairman of the Board
U. S. GRANT SRD, Washington, D. C., President
HARLAND BARTHOLOMEW, St. Louis, Mo., First Vice-President
TOM WALLACE, Louisville, Ky., Second Vice-President
S. HERBERT HARE, Kansas City, Mo,, Third Vice-President
C. F. JACOBSEN, Washington, D. C., Treasurer
HARLEAN JAMES, Washington, D. C., Secretary
FLAVEL SHURTLEFF, Marshfield Hills, Mass., Counsel
MRS. DORA A. PADGETT, Washington, D. C., Editor
CHARLES A. PHELAN, JR., Washington, D. C., Executive Director
FREDERICK J. ADAMS, Cambridge, Mass. HAROLD M. LEWIS, New York, N. Y.
Louis C. Bisso, New Orleans, La. PARK H. MARTIN, Pittsburgh, Pa.
RUSSELL VAN NEST BLACK, New Hope, JOHN P. MATTHEWS, Little Rock, Ark.
Pa. JOHN GAW MEEM, Santa Fe, N. M.
T. LEDYARD BLAKEMAN, Princeton, N. J. HOWARD K. MENHINICK, Atlanta, Ga.
DAVID D. BOHANNON, San Mateo, Calif. CLYDE NICHOLS, JR., Kansas City, Mo.
WILLIAM S. BONNER, Fayetteville, Ark. C. McKiM NORTON, New York, N. Y.
DANIEL H. BURNHAM, Chicago, 111. CHARLES F. PALMER, Atlanta, Ga.
MRS. LEROY CLARK, Englewood, N. J. NEILL PHILLIPS, Washington, D. C.
GRADY CLAY, Louisville, Ky. HUGH R. POMEROY, White Plains, N. Y.
E. J. CONDON, Chicago, 111. JOSEPH PRENDERGAST, New York, N. Y.
JOHN S. DETLIE, Seattle, Wash. LAURANCE S. ROCKEFELLER, New York,
ROSCOE P. DEWITT, Dallas, Texas N. Y.
MALCOLM H. DILL, Towson, Md. J. WOODALL RODGERS, Dallas, Texas
MYRON D. DOWNS, Cincinnati, O. ARTHUR RUBLOFF, Chicago, 111.
CHARLES W. ELIOT 2o., Cambridge, Mass. C. MELVIN SHARPE, Washington, D. C.
CARL FEISS, Washington, D C. MRS. T. T. STEVENS, Miami, Fla.
HOWARD T. FISHER, Chicago, 111. JAMES F. SULZBY, Birmingham, Ala.
MRS. PAUL GALLAGHER, Omaha, Neb. FRED W. TUEMMLER, Hyattsville, Md.
MRS. GEORGE A. GARRETT, Washington, C. EDGAR VAN CLEEF, JR., Oklahoma
D. C. City, Okla.
JACK L. GOLDSMITH, Memphis, Term. SAMUEL P. WETHERILL, Bryn Mawr, Pa.
BYRON HARVEY, Jr., Chicago, 111. GORDON WHITNALL, Los Angeles, Calif.
MRS. E. NEWLANDS JOHNSTON, Wash- H. O. WHITTEMORE, Ann Arbor, Mich.
ington, D. C. WILLIAM ZECKENDORF, New York, N. Y.
KARL KAMRATH, Houston, Texas SAM B. ZISMAN, San Antonio, Texas
The purpose of the AMERICAN PLANNING AND Civic ASSOCIATION is the education
of the American people to an understanding and appreciation of local, state, regional
and national planning for the best use of urban and rural land, and of water and
other natural resources; the safeguarding and planned use of local and national
parks; the conservation of natural scenery; the improvement of living conditions
and the fostering of wider educational facilities in schools and colleges in the fields
of planning and conservation.
5902751
NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON STATE PARKS
OFFICERS AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS
TOM WALLACE, Kentucky, Chairman of the Board
KENNETH R. COUGILL, Indiana, President
ARTHUR C. ELMER, Michigan, Vice-President
BEN H. THOMPSON, D. C., Vice-President
C. F. JACOBSEN, D. C., Treasurer
HARLEAN JAMES, D. C., Executive Secretary
MRS. DORA A. PADGETT, D. C., Editor
HORACE M. ALBRIGHT, New York JOSEPH F. KAYLOR, Maryland
C. H. ARMSTRONG, Oregon HAROLD W. LATHROP, Colorado
HOWARD W. BAKER, Nebraska KERMIT MCKEEVER, West Virginia
CHARLES W. BOUTIN, Missouri PERRY H. MERRILL, Vermont
DR. LAURIE D. Cox, New Hampshire THOMAS W. MORSE, North Carolina
CHARLES A. DETURK, Washington A. NEWTON MOYE, Georgia
HAROLD J. DYER, Maine FRANK D. QUINN, Texas
JAMES F. EVANS, New York LEE C. ROBINSON, New Mexico
V. W. FLICKINGER, Ohio JAMES L. SEGREST, Alabama
EARL P. HANSON, California JOHN R. VANDERZICHT, Washington
WILLIAM M. HAY, Georgia HAROLD S. WAGNER, Ohio
U. W. HELLA, MINNESOTA HENRY WARD, Kentucky
CLINTON G. JOHNSON, Kentucky WILLIAM W. WELLS, Louisiana
CONRAD L. WIRTH, D. C.
The purpose of the NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON STATE PARKS is to inform the
public through a central clearing house of information, publications, conferences
and by other educational means, of the value of state parks, monuments, historic
sites and other types of areas suitable for recreation, study of history and cultural
resources through establishment and operation of well balanced state park systems,
to the end that every citizen of the United States shall have easy access to state
recreation areas and appreciate their value; and to encourage adequate state park
agencies and programs, including the establishment of civil service policies and
standards of selection, development and administration.
The two organizations join in the publication of the
AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
a;id the
QUARTERLY, PLANNING AND CIVIC COMMENT
vi
CONTENTS
Frontispiece PAGE
Preface ix
MAIN STREET 1969 NATIONAL CITIZENS PLANNING CONFERENCE
This Way to 1969 Greetings U. S. Grant 3d 1
Winthrop Rockefeller 3
Edward S. Marcus 4
Edward D. Stone 8
Concepts of New Shopping Center Design . . .
Winthrop Rockefeller 13
Angus G. Wynn, Jr. 13
Victor Gruen 16
Miss Colleen Utter 22
Albert Keidel, Jr. 23
Larry Smith 28
If It Will Work in 1969, Start Now . . Winthrop Rockefeller 31
Hugh Patterson 32
William M. Shepherd 34
William Zeckendorf 36
Case History of a Plant Location . . . Winthrop Rockefeller 45
John D. Stemmons 45
Elmer F. Twyman 47
Knox B. Kinney 53
Jack W. Rich 59
41,000 Miles to Tomorrow Gordon C. Wittenberg 63
Louis W. Prentiss 63
C. D. Curtiss 64
Hugh R. Pomeroy 72
Glenn C. Richards 79
Grady Clay 86
Merle R. Yontz 93
The Citizen's Role in Planning Harry N. Osgood 96
1969 The People Are Deciding It Today
Gordon C. Wittenberg 98
Park H. Martin 98
William B. Arthur 102
John Osman 109
The Mighty Motorist of 1969 Michael Frome 116
Eivind T. Scoyen 118
Regional Development of 1969 .... Winthrop Rockefeller 123
Slaunton Brown 124
Clarence F. Byrns 128
David E. Lilienthal 130
J. William Fulbright 138
STATE PARKS PROGRAM
Greetings Gov. Orville E. Freeman 141
Our Great Natural Heritage R. G. Gustavson 144
Toast to the National Park Service .... Ira B. Lykes 149
State Park Philosophy Newton B. Drury 152
vii
viii CONTENTS
Page
Impact of the Federal Highway Program . Paul E. Royster 157
The Oklahoma Story Tye Bledsoe 162
West Virginia Revenue Bond Financing Kermit McKeever 166
Basic Economies of Revenue Bonds ... Roy G. Prentis 168
Trends in Tent Camping John R. Vanderzicht 174
Public Land Recreation Policy . . . . Charles P. Mead 181
Roll Call of the States
Alabama ....*.;. James L. Segrest 187
California Earl P. Hanson 188
Colorado David M. Abbott 190
Connecticut Elliott P. Bronson 191
Florida Emmett L. Hill 192
Illinois William R. Allen 192
Indiana K.R. Cougill 193
Iowa Wilbur A. Rush 195
Kentucky Mrs. Violet Kilgore 198
Otter Creek Park Clinton G. Johnson 199
Maine . . . . '.' Clyde Manwell 200
Maryland Joseph F. Kaylor 200
Michigan Arthur C. Elmer 201
Minnesota U. W. Hella 202
Missouri Joseph Jaeger, Jr. 204
Montana Ashley C. Roberts 204
Nebraska *..... Jack D. Strain 206
New Hampshire Russell R. Tobey 206
New Jersey Joseph J. Truncer 207
Ohio V.W. Flickinger 208
Oklahoma Tye Bledsoe 209
Oregon C. H . Armstrong 210
Pennsylvania W. P. Moll 211
South Carolina C. West Jacocks 212
South Dakato Robert J. Arkins 213
Texas Bill Collins 214
West Virginia Kermit McKeever 215
Wisconsin John Beale 216
Wyoming Harold S. Odde 217
Preface
AMERICAN PLANNING AND Civic ANNUAL for 1957 presents the
JL addresses delivered at the National Citizens Planning Conference,
with the theme "Main Street, 1969," held in Little Rock, Arkansas
June 9-12, 1957, and the addresses delivered at the 37th Annual Meeting
of the National Conference on State Parks, held at Itasca State Park,
Minnesota, September 18-21, 1957, including the Roll Call of the States.
For the National Citizens Planning Conference of the American
Planning and Civic Association, the Committee on Arrangements which
planned and carried through the highly successful meeting consisted of:
Winthrop Rockefeller, Chairman; Gordon Wittenberg, Director; James
A. Hatcher, Secretary; Mrs. N. P. Allessi, Ladies' Program; Knox Ban-
ner, Publicity; William R. Ewald, Jr., Program; Dick Forbes, Exhibits;
Dudley Hinds, Tours and Transportation; J. J. Holloway, Food; John
Matthews, Finance; Ben R. Shelley, Hotel Arrangements; Donald
Bozarth, Registration. The Conference was invited to meet in Little
Rock at the suggestion of William S. Bonner, Head of City Planning
Division of the University of Arkansas. Consultants to the Conference
were invited from the fields of Architecture, Citizens Organizations,
Developers, Engineers, Planners and Recreation and Park Specialists.
The final session of the Conference was held at Winrock Farm, where
Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop Rockefeller were hosts for lunch and an after-
noon reception.
The sponsors of the Conference were : American Institute of Archi-
tects (Arkansas Chapter), Arkansas Automobile Clubs, Arkansas Bus
and Truck Association, Arkansas Gazette, Arkansas Home Builders
Association, Arkansas Industrial Development Commission, Arkansas-
Louisiana Gas Company, Arkansas Municipal League, Arkansas Pet-
roleum Industries, Arkansas Power and Light Company, Arkansas Real
Estate Association, Arkansas Soft Pine Association, Arkansas State
Chamber of Commerce, Associated General Contractors of Arkansas,
Bank of Arkansas, Gus Blass Company, City of Camden, Central Flying
Service, Inc., The M. M. Cohn Company, Conway City Planning Com-
mission, The Crossett Company, DeWitt Chamber of Commerce,
Dierks Forests, Inc., El Dorado Chamber of Commerce, Forrest City
Planning Commission, Fort Smith Chamber of Commerce, Garbacz
Aerial Survey and Aircraft Service, City of Helena, Hot Springs Cham-
ber of Commerce, Jonesboro Chamber Planning Commission, Ken-
tucky Department of Economic Development, Lion Oil Company,
Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, Little Rock Housing Authority,
Little Rock Municipal Waterworks, Little Rock Planning Commission,
Little Rock Real Estate Board, Louisiana Department of Commerce
ix
and Industry, Magnolia Chamber of Commerce, John Matthews Com-
pany, Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, Mid-South Gas Com-
pany, Mississippi Economic Council, National Electrical Contractors
Association (Arkansas Chapter), Newport City Planning Commission,
North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, North Little Rock Planning
Commission, Oklahoma Department of Commerce and Industry, Para-
gould Chamber of Commerce, Pfeifers of Arkansas, Pine Rluff Municipal
Planning Commission, Producer's Council (National and Little Rock
Chapter), Pulaski County Planning Commission, Ramond Rebsamen
Enterprises, Winthrop Rockefeller (Winrock Farm), Searcy Municipal
Planning Commission, Sears Roebuck Company, Southwestern Bell
Telephone Company, Southwestern Gas and Electric Company, South-
west Hotels, Inc., City of Stuttgart, Texarkana City Planning Com-
mission, University of Arkansas, City of West Memphis.
For the Annual Meeting of the National Conference on State Parks
the Program Committee consisted of: U. W. Hella, Minnesota, Chair-
man; Arthur C. Elmer, Michigan; V. W. Flickinger, Ohio; Raymond R.
Mitchell, Iowa; C. L. Harrington, Wisconsin; Howard W. Baker, Ne-
braska. The following served on the Arrangements Committee all of
Minnesota: Dr. Norman Baker, Chairman, Ralph S. Thornton, Vice
Chairman, Edwin P. Chapman, Harold Bishop, Anton C. Geiger, Mrs.
O. Savig, Dr. J. C. Harguth, Walter Marcum, Judge C. R. Magney.
HARLEAN JAMES
DORA A. PADGETT, Editors
Main Street 1969
PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE 1957 NATIONAL CITIZENS
PLANNING CONFERENCE OF THE AMERICAN PLANNING
AND CIVIC ASSOCIATION, HELD JUNE 9, 10, 11, 12 AT THE
HOTEL MARION, LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS
This Way to 1969
Greetings, a Preview of the Conference and of the Future
ULYSSES S. GRANT III, President, American Planning and Civic Association,
Washington, D. C.
MR. Wittenberg, Mr. Rockefeller, and our distinguished guests,
ladies and gentlemen: Like the Irishman who said that, "I have
something to say to you before I begin speaking," I have something to
read to you before I begin my quite unimportant remarks because I
think this is very important, and it is addressed to Mr. Rockefeller or
me, and is signed by the President of the United States.
"The National Citizens Planning Conference, and State of Arkansas
are to be congratulated for utilizing our Nation's greatest strength, the
responsibility of its individual citizens joined together to resolve com-
mon problems to work out plans for the future. In doing so, you are
making a great contribution to the period when a truly national, inter-
national highway system becomes a reality through such democratic
deliberations as this Main Street 1969 Meeting where problems are re-
viewed, and plans made by private citizens acting together, the bright
future of all our main streets is made surer." Signed D wight D. Eisen-
hower.
And for me it is a very special honor and pleasure to welcome you
here to this 49th Annual National Citizens Conference on Planning and
Conservation. Naturally I cannot forego this opportunity to say a word
about our American Planning and Civic Association before going on
with the very promising program which the conference committee under
the able leadership of Mr. Winthrop Rockefeller has prepared for your
information and delectation. For I am sure that you are going to enjoy
it as well as derive much useful information by the interchange of ex-
periences which will prove pertinent to your own problems.
Starting with the Park and Outdoor Art Association in 1897 by a
succession of cooperative agreements and mergers, the last of which was
with the National Conference on City Planning in 1935, we have today
our Association dedicated to 2 specific purposes :
1. The need for and value of sound city, regional and state planning.
2. The saving from exploitation for utilitarian or commercial use
of open spaces, wilderness areas, natural wonders, and areas of out-
standing scenic beauty and historic interest that are so needed for
1
2 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
the recreation and healthful relaxation of our growing population
and the teeming future generations.
While we are here today more particularly concerned with the first
of these efforts, the second is an essential element in city and regional
and state planning. And please do not forget this fact. Thomas Jefferson
feared that the American people might become as he said, "piled up
on one another in cities," and as this is happening to an extent he could
have not foreseen, the need for city parks, and playgrounds and open
spaces for state parks, and national parks has become one of the crying
needs of our time. These needs can be met only by foresighted and
courageous planning, and by a popular movement and demand for the
acquisition of the needed open spaces while still available, and for the
preservation and development for public use of those already acquired.
In the effort to accomplish this, our Association works closely with the
National Conference on State Parks, indeed acts as its secretariat.
We cooperate with the National Parks Association, the National Recrea-
tion Association, and all the other conservation organizations. We
maintain close contact with the National Park Service, the United
States Forest Service, and the National and State Agencies whose ac-
tivities connect with this subject.
Lloyd George, World War I Prime Minister of England, used to say
that every child has a right to a place to play, but now with a greater
leisure of the grown-ups in each family and the accessibility of distant
places by automobile, we submit that every American has a right to a
place to play, to a place and surroundings where he can rid himself of
the pressure and burdens of city life and recuperate from the nervous
tension of his work.
In our planning we must never forget this need and the urgency to
provide for it, not only for the present demand, but also for the health
and welfare of future generations. But coming back to our first Mission
1, in the early 1920 's the immediate need was for recognition by city
and state authorities of the value of sound planning. I would like to
emphasize sound planning, and the setting up of planning commissions
whose personnel would not be city or state officials entrusted with serving
some special interests, or category of public problems, but broad
minded, intelligent citizens able to take an overall view of the needs
of their communities as a whole, advised by competent trained city
and regional planners. Now we find that in the interim most cities, and
many States have some sort of planning commission or agency. That
battle has been won, and we are proud of having in some measure con-
tributed to the victory. However, we find now that the problem is for
an educated public opinion in each community to support the considered
plans of the Planning Commission and counterbalance it with special
and often selfish interests which are ever watchful in urging the authori-
ties to action in their individual interest, rather than for the benefit of
their community as a whole. Our immediate planning endeavor at
MAIN STREET 1969 3
present is therefore by such conferences as this, and by our publications,
and by individual correspondence, our consultations to provide the in-
formation required to engender such an educated and understanding of
public opinion in favor of sound planning. We find the need for our
work more urgent and more necessary now than ever before. The new
interstate highway program with its billions of prospective expenditure
of public moneys, the spending of which offers a great future to the
various state and local highway departments as well as the Federal
Bureau of Public Roads, and great opportunity for remunerative work
to a host of contractors may save or ruin a city or community if the new
freeway is wrongly located. I cannot urge you too strongly to do your
utmost to prevent such mistakes in location, and to insist upon the
consideration of all the urban problems as well as the immediate interest
of traffic alone.
Most of our cities and States are similarly faced by another problem
directly affecting their welfare and the health of their people, to provide
for the purification of the rivers and the preservation of the water supply.
You may think that water is the cheapest of commodities, but with
urban growth, air conditioning and growing industrial demands, it has
become the most valuable asset a community can have.
Your conference committee has been wise in naming this conference
Main Street for Main Street is the heart of most of our cities, the largest
element in their tax phase, and most main streets are threatened by
traffic congestion and the movement to the suburbs. The solution of
the problem is not to provide at great expense additional road spaces
to bring more traffic into the business center, but to provide new traffic
carriers that will change the pattern of traffic and distribute it more
widely and induce extension of a business center, and relieve it of the
congestion now choking it. Indeed, the ultimate solution may well be
a central business area surrounded by parking facilities on an inner
ring freeway, and Main Street itself reserved for the free and safe use
of pedestrians only, with Atlantic City Wheel Chairs or other slow mov-
ing transportation for those of us who are too old to walk, but you will
doubtless hear much of all this. I close with an invitation to any of
you who would like to cooperate in our Association's campaign for a
better America with more comfortable cities, and more play spaces to
join with us and become members. I have found it an inspiring field of
public service.
WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER, Chairman, Arkansas Industrial Development
Commission, Little Rock, Arkansas
fTlHANK you very much, indeed, General Grant. I am going to
1 have the pleasure of addressing you on several occasions during this
conference in various and sundry roles. My role this morning most
officially is that of Chairman of the Arkansas Industrial and Develop-
4 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
ment Commission. Not only the Staff, but the Board of the Industrial
and Development Commission of the State of Arkansas have taken a
tremendous interest in the development of this Conference, because we
have realized that in terms of industrial development in the State of
Arkansas as in any part of the country, one of the most dramatic phases
of our planning and working is what we can do about Main Street. So,
we were particularly happy that today we would start a conference
covering three days, and putting the major emphasis on that part of
our life "Main Street," which is so very real to us. We like very much
the conference name "Main Street of 1969."
We felt that if the Federal Government working with the States
built 41,000 miles of highways in the years between now and 1969, the
least the communities could do would be to make Main Street worthy
of this fine new highway system. And we do not think it is an un-
reasonable objective for any community leadership to feel that by 1969,
they will have been able to work out a sound plan for community de-
velopment, and then do something about it.
We are hoping during the course of this conference in the free periods
that will be available that you will take full advantage of the oppor-
tunity to exchange ideas with the consultants who have been invited
from various fields to come here and participate in the Conference. I
was very pleased to find so many of the consultants, when they were
told they would not have to speak, but just to consult, were happy to
come. We are very grateful to them for coming, and I hope that all of
us will have the opportunity for making the maximum use of their
talents, and their enthusiasm, and their presence here.
We are grateful to have you here in Little Rock and we hope this
Conference may lead to many sound community plans.
EDWARD S. MARCUS, Executive Vice-President, Neiman-M arcus, Dallas, Texas
IT WILL be interesting to look back from 1969, and see what this
Conference actually accomplished, and I cannot help but wonder
in sort of an amused fashion whether the rain which we Texans are
sharing with you Arkansans might lead the city planners of the future
to re-recognize the importance of water transportation, and possibly
in 1969 we will have a great many of our main streets and our regional
centers operating with canals rather than with streets. We may even
have a whole new breed of do it yourself gondoliers.
This fall the famous Rolls Royce Company of England, and Neiman-
Marcus will be jointly celebrating our 50th Anniversary in America.
The two companies have decided to join forces for certain events during
this occasion, and it will be my good luck to learn something of the
operation of Rolls Royce. Certainly no product is more representative
of the word quality. The interesting thing is how aware the Rolls Royce
people are of the fact that standards of quality change, and methods of
MAIN STREET 1969 5
selling quality also change. Once a Rolls Royce had to be black, and
it had to be chauffeur driven, and in the back seat one expected to find
a heavy set dowager on her way to the opera, or to clip coupons. But
such grandmothers are a bit outmoded these days. Today's dowagers
lead active lives proceeding from club meetings to charity work, and
perhaps to a little mamboing in the evening, and besides that, they
object to the term dowager today. So, Rolls Royce has brought its cars
up to date without giving up its essential classic lines, and the company
is aggressively persuading successful executives that they can drive
the car themselves, no chauffeurs, that they can take them hunting,
drive them to work in the morning, or take them on long selling trips.
Their sales, I think because of this approach, and because the essential
quality of their product has never diminished, are up 150 percent during
this first half year. In this country they are now doing the biggest
business in their history. One of the things I found out was that their
best selling model was I think $12,800 and one of the reasons they sell
it so well is that they say that this car is good for 10 years, and the
buyer will not want to trade it in for 10 years. And they have con-
vinced me. All I have to do is convince my automobile finance company,
and I may have one.
I use Rolls Royce as an example because we are met here to consider
a world 12 years from now, and to consider our own part in such a world.
We ask ourselves what changes will be taking place in the business by
which we live. Now the business of Neiman-Marcus Company is to
sell quality goods at a profit. There are many other retail businesses
in the United States trying to do the same thing, and these efforts are
a significant part of the American economy. If there are to be major
changes in the ways of quality stores, such changes will be important
to American economy. Let us first say that there will always be a sub-
stantial market for so called quality goods. If the Rolls Royce dowager
living in a 50 room mansion, having all her clothes made, and keeping
a staff of 20 servants is disappearing, there are at the same time more
and more people who are able and willing to buy goods of first quality.
There are fewer and fewer people living on such a spectacular scale, but
there are millions more who can and will buy dresses costing $100 and
more. The number of people traveling to Europe, Africa, South America,
all over the world has infinitely expanded. Millions of American families
own first rate automobiles, and sometimes two of them, and they buy
expensive high fidelity sets, expensive television sets, and expensive
everything else you can think of. All of this represents not only a grow-
ing population able to spend more money for more things, but also a
population interested whether because of education, or emulation in
quality. What is quality? Is it a product or service created, developed,
manufactured and advertised, sold and delivered with such degree of
excellence as not to attract not the majority of people, but a highly
6 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
discriminating minority? Such a product is not always the most ex-
pensive nor is excellence a synonym for ornateness. Far from it.
I remember an eager mother bringing her daughter in our store
not so long ago. The daughter was going off to college that year, and the
mother had bought her a diamond necklace she wished to give her as a
going away present. I happened to meet them, and I found that the
mother had selected a very beautiful necklace, but diamond necklaces
are rather inappropriate for girls seventeen years old. But, with some
difficulty I turned the mother's attention to a simple strand of pearls.
She took the pearls and left the diamonds, and I went back to my office
and wondered whether I had gone completely out of my head. There
was a great deal of difference in the price, but I knew that wearing the
pearls that young girl would look like quality and wearing diamonds
she never would. Maybe some day she will come back as an adult, and
buy those diamonds.
Ideas of quality change just as do fashions and standards of taste.
Change in the notion of quality is usually begun by a small band of
highly discriminating people who seek and find that which is finer and
better. The word spreads, and the enlarging bands of those who love
finer things have suddenly established a new standard of quality. A
single person can set the standards. In my own home town of Dallas,
an experimental theater was founded a decade ago by Margo Jones.
She had her standards, and the public followed them and the theater
was a success. Since she herself could not be satisfied by the second
rate, she did not allow her public to be and quality was recognized. In
the same way Metropolitan Opera is heavily supported in Dallas while
our Symphony languishes. But in Houston, which also had a languishing
Symphony some people decided to engage Leopold Stokowski, a name
which connotes quality to a music lover. In this city the orchestra now
flourishes. I think you have an excellent example in what a catalytic
force an individual like Mr. Rockefeller has been to the State of Arkansas,
and you see the various effects of his movements. But as Stokowski
or Margo Jones set the standards of the enterprises they directed, so
the head of a fine store determines its standard of excellence. This is a
lot easier when a store is small, but it is quite clear that as a business
gets larger, it is more difficult to maintain all of those attributes that sell
quality to the small institutions. There are scores of reasons why it is
difficult to maintain the high standards which have been set. First of
all there is simply the physical area involved, the addition of more
square feet, more floors, more stores.
The problem of training new executives is the most important in
today's retail world. I think it is one of the keys to what will happen in
quality stores in the next 12 years. Usually in my firm we like to
train our own executives. Too frequently, however, an executive po-
sition is open at a time when the potential replacement is 1 to 3 years
away from being fitted to the job. In these cases we must hire someone
MAIN STREET 1969 7
from the outside. This is a tough job partly because no business finds it
easy to hire exactly the right man for the job, and partly because re-
tail stores have not kept up as well as they should with advancing exec-
utive benefits available in other fields. This incidentally is improving
rapidly. When we hire a new man we are not only interested in his
potential for a special job, we are interested in his background. In
school and in college was he a leader? Was he interested only in football
and dates, or did he contribute to the musical or artistic life in college?
Has he an inquiring and curious mind, or one that closes into detective
story or television immediately after closing hours? In any situation
where two men are available for the same job, and where their business
abilities are relatively equal, we will always choose the one who seem-
ingly has something to offer in his community as well as to the profit of
our organization. Here then is one important way by which quality
stores can assure themselves of doing business in 1969. Find and train
the young men who will have the standards to carry on the business at a
quality level. Give them a desire to do better things, and offer better
products than other people do. Imbue them with a sense of being able
to give up quick profits to maintain the essential character of a business.
Money alone does not direct people to do things in a superior manner.
It is usually a desire to do something better, and to give of one's self
that produces this unusual quality. Heads of our great schools have
worked long and hard but not for money, nor have our outstanding
spiritual leaders had the dollar sign as their beckoning fingers, maybe
with a few notable exceptions. Neither do I think the great artist is
over influenced in what he paints by the buying public. I am not going
to say that Sadlers Wells nor Neiman Marcus, Stueben Glass, or Rolls
Royce are not motivated by money. Certainly they are, but in each
case of successes these enterprises have been achieved by a driving
force that insisted not only upon a successful business enterprise but
an institution that would stand for something that was better than
had been known before. And their current success rests whether they
like it or not by their maintaining a standard of quality consistent with
their tradition, and consistent also with economic and social conditions
which are changing every day.
I believe that many things may change in retail institutions by 1969.
We probably will have more self service, or perhaps retail stores may
have to charge for deliveries, or actually pay customers to take the
goods with them, so much is the overhead rising. We will probably have
to find ways of keeping our stores open more hours or more days while
at the same time working our employees less hours or less days, an in-
teresting little problem itself. But the large retail stores must find a
way to get a greater plant utilization. I believe the suburban stores in
well planned neighborhoods will continue to do well, and suburban
stores in badly planned neighborhoods will flounder. In my personal
opinion the downtown store will continue to be the focal point of a
8 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
region so long as the store maintains its standards, and they will do
well or poorly, dependent on the imaginative quality of civic leaders to
plan well and do enough now! Let us not earn the epitaph "Too little
too late."
High quality in itself does not insure success. There must be an ac-
curate but ambitious survey of community needs. It is extremely un-
likely that a community of 100,000 could support a symphony orchestra.
On the other hand a symphonetta or a great choral group or a superb
string quartet might indeed find its home in such a city. Likewise a
city of 200,000 would find it impossible to support a present day Neiman-
Marcus or Radio City Music Hall. Rut within its scope there is a degree
of quality which it can reach for and which it can achieve. In the plan-
ning of our centers and our downtowns, let us not forget that quality
has to do with sufficient parking, proper location, good access, but it
also has to do with cultural values. A small museum can lend quality
to a regional center. A library can be as important as a branch post
office, and the over all architectural concept including all the art forms
have a lasting effect on the potential customers. These are details, but
important ones. However, whatever the varying estimates of our
economy have been for 1969, I am sure of one thing. In 1969 more
people will be buying quality goods than are buying them today, and
quality will be sold very much as it is today, that is in a clean, pleasant
atmosphere by people who believe in what they are selling, and who are
alert enough to seek and find that which is new and also better. Quality
will be sold with pride because it is worth it. It will be bought with
pride because it is worth it, and the relationship between the buyer and
the seller will be warm and full of respect for people of quality always
appreciate each other.
EDWARD D. STONE, Architect, New York, N. Y.
I HAVE just returned from France and I am sure you realize what
the French have done with their countryside. One never goes through
any part of France without passing great avenues of trees. These trees
not only serve to beautify but the people also use them for their firewood.
It does occur to me that with our tremendous highway program and
with the state highways we are building some simple legislation could
be enacted which would require a planting of trees at intervals along
these highways and then we, too, would have this marvelous heritage
France offers its future generations. This to me seems so simple I am
surprised it hasn't already been done.
I also had the good fortune to be in Paris a week or so and the in-
gredients of Paris are really not so complicated. They do have wonder-
fully laid-out broad boulevards. And all of the boulevards have trees
and these trees lend a graciousness friendliness and they serve a
practical value. They shade the sidewalks and allow people to sit there
MAIN STREET 1969 9
and sip their coffee and drinks with pleasure. It seems to me that we
in our towns could at least have trees tree-lined streets.
I think also in Paris one observes a few simple rules about buildings.
These are built of the same materials, stone, stucco and all of a uniform
color, a uniform cornice height which makes a unified and beautiful
effect as we all know. Where in our country every man is building his
own monument to his own ego and he thinks nothing of putting a black
glass adjacent to a white marble building or brick adjacent to stucco.
In other words, we should be sympathetic with what our neighbors have
done before we build; consider the overall unification of our towns,
not just ignore our neighbors' work. This would help tremendously.
In the plazas of Spain arcades are built around a plot with a park in
the center. This is something we can readily adopt. John Williams, the
head of the Architectural Department and I have often talked about
what might be done with the community square where motor vehicles
could be prohibited in the square, convert it into a park and have the
parking around the periphery with a shelter extending from one area
of the square to another. These are very simple devices that are entirely
practical.
I was in Salzburg, Austria, last week, and in that medieval city the
streets were narrow, obviously not suited to the motor age. The streets
have converted into pedestrian thoroughfares. The pedestrian has com-
plete freedom, no dodging of the traffic and off the central thoroughfares
one may go into arcades to other shops.
Also, in Italy there are in Milan, Rome and Naples great glass cov-
ered shopping arcades that run two or three stories high.
This marvelous principle has application in our times. I think we
must obviously search our consciences and look back through history
and see how other people have solved the problems of the market place.
One of the things I have to speak for my profession: someone has
said there is a conspiracy to remove all color from life. I remember as a
boy in Fayetteville that the locomotive engineer came through town
weary and black in a visored cap, red bandana around his neck and
striped overalls a very impressive figure. But today he looks like any
businessman. He wears a business suit, wears a white collar and sits
in the cab and pushes buttons with all the romance of the steam lo-
comotive age removed. And I think this has happened disastrously in
the case of architecture.
I can remember when an architect was a pretty colorful individual,
and he made no bones about being an artist. He would have a beard
or long moustache, some fancy headgear. He wasn't just another man
in the street. Today, Mr. Wright is the only remaining one of that type.
We now recognize ourselves as businessmen. We have lost the idea of
being artists. Fortunately the clients are so well informed in matters
of structure, air-conditioning, heating and know what they want to
make the buildings work and the engineers will bail you out of any
10 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
difficulty with the plumbing, that I think we should return to the idea
that we are artists. We have waited too long if you see what we build
today, all plate glass and aluminum; the buildings are tedious, they are
boring and ugly. They work but they haven't any heart there; certainly
nothing that you would want to save for your children and grand-
children. They are expedient, temporary; they are like a car or a juke
box.
An architect nowadays is embarrassed if he tells a client why this
building is going to be beautiful, a work of art, a masterpiece; he looks
at the architect askance. I believe we must all think that we want to
build beautiful architecture, beautiful buildings, beautiful parks, beau-
tiful plazas and not be so shy of the word art. Do not be suspicious when
somebody says it should be beautiful. Let us say that is a good idea;
let us go along with it. We then will not end up with this sort of catch-
penny, temporary looking tinsel stuff that we build today.
And this can be done. I do not want to embarrass Mr. Rockefeller,
in speaking of his father's good deeds, but I came to New York to start
my alleged professional practice in November 1929. 1 do not know wheth-
er any of you know what happened then but it was certainly not an
auspicious time. It was quite a vogue to jump out of windows or sell
apples on the street and I would have been doing this had it not been
for Mr. Rockefeller's father and the opportunity offered to work on
his project.
Mr. Rockefeller realized the things I am speaking of; it had to be a
commercial venture and obviously had to succeed financially. But in
addition he realized his obligations to the city and to mankind at large
which seems to me to be an ideal demonstration as to how all building
projects should be undertaken. He obtained the best architectural
talent of the time, the best painters, the best sculptors, so as to make
the project not only a financial success but also a triumph artistically,
and I think it came off a tremendous success. In other words, it was as
symbolic of New York as the Statue of Liberty is. Mr. Rockefeller
thinks it will be a success long after buildings built 20, 30 or 40 years
hence are obsolete because the people who occupy that group of build-
ings are proud of it. Pride of possession is important in any venture.
It is a pride to the city. And I believe that all planning should aim
toward a permanent beautiful facility not only for the people who use
it but for the people who pass by it.
It seems to me that this is a propitious time to start with such a
wonderful vision of Arkansas of the future. We have had laws to pro-
tect us from deforestation, despoiling all of our lands, cutting all the
woods away. We are aware of soil erosion but at no place along the line
are we prevented from building monstrosities on our highways and in
our cities. We are destroying our natural assets and our heritage for
our children. We have to correct this glaring lack in our whole outlook
MAIN STREET 1969 11
in building so we create sound values, which are a fine heritage for
generations to come.
I think not only must we examine what we are doing but we have to
examine the way we are building our homes.
When I came to New York, Long Island was a beautiful park. One
could get in a car and drive out there and be in the woods, but now it is
completely built up with small developments. There is no country left.
I don't own an automobile now because there is no place to go. And do
not think that can't happen here.
I flew over Washington yesterday and the countryside is just filled
with these little boxes. It was different when George Washington got
here because he had Mount Vernon in the middle of a thousand or two
acres. But now they are building these Mount Vernons on 50 x 100
foot lots, one little box after another. And each person becomes his own
maintenance engineer. Each person has the advantage of walking
around it 20 feet from his neighbor. There is no privacy and many
headaches.
It seems that common sense dictates to me that we get away from
this idea and try to unify our houses. Get them in quadrangles as
colleges are built, a common place for heating, the firing of the furnace,
the laundry and all the unpleasant chores. Let that be done by a central
service. And let us give up the little box. It's like the tombstone in
the cemetery. It does not get us any place.
If you follow this plan you save a little country side between the
places where you live. We do not have a beautiful State and let us not
build too many of these little boxes.
I think this is about all I have to say other than I think we got here
at a very good time because we are in a way starting the development
of Arkansas and we can profit by the errors of everyone else, by their
bad example.
GENERAL GRANT
Thank you, Mr. Stone. You made a real speech for the American
Planning and Civic Association because nearly all of the things you told
so well are things that we consider the ideals toward which we would
like to educate an understanding public opinion.
Before we go on I want to venture to say another word or two about
the planning in this era at the present time. Certainly it is a critical
time as Mr. Stone has told us. It is a time when sound planning can do
a great deal for our cities if the plans are carried out. There is needed
a public opinion to back up the planning authorities and to understand
the fallacies occasionally in even the statistical proof.
We have for instance in Washington the interesting situation that
most cities have of a cluttered up and too congested central business area.
The survey in 1950 showed that 155,000 vehicles come into our central
12 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
area every day the occupants of which have business in the central
business area; and 129,000 vehicles or 4/5ths as many come into the
area who have no business there whatsoever. And it is very evident
to us that if the new highway program could distribute that traffic
better and give a way around the central area about 129,000 vehicles
every day, you would be relieving the central area of this part of its
congestion.
But there is a trouble that people who have an idea that they want
to carry out are a little too apt to marshall statistics, which may be per-
fectly true statistics, they analyze them in such a way so as to prove
the wrong thing.
Mayor La Guardia used to say that you could prove anything by
statistics, that you could prove both sides of the case by the same sta-
tistics. And you occasionally run across the kind of fallacy contained
in the perfectly true and mathematically correct statement such as
that of the man who came down to breakfast to find his wife did not
have it ready and he was in a hurry. And finally he said to her, ''Look
here, Mollie, I want my breakfast. I haven't had anything to eat since
yesterday and tomorrow will be the third day."
But anyway, our Association is certainly very strong for the amenities
of life and believe that the commercial benefits of the amenities of life
will pay in dollars and cents in good sound city planning. And we are
very grateful to the speakers today for bringing their views to help us
in our efforts to pass on this wise conclusion and experience to other
people throughout the country.
MAIN STREET 1969 13
Main Street 1969 The Concepts of New Shopping
Center Design and How They Can Be Applied to
Existing Main Streets
WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER
MY ROLE this afternoon as Conference Chairman is to introduce
to you the presiding officer of this afternoon's session. I have
read carefully through the material on our presiding officer and was
pleased to find that I was introducing a young man younger than myself.
I have observed the progress of his life and found it quite normal. He
went to school, he graduated, he got married, he has a fine family of
four children like many others in our age bracket, found himself in the
Service and distinguished himself in the Service. When he came out of
the Service he went into a very active business career. And Mr. Wynne
and his uncle undertook one of the largest residential planning programs
in Dallas, the Wynnewood residential district and with that they have
the Wynnewood Shopping Center.
More recently Mr. Wynne in association with Mr. Zeckendorf, and
thanks to Mr. Zeckendorf, the Rockefeller Brothers have an association
with Mr. Wynne too, in the great Southwest Industrial District located
midway between Dallas and Fort Worth. It has been my experience
through the years that the busier the man is the more time he has to
do good things in his community and a good example of one who gives
of himself for community projects, is certainly Angus Wynne. It is my
pleasure to introduce Angus G. Wynne, Jr., your Chairman for this
afternoon's session "Main Street 1969."
Chairman ANGUS G. WYNNE, JR.,
President, Great Southwest Corporation, Dallas, Texas
I WAS extremely excited when John Matthews had occasion to go
over with me recently the list of the people who were coming to this
meeting. Being in the business that I am, I find myself constantly
thrown into the problems presented here in this meeting by the people
on these panels. The talent represented here was something that I def-
initely wanted to touch and work with. And certainly our start here
has given evidence of the fact that this is going to be the kind of con-
ference in which we all want to participate.
We have a Mayor who is a great man. He is Chairman of the Board
of one of our large banks and head of our State Fair. He asked the
Executive Director of the State Fair one day to get some estimate for
him on what it would take to rehabilitate the Cotton Bowl. And after
about a week Mr. Stewart asked him in a group meeting about the
Cotton Bowl. And the Mayor said if this is a "do" meeting I will sit
all afternoon. If this is a "don't" meeting I do not want anything to
do with it.
14 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
I feel that with the panels we have here we have a "do" meeting in
progress. We have here today in this panel all the ingredients that go
into the building of shopping centers and development of downtown
properties, in fact, into the building of anything of a lasting nature.
We have on the panel Victor Gruen who is an architect of note, born
and educated in Vienna; he was cited by the Hall of Fame for practical
vision, pioneering development and construction of shopping centers.
I might say that the most outstanding example at this moment I think
in the country in vision, production and productivity is the Northland
Center in Detroit. To quote one figure there, when I say productivity,
I know that the Crestview Stores on a 5 percent lease are paying $7.50
and that is productivity in the sense that we like to see it in shopping
center development. It is productive also in the sense that it is a fine
architectural example for the future.
He has set up a plan for our Fort Worth downtown redevelopment
which we shall hear about today.
We have on the panel with us Larry Smith, the head of Larry Smith
and Company, who is a real estate consultant and economist serving
many outstanding shopping centers and department stores and insurance
companies on the problems of the more efficient use of real estate. He
in effect puts the pencil to it to see if you have the trade territory, have
the buying power in a community to support the facility that we are
projecting.
We have Miss Colleen Utter, whom I like to think of on this panel
as representing the merchandising know-how that has to go into any
of these projects. We have changing trends in merchandising. She is a
retail consultant for the New Yorker. She is a protege of Bernice Fitz-
gibbon of Gimbel's. She is the former fashion advertising copywriter,
sales publicity and promotion director for Saks Fifth Avenue. She
represents on this panel merchandising know-how that goes into any
development of a commercial nature. It is merchandising know-how of
this type that determines what you are going to build.
We have Albert Keidel, who is with the Rouse Company of Balti-
more, which firm has been instrumental in the development of fine com-
mercial properties. But the main function of Mr. Keidel on this panel
is that he has eighteen years experience as a mortgage banker and the
proper financing of all the things that we project in the future, I might
say, is as important as the mortar that goes into them. The success or
solvency of the projects is going to depend on the financing of them.
We have all of these people who are on this panel projecting the
growth and the future of both downtown and suburban real estate.
They make a panel that should be productive and we should be able to
get a "do" meeting out of it. It takes all these parts to make a whole
for the proper planning for the future.
Mr. Stone this morning touched European cities and shopping
districts, I remember some five or six years ago discussing a project for
MAIN STREET 1969 15
an air-conditioned mall. We went back to one of the galleries in Italy
that was projected some hundred years ago exactly what we are talking
about today. We can go full circles in our planning. We are seeking the
people and their needs.
We have seen an electric ice box go from a luxury to a necessity in
life. What we know is a luxury today is a necessity tomorrow. But we
have a change in people; a change in the movement of people. It is
wonderful to know that in this country today whatever we plan today
is not going to be adequate tomorrow. There is no way to conceive what
is happening in this country today the change in the economy, but
mostly in the change in the number of people and the movement of
people.
A very interesting figure, I think it was in 1850, the world had its
first billion people. In 1950 it had its second billion people in a span of
one hundred years. And in 1975 it will have its third billion people.
Planning for those people and their increased needs and ability to buy
is something that is exciting to all of us.
We talk of 1969 and the downtown areas and the suburban areas of
that day. You will pardon the personal reference. About ten years
ago when I started planning a shopping center I had the advice of the
best talent in the country, J. C. Nichols in Kansas City. Herbert Hare
helped us with it people who were pioneers and worked in the develop-
ing of shopping centers. In the Southwest at that time the largest
shopping center was the Highland Park Shopping Center, in Dallas.
And it was a very successful, fine shopping center. It had 8J^ acres.
We were ambitious and wanted to plan for the future and we set aside
27 acres. We thought in 20 years we might have used all of it; but at
least we will have the land and we are far-sighted. We all know the
history of what 27 acres is today. You can take a small district shopping
center and put it on 27 acres. We were trying to plan for a regional
shopping center. We have fortunately some land that we set aside for
some apartments that we had left but we have sixty acres now. It is
inadequate and had we planned for it properly we would have had some-
where between eighty and a hundred acres. We used all the tools at
hand and still did not come up with the right answer.
Today we have some better idea of the growth and what is coming
down the line and I think we can in all probability plan for it a little
better. Certainly the lesson of what has happened in the last five years
is a complete change in the whole concept of shopping. And most of
these people who are on this panel today have had a part of that change.
One thing that came up with Mr. Stone this morning, was his refer-
ence to the planting along our highways. We had one very far-sighted
highway planning engineer on a Texas highway. And all along this
highway were planted Crepe Myrtle, wonderful trees some fifteen years
ago. And today that is a beautiful road. We have trees overhanging
and along the East Bridge, we have beautiful planting. There is only
16 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
one trouble with it. It is a 27 foot roadway. It was adequate when
built but the plantings will come out as we construct the six lanes we
must have now. He was far-sighted. But just how far-sighted can
one be?
I would ask our first panel member, Mr. Gruen, to set the pace
for this discussion and I think that it can only be, "make no small
plans." I would like to introduce at this time Mr. Victor Gruen.
VICTOR GRUEN, Architect, Beverly Hills, California
THE main theme of this Conference is Main Street 1969. 1969 is
to signify the year when, schedule-wise at least, the new highway
program of the Federal government, which embraces the construction
of about 41,000 miles of inter-regional expressways, is supposed to be
concluded.
Today we are supposed to open the discussion of this conference and
touch on the broad outlines before we get into more specialized fields
on the following days. Thus, it seems to me most important to clarify
the title of this conference as far as Main Street is concerned.
In program outlines it was mentioned that we want to consider two
sorts of Main Streets the inter-regional expressways themselves, and
the actual town commercial districts. It is my opinion that the future
of commercial districts indeed, the future of our towns, of our cities,
of our entire urban scene depends on the recognition of one fact; and
I believe the greatest contribution this conference could make is to
expound and analyze this fact and the conclusions which have to be
drawn from it for city planners, architects, road planners, governmental
agencies and the individual citizen.
This fact is that Main Street in the sense in which we have under-
stood it to apply to our American towns and cities, has become an
absurdity, an anachronism, and that it has no sound basis for existence
today and much less in 1969.
Main Street as we have understood it in the past consisted of a more
or less horizontal surface and administrative, commercial and residential
structures erected along each side. The horizontal surface was there
first and made it possible for people to walk, to ride on horseback or in
horse-drawn carts and carriages, stage coaches and later in automobiles.
Along this traffic surface on both sides were then erected rest houses,
hostelries, and later on stores, shops, office buildings and so on. As the
years went on, street car rails were embedded into Main Street and,
many years later, torn out again. The visual appearance of Main Street
became increasingly complex as traffic signals, parking meters, warning
signs, billboards, wires and cables of all sorts were added.
But in spite of all technological paraphernalia, all pertaining to traffic,
Main Street does not function any longer. And because we have not
MAIN STREET 1969 17
made up our minds what to do about it, we are taking many hundreds
of measures which, only too often, contradict each other.
We are building garages on Main Street and installing parking meters
there, and simultaneously we are building bypass roads to divert auto-
mobiles from Main Street avoiding it like the plague. We are zoning
commercial property in narrow strips along traffic streets with the in-
tention of creating new Main Streets, and simultaneously we are build-
ing urban freeways and expressways which roll along in splendid isola-
tion between their landscaped banks. Thus, we are holding out the
promise of traffic to merchants and developers invited to make use of
such commercial zoning on Main Streets on the one hand, and we are
taking that traffic away with the other.
Our indecision and our floundering concerning Main Street, are all
based on the fact that in an era in which a technological revolution of
unheard and unprecedented intensity and furor has taken place, we
have done nothing to adapt the pattern of our urban scene to the new
technological developments. During the last forty years, a period in
which new words have become part of our vocabulary and new tools
part of our daily experience radio, television, electronics, atomic
power, automation, mass production, mass consumption we have held
onto a pattern of our cities and towns which is basically identical to
the one we had 200 years ago. We have completely disregarded the fact
that an entirely new population group has immigrated into our cities,
towns and villages. This is the automobile populace of sixty million
mechanical beings. Though the automobile population is still a minority
group numerically (Heaven and Detroit only know for how long!), we
must not forget that the space needs of the automobile population are
insatiable. The space they require for moving, storing and stalling, for
birth (manufacturing), feeding (gas stations), beauty care (wash racks),
sickness (repair shops) and death (automobile cemeteries) is hundreds
of times that of the need of members of the human race.
The pressure built up by this space need is such that the old govern-
ing powers of urban planning directed to the well-being of people, have
been dethroned, to be replaced by one tyrant mechanical traffic.
The new dictator is concerned with vehicles and not with people.
For the sake of mobility he is willing to destroy the purposes and the
aims which would make such mobility meaningful and desirable. To
him, areas of habitation, centers of human activity, city scape, landscape
and countryside are expendable serfs slaving for the glory of the storm
troopers of his empire cars, trucks, buses and trailers.
The New York Times reported recently that a farmer in upper
New York State sued the Thruway Authority, complaining that the
new traffic carrier cut his farm in half. What he resented was that in
order to visit his outhouse he had now to drive four miles and pay 50
cents toll. Let us hope that his complaint has been promptly taken
care of, but what about all those cases where new road construction
r
18 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
has cut like knives through the life tissues of our communities separating
children from schools, housewives from shopping facilities, families
from recreational and cultural areas, from relatives and friends.
Highways, freeways, expressways which could be potentially the
most important shape-creating forces in our tragically disjointed and
amorphous urban pattern make no use of this potential possibility. On
the contrary, they cut cityscape and landscape farther into shreds and
pieces. In his excellent book "The Metropolitan Transportation Prob-
lem," Wilfred Owen puts the problem into a nutshell: "We are engaged
in a race between the increasing mobility provided by the automobile
and the highway and the increasing distances that have to be traveled
from home to work, from home to recreation, from city to country.
Unless the development of a better urban environment accompanies
the development of better highways, the race will be lost."
The development of a better urban environment is thus the prime
requisite. The responsibility for the whole so-called traffic problem is
thus put squarely on the shoulders of the shapers of the man-made en-
vironment, architects, city planners, urban designers. What is most
urgently needed is a planning philosophy, a new approach to the prob-
lem of Main Street and to the problem of town planning, city planning
and regional planning, which has to include the planning of highways,
freeways and expressways as a shape-creating, constructive force.
As an architect I am actively engaged and concerned with the design
of single structures homes, schools, office buildings, stores, hospitals.
My efforts to make them as utilitarian and beautiful as possible are
always to some extent frustrated by the chaotic character of their sur-
roundings. Architecture finds itself faced with diminishing returns
from its investment of inventiveness, creative genius and social con-
sciousness.
In past centuries, large cities were in danger of disintegration be-
cause their inhabitants died like flies from diseases caused by open sew-
age and poisoned drinking water. They were then not saved by new
single structures with a handsome facade here and there. They were
saved by underground sewage systems and new water works.
Today's cities are beset by another evil. Today's planning pattern
endangers the existence of the urbanites, threatening their physical and
mental health by daily exposure to the insane arrangement by which
hordes of mechanical monsters fight for every square inch of space with
others of their own kind and with human beings on foot. We are killing
and maiming one person every six minutes in street traffic. We are under-
mining the nervous systems of a Nation. We are wasting millions of
hours and billions of dollars in the fruitless activity of fighting for
mobility in our urban centers. Thus the call of the hour is the call to
order and sanity a call for sanitation an end to the mis-use of mobility
in traffic.
MAIN STREET 1969 19
Our streets and roads and highways are used today for a double
function. They serve as delineators along which all structures are
threaded, and they also serve as rights-of-way for all mechanized traffic
buses, trucks and private automobiles. The devilish thing is that these
two uses are diametrically opposed to each other. The buildings located
on the banks of the rushing traffic rivers prove unusuable for human
activities. The roads, fringed by structures in and out of which people
and vehicles move, are subject to hopeless congestion.
Thus, the first priority of action must go to the separating of flesh
and machines of people and mechanized traffic. We can no longer
disregard the fact that a new population group is threatening to wipe
out the natives.
If we want to create peaceful conditions of co-existence between the
natives and the newcomers, we will have to create reservations for the
human race and the automobile race. We have to give to each of them
the environment which is natural to their needs and likes freeway to
the automobile, the many-laned, limited-access, easily-graded freeway
buffered by landscaped areas. For the human race, we must create its
natural habitat, in which, unmolested by mechanized beasts, its needs
and requirements can be fulfilled. Humans, to be healthy in body and
mind, require some exercise which they can get best by using the feet
which are attached to their two legs. They need a certain amount of
restfulness and quiet and the possibility to look around themselves and
observe objects other than red, green and yellow lights and onrushing
automobiles.
A new pattern emerges from this thought process. In it, the shape-
creating agent for the placement and arrangement of buildings is no
longer the road grid. The formation of structures takes place instead in
clusters based on a new module (Human Module) the human being.
This new pattern will reach over the entire fabric of the spreading
urban area. Pedestrian islands for residential use, for shopping facilities,
for health facilities, for working facilities of all types will be arranged
in logical relation to each other.
The residential clusters will form constellations around social,
business and working gravity centers, and many such constellations
together will form a galaxy in the magnetic field of a powerful solar body
the metropolitan core or the city center.
The center itself will be composed of a number of nuclei intimately
connected with each other by pedestrian overpasses and subterranean
public trafficways. These nuclei will serve public administration, regional,
statewide and national business, national and international tourism,
and those cultural, social and recreational facilities which can be sup-
ported only by large numbers of people.
The size of each pedestrian cluster, of each activity nucleus, is de-
termined on the basis of walkability. The term walkability embraces not
only the factor of time, but also of desirability, the pleasure of move-
20 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
ment and though walkability varies with climate, geography and pur-
pose of the cluster, it will tend to define shape and size. Between these
shape-defined areas and between the constellations of nuclei will lie
broad belts of greenery used for agriculture and orchards, for lakes and
water reservoirs, for sports and recreational facilities.
Within them will move swiftly all means of transportation, radially
and in concentric fashion railroads, truck roads, freeways, bus roads,
rapid transit, and above them will be the rights-of-way for air travel.
Just as fortifications, moats and open areas once surrounded and
contained the medieval city, so will the metropolitan core be girded by
a broad expanse of landscaped land; within will be the many-laned
and possibly many-leveled belt roads which, together with adjoining
vast terminal facilities for all kinds of traffic, will collect painlessly
the streams of traffic pouring in from all sides.
Thus, the system of traffic streams will closely parallel the natural
river system, where water originating from many springs, flowing in
brooks and rivulets and rivers, combines into a mighty stream which
empties into the ocean.
The traffic stream will have its springs in residential clusters; from
them, traffic will flow onto roads and onto highways and finally merge
into the broad stream of the freeway. The traffic stream of freeways
will be collected on the belt road and stored in the adjoining multiple-
level parking structures and terminals for all types of transportation.
Within these ring roads which might, depending on size and shape
of the core area, be circles, figure eights or clover leaves, or other shapes,
will be the pedestrian area. Terminal facilities will be shaped and
located in a manner by which walking distances are shortened to a
minimum. Materials and goods moving into the center core or out of
it will be handled in underground truck tunnels or by electronically
controlled conveyor belt systems starting from trucking terminals on
the periphery. Buses might move directly from radial freeways to under-
ground roads where, in order to facilitate ventilation, their motors
could be shut off and movement obtained by link belts or similar devices.
The surface of the city center will belong exclusively to the pedes-
trian. Of the millions of square feet now utilized for the storage of mov-
ing, stalled and stored tin, a large part will be devoted to planting
beds, trees and bushes and to paved promenade areas. A good third
of the area presently wasted, together with all the areas now occupied
by establishments for the storage, sale and feeding of the automobile,
will be converted to productive building land. Thus a new measure of
compactness and cohesion for the urban center can be reached, similar
in character to the one found in older European cities but free of the
terrible penalty which they have to pay when mechanized traffic in-
undates their once quiet streets and plazas.
Can this broad planning philosophy be translated into reality?
Elements of it already are discernible.
MAIN STREET 1969 21
Observe the regional shopping center, equal in size to the downtown
center area of 200,000 with its belt highway fed by radial roads, its
car storage area, its bus terminal, its tight clusters of buildings between
which lie pedestrian courts and malls of varying size and shape.
Observe this plan for Southdale and a regional health center with
hospitals, medical buildings, nurses' quarters, restaurants, which fol-
lows the same planning pattern.
Observe this industrial cluster, Saarinen's General Motors Research
Center near Detroit, which, because of its grouping, could so easily be
made free of interior mechanical traffic.
And let me remind you of the Fort Worth plan, in which this planning
philosophy has been translated into a realizable, practical plan involving
a minimum of destruction and demolition.
This plan, by the way, is well on the way to implementation.
Since the publication of the Forth Worth plan, a surprising number
of similar plans for cities, large and small, throughout the Nation have
been in evidence. Some of these plans, which I have had an opportunity
to see, are utilizing the basic philosophic approach on which the Fort
Worth plan was based, but are correctly approaching the specific prob-
lems of the city concerned in new and creative ways. Others, unfor-
tunately, are applying details of the Fort Worth plan mechanically
and therefore with unsatisfactory results.
I firmly believe that an overall plan can be sold to the public if it is
carefully conceived with the idea of bringing about a decisive change
of the pattern of the city with a minimum of demolition and destruction.
What we need is a long overdue adjustment of the urban pattern to the
facts of modern technology. This new pattern will create a climate in
which private initiative will find encouragement and security for in-
vestment and construction, but it will do more than initiate an economic
renaissance of our urban centers.
The liberation of the city from the sight, the noise and the smell of
the automobile will introduce a feeling of relief similar to that which the
old farmer experienced when he finally decided to build a stable and to
throw the goats and pigs out of his living room.
The air will clear, the smog will rise, the din will subside. We finally
will be able to look around ourselves and communicate with our city,
person to person, instead of, as we are doing now, observing through
the wrap-around windshield or the rear- view mirror only the car stalled
in front of us or the one pushing us from behind.
Thus, Main Street 1969 will not be a street in the sense of today's
vernacular at all. It will be a humane and human kind of environment
rooted in the past tradition of the town market place, the New England
common, the Greek agora but in complete tune with today's and
tomorrow's technological development, a true expression of a techno-
logically far advanced, democratic and free society.
22 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
CHAIRMAN WYNNE
Thank you very much, Mr. Gruen. I think we can all see without
any difficulty that Mr. Gruen makes no small plans. They are exciting
plans. And I want to say insofar as the Fort Worth Plan is concerned,
I happen to know a little bit about what is going on there, the type of
leadership and the optimism which exists over the implementation of
this plan in Fort Worth.
And now I am privileged to introduce Miss Colleen Utter, Merchan-
dising Consultant for The New Yorker.
MISS COLLEEN UTTER, Retail Consultant, The New Yorker, New York, N. Y.
I AM very happy to be here. I cannot tell you how exciting it is to
be a part of this Conference.
My paper told me I was to react to Mr. Gruen's talk, give a short
recipe for success in the retail business and take part in the panel.
As far as reacting to Mr. Gruen is concerned, this is a very happy
day for me indeed. I have admired him and his work for several years
now. This presentation that we have seen today and the things we have
heard are further proof that here is something that is even more forward
looking, even more revolutionary than Northland and Southdale are.
I have seen them both. I have seen how productive they are. But this
one in Forth Worth gives promise of being even greater. This will not
be the first of Mr. Gruen's plans and it most certainly will not be the
last. I think we are going to find this to be true from what I have seen
of the need all over the country, in fifty cities I have visited in the last
three years and at least a thousand retail stores. I have seen what is
happening in downtowns and what is not happening. Mr. Gruen's
plan looks to me as though it is going to be a tremendously effective
answer to the problem that exists today.
As far as giving a definition of a successful retail operation is con-
cerned I am a little awed by all these city planners and cosmic thinkers.
But it seems to me in my travels and in my talks with successful retailers
and in my going through all of these thousand stores, step by step and
floor by floor that I have come out of it with a pretty clear definition as
far as I am concerned in my own mind. And I think that it is this : that
the successful merchant of today is living in an age of specialization.
He, therefore, must be a specialist himself. He no longer can rely on
the old general store business of catch as catch can. He cannot be, he
knows it, all things to all people. He has got to know who his particular
customer is. He has to know through research where to find him. He
has to buy for that customer, not somebody else's customer. He has
to promote to that customer right down the center to hit the man he
knows should be the customer of his store. And he has to serve that
customer. He has to give him what many of these regional shopping
centers are giving their customers, and that is, he has to give them
MAIN STREET 1969 23
service; he has to be absolutely sure that they are happy with their
shopping; he has to make it easy for them; he has to make it pleasant
for them and he has to make it satisfying for them.
As a matter of fact, in thinking it over, I have never seen a store
which followed this plan which actually concentrated on what it had,
what it wanted, that failed. The stores that I have seen fail and all
too many have have failed because they failed to know who their
customer was and failed to do about him what should have been done
about him.
CHAIRMAN WYNNE
Thank you very much, Miss Utter. And now the third member of
the panel is Mr. Keidel, who will discuss with us the financial aspects
of downtown rebuilding.
ALBERT KEIDEL, JR. for James W. Rouse,
President, James W. Rouse and Company, Baltimore, Md.
THIS is a substitute assignment for me. I bring apologies from James
W. Rouse who would have been here today except for some unfore-
seen crucial negotiations that made it impossible for him to come. He
has asked me to bring to you some of our experiences in financing and
some of our thinking on how this business gets done.
Now, I have been asked to react to Mr. Gruen, also. I read a speech
which he gave before the Wholesale Dry Goods Association and I
agreed with everything he said until I came to the last page and there
he said: "And now there are only two tiny questions left. One is, who is
going to do this and the other is, how is it going to be financed."
It is a monumental job that he has done in conceiving such a vision
for us to contemplate. I think it is going to be equally monumental to
get the people to do it and to get it financed. But to hear Victor Gruen
on this subject is a stimulating experience. He has a fresh eye and a
clear voice urging us to free ourselves from an old framework that no
longer works.
Of course, we never like to abandon old frameworks. We had rather
sweat and strain and make our new problems fit into the old mould.
The history of architecture and development does not record many
break-throughs. But I believe we are now on the threshold of one.
One billion, two billions, three billions, if that has not scared you
I would like to remind you of our population estimates that add
56,000,000 people by 1975 and 50,000,000 additional cars, a 50 percent
increase in our urban population and a doubling of the number of cars
and trucks that are now choking our downtown streets and highways
and use nearly 50 percent of our land in our downtown areas.
24 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
I know that no one here doubts that this is a real crisis. It is a story
that has to be told up and down our land, again and again. The job
that has to be done will never get started unless the people are scared
enough. You know fear is a great motivator. We must see to it that the
news of this impending crisis gets around.
When the United States bought the Virgin Islands from the Dutch
in 1917 traffic all drove on the left hand side of the road. It became the
only United States territory where traffic drove on the left hand side
of the road. So, naturally, plans were made to change that. The routine
notices went around and the day was set. And instead of an orderly
transition there was confusion; there were accidents; there was chaos.
Somebody had forgotten to tell the horses and mules. And today if you
go to the Virgin Islands you have to have a two week's residence and
take a special test before you can drive a car. They are still driving on
the left hand side of the road.
If they were to make that routine transition today there are a lot
more people and I believe that the people are going to be harder to
change than the horses and mules would have been if it had been done
early and properly.
Victor Gruen has made a great contribution by helping us come to
grips with this problem. He has given us a diagnosis and he has sug-
gested cures. His message cannot but stimulate new thinking and new
action, new action which had better turn into a chain reaction and
pretty quickly.
Now I have been asked to talk on the financing aspects of downtown
rebuilding, with emphasis on commercial Main Street. We have been
in the mortgage business for the past 18 years and we have been in
close touch with the leading policies of many of our Nation's large lend-
ing institutions. We have financed a lot of downtown properties and a
lot of shopping centers. We started a metropolitan research department
in order to understand better the growth of our city and others where
we were financing and developing real estate.
We found ourselves in the business of planning and leasing shopping
centers; but first only in order to produce a sounder and more financible
product. And today through a separate company with outside capital,
we are actually developing the building centers in many cities, some
as an enlargement of downtown and some in outlying areas.
How would our lovely dreams get paid for? It would be very un-
realistic for me to give you a list of lending institutions and say these
people are ultimately going to do it go to it : or to outline any definitive
financing plan at this stage of the game.
Our crisis is so new we do not really know its full dimensions. But
we have learned something. We have learned one thing in financing that
anything really right and sound can be financed. That is not just a
platitude; it is a fact. But with a right plan the entire credit machinery
of our Nation will be available. The banks, the insurance companies,
MAIN STREET 1969 25
the pension funds, the corporations, the labor unions and all the other
groups that are saving for retirement, endowment funds and the public
itself through investment banking facilities, are all waiting to be tempted
into something that can be proved will work. Piecemeal efforts not
related to an overall objective are just not financible.
This is long-term financing, 20, 30, 40 years, to a greater or less
degree, depending upon the size of the community; all of the objectives
which Victor Gruen has so well presented must become a part of that
community's predictable future.
When the businessmen, city government officials and majority of
the citizens of a city are ready to underwrite such a program with their
cash, their credit, their action and support, then there is a true basis
for credit. Then there is as collateral a blueprint for greater sales, higher
land values, and expanding tax base. The important underwriting de-
cision on an individual financing deal in the downtown area is not the
personal credit of the borrower.
Before the decline of sales and property values downtown started,
a few years back it was possible to arrange a 20-year loan on a small
property occupied by a little merchant with a short lease and next to
no net worth and owned by small people. If the merchant failed or the
owner squandered his rent income, the lender had valuable marketable
real estate in the center of a growing trading area. But at that time
the lender had not foreseen the strangling soon to take place. It will
require the complete treatment of changing the character of downtown
so that it is again an accessible center of an expanding trading area, to
restore the favorable investment climate that once existed there.
If there is any magic in real estate financing it is the simple fact
that the right combination of land uses at the right place creates new
values in the excess of the cost of doing it, values that did not exist
there before. Private developers are doing it every day. Towns and
cities can do it too.
So far, however, smaller towns, smaller cities, have not faced real
competition from their fringes and are not under the same pressures
to take action as our large metropolitan areas are. But their failure to
act now will encourage competing growth, either on their fringes or in
other towns nearby, probably both. This is the time to act.
This fact has been dramatically illustrated in a small town of 20,000
and on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. A major north-south highway
ran right smack into the new main street and something finally had to
be done about it. A plan to route this highway in a tight belt around
the shopping district with parking opportunities between it and Main
Street, was defeated by downtown merchants, fearful of moving this
artery a few blocks away from their doors. Instead, a plan to route it
one-half block from the parallel to Main Street, actually down the
alley that served one line of stores on one side of Main Street, was
approved, is now going ahead and a large highway investment is now
26 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
going to perpetuate a bad plan. Here was a real chance to transform
this town, separate pedestrians from auto traffic, turn Main Street into
a pleasant Mall, create parking lots between stores, parking lots behind
stores with arcades through to the center.
As an alternative to this possibility there is now a shopping center
which duplicates facilities offered by downtown which is under con-
struction a mile and a half from downtown out on the main highway.
It never should have happened, a real failure for downtown.
Let me give you one more case history. Four or five years ago a
group of men from Easton, Maryland, another small town on the
Eastern Shore, 6,500 people, the county seat, with a trading area
population of about 15,000, asked us to plan a shopping center on the
outskirts of their town. We really could not take them seriously, but
they kept coming back. Whoever heard of a shopping center in a town
of 6,500 was our first reaction! But they persisted. And finally to get
rid of them we had to agree to make a study. We found what we knew
existed. The Eastern Shore of Maryland has a pretty static population,
but strangely enough we discovered that Easton could have a much
larger trading area, a trading area of over 60,000 people now inadequately
served by other existing towns. Better roads and more cars had pro-
vided the mobility to stretch the possible trading area of this county
seat. What Easton needed was a larger downtown. So after much
sweat and toil six parcels of land totaling seven acres were acquired, a
block and a half from the center of downtown. One acre was given
back to the city to bring a new street through and widen two others.
The town council finally gave its consent after many, many long and
tiresome sessions; opposition from local merchants, opposition from the
local garden club which was afraid there would be a non-colonial center
built in an area which was trying to recapture a colonial atmosphere;
but nevertheless it was approved, and the center was built. It opened
in March of this year. One and a half blocks from downtown it doubled
the retail space in Easton, quadrupled the off-street parking, local
merchants were suddenly serving customers they had never seen before.
Not only are the new merchants in the center very happy; the whole
town is happy; even the garden club. We built a colonial type center.
Twenty local stores have begun modernization programs since the
center opened. Traffic flows more smoothly over the new and widened
streets and parking is much less of a problem.
Now this center was not easy to finance. Pioneering does not appeal
to lenders. It takes a demonstration. The lenders are the custodians
of your savings. And when you get to them with a project to finance
you are likely to forget that. They are not pioneers. They must be
shown. A conservative loan, however, was finally made by a friendly
Baltimore Savings and Loan Association. I am sure that after a year
of successful operation we shall have no trouble refinancing on more
favorable terms.
MAIN STREET 1969 27
But we feel that this is an important experiment. It has expanded
Eastern's trading area, stifled fringe development and effectively dis-
couraged similar competition from other small towns in the trading area.
Such a successful demonstration, furthermore, will encourage small
towns in other trading areas to follow suit, and maybe suggest to lenders
that well planned commercial expansion even in very small towns is a
good investment.
This is a long road. Brilliant solutions such as Victor Gruen's plan
for Fort Worth will enthrall and stimulate many cities to create and
execute similar plans. Everyone should study the Fort Worth plan.
It will lift his sights.
JVTany other communities not at the crisis stage and these include
most of the smaller ones, will be more reluctant to submit to major
surgery. But for many of them minor surgery will do wonders and
future growth properly planned now will avoid a major operation later on.
In any city, however, costly piecemeal steps not properly planned
will be ineffective and cannot create long-term new values and will fail.
One of our great tasks therefore is to show the way by the execution of
big effective plans that will transform the structure of the downtown.
Such successful demonstrations given wide publicity will gradually
silence the opposition. We will stop hearing "It won't work in our
town." Little Rock, from what I have seen of its plans and aspirations,
can be one of those milestones.
CHAIRMAN WYNNE
Mr. Keidel has touched on one matter there that I think is ex-
tremely important. I mentioned the fact that I hoped this would be
a "do" meeting and that is one of the things that can come out of it.
The fact that it is not the city fathers, nor the administrations, nor the
people in those cities that have to be educated but the merchants, the
very people who are most affected have to be very carefully educated.
When many people see what can come out of good planning, I think
they will be educated.
We have a very aggressive City Council in Dallas, and about three
years ago it was obvious that the movement of traffic in the downtown
area was the problem hurting our downtown merchants the most. So
they banned parking on the three main streets and were compelled to
reinstate parking because of the uproar. And the uproar did not come
from the people who were using the parking spaces. It comes from the
merchants; and mostly from the small merchants who did not realize
how they were being hurt by the inability of traffic to move through
the downtown streets. So we have a long and tedious educational pro-
cess to go through. And it is from meetings such as this, broadening
the base of this planning program, that we can accomplish that educa-
tional process.
And now it is my privilege to bring you the fourth member of this
panel, Larry Smith.
28 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
LARRY SMITH, President, Larry Smith and Company
New York, N. Y.
/CERTAINLY this is the most stimulating discussion that I have
V^/ participated in for many years. I would also like to take this op-
portunity to compliment Victor Gruen, whom I have long known and
admired for his contribution to this meeting and since I am in a sense
an economist, I also feel that I want to compliment the sponsor of the
Fort Worth study through whose vision it was made possible to start
this original approach, a dramatic consideration of the problems of
Fort Worth which I believe will be the stimulating influence that will
lead to similar studies and considerations of the problems of all American
cities.
I was asked to speak particularly about the attitude of the department
stores toward the shopping centers and the central business district and
to attempt to apply the experience that department stores have found
in regional centers, the means by which central business districts
might face their problems, and also briefly the means by which the
central business districts in our medium and smaller cities could combat
the rash of the development of shopping centers throughout the United
States today.
In addition I was asked to comment briefly on the general program
advanced by Victor Gruen in his talk. You recognize, of course, that to
deal with this subject in the few minutes available cannot be compre-
hensive.
I would like to make a general statement first and that is that I have
tremendous confidence in our central business districts. They perform
a function that simply cannot be performed by shopping centers or
any development in the suburban areas.
There are functions that centralize transportation facilities, centralize
governmental facilities, and there are certain other functions performed
in office buildings, retailing functions that deal with certain types of
merchandise where the availability of custom is not sufficient to justify
the expectation that those functions can ever be performed in a suburban
shopping center. Consequently it is not unreasonable to find that the
whole concept of the department store approach to the calculation of
volume in a suburban area for the construction of a new branch in a
suburban shopping center is predicated on the assumption that a certain
portion of the purchasing power of that community is going to be re-
tained in the central business district, regardless of the extent of the
development in the shopping center. And calculation of volume for
any particular suburban branch by the department stores and conse-
quently the size of the department store is predicated on the assumption
the central business district will retain a certain portion of the purchasing
power in that community and that in the suburban area the department
store can only depend on attracting a proportion, possibly not more
than 50 or 60 percent of the shopping power of the persons living in
MAIN STREET 1969 29
that particular community. Consequently the problem of the central
business district particularly in our medium and smaller cities is very
much akin to the department stores where it is apparent you cannot
gather together in any suburban area sufficient purchasing power to
provide the background shopping for a department store or ajregional
center that will handle a full selection of merchandise.
It should be apparent that even in a city of 500,000 people that
there will be a hard core of population that is immediately tributary
to the central business district, probably 150,000 to 200,000 people
within a distance of three to four miles that can be served better in that
central business district than in any other. That leaves a total of only
300,000 people available in all the suburban areas. And if a third of
that population could be served by a regional type center that would
leave only 75,000 to 100,000 people that would be tributary to that
regional type center, that department store branch, whereas in order to
support a department store branch of 125,000 to 150,000 square feet
which would be the minimum required for the support of a regional
type center, it would require the business to be done by a population
of 150,000-200,000 people. Consequently it is practically axiomatic
that it is impossible within the metropolitan area in a city of 500,000
population to develop a regional center or department store branch
which will be competitive with the facilities that are available in the
central business district.
It is true, however, in these moderate-sized cities there have been
developments of suburban shopping centers with what I would call
junior type department stores, probably 50,000 square feet, having
limited lines of merchandise and these shopping centers do provide a
competitive action and a competitive threat to the health of the central
business district.
The question arises how can the central business districts in these
medium and smaller sized cities deal with the threat posed by these
shopping centers with moderate facilities which in themselves are not
strictly competitive with the facilities in the central business district
but still at the same time will do a certain amount of business.
I believe that the most solidly rooted action in retail development
and possibly in the whole development, is that in the long run the fa-
cilities must serve the ultimate convenience of the customers of those
particular facilities. In other words, unless the central business district
is prepared to provide merchandising facilities, parking facilities and
all the other amenities that go to the sum total of convenience for
the customers to a greater extent than they can be provided by shopping
centers, then under those circumstances the shopping centers will be
successful and will ultimately detract from the strength of the central
business district. But if the central business district does provide the
competitive facilities for the conveniences that are required by the
customers and there are many of those on which it has a very substantial
30 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
advantage over the suburban shopping centers, this is the way the cen-
tral business district can maintain its health and vigor.
It occurred to me as I listened to Victor Gruen's presentation that
there are some points requiring attention before a plan of this type can
be implemented. They are:
1. Sound planning.
2. Selling the program to the public.
3. Legal implementation of some of the solutions that have been
offered in the central business district, and in some cases subordination
of private rights in the interest of the overall public good.
4. The question of economic advisability as distinct from economic
feasibility.
5. The question of economic feasibility mentioned by our previous
speaker, and I believe as he said that funds will be available for a project
that can be demonstrated to be sound.
It is particularly interesting to me that the sponsors of the Fort
Worth Plan have recognized these problems and are going to engineer
this program right down to the ground and see that it is accomplished.
CHAIRMAN WYNNE
The question that Larry Smith has just touched on, the implementa-
tion of these plans, is an extremely important one.
The Fort Worth Plan has as its first major obstacle the fact that in
Texas there is no law to provide for the right of eminent domain on the
part of cities for construction of parking structures. And that will have
to be enacted before that plan can be implemented. A bill was intro-
duced into the Legislature this year and another will be introduced at
the next session, I am sure.
We are indebted to the members of this panel for a most interesting
session.
MAIN STREET 1969 31
If It Will Work in 1969, Start Now Exploring
the Attitudes and Means that Accomplish Down-
town Development
WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER
IT IS such a happy occasion to extend our Conference activities into
this Auditorium; into a hall where all people who are proud of, who
are interested in, and who are taking part in the development of the
great State of Arkansas, can come and share the thinking of the experts
who have travelled from both Coasts to be with us today as we are
hosts to the National Citizens Planning Conference.
A iot of people have wondered why we picked "Main Street 1969"
as the theme of our Conference. I think there was a good reason be-
hind the selection of that title. The Federal Government is hoping with
the cooperation of States to build 41,000 miles of superhighways and
has allowed twelve years for the undertaking.
Those superhighways are going to have a tremendous impact on the
lives of all of us. Transportation has an important influence on life
today. Transportation is going to open up areas that have not had the
opportunities that other areas around our country have had. I believe
here in Arkansas that we have a particular responsibility to make the
maximum use of the opportunity that will be ours not only in 1969 but
some of it far ahead of that.
And so in thinking of that impact we had a strong conviction that it
was a good target date for those of us here in Arkansas who are working
for the development of the State to say to ourselves, if it can happen in
1969, let us start now.
And I cannot tell you what pleasure it gives me to see so many,
many people here; people who will have small and large parts in making
a reality in 1969 of the things that we will start now.
The Conference has started off in a magnificent fashion. We have
had very inspiring remarks. Our own Arkansan, Edward Stone, gave
us much to think about. This afternoon Victor Gruen and a panel group
again stimulated us.
Tonight, Mr. Patterson will introduce our principal speaker and he
is a man whom I have had the pleasure of knowing over a period of
years. And I have never known him to fail to stir up some controversy.
And I think the exciting part of our Conference is that we are not here
to be told we are here to be stimulated. We are here to be advised of
the possibilities where each of us, you and I, citizens of this State, can
have an active part, can have meaning in development of the program.
The planning for the future is nothing new to us here in Arkansas
because under the splendid leadership through the years of our State
Chamber of Commerce and our Economic Council, we have been con-
32 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
ducting all kinds of studies and planning programs in terms of com-
munity development.
The communities that have excelled have been the communities
that are beginning to reap the benefits in terms of industrial development
because we do recognize so clearly the need of a more balanced economy.
We are grateful that we have the background and the tradition of
the work of the Economic Council and the State Chamber. We are also
grateful that in the years to come working as a team, your Arkansas
Industrial Development Commission, of which I have the honor to be
Chairman, and these fine organizations, will be taking note of the sig-
nificance of the important things that will be said at this Conference
and hope to interpret them in terms of our own home State.
Our method of procedure in this Conference is a very simple and an
informal one. At each of the meetings we have invited a distinguished
person to serve as presiding officer. And it has been my pleasure at
noon and again this evening to present to you the presiding officer of
the day. Those of us who live here in Little Rock know Hugh Patterson
for his many good deeds. Most recently I have had the most interesting
and stimulating occasion to work with Hugh Patterson on the Council
for Retter Schools. All of us are interested in that. Hugh Patterson
is known for his activities in our Chamber of Commerce and other civic
enterprises. Probably he is best known as the publisher of the Arkansas
Gazette. Like myself, he comes from outside the State of Arkansas by
choice, and we who have come to make our homes here are proud to be
here. We are proud to give whatever talent we have. And I think you
will find in him a gentleman who has come from Mississippi and made
his home here by choice, who has made his life a part of our community
a very competent presiding officer.
CHAIRMAN HUGH PATTERSON,
Publisher, Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, Ark.
OF COURSE, Mr. Rockefeller failed to say I did not add quite so
much to the per capita income in Arkansas when I came as he did.
Refore I begin my introductory remarks I'd like to have the privilege
of reading a communication received by Mr. Rockefeller today as
follows:
Congratulations on the initial success of the National Citizens Planning Con-
ference on progress in Little Rock. I deeply regret my inability to be present and am
sorry to miss so much worthwhile information and facts. I know that the ultimate
success of the meeting depends a great deal upon the work that has been done and
is now being done by your department. Please express to our visitors my personal
pleasure in having them in the State and my regret for my absence. It is most un-
fortunate that I did not meet each one personally. I know the situation is in good
hands and I have no fear that the eventual outcome will be most successful.
Orval E. Faubus,
Governor of Arkansas
MAIN STREET 1969 33
Distinguished guests and participants in this 1957 National Citizens
Planning Conference, as one lacking only 18 months at the beginning
of his life being an Arkansan may I add my word of welcome to you
and a statement of pride and pleasure on behalf of the planning agencies,
the press and the citizens of this metropolitan area that this city should
be privileged to be your host and the recipient of your constructive
attentions during this Conference.
The physical planning program for Little Rock had its inception
more than a third of a century ago but as in so many cities throughout
the country, planning in the past has had to travel a rugged course almost
always understaffed, underfinanced, and lacking in public understand-
ing. Continued planning in this area until recently depended on a small
core of dedicated men not always able to guard against the pressures
of special interests and too frequently reduced to the role of clerks to
hear spot zoning petitions.
During this period two master plans of considerable merit for the
area were developed but, lacking public participation and acceptance
and orderly executive and legislative support, these plans became more
historical documents than working guides.
I think it can be stated accurately that planning in the area had its
rebirth only in the recent postwar years under a new concept of broad
citizen interest and participation. Under citizen organization sponsor-
ship the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission of Pulaski County
came into existence. The planning agencies of each of the political sub-
divisions in the county have been strengthened. And all official public
bodies within the county are contributing and cooperating members
of our current planning programs.
Further support and strength have been given through the planning
program of the University of Arkansas and the Arkansas Industrial
Development Commission, public officials, business and professional
men and women, and most important the main body of the citizens of
the area are experiencing the growing realization that unsatisfactory
conditions do not have to remain as they are; that good planning serves
the interests of all.
Main Street 1969 is to me an exciting concept. The Little Rock
project as a case in point was undertaken by the Arkansas Chapter of
the American Institute of Architects with the cooperation of the Metro-
politan Area Planning Commission. Visuals from this project will be
included in the presentation later this evening of "Our Living Future,"
under the sponsorship of the American Council to Improve Our Neigh-
borhoods.
A program of this sort in this setting would not be complete without
bringing to you the music which has been a part of the heritage and
culture of this area where the Delta lands and Gulf Coastal plains meet
the uplands of the Ozark Mountains.
34 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Tonight I am proud to present the Chorus of the Arkansas Agricul-
tural Mechanical & Normal College of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to enter-
tain you with songs of the Delta land.
This Chorus, under the direction of Mr. A. N. Lovelace, is a na-
tionally famous choir, having toured the country in personal appearances
and having appeared regularly on radio and television.
(A program of Delta land music was then given by the AM $ N Chorus,
after which the Chairman continued his introductions)
It is the privilege of the Chairman to introduce the person who is to
introduce the principal speaker of the evening. That person is William
Shepherd, President of the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Shepherd is a native Arkansan born in Mapleville under the
shadow of Little Rock today. He was graduated from Hendrix College,
cum laude. He studied at Purdue. In the course of his career he has
been President of the Arkansas Junior Chamber of Commerce, Vice-
President and then President of the United States Junior Chamber of
Commerce. He is Vice-President of the Arkansas Power and Light
Company and he has been one of the greatest forces for planning and
progress and industrial development in Arkansas. It is my privilege
to now present him to you.
WILLIAM M. SHEPHERD, President, Little Rock Chamber of Commerce
IN THE vein in which Mr. Patterson began his remarks a while ago
I would say that when I was born at Mapleville I not only did not add
anything to the per capita income, I diluted the per capita income and
in somewhat the same vein as the person introduced to introduce the
speaker of the evening, I am still a delusion, I am afraid, in this program.
But it has been a great day for people who believe in Arkansas, in Little
Rock and in Main Street, U.S.A.!
If you have one spark of Chamber of Commerce in you anywhere,
such an occasion as this today will make you happy that you live where
you live and that you have attended the Conference.
This is only the first of three great days of study of Main Street
U.S.A. and I do not suppose we have ever gotten together before such
an array of experts in the field of the subjects to be discussed in this
three day session.
We have experts and lay people on the program and as a part of the
Conference; and you know I have the feeling that lay people are the
most important segment of the group because unless there is a ground
swell of acceptance and enthusiasm and inspiration for plans, even the
greatest of the planners finds himself thwarted in the accomplishment
of his dreams.
A long time ago a motto was struck: "Make no little plans. They
have no magic to stir men's souls," and if there could be a theme for
MAIN STREET 1969 35
this occasion and this session it would be that little plans are not worth
the planning. And so men get together and people dream dreams and
see visions of big things. And our speaker tonight, Mr. William Zecken-
dorf of New York City, is certainly a dreamer, one of the biggest, and
one of the best. If I may say so, in my humble opinion, he is probably
the biggest and probably the best of the dreamers. He is President of
Webb and Knapp, which is the world's largest real estate development
corporation. He was born in Paris, Illinois, in 1905. This makes him
the same age as myself. He went to the University of New York and
majored in economics and football. But after going into the real estate
business, first being associated with his uncle, he proved that he was a
man who could not only see great opportunities and dream dreams bigger
than most of his associates thought were possible, but that he could
put them together, because here we have on the stage tonight the man
who assembled the real estate which became the site of the United
Nations. Not assembled for that particular purpose, but when he
realized it would likely be located in some other city for lack of a site,
he offered to the United Nations the site on which has been build that
great edifice, which I believe is the guarantee, if there is any guarantee
for world peace in the years to come. And one of the first official docu-
ments to which the seal of the United Nations was affixed, was the
document of the recording of the deeds by which he and his firm trans-
ferred title to the United Nations.
He originated what is now the largest urban development project in
the United States under progress in Washington, D. C.
One of his deals was the purchase of the Chrysler Building, the
Chrysler Building East and the Graybar Building, and if you know
New York, you know those three great buildings, one of the largest
real estate transactions in history.
Presently, he is redeveloping the old Court House Square in Denver,
Colorado, a thousand room hotel, a department store now under con-
struction and nearby a 20-story office tower building; bank and trans-
portation terminals are already under way.
He is a businessman and a citizen and it is not just enough to be
successful, great and accomplished and a contributor to construction
progress, but one must have an interest in people to be fulfilling the chal-
lenge of all mankind, and Mr. Zeckendorf's activities certainly do in-
clude a full roster in that field of charitable and civic work.
He is now or has been recently a member of the New York Heart
Association, the American National Theater and Academy, the New
York Anti-Crime Committee, the American Korean Foundation, Green-
wich House, the Children's Village, Town Hall, New York Convention
and Visitors' Bureau, the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Nose Hospital and
New York Infirmary. He is President of the Board of Trustees of Long
Island University, and is also an advisor on real estate matters to the
36 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Rockefeller family. And I imagine that in itself is a very nice relation-
ship to close with.
Here is a man who has had great dreams and made them pay off.
And to me one of the most powerful things about this man is that he
not only has these great ideas but he turns them into successful ventures
for those involved and I assume some profit for this great real estate
organization with which he is associated.
He is a very humble man. His presence is a compliment to our pro-
gram and his example is a compliment to our hopes for a greater Little
Rock. We are proud to have you with us, Mr. William Zeckendorf.
WILLIAM ZECKENDORF, President, Webb and Knapp,
New York, N. Y.
ONE has but to fly over the eastern or western seaboards of the
United States to gain a visual panorama of the new urban mosaic
which has taken form. One sees that the suburbs have generated their
own many problems as they flow and intermingle like so many rivulets
one into the other until we behold a spectacle of a shapeless mass of
fluid city and suburb which runs almost uninterruptedly on the East
Coast from Roston to Washington, on the West Coast from San Diego
to Santa Rarbara. The green belt areas have virtually disappeared.
Man's urge to escape and change pace has been frustrated by his own
inept shortsighted planning.
The psychologists tell us that change of pace is essential to the well
being of man. If we are to avoid a nation of psychotics, this natural
urge must be appeased. The ever increasing population explosion with
its fantastic progression of growth rate threatens to accelerate to a point
of suffocation. This problem, second only to that of national defense, is
the most pressing, vexing, provocative and yet important enigma that
faces the country today.
The so-called flight from the city to the suburbs which commenced
slowly following the first decade of this century has grown to a full tide
if not a flood. The reasons for flight were many, but chief among them
was improved transportation to the suburbs via the automobile coin-
ciding with the revolt of the younger generations against the urban
way of life. The younger people were unwilling to live in the large family
household that was established by their parents or grandparents. The
more well-to-do witnessed the demise of the domestic servant class
due to the throttling of immigration and the broadened opportunity
for self-improvement that this country offered to the children of immi-
grants. The urge for green spaces, better school facilities and new, mod-
ern, efficient, and easily run houses stepped up the trickle of decentral-
izees to a flood.
Let us look at two examples of the new urban mosaic that have taken
form. One is New York City and environs, the other Los Angeles.
MAIN STREET 1969 37
Look across the Hudson River to the twelve mile stretch from Bay-
onne to Edgewater, New Jersey. Strung along the harbor there are
some eight communities, each with its own political framework and
each having no distinction or reality apart from it. Here one finds piers
vital to the welfare of the port situated in a series of townships notorious
for their inefficiency and bureaucratic waste.
Termite communities which have grown without pattern, grown
without plan, surround Los Angeles. Some people say the southern
boundary of this city is San Diego and it stops at Santa Barbara. It
goes by the mile upon mile.
What is the situation there? It is this: the population seems to jump
and bypass each new community as it goes out into the mountains,
into the wilderness, and on to the plains. The extraordinary thing is
that as soon as the people escape to a new section they are bypassed
again, and somebody is on beyond them and looking at somebody
else's rear light. They have urbanized the mountains; they have urban-
ized the plains; they have urbanized the valleys. In their frantic urge
to escape they have created a condition from which there is no escape.
It has finally reached the point where it is impossible to say, "Let us
get in the car and go out of town to dinner tonight." There is no out of
town in Los Angeles. No matter where you go, no matter how fast and
how far and in what direction you proceed, you arrive only where you
have just left.
What caused "fluid suburbia"? Many factors. The obvious one is
ease of transportation. But potent sociological and economic factors are
at work. There is snob appeal the desire of the rich or the newly rich
or the aspiring rich to disassociate themselves from those in a more
modest economic or intellectual category. The established families tend
to hold themselves above the Johnny-come-latelies. The Johnny-come-
latelies soon reach the same category as their former "superiors," when
their income improves and their education or their children's education
brings them up to acceptable country club standards. Fortunately
the tracks can be crossed either way, and the crosscurrents soon get
mixed after the third generation.
As the less desirable encroach on the established communities of the
right people, the right people move farther out, discovering new fields
and following the social leader. They leave in their wake a void which
is rapidly filled by those aspiring to the higher level, who in turn follow
their leader, abandoning what was once the best location in the com-
munity close to the central core ("best" because it was originally se-
lected by the settlers for reasons of convenience) to the poorest economic
and sociological level. The result is that we have some of the worst
slums within the shadow of City Hall all over the United States. This
pattern is to be found in almost every community over a hundred years
old.
38 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Generally speaking the pattern for the creation of a slum in what
had been the more distinguished residential areas of our older cities
followed the same route. First, the older generation built and settled.
Second, the younger people moved to the new green belt areas. Third,
the house was rented to a more ambitious, large family of lesser social
and economic level. Fourth, the now outmoded building, older and
lacking in modern conveniences, would be leased as a rooming house.
Finally, it would be allowed to deteriorate with the general neighborhood
until it became an appropriate object for point-four assistance if found
in a foreign land. Thus we see the spectacle of the center of many of our
cities rotting out at the core while the continued migration to the peri-
phery creates a vacuum at the center.
On the economic side, the advent of the Federal Housing Administra-
tion Act during the easy-money period of the thirties was an important
force. It was desired at the time to restimulate business activity and
prime the economic pump with new housing construction. A mass of
subdivisions was brought out which pierced far into the country ab-
sorbing farm and estate lands with countless rows of box-like homes
which from the air might give the appearance of loaves of bread coming
out of a baker's oven. Thus without plan or pattern the larger cities in
ever wider ranges absorbed towns, hamlets, and rural areas.
To summarize, satellite towns, which are the product of decentraliza-
tion, are parasitic. The high cost of maintenance of the central core
that supports the whole metropolitan area is borne by the city, but
the revenues and benefits go to the towns at the periphery each having
its own separate fire department, police department, water supply, its
own mayor, its own councilmen: all a duplication of the cost of the
city's core.
Every satellite town saps off the buying power, the taxing power,
and the vital factors that make for a cohesive, comprehensive, healthy
city. This is just as though the United States suddenly lost the taxing
power of California and New York through their setting up independent
operation, but continued with the central bureaucracy and cost of main-
tenance of the Army and Navy, and so on. It would not take very long
for the United States to go broke on such a basis, and as long as this
sort of thing can be done by the satellite towns around the mother city,
we are jeopardizing the entire fiscal and political future of our great
municipalities.
We might now mention a significant phase of the process of decentral-
ization, namely the suburban or regional shopping center versus the
downtown. But before we take a look at this phenomenon and also the
decentralization of industry, there are certain facts to be borne in mind.
Decentralization has been going on for a long time. There is not a
person in this country who is not either a decentralizee or the progeny
of a decentralizee. We have all come from somewhere else either this
generation, our fathers, grandfathers, or our great grandfathers.
MAIN STREET 1969 39
Most of us came from the eastern seaboard and these in turn came
from somewhere else. They had decentralized. They had come from
central Europe, the Slavic countries, Italy, England, from elsewhere.
We have been decentralizing since the days on the desert when the
nomadic tribes sought greener pastures. And yet the timeless metro-
polis, the great historic communities of the world, which are able to
define what they have to offer to their Nation and to the world com-
merce, have a virility that seems to be able to withstand all of the de-
partures of their sons and daughters. Even though we have come from
France, from Greece, from Germany, from Ireland, there are more of
us who return to visit Paris or Rome or Athens or Dublin or London
than there are of those who live there and who come to visit us. We come
home at times with the impression of terrific and unhappy decadence
in the midst of great splendor and beauty in those capitals and important
principal cities of Europe. But we are all impressed by one thing: that
notwithstanding the vagaries of war, the misfortunes of economic de-
bacle, the problems that have arisen from revolution that the vitality
of certain cities of the world seems to be invulnerable.
This is not an invariable thing, of course, but it is well to bear it in
mind when one thinks of decentralization. There are many cities of
antiquity that have died on the vine, and there are many in our times
in our own country that are dying and will die on the vine.
The question persists: what is going to happen to the central city
as a result of decentralized activities? It depends entirely, in my opinion,
on what action the city in question takes. The peripheral shopping
center followed its trade and has hurt the downtown to a greater or
lesser degree. Rut whatever has happened to the cities they have been
asking for it. The suburban trend has been going forward with great
momentum and with varied success. The buying power of the decen-
tralized population is unabated, has grown, and the shopping center has
reduced the volume of the downtown store and has even threatened its
very existence.
There is certainly no across-the-board answer for all cities: each
must analyze its own potential and draw its plans accordingly. Many,
of course, have neglected rapid transit, adequate parking and adequate
zoning. Rut the highway to the periphery runs both ways. The auto-
mobile has no sense of direction. It has no memory. It goes where it
is pointed. It is possible, therefore, for the city to recentralize at the
core.
Since generalizations do not fit specific cases, let us take New York
as a specific example. We have been suffering from decentralization in
New York for over fifty years yet New York has uniquely been able to
resist the really serious deleterious effects of decentralization because
of several factors. One of them is the shape, terrain, and physical layout
of the city the Island of Manhattan surrounded bytwater. The port
up to this time has been good, a very important point for the shipment
40 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
and receipt of merchandise, the greatest port in the world from the
standpoint of travel, with marvelous rail connections. But more im-
portant than any of these in holding the city's tissues together is this
remarkable rapid transit system called the subway. One can get to
and from the central areas of New York quickly, conveniently. Think
of what it would cost to put that hole in the ground today!
New York, though, knows decentralization. We have been losing
industry for a long time. It is extraordinary how much of it we have
lost. In fact, I would say that New York is no longer a great industrial
city. People will tell you about the many industries in New York and
the several million people who work in them, but for the most part
they are service industries and the true definition of an industrial city
no longer applies to New York.
New York discovered that decentralization gave it a unique oppor-
tunity, and New York grasped it and made capital of it. It was dis-
covered that in inverse ratio to the decentralization of business, every
time a manufacturer would move from any urban area to some place
in the rural districts where they had brand new beautiful horizontal
plant operations, with fine parking facilities in the midst of new resi-
dential communities, it then became necessary for that plant to have:
a sales office at some central marked point; a place to buy its goods and
raw materials at wholesale levels; communication with its advertising
or sales promotion agency if it dealt in branded products; and also it
had to have access to large sums of finance. It happens that New York
was able to give these factories and these industrial operations all of
those things in one city. And as a result there is hardly a manufacturing
company, sales company, distributing company, branded products
company in the whole of these United States that cannot be found in
the Manhattan telephone book.
New York lost its industries paying fifty cents a square foot as in-
dustrial occupants, and recaptured their office space, directly or in-
directly, at five dollars a square foot. And the pressure for more office
space in New York is beyond the fondest dreams, at this moment, of
the optimist and blue sky artist. There has been more office construction
going on in the City of New York than in any other city or any com-
bination of cities that I know of, and perhaps even the multiple cumula-
tive effort of office construction throughout the United States since
World War II hardly equals the total amount of construction that has
actually taken place in New York. Thirty million square feet has been
built and rented in New York since the war. We sit there with buildings
going up so fast that it makes one wonder, and yet we are the only city
in the United States where the legislators of the State think that things
are so tough that they have to keep a rent law to protect the tenants
from landlords' gouging.
There are no across-the-board answers for cities. But there is one
determining principle by which every city and town and community
MAIN STREET 1969 41
can be guided in its self-analysis. Each city must ask itself: what am I
really like? What have I to offer? What are my resources? How can I
fit into the economy of the region? Where do I stand in the national
orbit? Each city without regard to any other, and casting aside all de-
lusions, must determine where its strength and its weaknesses lie and
then go ahead and make plans for its development.
Take the city of Buffalo as illustrative of this point. Basically,
Buffalo is a vibrant city, strong and virile, with a tremendous growth
potential, a great urge to expand. The city is strong industrially. It has
a reasonable diversification, although not as much as I like to see. If
there were more interests owned locally or more interest taken locally
in the home industries, probably less of the city's earnings would be
siphoned off and spent elsewhere. But Buffalo is most deficient, as I
see it, in this respect; it has not devoted much of its time or thinking
to the lighter side of life for the people who are its industrial employees.
What to do about it? We have the trend toward shorter hours and
more leisure time. I urge upon the many cities across the country in
which this situation exists that they take a well located site and, making
the most of the desire to eliminate blight, replace it with a development
just as important as housing: namely, a play area a place for recrea-
tion. Each city must find the best place for its center of fun and enter-
tainment, and since most have their share of substandard properties
close to the central core, the selection should not be difficult. Note the
way Pittsburgh is developing its new recreation park, once a railroad
yard, at the meeting of the rivers.
I visualize these recreation centers as consisting of a tremendous
dance hall, bowling alleys, skating rinks, merry-go-rounds for the
children, a swimming pool for the children and one for the adults too
in short, a happy, functionally designed center for dancing and exercise
and entertainment. In addition to lifting the morale of the people,
such a place would give balance to the labor of the men who make the
basis for the city's economy. And they would say, "Let's go to town.
Let's have some fun tonight!" People would feel that their city is a
great place to live in, not a great place to get away from.
Curiously enough, such a center would pay for itself. There is no
type of investment well conceived and well located and well executed
which will pay as high a return in relation to the invested capital as
this sort of thing.
Atlanta, like Buffalo, is virile and dynamic, and is growing out of its
breeches. It is a great distributing city possibly the greatest for its
size in the United States except for cities that are seaports. It is blessed
with a geographical position beyond the pull of such cities as Chicago,
Washington, Philadelphia, New Orleans. Atlanta has no important
near-by competition that is going to by-pass it and leave it dying on
the vine. Geography makes Atlanta's position safe if its potential is
fully exploited.
42 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Atlanta is a great retail market as well as a secondary wholesale
market. The position of the city with respect to the many communities
within its radius is strong and growing stronger. It can draw as a magnet
from farther and farther points, thanks not the least to its merchants,
who know how to offer people things that they want. The city is well
located from the standpoint of proximity to good labor and raw mate-
rials. Since these advantages are correlated with a well integrated trans-
portation system air, rail, and highway the city should continue to
grow with a strong, diversified industrial expansion in balance with the
distributing, light manufacturing, and retail end. The city has every-
thing except water shipping and makes up for that with railways.
But the same thing applies to Atlanta that applies to Buffalo. All
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Atlanta, in my opinion, has
not devoted enough time and thought and investment of capital to
entertainment and play. It should wipe out the blighted central area
and, as part of the park system, plan a center of fun. Atlanta should
also have cultural and theatrical facilities worthy of its potential, and
it should have convention and auditorium facilities that can handle
the people whom it will continue to attract and reattract.
This brings us to the heart of the matter the problem of over-all
planning. I am a great believer in planning but a great disbeliever in
spot planning. Planning means the cooperation of the private developer
and municipal authority. Cooperation furnishes the key. I am not in
favor of any city authority going into private real estate business.
Planning alone by planners without hard-boiled knowledge of real
estate economics means boondoggling and bankruptcy. On the other
hand, I would not permit two or three holdouts in an area to stymie a
great development which would be in everyone's interest. We need a
marriage between government and private capital on a practical, work-
able basis for the redevelopment of America.
Broadly speaking the United States and its component cities have
"come of age." A feeling of destiny and urge for a place in history have
become a matter of great public consciousness in which the elective body
has issued a mandate towards municipal, state, and federal governments
to bring about a fruition of this urge. The slow gathering tide is becom-
ing a rip. Each community is alive to the challenge of the renaissance
that faces it. American cities, large and small, feel the urge for a place
in the sun.
Our problem is two-fold : to cure the disease of fluid suburbia, which
involves the destruction of the green land, and to make the cities econ-
omically functional and spiritually liveable.
On the first point, the satellite community should be brought to-
gether into one urban organism. The test as to whether a community is
independent is simple and obvious, and if the community fails to meet
the test, then it should be incorporated into the large city. Otherwise
the township should retain its independence. This test should be: "Can
MAIN STREET 1969 43
this community survive, financially, socially, and economically without
the benefits from the large city?" Take employment, for example. Does
the bulk of employment or earning power and other benefits come from
the mother city or is the town a self-reliant, independent community?
If the former is the case (which it happens to be in 90 percent of the
satellite towns in the immediate vicinity of large cities), then the city
should have the right to incorporate the town.
The net result would be beneficial. We could have integrated roads
and highways. We could eliminate duplication of government officials
and bring about a vast reduction in repetitive bureaucratic setups.
There could be a single taxing power, and there could be truly compre-
hensive zoning^ and planning so that the entire area becomes one inter-
related unit. As long as we continue growing in the present unrelated
pattern where each community imposes its own zoning and controls,
its own street system, and where it will do its own taxing and waste its
own money and disregard what happens to the central core, just so
long as we shall have more and more confiscatory taxes by the central city,
and less and less control of central city politics by the general citizenry,
who will have abandoned the mother city to ward politics of the lowest
order. The eventual result will be financial catastrophe.
On the second point, two eminent forces are at work to cure the
problem. One is Title I of the National Housing Act of 1949 as amended
surely one of the most creative pieces of legislation passed by Congress
in our times and the other is the volunteer citizens' group called AC-
TION American Council to Improve our Neighborhoods. This group
works at the grassroots through local organizations with a view to stop-
ping the growth of slums by house to house improvement. I urge you
to join ACTION in your own home town.
Title I provides for local city agencies which can declare areas sub-
standard. The act implements the declaration with the power of eminent
domain whereby local slum clearance commissions can condemn large
central core areas of a city. A designation of the type of new redevelop-
ment is then set forth by the local planning officials, and an analysis is
made of the sound economic re-use value of the land which has been
condemned. Because many buildings of continuing theoretical economic
usefulness have to be condemned as part of the clearance program, the
total cost of the land is frequently more than its re-use value. Thus a
write-down of cost becomes essential in order that redevelopment may
take place by private capital. For this reason the Federal government
is empowered to contribute two-thirds and the local community con-
tributes one-third. As a part of its one-third share the local com-
munity is credited with its investment in utilities, streets, and schools.
Thus the cash draw on the cities is relatively negligible. Private capital
is then invited to make proposals for purchase of these lands agreeing to
redevelop them in accordance with the general concept of the local
planning commission. Financing for this redevelopment in the case of
44 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
residential areas is either from conventional institutional sources or
through government guaranteed first mortgages approved by the F.H.A.
It is hoped that this "Operation Bootstrap" marks the elimination of
the abomination known as the slum started at what has been considered
the best part of the city when originally founded. It is hoped that the
redevelopment era upon which the Nation is now embarked will be con-
ducted in an enlightened manner and will repeat as few of the errors of
the past as possible.
All of the above results, of course, from the population explosion.
It took about the first million years of man's existence on this planet to
generate the first billion people extant at one time in the year 1850.
The next 100 years brought forth a second billion. The third will be
here 25 years hence in 1975. We are witnessing a population explosion.
A graph would indicate an index practically vertical in form. Yet the
surface of the earth is finite.
One word on the city of the future. There is nothing wrong with the
city that cannot be cured by introducing into its walls something of the
countryside.
Major cities will become more vertical to accomodate the country
to let in the weather, the snow and the sun, to bring to urban man the
great rotation of the seasons. The same cube in buildings now covering
all the land, block by block, will be retained in higher, more functional,
gracious spires looking down on the quiet areas. Children will be able
to play again. Highways will cut through, and mechanized parking
will be conveniently available. Thus the city will give to man not only
the commercial mart, the ideas exchange mart, the cultural mart, but
will give back to him the beauty of the country, too.
MAIN STREET 1969 45
Case History of a Plant Location: 1956 vs 1969.
Yale & Towne Picks Forrest City; the Im-
plications for Future Plant Requirements
WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER:
OUR Presiding Officer this morning is John Stemmons, who is the
President of the Industrial Properties Corporation and the In-
dustrial Land Development. In reading through his biography I see he
has devoted a great deal of his time and energies to the control of the
Trinity River. I think that probably is the reason he looks so well
rested at the mo'ment, as in the last five years there has not been very
much water to control. But maybe he is being a little more taxed today.
And I am sure during those five years of effort as a civic leader and
as one interested in community development that he was better pre-
pared for the rise in waters than, unfortunately, we were at Winrock
Farms.
I am now going to turn the program over to Mr. Stemmons and let
him lead us in the discussion.
Chairman JOHN D. STEMMONS
President, Industrial Properties Corporation, Dallas
YOU may be assured that we had a catch-up rain in the last three
months. We have had just a little more than our yearly average
and it came in just ten weeks.
I think that of all the meetings I have attended of this character,
yesterday's meeting was one of the finest I have ever attended. Things
were brought out in that meeting which I think we can all take home
and put to good use.
Like the downtown core that has not undergone its revolution, our
industrial development has undergone a part of its revolution and is
in the process of that revolution right now.
Industrial decentralization has been taking place now for perhaps
two to three decades. The housing of industrial plants and facilities
has been changing. And those facilities that were modern ten years ago
in some instances are out of date today.
One of the things that I was asked to speak on briefly, in that I have
spent most of my life in this type of work, is the so-called planned in-
dustrial district. Fifteen years ago there were a score of them. They
started in Chicago with the Central and Clearing Districts coming on
down to Kansas City with the Fairfax and North Kansas City Districts.
But in the last ten years that number has grown fortunately from
perhaps several hundred to several thousand all over the country.
I think it makes a healthy climate for industry, not necessarily for
the industry that needs large acreage but for the industry that needs
46 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
facilities close to the environs of the community. And I think it be-
hooves the community itself, preferably through private enterprise, but
the community if necessary through its special committee, to see that
a healthy climate is made available for industry in every community.
I have one point that I should like to bring out particularly to you
in reference to that matter. Most people in industrial development
have the idea that the reason for making an industrial district is to at-
tract new industry into the community. That is important, yes, but I
would say that it is much more important that you make a home for
industry in your community, that will allow it to operate competitively
with industry in the adjacent community. Now I do not mean some
big industry. I mean an industry that has sixty people on the payroll
in your community the ABC Brass Works. Sixty people of your com-
munity, good citizens in all of the activities of your community, those
sixty people have been forgotten. They are operating there in this lost
building without the facilities that they need; perhaps without the sani-
tation, without the water, without the various and sundry modern facili-
ties that they need. They are much more important to your community
than a new industry with two hundred employees. I know that many
will not believe this but I am convinced of it and I think I can prove it
by simple arithmetic.
I am subjecting myself to a good many questions, but this is the
major point that I wanted to bring out in this meeting. That is, while it
is very important that you be aggressive in your communities to bring
in industry the home industry, the environment that you create for
them, allowing them to be competitive in your community, is the most
important thing that you can do in the development of an industrial
district.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have today a very fascinating subject to
me. We have the case history of the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Com-
pany, one of the finest old firms in this country; a case history where
this Company came into this part of the country and have established
a new plant. Why did they do it?
We have with us Elmer F. Twyman, Vice-President in charge of
Handling for Yale & Towne. And he had a great deal to do with the
selection of this site.
Mr. Twyman is a native of Missouri; was educated in the East.
He has been with this firm for some thirty years through many mergers
and consolidations of companies. I am sure that you all realize that
Yale & Towne is the outstanding firm, not only in the manufacture of
locks, also in the manufacture of handling equipment, which makes for
efficient handling, which is the key word in distribution in industry today.
Mr. Twyman is a resident of New Jersey, a man very, very interested
in this subject, who is gladly giving his time to come to you to tell you
why, when he came down here, he selected one community instead of
another community.
MAIN STREET 1969 47
ELMER F. TWYMAN
Vice-President, Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company, New York
THE theme is an exciting one as exciting as the time in which we
live. It touches on one of the great sweeping forces in our national
life the re-discovery of America.
Everywhere around us there are being released new potentials of
growth and greatness. Places once thought of as "off limits" to industrial
development are now centers of industrial activity.
In the adventure of re-discovery, we are finding that there is land in
all parts of our great country where industry can be established and
where it can flourish; we are finding that everywhere there are men and
women with skill -and aptitude for even the most complex industrial
tasks. Our systems of communication and transportation have narrowed
the expanses of time and space. Nothing is distant any more, and all
Americans are neighbors.
One result of re-discovery has been the continuing dispersal of in-
dustry, away from large, concentrated centers, over the length and
breadth of the country. In an age of atomic weapons, this, of course, is
good for defense and security. But transcending this good are the tre-
mendous benefits that dispersal is creating in fostering economic growth.
The decentralization of industry is equalizing prosperity for all.
The Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company is not at all unfamiliar
with the process of dispersal and decentralization. Our Company was
founded in 1868 in Stamford, Connecticut, and during the early years
of its development, it concentrated its operations in that one place.
In time, a small plant, with 30 employees, mushroomed into a great
sprawling factory of over one million square feet.
In its first venture in decentralization, Yale & Towne separated its
lock and hardware operation from its material handling equipment
business. The lock and hardware business remained in Stamford. The
material handling equipment business was established in Philadelphia.
Later, another material handling equipment operation was set up in
Chicago, Illinois.
Decentralization after World War II has been very different. Dur-
ing this period, we, too, joined the adventure of re-discovery. Following
a decision to disperse our large, concentrated lock and hardware opera-
tion, we set up in quick successive stages several modern single-story
factories, geographically far removed from the city in which we started.
One factory was build at Salem, Virginia; one at Gallatin, Tennessee;
another at Lenoir City, Tennessee; and at present a new one is going
up at Monroe, North Carolina. Four new plants, together with a por-
tion of the first one at Stamford, now constitute the Yale Lock and
Hardware Division.
In the decentralization program of this Division, we re-discovered
some of the essential strengths of America. We found the strength of
people. In their own, and perhaps different ways, Small-Town Ameri-
48 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
cans are generous, hospitable and neighborly. They are good people
to be among and good people to work with. We found skill and aptitude
to be national and not regional characteristics. We found stability
among people in small towns the stability that comes from nearness
to the earth. Many of the people who work for us live on adjacent
farms. They are purposeful and direct and proud of their capacities.
In each place where we have built, we have found all of the elements
that make for successful operation; good transportation, good com-
munications, nearness to raw materials and services, and a strong
welcome and spirit of cooperation from officials and civic leaders. We
found, in effect, that no place is far away in America.
Somewhat more recently, our Company adopted a program in-
volving the expansion of the Yale Materials Handling Equipment
Division. Until very recently, Yale & Towne has produced domestically
its entire lines of Yale material handling equipment at our large, modern
plant at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This plant is a single-story struc-
ture, seventeen acres under roof, and has been the manufacturing center
in the United States of all Yale-brand industrial lift trucks, ranging in
capacities from 1,500 pounds to 160,000 pounds, all Yale hand trucks,
and all Yale electric and hand hoists.
The material handling equipment business, which accounts for
about 70 percent of Yale & Towne's total volume of sales, is now in a
period of world-wide growth. Even our large Philadelphia plant does
not have the capacity to expand its production to meet our growing
requirements. We had two choices: either to increase the physical ca-
pacity of the Philadelphia plant or to build afresh in other places.
We decided upon building afresh in other places. This decision was not
hard to come by because we have had, as I have described, good and
rewarding experiences in going forward to new places.
Our plan called for the construction in 1957 of two new plants. One
of these was to be for the manufacture of a new line of heavy-duty
Yale industrial lift trucks and to serve, as well, as the manufacturing
center for our complete line for the far western market. This plant has
been constructed in San Leandro, California, and it is now entering
production.
The second new plant was to be the manufacturing center in the
United States of the complete lines of Yale hand hoists and Yale hand
trucks. These products are known the world over and are among the
most universally used production and distribution tools. This second
new plant was also to serve two other important purposes : on one hand,
it was planned to be the mid-continent parts depot out of which we
could serve our customers in the large central area of the United States
with parts for all types of Yale equipment; and it was also planned that
this new facility was to be our mid-continent show place for the entire
lines of Yale material handling equipment.
MAIN STREET 1969 49
It was not too difficult to set down generally a description of a place
that would best serve these purposes. The place had to be centrally
located, between the Atlantic Ocean arid the Rocky Mountains, and
between our northern and southern borders. It had to be adjacent to
arterial roads, and near railroad centers and air transportation. It had
to have access to a work force. It had to have within easy reach all
of the service organizations without which an industrial enterprise
cannot function. These include good banking facilities, competent
practitioners of the learned professions, skilled mechanics, truck ser-
vices, suppliers of various types of materials and many others.
Experience has convinced us of the superlative advantages of the
small city or town. As a matter of course, we did survey the possibilities
of the mid-continent large urban centers, but we rejected them. Con-
gestion alone around the available sites and the limitations it produces
on fast, economical movement was enough to cause this, although there
were other reasons as well.
We then surveyed rather extensive areas in Tennessee, Missouri, and
Arkansas, and finally reduced our list of possible sites to a manageable
number of six or seven. The place we selected was Forrest City, Arkansas.
I am not going to tell you why we rejected other places. I am going to
tell you why we selected Forrest City and what had to be accomplished
before that selection was finalized.
Forrest City is a community of about 8,000 people. It is located
approximately 36 miles West of Memphis, Tennessee. The community
has been the center of a substantial farming area and has not been
industrialized to any degree up to the present time. Mechanization of
farming and other changes in the economics of agriculture have made it
difficult for many people in the area to earn a sufficient living from the
land. Many of them while living on their farms have taken jobs in
industry in surrounding communities. Thus, there is a segment of the
population which has had industrial experience.
Forrest City can also draw on the skilled labor supply of Memphis,
as well as of nearby towns, some of which have been partially industrial-
ized. Studies made by the Forrest City office of the Arkansas Employ-
ment Commission were optimistic as to the labor potential, especially
that adaptable to our requirements. Our own analysis has confirmed
the data compiled by the Commission.
So, the first prerequisite for a new enterprise was there. Then we
wanted to know what kind of a community we would enter. We looked
at it and not casually by any means and what we saw we liked.
Everywhere in Forrest City we met good people. Officials and civic
leaders eager to cooperate with us our future neighbors, decent and
sensible folk, hospitable and generous of spirit. The community facilities
include a number of good churches and schools and a small country club.
In addition, ground has been broken for a new hospital. These elements
are extremely important especially in terms of the management and
50 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
technical personnel who will come to Forrest City from other locations
to live.
We found Forrest City located on two railroads, the Chicago, Rock
Island and Pacific Railroad, and the Missouri Pacific Railroad. In
addition, there are seven major truck lines providing daily services both
day and night to all major terminal points. Forrest City is also only
45 minutes from the terminal points in downtown Memphis and only
one hour from the Memphis Airport.
There are two soundly operated, well financed banks in Forrest
City, a healthy business district and good residential sections.
Forrest City seemed the answer as far as many major requirements
were concerned. The labor potential appeared sufficient; the population
decent and industrious; existing community facilities were fine and
more were coming; rail, overland truck, and air transportation suf-
ficiently accessible. The community itself was certainly the kind in
which Yale & Towne would be proud to be accepted as a neighbor.
Three excellent sites were found suitable for the facility we planned
to build. The site we selected as best was just outside the city limits.
It was on a possible right-of-way of the new express highway stretching
35 miles from West Memphis. This is a link in the 41,000-mile network
of inter-regional expressways.
From our point of view, two requirements had to be met before we
would commit ourselves to this Forrest City site. The first was a firm
commitment that the four-lane expressway would be staked through
Forrest City on a right of way contiguous with our site. We were not
trying to drive a hard bargain. The closest possible availability of the
new highway network was considered by us to be not only desirable
but imperative. Other communities in other States had this availability
open to us. The second requirement was annexation of the site by the
city so that essential municipal services would be available to us and
that an industrial zoning code adopted by the city could be enforced.
Experience has convinced us of the superlative advantages of a small
city or town. As a matter of course we did survey the large mid-conti-
nent urban centers, but we rejected them.
Let me say at this point that the staking out of the highway along-
side the new site created difficult problems for State Highway Director
Herbert Eldridge, and Mr. Rockefeller and his associates on the Arkansas
Industrial Development Commission. The problems, I am happy to
say, were not the kind that make tempers fly. In due course, and
through the cooperation of the Governor, the sage counselling of Will
Campbell, who is Chairman of the National Bank of Eastern Arkansas,
the energetic assistance of Bill Rock and Bill Swald of the State De-
velopment Commission, and of Knox Kinney, president of the Forrest
City Chamber of Commerce, and other good friends and citizens,
the highway issue was resolved and the State Director confirmed that
the right-of-way would pass by our site. Interstate Route 092 would
MAIN STREET 1969 51
then become a sure way of reaching the Forrest City Plant of the Yale
& Towne Manufacturing Company.
As for annexation of the site by the city, this requirement was met
through action of the community and through the wise cooperation of
public officials, civic leaders, and the Chamber of Commerce. Con-
comitantly, we received assurance of water, sewerage, and other es-
sential facilities. For example, a right-of-way was granted the Missouri
Pacific Railroad Company for the construction of a spur line to the
plant.
Many matters of varying degrees of importance had to be resolved.
It is no simple affair to break ground for industry for the first time in a
place and to help a community open the door for the first time to a new
era. All of Forrest City cooperated with us, I am sure out of a profound
sense of awareness of how important our coming there would be for them
as well as for us. One above all deserves special mention. That is a
sensible code of industrial zoning, which we asked for and which we got.
We asked for a zoning code to be adopted not because we wanted
to be difficult but because we know how a thing begins determines what
it will become in the future. We want our plant to operate as other plants
will want to operate, in a clean, healthy and beautiful atmosphere.
One of the reasons we go to the trouble of landscaping our grounds is to
contribute to the appearance of the place where our people work. To
protect the quality of our environment, we asked for restrictions against
all those obvious things that could water down that quality. Our work
environment will not be spoiled by forces which in short time make
slums and shanty towns out of prosperous areas. We do not want a dance
hall or a saloon across the road from us. We do not want factories crowd-
ing each other for breathing space. We want our people to be able to
work and work well in a clean and wholesome atmosphere. I should say
that we know from experience the opposite retards efficiency and keeps
people from achieving their best.
Main Street of today is not always a pretty sight. Merchants and
service enterprises crowd the edges of highways with signs and bill-
boards, grasping at the passing traffic for a share of business. This
desecration of the countryside, when it happens, has a tendency to
extend farther and farther out of town. The town itself surrenders its
standards of appearance. We have all seen this happen in too many
places. We do not want it to happen to "Main Street 1969".
We discussed this problem with the responsible civic leaders of
Forrest City because we believe industrial zoning will not hold up
against this sort of desecration. There must also be a larger sense of
community appearance. The question had already been a concern of
our future neighbors, and we received assurances that adequate steps
would be taken through zoning and community action to beautify the
city, and raise the general level of its appearance. Later this morning,
I believe Knox Kinney will tell you something of this program.
52 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
The industrial zoning regulations set up by Forrest City compare in
form and purpose with those adopted by many of the new industrial
centers of the United States. Many more places will adopt similar
regulations, and in the end "Main Street 1969" will breathe easier and
freer and will be more beautiful than the Main Street of the past.
The re-discovery of America, which will be aided so well by 41,000
miles of inter-regional expressways, is also bearing with it a dedication
to the natural beauty of our country. The industrial plants to be fed
by this arterial system are of a new time, designed of a new architecture,
and built of new kinds of materials. They will not be places from which
future generations will want to flee.
Our plant at Forrest City will obviously mean very much to the
economic growth of the community. Our annual payroll will be large
and will be spent, to a great extent, in and around Forrest City. We will
become an important market for the goods and services of our neighbors.
We will try to be good corporate citizens, and our people will certainly
do their best to become energetic participants in the organizations and
activities that are dedicated to community well being.
In addition to all this, the plant itself is designed, in its physical
appearance, to achieve an aesthetic impact, to make our City not only
more prosperous but more beautiful. It is to be a one-story plant of
152,000 square feet, well landscaped, modern in feeling, open and airy,
with much of its front in glass. A terrace running the length of the fore-
ground of the plant will serve as an outdoor display area, not only for
the products made at the plant, but for representative examples of
Yale lift trucks. We do not pretend to offer it as a criterion for future
plant developments, but we hope that others who follow us to Forrest
City will have standards of form and appearance at least as high as ours.
"Main Street 1969" to be good must be good to look at.
Very soon now, the Forrest City Plant of Yale & Towne will be in
operation. Our company will have expanded approximately $4,000,000
to place this facility into full production. To it will come businessmen
from many places and many States. And out of it will go to the world
an important line of such products as Yale hand hoists and hand trucks.
In time, these products made at Forrest City will be used by men and
women throughout the United States and abroad. They will be known
as products of Forrest City, Arkansas, and products of the skilled hands
of the men and women of Forrest City.
When our new plant is completed, it will be one of 17 manufacturing
plants of the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company. It will, however,
be the first in Forrest City. If others follow us to that place, they will
find there the same qualities of character and good will which we found.
In the long run, it is because of such qualities, because of human beings
of character and dignity, that the dream of "Main Street 1969" will
be fulfilled.
MAIN STREET 1969 53
CHAIRMAN JOHN STEMMONS:
MAIN STREET 1969" yes, now that the 41,000 miles of Inter-
state Highway are being built in this country, two requisites
this great old firm asked of this community: one, it wanted to be on
Main Street, and, two, it wanted to be a good neighbor.
Yale & Towne did not go out into the environs and the hinterland;
it wanted to be annexed to the city. Mr. Twyman says "Our City".
Now he is a part of that community. He wanted zoning; he wanted the
facilities that are required, which are the Community's obligation.
I give you his neighbor from Our City, the president of the Chamber
of Commerce in Forrest City, Mr. Knox Kinney, native of Arkansas,
member of the Legislature for several terms, active in all civic matters
pertaining not only to Forrest City, but to the entire State; an Attorney,
a man well qualified to come and tell you what this community did to
make Forrest City, our city, with Yale & Towne.
o
KNOX B. KINNEY: Attorney, Forrest City, Arkansas
F COURSE, we in Forrest City recognize that even to be here at
this time and to meet with so distinguished an assemblage is an
unprecedented privilege. To present to you the story of the location by
the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company of its Mid-Continent
Plant in Forrest City carries with it a commission from every man,
woman and child of our community and of our State to bring to you
good tidings of their economic accomplishment. For the selection of
Forrest City by Yale & Towne as a materials handling center for the
entire Nation has brought to our city and, indeed, to all of Arkansas,
a new era of promise. Think back to the day following the Civil War
when General Nathan Bedford Forrest led a struggling multitude of
Irish Laborers and Chinese Coolies who cut a path, with pick and
shovel, through the steep earth of Crowley's Ridge, for the railroad to
open up the Western Empire. If only he then could have known that
in this time at the site of his camp in the city which bears his name
would be established a mighty industry by one of our Nation's greatest
corporations, an industry dedicated to free men from back breaking
toil.
Let me tell you something about Forrest City and about its back-
ground. Forrest City had grown and prospered with virtually no manu-
facturing industry. Its economy had been founded upon the products
of its fertile farm lands, upon its strategic location as a commercial and
financial center, and upon the ingenuity of its people. While many other
towns remained relatively static, Forrest City doubled its population
in the decade following World War II. It provided homes for its people
and opportunities for Veterans returning from that War, and for many
who left the farm to work in town.
54 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Yet Forrest City became uncomfortably aware at the mid-point of
the Twentieth Century that its progress had encountered the seemingly
insuperable barrier of a technology in which machines rapidly began to
replace manpower on its surrounding farms. Previously a good harvest
on the farm had meant a good year for the business man in the city.
But good crops now came bringing a rude recognition that mechanical
cotton pickers do not require groceries, nor do tractors wear clothing.
In the midst of a national prosperity, a penetrating technological de-
pression settled heavily upon Eastern Arkansas.
A re-evaluation based upon necessity was begun on every hand. A
great challenge was seen. The cry went up, and that cry was Industry!
Forrest City recognized that its greatest hope of industrial develop-
ment lay through complete cooperation with the newly formed Arkansas
Industrial Development Commission, under the chairmanship of Win-
throp Rockefeller. A group from the Forrest City Chamber of Com-
merce went before the Industrial Commission, and said, "Tell us what
to do, and we will do it. We must obtain industry!"
Forrest City was told first to prepare its own balance sheet. This
is not as easy a task as might at first appear. Those who have lived and
grown up in one place know how readily they can project its assets,
but how difficult it sometimes may be to wrestle with, or even to im-
partially recognize its liabilities. But it was done.
Forrest City lacked adequate hospital and medical facilities. Leaders
of the Chamber of Commerce went to work under the presidency of
Dick Wilson, and the million dollar Forrest Memorial Hospital, now
under construction, was obtained, with federal grants-in-aid to serve
the city and county. Forrest City lacked adequate factual information,
on its industrial labor potential. A scientific labor survey was under-
taken which disclosed that within a twenty-five mile radius lived four-
teen thousand persons who would prefer industrial employment to
their present occupations.
Other statistical qualifications were compiled and catalogued.
New industrial brochures were prepared. Industrial sites were secured.
The city became prepared for progress and knew it must come.
It was in May of 1956 that the Arkansas Industrial Development
Commission brought to Forrest City a capable observer who asked
searching questions, and obtained factual answers. That man was
George A. Wulf, assistant to Vice-President, Elmer F. Twyman of the
Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company. A survey was being made
by the Company of several prospective locations for a Mid-Continent
Plant. Mr. Wulf was courteous. Mr. Wulf was considerate. He also
was noncommittal.
The AIDC could tell us only that a preliminary survey was being
made. We were not told what other towns were under consideration.
The identity of the prospect was kept confidential.
MAIN STREET 1969 55
We were delighted when, on July 31, 1956, Mr. Wulf returned to
Forrest City accompanied, this time, by Mr. Twyman, Vice-President
in charge of all of Yale & Towne's vast materials handling operations.
All were immediately struck with the responsibility and attainments
of Mr. Twyman. He outlined to us the plans of his company to establish
a multi-million-dollar materials handling industry in the Mid-South
area in a community which could meet the requirements of Yale &
Towne. We felt instinctively that his discernment would determine
the selection of that community. Mr. Twyman left to inspect other
prospective locations.
It was shortly after this visit that Forrest City was advised of Yale
& Towne's specific requirements for its Mid-Continent Plant. Yale
& Towne required within fifty miles of Memphis: (1) A location on
the proposed new Federal Interstate Expressway; (2) Land for its plant
with utilities and municipal services; (3) Comprehensive planning and
zoning for the growth and protection of the entire community.
We must confess that at first it seemed to us somewhat anomalous,
this emphasis on community planning stemming from the industry
itself. We had not, possibly, sufficiently calculated the concept of blue-
ribbon industry, industry that could construct an ultra modern plant
as pleasingly architecturally as it was efficient functionally, a plant
that would be as up to date in its design and aesthetics as Main Street
1969, an industry as proud of its appearance as of its product, and
desirous that its surroundings remain of equal standard.
Following dissemination of these requirements, the Board of Di-
rectors of the Forrest City Chamber of Commerce unanimously resolved
to meet every requirement of Yale & Towne.
Legal title to the preferred plant site was tendered to the Company
at its executive offices in New York. A Planning and Zoning Commission
was organized, and members appointed by Mayor J. R. Porter. An-
nexation of territory and extension of municipal services and utilities
were commenced by the city administration.
The greatest problem appeared to be the fixing of the Interstate
Highway location, a highway not then even on the engineering drawing
boards. Numerous conferences were undertaken with the State Highway
Department which was then programming the route of the Interstate
System between Memphis and Little Rock. Would the Highway De-
partment fix permanently the location of the Interstate Expressway at
the south boundary of the plant site of Yale & Towne? Arkansas'
Governor Orval E. Faubus, former Governor Francis Cherry, members
of the State Highway Commission, members of the Arkansas Industrial
Development Commission, citizens of Forrest City, all wrestled with
the problem of fixing the location of a highway intersection not yet
determined.
It seemed once that the Mid-Continent Plant might be lost, not
alone for Forrest City, but for the State as well, as it became apparent
56 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
that Forrest City was the only city in Arkansas which could meet the
stated requirements of Yale & Towne. Time with which to meet those
requirements was running out.
Then, on September 25, 1956, George A. Wulf and John W. Mershon,
Engineer for Yale & Towne, flew from New York to Little Rock to
meet jointly with the State Highway Commission, the Arkansas In-
dustrial Development Commission, and representatives of the Forrest
City Chamber of Commerce.
At this meeting, held at the Albert Pike Hotel, in Little Rock, a
resolution was approved by the State Highway Commission and Yale
& Towne fixing the interchange location of the Federal Interstate
Expressway at its intersection with State Highway No. 1, the plant site
of Yale & Towne.
On Thursday, September 27, 1956, at the executive offices of the
company in the Chrysler Building, New York, the Roard of Directors
of the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company announced its decision
to establish its four million dollar Mid-Continent Plant in Forrest City,
Arkansas, and this news went out over teletype throughout the Nation.
Construction of the 152,000 square foot, four-million-dollar Mid-
Continent Plant is now well under way, and a training school is today
preparing local personnel for the technology of their new jobs.
The effect of the locations of the Mid-Continent Plant upon the
business community of Forrest City has been instantaneous and revolu-
tionary. A former possibility of failure was replaced with an atmosphere
of optimism and development. Worn business buildings are being re-
modeled and renovated. New homes are springing up for the executive
and supervisory personnel which will be moved to Forrest City from
Philadelphia. New subdivisions have been formed to provide modern,
attractive homes in which the four hundred employees of the Mid-
Continent Plant may live and prosper in a growing suburban community.
To protect this development, and to assure that possible overreaching
by a few will not supplant a harmonious development of the whole,
Forrest City is now engaged in the most comprehensive planning and
zoning program in its history. Functional divisions of the city have been
established. The forward looking city administration has obtained the
best professional planning assistance through the City Planning Di-
vision of the University of Arkansas, with grants-in-aid obtained from
the Federal Government.
Civic leaders have taken far-reaching steps to assure that Forrest
City will remain the type of community in which blue ribbon industry
will be proud to locate. Interim prohibitory zoning now protects the
route of the Interstate Expressway. The three-hundred-acre Forrest
City Industrial Park, on the main line of the Missouri Pacific Railroad,
the Federal Interstate Expressway, and State Highway No. 1, proudly
number the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company as its first resi-
dent, and guarantee through planning and restriction that further in-
MAIN STREET 1969 57
dustrial development will be of the standard of the Mid-Continent
Plant.
Main Street 1969 will find the Yale & Towne Mid-Continent Plant
standing proudly upon the Expressway of the Nation, on which count-
less thousands of Americans will pass to admire a superlative industry
in a model community, made such by the vision and accomplishment of
men such as Elmer F. Twyman, the men of the Arkansas Industrial
Development Commission, the State Highway Commission and the
civic and financial leaders of Forrest City.
For a brief moment, let us take on the mantle of the seer, and con-
sider the meaning to Forrest City of the addition of Yale & Towne's
four hundred new industrial jobs to its economy. It means that 1,584
more people will live in Forrest City. There will be 448 more households.
Our schools will educate 204 more children. The Yale & Towne pay-
roll will produce in the community $2,360,000 more personal income per
year. Forrest City's two banks will receive $1,080,000 more in bank
deposits. There will be 428 more passenger car registrations, 1,096 more
workers employed, and 16 more retail establishments. There will be for
the merchants $1,440,000 more retail sales per year.
These figures are not visionary. They are not dreams. They are
proven statistics furnished by the United States Chamber of Commerce.
They are, if anything, extremely conservative. They represent the
addition to the economic base provided by the location of the Mid-
Continent Plant in Forrest City. The economic base has been expanded,
not alone of Forrest City, but of all the land for fifty miles around.
Half a State has been revolutionized by the decision of the Yale
& Towne Manufacturing Company to locate its Mid-Continent Plant
in Forrest City. Arkansas has experienced great industrial develop-
ment, particularly through the endeavors of the Arkansas Industrial
Development Commission and the genius of its chairman, Winthrop
Rockefeller. But Arkansas is especially proud of Yale & Towne, for
the Mid-Continent Plant represents the standard, not alone for Forrest
City, but for the entire State of Arkansas.
The Mid-Continent Plant comes as the result of the efforts, the
talents, and the resources of many men. First, of course, it comes as
the direct result of the far-sighted leadership of the Yale & Towne
Manufacturing Company, the management determinations of its
President, Gilbert W. Chapman, its Vice-President, Elmer F. Twyman,
and its Board of Directors. It results from the executive efficiency of
men such as George A. Wulf and John W. Mershon. It results from
the ownership of the 7,500 shareholders of the company and their con-
fidence in its future in a free world.
In Arkansas, it results from the abilities of Winthrop Rockefeller
and the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission, its Executive
Secretary, William P. Rock, and Chief of Development, William R.
Ewald. It results from the good offices of Governor Faubus and the
58 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
cooperation of the Arkansas State Highway Commission, and its
Executive Director, Herbert Eldridge.
In Forrest City, it results from the work and action of many people,
the members and directors of the Chamber of Commerce, the City
Administration, the business men and merchants who, under the untiring
leadership of then Vice-President Bill Fogg, now President, provided the
resources to fulfill Forrest City's requirements. Especially must I
mention the capacities of County Judge M. D. Clark who, with his
intimate knowledge of highway problems and affairs, was so effectual
in negotiating a composition of the required right-of-way, and I must
recognize the unfailing leadership and confidence of W. W. Campbell,
Chairman of the National Bank of Eastern Arkansas, and Vice-Chair-
man of the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission, who, upon
recognizing that Yale & Towne intended to locate in Forrest City or
not in Arkansas at all, devoted his entire energies and abilities to success-
ful location of the Mid-Continent Plant.
In prospect, we are limited only by our belief in envisioning Main
Street 1969. In conjecture, we might say that we can envision two
streets. One, a low road leading through rural, commercial and in-
dustrial slums, blighting the land with aesthetic and economic poverty.
The other, a splendid highway passing through a smih'ng countryside,
with attractive businesses and handsome industries sustaining an ef-
fective people. In partnership with Yale & Towne, we know in Forrest
City which road we travel. With such men as our helpers, we shall reach
our goal.
This is the Forrest City story. We invite you to make it your own.
CHAIRMAN JOHN STEMMONS:
Mr. Kinney has told us about the Forrest City experience.
Now, all of us wonder how we are going to find these manufacturers
as they flock around the country seeking a location. Generally speak-
ing, you will find that manufacturers seeking sites try to make it con-
fidential as they come into an area, but by 9:15 coffee time everybody
in town knows that they are there.
When you play a game like this, though, you are going to have a
winner and a loser, and we have a good loser here today who is going to
tell us why in his opinion he lost.
Jack Rich has been in the development business in West Memphis,
for some thirty years, has been an active builder and president of the
Chamber of Commerce. He, too, is interested in merchandising his
community.
It is a blow when a plum like this is lost, but I feel sure, having talked
with Mr. Rich this morning, that West Memphis is going to merchandise
its community and when the next one comes along there is going to be
a little rougher competition. t
MAIN STREET 1969 59
JACK W. RICH, Chairman, Bank of West Memphis, West Memphis, Arkansas
As you have seen and heard, I am from West Memphis, which is in
Crittenden County on the east side of the State, extreme east side, too
far from Little Rock to command much attention and our neighbor
across the River, Memphis, Tennessee, will have no part of us. So we
are sometimes known as the independent free State of Crittenden.
This is, however, not by our choosing, as we would like to be a part of
both communities.
I have been asked to tell you why Yale & Towne turned West
Memphis down as a possible site for its plant. I am unable to do this
because I do not know of my own knowledge exactly why were we
passed up. We tried hard to meet Yale & Towne's rigid zoning and
planning requirements by submitting data and offering everything in
our power to obtain that industry. Actually, I do not believe we were
too seriously considered for this fine plant.
We do not know except in a general way where we failed. Yale &
Towne's requirements were never entirely spelled out to us because as
I say I do not believe we were as seriously considered as some other
communities. We were ready, able and willing, however, and still feel
that we could have met all those requirements.
We have been told that two night clubs situated near one of their
desirable sites kept Yale & Towne away, yet that same industry
located in Forrest City.
Let me tell you this. It's nothing new for West Memphis to lose an
industry. We lost Dixon Yates after ground had been broken and
$3,000,000 spent. We consider ourselves an authority on how to lose a
plant.
We have been told that lack of planning or a planning program for
the city and county made it impossible to obtain Yale & Towne.
Actually, West Memphis has now and has had for many years, one of
the few in the State, a very fine zoning, major street and city plan
which has been of great help toward the development within the city
limits. No county plan existed at that time. We had no law to enforce
a county plan.
Forrest City had no such plan ; however, they are now working toward
planning and gave Yale & Towne these assurances. Some of you
planners may not like this, but as a matter of fact* how many of the
two hundred or more industries located in Arkansas in the last two
years located in communities with adequate city and county plans?
I liberally guess about ten, yet I believe planning is the answer.
So, as has been the case many times, we are unable to say just why
we lost Yale & Towne, but we congratulate Forrest City, where my
brother, Raleigh Rich, is now the Mayor. We feel that any industry
located in Arkansas benefits us.
It probably isn't apropos to inject the problems of my small com-
munity into such a nationally important conference as this, but at the
60 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
risk of boring you and because I know our community best, I will con-
fine my remarks to West Memphis.
Actually, some of our difficulties may fit your community also. Why
is it that industry passes West Memphis by? We have three major rail-
roads, all major highways, river transportation, east side freight rates
in most cases, hospitals, banks, truck transportation, schools, churches,
country clubs and many other things. Adequate electric power, cheap
land, adequate labor supply; we do not have a labor union yet. We
maintain an active Chamber of Commerce and our citizens contribute
of their time and money. We employed an industrial engineer paid
him $50,000 for four years work. We get many prospects but no sales
except some light industry.
We believe our Memphis competition is our greatest obstacle. And
let me tell you this, people of Arkansas, Memphis is competition to all
of you in obtaining industry. Any industry interested in West Memphis
is also interested in Memphis. Memphis offers ready made, fully de-
veloped industrial sites at very reasonable cost. It has the continuing
services of Harland Bartholomew and Associates, one of the Nation's
better-known planning firms. Memphis and Shelby County have a very
fine Planning Commission composed of the city's business leaders and an
adequate law to enforce its plan. Obviously, planning is the answer.
In addition to Harland Bartholomew and Associates, the City of Mem-
phis and Shelby County have now employed the firm of G. A. Heft &
Company, New Orleans, to make an industrial survey at a cost of
$88,000. The same firm is being employed by Memphis to make a Rail
Transportation Survey at a cost of $75,000.
In some cases we have been told by industry that we were too close
to Memphis. That the same labor trouble industry contends with in
Memphis would reach over into Arkansas in West Memphis, while
locating further over in Arkansas the industry might escape some labor
trouble. We do not have a labor union in West Memphis at this time
but we do not have a major industry either.
One of our great obstacles in planning our county and community
has been the lack of cooperation from non-resident land owners. Our
new County Planning Commission soon to be appointed under an act
of the 1957 Legislature will take care of this problem.
Non-resident land owners are usually not interested in the com-
munity. The night clubs and other eyesores on our highways and streets
have been provided by these non-residents for the sake of a few dollars
monthly rental income. We have been unable to convince them that
they stand in their own light and damage their own land when they do
that. Voluntary cooperation has failed with us entirely. As a matter of
fact, some of these non-resident landowners are already planning a
fight against our new County Planning Commission.
We will keep up our efforts and with our great potential we feel that
we may yet be an industrial center. We have employed Harold Wise
MAIN STREET 1969 61
and Associates to plan our community along the lines outlined by in-
dustry. This is at a cost of $32,000, and is being handled through Mr.
Barnes, University of Arkansas, who has been very helpful in offering
his cooperation to West Memphis. No more night clubs will be built,
and if some good industry like Yale & Towne will give the word, we
will demolish the two that are now operating.
We do not apologize. Our record is actually one of which we are
proud. But we do have a big job ahead of us. We do not ask you to
accept excuses nor do we want to convey a defeatist attitude and try to
justify our failure rather than to seek a solution. There seems to be no
basic rule but every case seems to stand on its own.
When our overall plan is completed by Wise and Associates and our
County Planning Commission starts functioning, we expect much better
results. My observation after many hours of negotiation working with
industrial prospects is that a ready-made already-developed industrial
site would be the best answer to our problem.
A good prospect recently told me that if we had a large acreage with
sewers, utilities, paved streets, railroads already built, he would have
located with us and paid a good price for the land whereas we offered
him five or ten acres of farm land free. This industry went to President's
Island in Memphis and paid $6,000 an acre with no form of contribution
from Memphis or Shelby County. President's Island, as you know, has
been developed by Memphis and the Federal Government. A wide
expense of acreage with paved streets and several railroads and harbor
facilities exists as well as all the utilities. In other words, they have a
sub-division for industry developed and ready to go. That is another
one of our goals. I think you have something like that in Little Rock.
If you know some investor who would like to make a fortune in real
estate send him to us. This is an open invitation to Mr. Zeckendorf and
to Mr. Rockefeller. We have the best industrial property in the South, a
thousand acres bounded on two sides by major railroads and split down
the middle by a six-lane major highway, Mississippi River nearby,
within four miles or six minutes of Memphis Main Street and the heart
of West Memphis.
This very week a plant employing sixty people and ten or twelve
office personnel is interested in a 20,000 foot building if it could be de-
livered in forty-five days. We could do it if our subdivision were ready.
West Memphis in Crittenden County has shown a phenomenal
growth from 800 people in 1930 to 18,000 people in 1957. Crittenden
County has shown a 10 percent growth against a 12 percent loss for the
entire State in population. Ours, however, has been residential growth.
This is undesirable without a proportionate amount of commercial and
industrial growth as it creates a great financial burden on many of our
institutions. Residences do not produce sufficient tax income to carry
themselves.
62 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
At this time I would like to convey to Governor Faubus and the
Arkansas Industrial Commission the sincere thanks of West Memphis
and Crittenden County for their efforts on our behalf. With the kind of
work Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Ewald and the entire staff is performing,
Arkansas has and will continue to grow industrially.
We are indeed fortunate to have as almost our Number One citizen,
Mr. Winthrop Rockefeller, who is devoting his time and money to the
development of Arkansas.
We feel that some attention should be devoted to making industry
happy in Arkansas after it locates here. Yale & Towne has selected
one of the finest communities in the State for its plant; and we know
that the people of Forrest City will make them welcome.
CHAIRMAN JOHN STEMMONS:
Environment is important; especially environment created by the
merchandising of the community itself. I have one more thing I would
like to call to your particular attention: 41,000 miles of Interstate
Highways throughout the breadth of this land, in many cases running
parallel and adjacent to a railroad. You, as people interested in planning,
should see to it through your State Highway Department and through
the United States Bureau of Public Roads, that rail access is made
available to good industrial land adjacent to the highways. Once the
highways are built, if you have land that is suceptible to industrial use,
it is no longer a desirable industrial site unless there is a spur to supply
the industry |with rail facilities.
Now we are going into a tremendous program a highway program.
I think it is going to change the whole pattern of this country. And
unless we make that point clear to the people who are building this
system, then a very large percentage of the industrial property that can
be used for industrial use in the next few decades is going to be made
absolutely unfit for industry.
I hope that each of you will take that to heart. I hope that General
Prentiss this afternoon will touch on the subject. It is tremendously
important and now is the time for you to act and act with the people at
your state level. I would like to call your attention to a fact-finding
group of the Society of Industrial Realtors composed of about five
hundred specialists in industrial work throughout the country; men who
do nothing but find sites for industry.
MAIN STREET 1969 63
41,000 Miles to Tomorrow
An Exploration of America's New Main Street,
Scheduled for Completion in 1969
GORDON C. WITTENBERG:
IT IS time now to look ahead 41,000 miles ahead which brings us
to this existing session, 41,000 Miles to Tomorrow.
It is my pleasure to introduce your Chairman for this meeting. He
is a native of Washington, D. C., a graduate of the Colorado School of
Mines, a retired Major General of the United States Army, with 35
years of distinguished military service which reads like a book. As
Southwestern Division Engineer for the Corps of Engineers he or-
ganized and was the first Chairman of the Arkansas, White and Red
River Rasins, an accomplishment which is of particular interest to
people of this area. He has served on the National Capital Planning
Commission, the National Capital Regional Planning Council and
was Engineer Commissioner of the District of Columbia. It is wonder-
ful to have such a dynamic Chairman. I am sure he will do a masterful
job as Chairman of this session on 41,000 Miles to Tomorrow. It is a
very great pleasure to present to you General Louis W. Prentiss.
MAJOR GENERAL LOUIS W. PRENTISS,
U.S.A. Ret., Executive Vice-President, American Road Builders' Association,
Washington, D. C.
I HAD the privilege and the pleasure of appearing once before at a
convention of American Planning and Civic Association held in
Louisville, Kentucky about six or seven years ago. And I am honored
to be invited to appear here today.
I do not believe that people realize the implications of a highway
construction program as great as this one now authorized and now
under way. Last year when the legislation was about to be passed I
thought it would be a good idea for me, an ex-engineer officer, to gain
a prospective of the size of the program with which we were faced.
When I was here in the Southwestern Division at Dallas and we were
building 15 dams at one time, and we had 15 dams and reservoirs com-
pleted and in operation, I thought that we had a pretty big construction
program for the Southwest. And what we are doing here in the South-
west was being duplicated all over the United States in the different
major watersheds. So I checked with the Office of the Chief of Engi-
neers to find out how much money they had been spending and I found
out that in 129 years of improvement of the harbors and the rivers
of the United States, the Corps of Engineers had appropriated 2^
billion dollars. And in the 20 years after the passage of the Flood Con-
trol Act of 1936 the Corps of Engineers had appropriated 4 billion
dollars for multiple purpose dams, floodways, and levees, or a total of
64 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
billion dollars as of July 1, 1956. This year they got another $600,-
000,000; so we can say that in the last 129 years the Corps of Engineers
had expended approximately 7 billion dollars as compared with the
Interstate Highway program of 51 billion dollars for the next 13 to 15
years, plus an additional 50 billion dollars for all roads and streets in the
United States other than the Interstate Highway program for the same
period of time, or a total expenditure of 8J^ billion dollars per year
during the peak years of our total road building program in the United
States.
This made me realize that this highway program is going to have a
terrific impact on the future of the United States not only from the
viewpoint of national and civic defense but upon its economic growth
affecting every section of our whole country.
We have a group of experts on this panel today who will talk to you
of the different aspects of this program and the impact it is going to
make. The first of our speakers today is a man who made a special ef-
fort to hurry back from Paris to get here. Mr. Curtiss of the United
States Bureau of Public Roads, is a native of Michigan, a graduate of
Michigan State University with additional degrees from Columbia
University and Iowa State College. After serving his apprenticeship
in the highways department of Michigan and Iowa he went into the
Army Corps of Engineers during World War I where he acquired the
title of Captain and he is affectionately called "Cap" Curtiss by every-
body in Washington who knows him.
When he left the Army he went into the Bureau of Public Roads in
1919 where he has risen to the very top. He has a tremendous job to do.
It is my pleasure to present to you "Cap" Curtiss.
C. D. CURTISS, Commissioner of Public Roads,
U. S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D. C.
IT WOULD be difficult to select a more timely subject and I welcome
the opportunity of discussing it with you today.
This meeting is unique. Not because it deals with the future for that
is the essence of all planning, but because for the first time this national
planning organization can speak with real confidence about highway
transportation 15 or 20 years in advance.
That, of course, is the real meaning of the Federal-Aid Highway Act
of 1956. By the same token, this epoch-making legislation lends new
significance to almost every phase of city and regional planning. Even
a glance at the agenda for this conference makes that fact abundantly
clear.
You are all familiar with the often-quoted words of that distinguished
architect and city planner, Daniel H. Burnham:
MAIN STREET 1969 65
Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and prob-
ably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope
and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will
never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself
with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are
going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order
and your beacon beauty.
I am sure that if Mr. Rurnham were with us today he would agree
that the "Grand Plan" proposed by President Eisenhower to the
Governor's Conference in 1954 and implemented by the United States
Congress in the Federal- Aid Highway Act of 1956 is "no little plan"
and that it does have the "magic to stir men's blood." Rut more of the
1956 Act later.
Highway planning is not new, of course, nor is Federal aid for high-
ways. The latter as we have come to know it began in 1916 when Con-
gress passed the Federal-Aid Road Act, which laid the foundation for
the cooperative Federal-State highway program in existence today.
This time-tested pattern, strengthened and improved over the years,
has become an outstanding example of sound Federal-State relations.
Under that program, and still continuing, Federal grants are appor-
tioned among the States according to formulas which give weight to the
area, population, and mail-route mileage in each State in relation to the
totals for all States. These Federal grants for highway construction must
be matched by the States with their own money these regular, or
ARC funds as we call them, are matched on a 50-50 basis. The States
under the Federal law have the initiative and prerogative in selecting
roads to be improved and the type of improvement. They are responsible
for surveys, plans and specifications for letting contracts, and for super-
vision of construction, subject to approval by the engineers of the Rureau
of Public Roads. Maintenance of the roads built with Federal aid is an
obligation of the States at their own expense.
Legislation since 1916 has authorized increasing amounts of money,
but the Federal-Aid Road Act of 1916 has remained the fundamental
basis for operation of the cooperative Federal-State highway program.
The Federal Highway Act of 1921 required the State Highway de-
partments, in cooperation with the Rureau of Public Roads, to designate
a system of principal interstate and intercounty roads, limited to 7 per-
cent of the total mileage of rural roads then existing. The use of Federal
funds was restricted to this system. Every route in this system was
proposed by a State Highway Department. The Rureau of Public Roads
brought the States together in regional groups to arrange for the meet-
ing of routes at State lines and thus assure a coordinated system of
primary roads for the entire country.
The highway act of 1934 gave highway planning a tremendous im-
petus by providing that up to 1^ percent of a State's apportionment
could be used for surveys, plans and engineering investigations. With
66 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
these funds the so-called State-wide highway planning surveys were
inaugurated. The factual information derived from these compre-
hensive surveys played a most important part in future highway pro-
grams.
Another milepost in highway planning was established in the report,
TOLL ROADS AND FREE ROADS, made by the Bureau of Public
Roads in 1939 in response to a direction from the U. S. Congress in 1938
"to investigate and make a report of findings and recommend to the
Congress not later than February 1, 1939, with respect to the feasibility
of building, and cost of, superhighways not exceeding three in number,
running in a general direction from the eastern to the western portion
of the United States, and not exceeding three in number, running in a
general direction from the northern to the southern portion of the United
States, including the feasibility of a toll system on such roads."
The following is quoted from this report:
The factual evidence presented in this report clearly indicates that the con-
struction of direct toll highways cannot be relied upon as a sound solution of the
problem of providing adequate facilities for the vitally necessary highway transporta-
tion of the United States, or to solve any considerable part of this problem.
While these conclusions are reached with reference to the limited question of
financial feasibility of transcontinental superhighways and the possibility of toll
collections to meet their cost, it is recognized that the report should be constructive
rather than negative in character. Further, the Secretary of Agriculture is directed
by the basic Federal highway legislation to submit reports or recommendations to
the Congress on important highway matters. Conforming with this direction there
is included in this report a discussion of the most important problems confronting
both the Federal and State Governments and their subdivisions with respect to high-
way facilities.
From the discussion there emerges the general outline of what is in effect a master
highway plan for the entire Nation. The carrying out of the plan in all its parts calls
for appropriate action by the Federal and State Governments and all county and
municipal subdivisions. As desirable joint contributions of the Federal and State
Governments, the report lists several undertakings as follows:
1. The construction of a special, tentatively defined system of direct inter-
regional highways, with all necessary connections through and around cities, designed
to meet the requirements of the national defense in time of war and the needs of a
growing peacetime traffic of longer range.
2. The modernization of the Federal-aid highway system.
3. The elimination of hazards at railroad grade crossings.
4. An improvement of secondary and feeder roads, properly integrated with
land-use programs.
5. The creation of a Federal Land Authority empowered to acquire, hold, sell,
and lease lands needed for public purposes and to acquire and sell excess lands for
the purpose of recoupment.
The report emphasizes the difficulties encountered in the acquisition of adequate
rights-of-way; and, in view of the fundamental necessity of such rights-of-way,
proposes definite measures by which the United States could aid in the acquisition
of suitable rights-of-way and simultaneously contribute helpfully to the solution
of other urgent problems, especially certain problems confronting the larger cities.
As a result of the recommendations in this report, President Roose-
velt in 1941 appointed a National Interregional Highway Committee to
investigate the need for a limited system of national highways. This com-
mittee was composed of the following:
MAIN STREET 1969 67
Thos. H. MacDonald, Commissioner of Public Roads, Chairman;
G. Donald Kennedy, Vice Chairman; C. H. Purcell; Frederic A. Delano;
Harland Bartholomew; and Rexford Tugwell.
Mr. H. S. Fairbank of the Bureau of Public Roads was appointed
Secretary of the Committee and was responsible for the writing of the
report and the research, by a small Bureau of Public Roads staff, on
which the report was based.
In 1943 by Public Law 143 the U. S. Congress directed the Com-
missioner of Public Roads "to make a survey of the need for a system of
express highways throughout the United States, the number of such
highways needed, the approximate routes which they should follow, and
the approximate cost of construction, and to report to the President
and to Congress, within 6 months after the date of the act, the results
of the survey together with such recommendations for legislation as
deemed advisable."
One report sufficed for the two directives and under the title "Inter-
regional Highways" this was made to the Congress on January 1, 1944.
There can be no doubt that the recommendations in this report led the
Congress to authorize the designation of the "National System of
Interstate Highways" in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944. Both
of these reports relied heavily on highway planning data supplied by
the State Highway Departments and could not have been prepared
without that aid.
Another report, HIGHWAY NEEDS OF THE NATIONAL DEFENSE,
made by the Bureau of Public Roads in 1949 pursuant to a directive of
the Congress, re-emphasized the importance of the Interstate System
and repeated some of the recommendations of previous reports.
The foregoing is cited to remind you of the long period of planning
that preceded the start of the present expanded highway program.
Between the two World Wars a vast Federal-aid network of highways
was built. Most of these were two-lane roads. Motorists whose routes
criss-cross State lines might reflect that these smoothly interconnecting
State networks did not just happen they were carefully planned.
Under the impact of steadily increasing traffic volumes, many sec-
tions of this primary system became inadequate, especially those heavily
traveled routes serving large cities and industrial areas.
The Federal-Aid Act of 1944 took three important steps. It author-
ized the first specific funds for Federal aid in urban areas. It provided
for the selection of a Federal-aid secondary system, the farm-to-market
roads, and it called upon the States and the Bureau of Public Roads to
designate a National system of Interstate Highways, limited in extent to
40,000 (increased to 41,000 by the 1956 Act) miles and comprising the
main routes connecting the important cities and industrial centers of
the country and serving the national defense.
The need for a network of main arteries, built to high standards and
serving the entire country, had been accumulating for many years.
68 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
The traffic demands of World War II underscored this need, and also
brought out the vital role of such highways for defense. By 1947 the
States and the Bureau, in consultation with the military, had selected
the intercity routes which were to make up the Interstate System as
originally authorized and the job of selection of urban additions was
completed in 1955.
But while we had a designated system of main highways and had
adopted high standards including control of access for its ultimate
improvement, there was no provision for funds or even the prospect
of funds to complete the system in any reasonable period of time.
Meanwhile, traffic pressures, traffic accidents, congestion and delay,
continued to mount.
Then, in 1954, Congress called for a new inventory of the Nation's
highway needs and President Eisenhower's urgent message to the
Governors' Conference in June of that year stressed the need for a
greatly accelerated highway construction program. This dramatic ap-
peal of the President initiated a movement which had widespread sup-
port and resulted finally in the enactment of the Federal- Aid Highway
Act of 1956.
The 1956 Act does indeed embrace the "Grand Plan" which the
President envisaged in his message to the Governors. It also reflects
the long and patient efforts of the 84th Congress, highway officials,
engineers, and the many individuals and organizations, like your own
group, who gave firm support to the new program. In recognition of
the importance of the Interstate System to the National defense, the
Congress added the word "defense" to the name of the Interstate
System and the Federal share of the cost was increased to 90 percent.
No matter how we measure it, in cubic yards of earthwork, tons of
aggregates or money, the figures are hard to grasp in money $25
billion of Federal funds are authorized for the National System of Inter-
state and Defense Highways. This huge sum, plus matching funds from
the States, will provide for a 13- to 15-year construction program de-
signed to modernize a 40,000-mile network connecting 90 percent of
the Nation's principal cities and linking business and industrial centers
from coast to coast. For this program Congress authorized $1 billion
for the current fiscal year, 1957, and $1.7 billion for the fiscal year 1958.
These funds have been apportioned to the States. Funds in the amount
of $2 billion have been authorized for the fiscal year 1959.
Although it comprises only about 1.2 percent of our total road and
street mileage, it is estimated that when completed this key network
will carry 20 percent of all traffic. Quite literally it serves as an integral
part of a grand-scale industrial assembly line. It synchronizes produc-
tion, distribution and consumption. It is as basic to our national de-
fense as it is to our national economy.
In some sparsely settled areas the Interstate System will be two-lane
highways but right-of-way and basic design requirements must be
MAIN STREET 1969 69
such that additional lanes may be added as required by increased
traffic. The balance will consist of multi-lane divided expressways,
protected by carefully planned controlled access.
To some people the phrase "access control" implies an unwelcome
restriction. In reality it means much greater freedom. Planned access
means that every car, bus or truck entering or leaving the highway will
move safely along special facilities designed to channel vehicles in and
out of the through traffic streams. Planned access provides cloverleafs,
overpasses and underpasses, as well as ramps and carefully designed
interchanges that may be compared to the orderly system of entrances,
aisles and exits that you find in a well planned theater or athletic
stadium. Without such controls the free, steady flow of traffic would be
impossible.
Random access with its inevitable combinations of frequent inter-
secting side roads and roadside businesses fronting on the highway soon
turns the average bush thoroughfare into a congested, slow-moving
welter of traffic hazards "controlled" by a string of red lights. Such
highways, without planned access, grow obsolete long before they wear
out and traffic dangers are multiplied many times over. Experience on
a large mileage of planned access highways shows that accidents are
reduced about two-thirds.
Last year the death toll on our streets and highways reached 40,000.
This nationwide panorama of highway massacres is one of the most
shocking facts we face today. But even that is not the whole story.
Last year about 1,350,000 men, women, and children were injured,
including more than 100,000 people who were left with permanent
physical impairments.
Dollarwise, the National Safety Council has set an annual price tag
of nearly $5 billion on traffic accidents. The Automotive Safety Founda-
tion has estimated that modernization of the Interstate System will
save 3,500 lives a year. We dare not compromise we must provide
the added safety that carefully planned access provides.
While safety is a decisive factor, planned access has many other ad-
vantages. It is the only method by which the traffic capacity built into
the highway can be preserved and early obsolescence avoided. On the
economic side we can point to widespread and often sensational de-
velopments that follow in the wake of modern expressways.
Along the famous New York Thruway, it was conservatively esti-
mated sometime ago that more than $150 million worth of new industrial
plants have been erected, and more are in the planning stage. These new
plants employ 30,000 persons with an annual payroll of $100 million.
The Boston Metropolitan area with its Route 128, California's
Eastshore Freeway and many other localities tell a similar story.
As the new highway program unfolds these patterns of progress and
economic growth will take on Nationwide proportions.
70 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
The dramatic scope and boldness of the Interstate Program invite
superlatives it is by far the greatest public works ever undertaken by
mankind. But we must remember that this key network cannot reach
its full potential unless our other road systems are brought up to par.
Congress knew this. Witness the increased authorizations, entirely
apart from the Interstate funds, for regular Federal aid in the 1956 Act.
The regular or ABC funds are provided for the improvement of two
principal systems the 235,000-mile primary system, which includes
the Interstate network, and the Federal-aid secondary, or farm-to-
market, system consisting of 520,000 miles. This 755,000-mile total is
eligible for improvement with Federal-aid funds.
During the first nine years that followed the end of World War II,
regular Federal aid for highways averaged $500 million per year. The
1956 Act increased the previously authorized funds to $825 million for
1957, and provided $850 million for 1958, and $875 million for 1959.
This money is earmarked in the Act to provide 45 percent for projects
on the primary system, 30 percent on the secondary system, and 25 per-
cent for improvement of these systems within urban areas.
Needless to say, these systems, primary, secondary, and interstate,
urban and rural, are not mutually exclusive quite the opposite. Traffic
switches back and forth, from one to the other, endlessly. If the primary
and secondary roads that feed the great trunk lines are inadequate,
the entire country will suffer. If they are poorly designed or improperly
located, highway users will fail to reap the full benefits of an integrated
highway system. If we neglect or slight urban improvements apart from
the Interstate System we will retard or block the healthy development
of countless communities. After all, our National total of road and
street mileage exceeds 3,400,000 and the vast mileage outside the range
of Federal aid also needs improvements.
The program for the Interstate System looks ahead to 1975, when
more than 100 million motor vehicles will be in use, compared with
today's figure of 65 million. Obviously there is a huge planning and
improvement job still ahead for all urban areas including those that are
not served directly by the Interstate network.
Consider if you will the variety of transportation and planning prob-
lems posed by the changing patterns of urban, suburban and rural
settlement in the United States. I believe the most important is the co-
ordination of highway planning with city and regional planning in and
around urban areas. Highway construction under the Interstate pro-
gram alone will have a profound effect on the growth and development
of urban areas for many years to come. Properly located and designed
the new planned access highways can stimulate and strengthen many
desirable features of urban growth. Vision, energy and cooperation can
spell better living for millions of city and suburban residents. Neglect,
inertia or compromise can retard or even prevent the rounded, balanced
development that we all seek.
MAIN STREET 1969 71
Where not presently available, up-to-date master plans covering all
urban areas are needed. Such plans should provide for the different
types of land use governmental, residential, commercial, industrial
and recreational, coordinated with all types of transportation. The
Interstate routes will be the backbone of the highway system developed
under such a master plan but more cannot be expected of it. The full
cooperation of all levels of government with the assistance and guidance
of planning experts is needed. That is another reason why I welcomed
the opportunity to be with you. Today highway transport is so all-
pervasive, so inseparably linked with our entire way of life that high-
ways and highway planning affect everybody.
The problem of urban highway development is already being ap-
proached on several fronts. The Joint Committee of the American
Association of State Highway Officials and the American Municipal
Association, the National Committee on Urban Transportation and the
Committee on Urban Research of the Highway Research Roard are
actively attacking the problem from different angles. Planning and
research should advance together and be vigorously pushed if we are
to realize to the greatest extent possible the benefits inherent in the
expanded highway program.
The successful development of highway plans in cities large and
small demands coordinated effort in many fields. It is just here that
organizations like the American Planning and Civic Association can
be most potent. You can also be most helpful in taking steps for the
establishment of metropolitan area councils, or their equivalent, which
can bring together the planning proposals of important but occasionally
conflicting interests.
More specifically, groups such as yours can assist in local negotiations
for the selection of the best location for projects and for the many parcels
of rights-of-way required. Incidentally, it has been estimated that for
the Interstate System alone, approximately 73,000 pieces of land must
be acquired each year over a 10-year period. The total cost of these
parcels will probably reach 5 billion dollars.
Remember too, that about half of the entire sum projected for the
Interstate System will be spent in urban areas.
Much still needs to be done by the cities to make them fully capable
of cooperating with the State in planning modern highway facilities.
I can assure you that the Rureau of Public Roads welcomes your able
and active participation. The task that lies ahead is so tremendous, the
need is so urgent, that all of us must join hands in this great undertaking.
Little else that we shall do in public or private works will leave a more
lasting impact on the lives of all Americans.
Now that the new program is actually under way, how are we coming
along? The record shows that as of May 1, 1957, ten months after the
Act was passed, contracts have been advertised and funds obligated
totaling $1,809 billion as Federal aid on the primary, secondary and
72 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Interstate systems. On the Interstate System alone, construction con-
tracts aggregating over $590 million in cost have been awarded for some
1,123 miles of magnificent new highway and 1,009 bridges. By May 1,
1957, 17 States had committed all of their 1957 Interstate funds and
were moving ahead on the 1958 moneys.
This is a fine beginning, but it certainly leaves no room for compla-
cency. In the months ahead we are going to have to lift our sights con-
siderably. This is a crucial period, for the steps we take now will make
highway history in 1969 and careful and expert planning is vital to reach-
ing our goal. As I look at this distinguished audience, as I sense your
enthusiasm and zest, I am sure the job will be well done.
GENERAL LOUIS W. PRENTISS
I WANT to point out the fact, whether we realize it or not, a big part
of the highways under contract today were put under contract since
July of last year on work that was partially or totally engineered and
ready for advertising at the time the highway bill was passed, and that
we in the Highway industry have a terrific job to do in maintaining the
rate that has already been established.
And another thing we must do is to educate the general public that
these highways have to be built somewhere. Everybody is in favor
of the highways but nobody wants them on their property.
The next speaker is a native of California, educated at the Occidental
College at Los Angeles. He has been a planner for 34 years, with the
major part of his work done in California, Virginia and New York.
He is a past president of the American Institute of Planners. He has
been Director of Planning for Westchester County, New York, since
1946 and at present is also Professor of Planning at Columbia University.
It is a pleasure to introduce Mr. Hugh R. Pomeroy.
HUGH R. POMEROY, Director,
Westchester County Department of Planning, White Plains, New York
IF I HAD had the opportunity of reading Commissioner Curtiss'
paper before I prepared mine I think I would have said, give him my
30 minutes. There is an inspiring challenge to planning that covers
much of the message that I wanted to bring and I for one in my little
corner of the planning field wish to accept with enthusiasm the op-
portunity the Commissioner has given for collaborative consultation
in seeing that this great job does what it is supposed to do and which it
can do only as it is related to comprehensive community planning.
We are now ready to believe that there will be an Interstate High-
way System. We are finally convinced that modern traffic requires that
the major routes that we provide for its flow can no longer consist of
mere rights of passage over land the "right-of-way" concept that origin-
ated long before the dawn of history, and even in some small degree before
MAIN STREET 1969 73
the emergence of man himself We know now that our major routes of
travel must be laid down on strips of land devoted solely to that purpose.
We have cut our teeth on turnpikes, thruways, parkways, expressways,
freeways, and we are convinced that nothing less will serve the requirements
of the basic thoroughfare system of the Nation. We have expressed our
conviction by launching a program that challenges the imagination by
its magnitude: 41,000 Miles to Tomorrow.
Our goings to and fro, since we have become shod with wheels, add up
to prodigious totals. Our passenger travel alone (including buses) on all
the highways of the Nation in 1955 totaled in passenger miles the equivalent
of almost 14 million round-trips to the moon. This figure is the more as-
tonishing when it is known that it is made up of trips that averaged, for
all the highways in the Nation that year, about 8J^ miles each half the
distance from my home to my office.
The Interstate System will care for about 16 percent of all this travel,
and the average length of trip on it will obviously be greater than the fore-
going average for all highways.
These are dramatic figures, as would be those of total cost, amounts of
construction materials required, land to be used (probably more than
twice the area of Rhode Island), or the number of square miles of blueprint
paper (or its equivalent) that will be needed for the drawing of plans. But
the employment of the short time that is at my disposal this afternoon in
a mere dramatic recital would be a misuse of the occasion. I propose to
suggest some aspects of the program that call for a maturity of viewpoint
and of procedure somewhat beyond that that we have thus far considered
to be necessary.
What I have to say will be set forth under headings that might be
popularly stated as follows:
1. We don't know it all yet.
2. The entire people own the system.
3. You can't build railroads without yards and terminals.
4. (a) Highways are not built to serve statistics but the activities of the people,
and (b) we have to live with the monsters that we create.
5. The magnitude of the job leaves no room for corners on wisdom.
Then I shall have a specific proposal to make.
First . We don't know it all yet. Westchester County built the Hutchin-
son River Parkway according to the best standards that were known at
the time. Now, while there is still long physical life left in what was built,
and while we shall still be paying for it for nearly 20 years more, we are
getting ready to do the job over again to meet the needs of today and
what we can see of tomorrow. Statistical projections of traffic volume
can have validity for only a short span of time ahead, compared with the
physical life of what we build on the basis of the estimates. The variables
are so numerous and so extensive that we can't get very far out on the
engineer's slipstick before we must begin conditioning the results with
judgment, and it is not long until judgment must largely take over. I am
74 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
convinced that our judgment cannot be regarded as infallible and that
the realities of the future will exceed the practicality of our judgment
today and the courage of our present convictions.
We can be confident that the construction of the highways constituting
the Interstate System will be superbly engineered. But we can also be
sure that we shall have to do much of the job over again before its elements
are worn out. In building the Interstate System we shall be crystalizing
our designs in concrete and the other materials of physically durable
structures. At the same time, we shall have crystalized community pat-
terns in relation to the thoroughfares that we build, and the elements of
this crystalization will be complex and far-reaching. Much of what we
build in the form of pavements, channelizing structures, bridges, inter-
change roadways, access lanes, and other features of the highways them-
selves we shall in time have to throw away and build over again to meet
needs that we cannot possibly anticipate now. In doing this, let us not
also have to tear up developed community patterns, for here the destruction
may be far-reaching and costly beyond the dollars and cents of it alone.
How is this possible? By the provision of adequate space in which to do
our highway rebuilding in accordance with standards that the future will
demand but that we cannot now set. The cost of additional land for
rights-of-way (to use the anchronistic term for which we do not yet have
an adequate substitute) will be of minor magnitude compared with the
cost of tearing up what will be built on that land between now and the
time that we may need it, and tearing asunder the neighborhoods of which
these buildings will be a part and which will have taken form between
now and then. What I am talking about is not a difference of thirty or
forty feet in right-of-way width, but of perhaps several hundred feet in
open territory and not much less in developed areas.
What if some of the land that is acquired in prudent recognition of the
certainty of our fallibility in estimating future needs turns out not to be
needed for the purpose we have in mind? Does a built-up community
ever find itself in possession of too much space for community purposes
land that can be used for automobile parking, for community facilities, for
recreation space, perhaps for community embellishment? In space lies
the opportunity for achieving community quality.
Second. The entire people owns the Interstate System. The belts of
land on which the highways will be built will not be rights of passage over
land, with access to them from that land. This fact of non-access must be
recognized as extending beyond access by vehicles and pedestrians to
visual access as well. I am referring here specifically to outdoor advertising.
The placing of outdoor advertising to be viewed from the highways of
the Interstate System, unless it is permitted as a matter of privilege, is
the forcible seizure of public rights.
The claim has been made that outdoor advertising is a business use and
that in zoning it should be subject to the same type of regulation that is
applied to other business uses. With that statement in exactly those
MAIN STREET 1969 75
words, and subject to the following elaboration I agree. It is fundamental
to zoning that uses should be classified in accordance with their character-
istics. Outdoor advertising is a business use. But it is not only not like
every other business use; it is not like any other business use. Every other
business use is a use of the land on which it is located; outdoor advertising
is essentially a use of the highway that it overlooks. Mr. Justice Trent
of the Supreme Court of the Philippines years ago disposed of the claim
that the display of outdoor advertising is simply a use of the land on which
the display is placed by suggesting that the signs be turned around to
face the other way. Outdoor advertising being a unique type of business
use, it can be made subject to unique regulations under zoning regulations
appropriate to its unique character.
This principle applies to outdoor advertising adjacent to highways to
which the abutting land has access. A different principle applies to outdoor
advertising adjacent to the highways of the Interstate System. Here the
regulation is not a matter of determining where outdoor advertising should
be prohibited since it has no inherent right to exist in any such location
but of where, in the public interest, it may appropriately be privileged to
exist. This principle is obviously not limited in its application to the
highways of the Interstate System, but extends to all non-access highways.
Third. You can't build railroads without yards and terminals. I speak
here by analogy, of course. The routes of the Interstate System may be
likened to those of a railroad system, virtually bridging the space between
communities. The effectiveness of the system depends on its relation at
access points to the routes bringing traffic to it and distributing traffic
from it. At major terminal points the relation to local traffic routes is an
intimate and often complex one, in which traffic function, and thus the
location and design of local routes and interchanges, are determined by
land use. Integral in the entire complex is the provision of terminal facili-
ties automobile parking space serving the land use pattern.
The sensitive and effective handling of this entire problem of access,
distribution, and automobile parking will have a large part in determining
what Main Street 1969 will be like. The regional shopping center out in
open territory may be expected to have a large place in the retail mer-
chandising pattern of the future. Its function can be balanced by that of
the regional shopping center in existing central business districts to the
extent that the latter can be adapted to serve the market adequately.
This is a sizeable job. It calls for two major accomplishments. One of
these is to modernize the "plant," the aggregation of largely unrelated,
often outmoded buildings that have developed by the long process of ac-
cretion, enlargement, removal and replacement, building by building.
The various plans for central district modernization that have been dra-
matically brought to the attention of this conference have one thing in
common that of the development of unifying features, whereby the ag-
gregation is to be given qualities of coherence and inter-relationship. The
other major accomplishment, inextricably related to the first, is to make
76 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
the downtown district conveniently available to and usable by the market.
This calls for the provision of adequate access, convenient circulation, and
both adequate and convenient automobile parking space, as part of a
comprehensively planned program. No whittling away at the job through
largely unrelated projects can accomplish more than to follow behind
ever increasing needs that will continue to out-distance the remedial
measures at an accelerating pace. The downtown district has great initial
advantage location that is generally central to the market and a variety
of community facilities social, cultural, governmental, commercial
that the outlying center cannot duplicate. But these advantages cannot
prevail against the stifling effect of congestion and inconvenience. To
assure to Main Street 1969 its rightful place rightful if achieved and
maintained calls for great and difficult doing. A major essential in this
is effective relationship to the Interstate System and to the thoroughfares
that extend the function of the system intraregionally.
This third heading moves directly into the first part of the Fourth:
Highways are not built to serve statistics, but the activities of people.
The short-run value of traffic forecasts has already been touched on.
Traffic forecasts are not only limited in the time coverage for which they
can be valid, but can be seriously misleading unless they take account of
more than existing land use patterns. Planning seeks to guide the develop-
mental forces operating on and within a community in accordance with
defined objectives. The importance of clear definition of community ob-
jectives cannot be over-emphasized. It has long been recognized (at least
in theory and now in growing practice) that zoning should reflect a basic
land use plan. But the basic land use plan must be more than a mere ra-
tionalization of existing land use and of evident trends some of which
may be heading in decidedly the wrong direction. It must reflect conscious
determination of what the ever evolving pattern of the community should
be. It is this evolving pattern, guided by zoning, subdivision control and
other measures of regulation of the various aspects of physical development,
modified by urban renewal where necessary, and served by carefully devised
local and intercommunity systems of traffic thoroughfares and of com-
munity facilities, that must be looked to for the clue to future traffic
generation and requirements as to the facilities that will care for its likely
volumes and serve its desirable directions and manner of flow.
This is only a part of the story. The land use pattern must be of con-
cern to the highway planner in a much broader sense than as a guide to
traffic origin and destination. There is a structure to the community that
has more to it than the mere location of geysers of traffic and of channels
and pools to take care of the run-off. A community is a group of related
neighborhoods. I am not here entering the idealogical battle as to the
social validity of the neighborhood concept, but merely recognizing the
physical reality of the neighborhood. A highway system must serve
people and their activities and their enjoyment of their living environment.
It fails of its ultimate purpose if it complicates the conducting of their
MAIN STREET 1969 77
economic and social activities and if it impairs the quality of their living
environment. There is a most sensitive relationship here. Its implications
must be taken as fully into account as is the factor of necessary widths of
traffic lanes in designing a pavement or that of the strength of materials
in designing a bridge.
Some additional length may well be justified in order to avoid impairing
a residential neighborhood; some additional cost of right-of-way acquisition
may be justified nay, almost always will be justified in order to avoid
destroying or seriously cutting down a neighborhood park. It is often
much better to destroy buildings, which can be replaced, rather than
community open space, which either cannot or will not be.
I hasten to add that it cannot be expected that the layout of established
communities can be adapted to massive new traffic facilities, of a type and
magnitude undreamed of when the community was laid out, without some
damage, without the necessity of careful and frequently painful readjust-
ment. Occasionally even an excellent residential neighborhood must be
destroyed, with much heartache, in the interest of the greater public good.
But first be sure that there is no feasible alternative. Several years ago
the Yankee Highway Association proposed that the New England Thruway
be located in the back country of Fairfield County, Connecticut. So far
as I could learn, the sizeable membership of the association was made up
entirely of residents of the shore section of the county, through which the
Thruway is now being constructed. There are three major alternatives for
the location of the soon-to-be-constructed connection from the New Jersey
Turnpike to the New York State Thruway, through Bergen County,
New Jersey, and Rockland County, New York. Each route has strong
proponents in each case consisting of persons living along the other
routes.
These conflicting interests cannot be resolved either by local intransig-
ence or refusal to face facts or by arbitrary action on the part of highway
authorities. They must be considered within the framework of com-
prehensive planning that is strongly based on facts- all the facts, and
that will weigh all the interests involved.
This brings us to the second part of the Fourth heading: We have to
live with the monsters that we create. No one can view a great swath
through a residential area resulting from the construction of a highway of
the magnitude that must characterize the routes of the Interstate System
without realizing that here is something that has tremendous impact on
adjacent land. In Westchester County we made a scientific study of the
extent of impact of various types of thoroughfares on the neighborhoods
through which they pass. The facts showed that stability of neighborhood
quality and protection of property values requires ample space between the
pavement of a major thoroughfare and adjacent residential development
not less than 100 feet on each side. This led to our establishing a standard
for our future major thoroughfares our primary system of a right-of-
way width of 400 feet. Even those who have bitterly opposed our pro-
78 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
posals unless they were to be routed somewhere else have not questioned
the soundness of that standard. We believe that our particular traffic
situation calls for a few routes as few as possible of great capacity, in-
sulated from adjacent development by broad belts of natural or planted
landscaping. We prefer major operations that can be healed in a readjust-
ment of community patterns rather than whittlings that will have to
be followed by others that will continue to ache and bleed.
The discussion thus far virtually makes the Fifth point : The magnitude
of the job leaves no room for corners on wisdom. The best wisdom and the
best skill of all who are concerned with any part of what I have been dis-
cussing are required for a job of the magnitude of the planning and design
of the Interstate Highway System. The planner, as such, certainly cannot
do it alone any more than can the engineer, as such. The planner has
no call to get righteous about it; the engineer has no right to be a bully
about it. I could offer no finer example of the effective collaboration that
I am talking about than the close interdepartmental working relationships
that exist in the government of my own county of Westchester. Engineers
frequently think of planners as stargazers; planners frequently think of
engineers as glorified ditch diggers. I resist the temptation to observe that
there may be a measure of truth in both viewpoints and hasten to say
that there can be no compartmentalization of skills in a job like this one.
The Interstate System is now being designed: 41,000 miles to tomorrow,
a tomorrow in which the Nation will be more closely knit together by this
vast system of vehicular communication. What is really knit together is
the great community of communities that make up the Nation. Their
interests are vitally bound up in the manner in which the job is done, in
the details of its relationship to their own concerns. It is they whom the
system seeks to serve. There is a range of interests here that calls for the
use of all possible knowledge and skill. No time can be lost in bringing
that knowledge and skill fully to bear on the job.
I propose that there be early consultation to this end. I do not mean a
mere meeting where pronouncements are made for the record, but a work-
ing conference that has been carefully planned. I propose that the engi-
neers and the planners proceed forthwith to prepare an agenda for such a
conference. The means that I propose for this initial step is that the
Bureau of Public Roads, the American Association of State Highway Offi-
cials, the Highway Research Board, the American Planning and Civic
Association, the American Society of Planning Officials and the American
Institute of Planners each name one representative of a group to meet
within the next three weeks for the purpose.
GENERAL LOUIS W. PRENTISS
LAST week I was in Minneapolis and I had dinner with the Com-
missioner of Highways of Minnesota and the Commissioner of
Highways for the State of Wisconsin. I was discussing with them the
problems with which the highway industry is faced in connection with
MAIN STREET 1969 79
the location of these highways. And I told them that I had made a
talk down in Richmond, to the Virginia State Highway officials and
Chamber of Commerce in which I said that one of the biggest problems
with which we are faced is selling our people their highways to them-
selves. I was interested in Mr. Pomeroy's comment that the entire
people own these highways. And I can assure him that is what they
think when they go where they want them. But when they go where
they don't want them, they are not our highways, they belong to that
unpopular Highway Commissioner.
Our next speaker is going to talk to us on the subject of his ex-
perience in the planning program in Detroit; the working relationship
he has established between the planning agency and the city planners;
the basic function of each and the impact of these new highways.
Glenn C. Richards graduated from the University of Michigan in
1924. For some reason or other the biography furnished me skips from
1924 to 1941. But I find that in 1941 he became the Deputy Commis-
sioner of Public Works for the City of Detroit and he has continued in
that service ever since.
GLENN C. RICHARDS, Commissioner of Public Works,
Detroit, Michigan
THE automotive age and industrial revolution have brought about
many great changes in our way of life and in our everyday living
habits. No longer do we walk from home to shopping centers or offices.
Autos and buses have taken the place of our human means of transporta-
tion. This change alone has brought about many problems on Main
Street that we never dreamed of in 1910 because Main Street of 50 years
ago, which is still in use, was pretty much dedicated to and used by
pedestrians with almost no interference by autos, trucks, streetcars
or buses. Today, Main Street is a conglomeration of shoppers, parkers,
bus loading stations, delivery trucks, street repair crews and many others.
Confusion and frustration are typical of Main Street U.S.A. 1957.
The separation of these various street uses must be given high
priority in our future city planning. Today's many uses are not com-
patible. Main Street 1969 must be rebuilt so as to better serve the
original concept (the city's main shopping center). The popularity of
the modern shopping centers, such as Northland near Detroit, is proof
enough that the shoppers of today are not satisfied with the shopping
centers of the past. Pedestrian malls, attractively designed, convenient
to the shoppers, safe for young and old and providing an environment
quite the opposite to that provided by Main Street today, are demanded
by today's shoppers. Detroit's plan for Main Street 1969 provides such
an environment. Meetings such as this, which are taking place all over
America, show the concern that the public has for the impact of our
national highway program and particularly the Interstate Limited Access
80 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Highway System. The recognition by Congress of its responsibility in
solving this National transportation problem in my opinion will provide
the incentive that local authorities have needed to face up to our local
responsibilities in solving the local transportation problem.
The decision to revolutionize our highway and street system in this
country is a challenge to planners to locate our new highways so as to
better serve our new concept of city redevelopment. Let me point out,
however, that these new highways are needed today, and therefore, time
is of the essence and if our city planners are not in a position to recom-
mend locations of new highways so as to fit in the orderly development
of our future cities, then the highways will be built to serve traffic only,
which would be a great mistake.
In the past we have given little consideration to locating our high-
ways so as to develop the most advantageous land-use to our com-
munity. We have followed the axiom that a straight line is the shortest
distance between two points and as near as possible laid out our major
highways with this in mind. This idea would have been sound if our
only interest was to get the people from a certain point of origin to a
certain destination and assuming that the highway-users are all at one
point of origin and headed for the same destination. It so happens in
our cities that a large portion of our traffic is within the city itself and
its origin and destination are the many residential, business and com-
mercial areas of the city. In the past, this kind of traffic had often been
called "local traffic" and I suppose in the true sense of the word it is
local traffic. On the other hand, it is local traffic that is very important
to the growth of our city and State. If people are to live and work in
our cities and urban areas, they must have safe, efficient transportation
between their homes and their places of employment. If industry is to
continue to expand, it also must have safe, efficient transportation so
that their raw materials and parts can be transferred from either outside
or inside the city to the main factory and their finished products trans-
ported from their main factory to their customers.
We have tried many means of transportation both of people and
goods in our cities in the past. The modern method which has proven the
most efficient and therefore has grown very fast in the last twenty years
is automotive transportation. It appears now as though this means of
transportation is the one that we must depend on if our economy is to
go forward and if our cities are to thrive. I am not one of those pessimists
who say that the automobile, truck and bus which we now take as a
must in this complicated city life is a great Frankenstein monster.
Many contend that the automobile and truck, which have done so much
to make our cities great, are now going to cause us to go into bank-
ruptcy. This is a defeatist attitude. If we admit that automotive trans-
portation is essential to our way of life (and I am sure we will all pretty
well agree to this), then we must find a way to solve the problems it
causes.
MAIN STREET 1969 81
The biggest problem, as I see it, is the conflict between the various
types of traffic. The children want to get across the street to the school.
The truckdriver wants to deliver merchandise from store to store. The
lady of the house wants to drive her car to a nearby shopping district.
The doctor wants to get from his home to his office as quickly as possible.
The factory worker wants to get from his factory job to his home in a
reasonable time so that he can have some leisure with his family. All
of these people are trying to use the same street for different purposes.
Some want to move fast. Some are satisfied to move at a leisurely pace.
This conflict of interest is the cause of much of our troubles. If a way
can be found to separate these various highway and street uses, then we
shall have gone a long way towards solving this confused problem.
I would like to speak particularly on the urban transportation
problem. The following quote from the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act,
Section 116, Paragraph B, indicates the importance which Congress
placed on the Interstate Highway System through our cities:
It 'being the intent that local needs, to the extent practicable, suitable, and
feasible, shall be given equal consideration with the needs of interstate com-
merce.
For the first time, this importance, and the Federal responsibility in
sharing this problem, has been spelled out.
Studies have been made which have indicated the desirability of by-
passing many of our cities in the location of the Interstate Highway
System. This appears to be logical, particularly when a large percentage
of the traffic approaching the city has no desire or need to stop in that
city. However, many origin-destination studies have shown that in our
medium-size and larger cities over half of the traffic (and sometimes as
much as 85 percent) has as its destination some area within the city
itself. The needs of these people must be met. The entrance to this city
then must be made either by access roads from the main highways or
by carrying the main highway directly through the city. These high-
ways can be carried through our cities and designed so as to offer very
little interference with the local traffic. I like to think of our design in
Detroit as being a vertical by-pass. By carrying both local and through
traffic into our city on a depressed highway, both can be served ef-
ficiently. The first such highway in a city was built by the Wayne County
Road Commission, partly in Detroit and partly in Highland Park. This
was known as the Davison Expressway and was constructed about 1940.
It funnels fast, heavy traffic from the east side of Detroit to the west
side by depressing the highway approximately 20 feet below the existing
streets. Tight fences make it impossible for pedestrians to get onto the
highway. Center islands with steel guardrails separate opposing flow
of traffic. Accidents have been nearly eliminated on this highway. Our
newer expressways, which generally follow the same design except with
many new improvements worked out by the traffic engineers, the
82 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
planners and the highway engineers, have convinced the highway engi-
neers, city officials and highway users of Detroit that these highways
are the answer to our transportation problem. Traffic moves non-stop
at an average speed of 50 miles per hour into and through our city on
these new expressways. There is no conflict between the various highway
and street users. The pedestrian crosses the highway at intervals to
schools, shopping districts or offices on especially built pedestrian
bridges. Service drives and bridges permit free flow of local automobile
traffic without any interference with fast through traffic. Our accidents
have been decreased 90 percent over existing surface thoroughfares.
Not only have these highways nearly eliminated accidents (and the
percentage is becoming better and better all the time as people become
educated as how to drive on these expressways) but local surface streets,
which had become almost useless for local business, have now reverted
to the use they were originally designed to serve.
Automobiles, buses and trucks all use these expressways without con-
flict. The maximum speed limit is 55 miles per hour and the minimum is
40. Trucks are limited to 45 miles per hour and must use the right-hand
lane. Public transit has been taken into consideration and loading
stations have been built as part of the expressway either by separate
abutting roadways at main intersecting streets or by building access
ramps to the surface. The flexibility that this type of highway offers
to public transit is being recognized more every day. Express buses can
travel at 50 miles per hour from downtown Detroit non-stop to the
various residential or business areas of our city and be distributed by
way of ramps. This comes closer to the "door-to-door" service that our
standard of living is requiring in transportation. This is transportation
at its best. Freight or merchandise, likewise, can be delivered into,
through or around our city by way of the expressways with a great
saving in time and money. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
We have demonstrated in Detroit that good ground transportation in
all its forms can be provided in our cities and, as a result of these im-
proved facilities, cities can become greater and more prosperous than,
ever.
I would like to talk for a few minutes on the redevelopment of our
cities and the important part that transportation can play in this re-
development. In the past, highways were built and land development
followed. Small business, industry and homes were built along these
highways in what we refer to as "strip development". The resulting
hodgepodge has ruined our highways as transportation arteries, making
them unsafe and inefficient, and has prevented the orderly development
of our cities. In contrast, picture a city laid out from the beginning in
accordance with an orderly master plan of development with highways
designed to serve this land use. This would be ideal. We recognize, how-
ever, that it is too late to start from scratch. We must take what we
MAIN STREET 1969 83
have and rebuild. The new concept of city planning is to tear down the
old where it has outlived its usefulness and rebuild with new.
This new concept of city planning started with our slum clearance
and urban redevelopment programs. The tearing down of our slums and
rebuilding with modern housing projects have proved one of the best
investments cities have made. The expense of providing police, fire,
health and cleaning services for these slum areas has cost cities a great
deal more than they have produced in taxes. Planning officials on all
levels of government interested in urban redevelopment see the op-
portunity for the first time of determining the desirable land-use of our
future cities and locating our new highways so as best to serve this
land-use. It is hard for us as traffic and highway engineers to visualize
such a concept. It is not very hard for us, however, to see the bad ef-
fects of the type of planning that has been done in the past where high-
ways have been located with little consideration to future planned
land-use and have soon become obsolete due to the type of development
that has been attracted to our highways.
While the limited-access features of the Highway Act will do much
to protect the low density population areas, there are other possibilities
in design and location that can be of even greater benefit to cities. We
have found that it is not only possible to locate our highways on other
than a straight line, but even desirable to have curves in our highways
to relieve the monotony of driving. The time lost on our fast expressways
due to offset alignments is negligible. Future land-use planning might
well determine that a highway should be detoured from one side of the
city to the other so as to serve better the future urban development.
Modern highways can well be used to separate the various sub-commun-
ities within the city as determined by zoning. It should be noted the
value that the city planner can be to the highway engineer in locating
our highways through our cities. He can help us avoid many of the
mistakes of the past.
A word of caution is in order! It is realized that the perfect plan can
finally be prepared if time is of no consequence. However, practical
matters must be taken into consideration and decisions must be reached,
otherwise there is no end to city planning and a final Master Plan will
never be completed. Talking must end at some point; plans must be
completed and construction must start because the thousands of motor-
ists who want to use our streets and highways cannot drive on plans
and blueprints and they cannot drive over delicately made scale models.
A common understanding must be reached by the ivory tower thinkers
and those who are concerned with practical matters and the problem of
eventually completing a usable facility.
If we are to meet the challenge, not only in building highways but in
building them so that we can look back with pride in the future at our
accomplishments, then we must realize that full use should be made of
all technicians who can be of value in our planning. While it is recog-
84 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
nized that Congress holds the Bureau of Public Roads responsible for
carrying out this giant highway program and the Bureau of Public
Roads in turn places the responsibility on the state highway depart-
ments, it must be recognized that the city and county highway engineers
and planners can be of great assistance to the state highway administra-
tor. The relationship between the various levels of government in high-
way administration in the past has not been too good in some States.
We must all recognize the importance of this highway program to every
level of government and join together in the best interest of getting good
results. Good intergovernment relationship, in my opinion, can be the
key to successfully meeting the challenge which has been thrust upon us.
A network of interstate highways cannot properly serve the people
of this country unless adequate state trunklines, county roads and city
streets are provided to give access to these interstate highways. For
this reason, if we are to have an efficient network of streets and highways,
we must work together. Cities in the past have given little consideration
to the real problem of meeting today's transportation needs.
In 1954, when Congress asked the Bureau of Public Roads to make a
national study of the highway and street needs for the country, it be-
came quite evident that cities had little information upon which to base
a sound highway program through their cities. In the preparation of the
Clay Report for Congress, it was evident that too little information was
available on which to estimate the total needs in cities. Representing
cities on the Clay Committee, I realized that we, as cities, had been
negligent in not having this information available. Many cities through-
out the country, when called upon for information, could not supply it.
City officials through their various national associations (such as the
American Municipal Association, City Managers Association, American
Public Works Association, Finance Officers, City Planners and Law
Officers) decided that cities should jointly concentrate our efforts in
preparing a blueprint whereby all cities could gather the information
necessary not only for their highway needs but for their total city trans-
portation needs. The National Committee on Urban Transportation
was founded early in 1954. The Bureau of Public Roads, the American
Association of State Highway Officials and the National Transit Asso-
ciation all recognized the importance of this work and have joined with
us in furnishing technical and financial help to do the job. Top con-
sultants from the Bureau of Public Roads, the Automotive Safety
Foundation and universities were asked to serve with the Committee.
A staff was hired and nine sub-committees were appointed to study
various phases of the problem.
Top men were asked to be Chairmen and 150 top technicians in the
country were asked to serve without pay on these various Committees.
During the past two years much hard work has been done and within
the next few months manuals will be printed and distributed to all cities
throughout the country. These manuals for the first time will contain
MAIN STREET 1969 85
valuable information so badly needed by most of our cities. Several pilot
cities were asked to try out many of the recommendations in the pre-
liminary manual and are about complete with their work. Their findings
will be included in the final manual.
Recently, the American Association of State Highway Officials and
the American Municipal Association have formed a joint committee
of state and city highway administrators to work out a program for
closer cooperation in highway planning. Joint meetings of state highway
officials and city officials have been held in several States and more are
planned in the near future. Top representatives of the Bureau of Public
Roads, the American Association of State Highway Officials, the Ameri-
can Municipal Association and the National Association of County
Officials act as a task force or panel to discuss the program and answer
questions at these meetings. Many States have made considerable
progress in building up a close working relationship between the various
levels of government.
I would like to point out briefly some of the things that we have done
in Michigan toward this end. In 1944 an Agreement was signed by the
State Highway Commissioner, the Wayne County Road Commission
and the City of Detroit in which we agreed jointly to plan, finance and
construct our future state highways in Detroit and Wayne County.
Since that time we have worked as a very close team. The layout, the
preliminary design and much of the detail design has been accomplished
by making full use of city, county and state technicians. A Joint Ad-
ministrative Committee has agreed on policy. A Joint Top Engineering
Committee has worked out details. Much of the design, supervision
and right-of-way acquisition was delegated by the Highway Com-
missioner to the County and City. We joined together in pledging
funds toward retirement of bonds and have accelerated our program
greatly during the past five years with this bond financing. We have
joined together in promoting good state highway legislation. Two ex-
pressways, totalling approximately 24 miles, are nearly completed
costing $200,000,000. Three new expressways have been agreed upon
and the City and County have been authorized to proceed with right-of-
way plans and soon expect to start acquisition of right-of-way. We
expect to carry out the same type of relationship we had on the first
two expressways not only in completing the next three but in going
forward with our 100 miles of needed expressways for Detroit. Of
course, it has taken thirteen years to bring about the type of relationship
and cooperation which we now have. Many other cities and counties in
Michigan have worked out the same type of relationship with the High-
way Department.
We are making an effort in Michigan to complete our entire Inter-
state System between and through our cities within the next 8 years.
The estimated cost is better than 2 billion dollars.
86 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
All highway planners and highway builders must join hands to meet
this challenge. The people have spoken. They want good highways.
They want good transportation. They want them so built as to serve
safely and efficiently the urban area as well as the rural area. They want
them designed as a network or chain without bottlenecks or missing
links.
Main Street 1969 can again be the most important street in any
city. It can provide an environment attractive to shoppers. It can again
be the main attraction beautifully designed but so planned as to pro-
vide an efficient place to carry on business which is so important to the
future welfare of any city.
GENERAL LOUIS W. PRENTISS
THE next speaker is going to talk on the social and esthetic in-
fluence of the potential highway program. Grady Clay is a native
of Georgia. He is a graduate of Emory University and holds an M.S.
degree from Columbia University. During the war he served for a year
and a half in Italy, France and Alaska on the staff of The Yank, the
Army's weekly magazine. He is currently vice-president of the Na-
tional Association of Real Estate Editors and is the Real Estate and
Building Editor of the Courier- Journal in Louisville, Kentucky.
GRADY CLAY: Real Estate Editor,
Louisville Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky
ON THIS program today I am much more accustomed to sitting
at the press table instead of up here, and I feel a little like low
man on the totem pole. I have a bulldozer man coming up next and
ahead of me have been all sorts of performers.
I feel somewhat like a friend of mine, a landscape architect. Quite
often, he tells me, he's called upon to do a professional job. He is rushed
rather breathless out to the edge of town, shown a barren dusty desert
where bulldozers are snorting and shoving at the landscape, where
foundations are being poured, dump trucks dumping, diggers digging
. . . And, says my friend, there comes a generous wave of the hand,
and he is told that his services will be needed to make it look well, to
plant this up, or to plant that out that being some gargantuan structure
already 80 feet up in the air.
Our line-up on today's program is symbolic, though probably acci-
dental. Your previous speakers have helped pass the legislation, lay
down the framework, button up the contracts, control the roadside, set
up the standards, and arrange the long-term financing. Now, I have
been assigned the task of prettying things up, planting them out, and
attending to seeding, sodding, vegetation and possible obliteration.
Rut you will forgive me if I interpret this assignment broadly, and
deal first with highway planning as a means toward improving social
MAIN STREET 1969 87
conditions in American cities. And I use the word social in the sense
that man is a social creature.
Already, we are in the midst of a social revolution brought on by the
automobile and easy highway transportation. This revolution has
produced a new culture in which Holiday magazine is the Bible, Duncan
Hines the Prophet; and the new Mecca is a country-club 25 miles out
in the country. Ours is a culture worshipping mobility ; a society in which
conspicuous consumption has become fourth-dimensional (the fourth
dimension being the time it takes you to pay off the installments on
that new auto you do not need, but must have).
This social revolution has expanded the market for such commodities
as social charm, as well as Portland cement. It has broadened acquaint-
ances as well as sales territories. It has widened horizons while pulling
up roots. It has produced a new kind of mobility among footloose
families who can move bag and baggage at the drop of a production
schedule, and whose roots consist of geographically interchangeable
memberships in Kiwanis or Rotary Clubs, Junior Leagues, camera
clubs, Boy Scout Den Mothers and such social accessories.
The dangers in such a revolution are obvious. We can produce a
Nation of people whose telephone numbers are not yet in the book,
which is a small matter. But we can produce a Nation of cities torn apart
by hasty and ill-planned highways, which is quite another matter.
The great danger social and otherwise is that we may improve the
accessibility of Suburbia and Exurbia, not to mention the open country-
side, without equally improving downtown U.S.A. . . . without clearing
slums, redeveloping waterfronts, relieving congestion, making our
existing cities and towns better places in which to live and love, do
business, enjoy pleasures . . .
Stated another way, the great danger is that, in their rush to get
things done, to make a showing, get results, pour concrete, get traffic
moving, open a new connection the danger is that our highway officials
will perform their new miracles outside the very districts which need
them most the metropolitan areas. The real danger is that they will
concentrate on spots where rights-of-way are cheap, easily obtained;
where cut-and-fill economics can be quickly applied to the landscape
with few people around to protest.
This meeting of American Planning and Civic Association reveals
clearly that the hottest potato being juggled between City Hall, Court
House and the State House across the United States today is this Federal
highway program. To be specific the battle over whose ox is going to
be gored . . . whose back yard is going to be ruptured . . . whose long-
range plans are going to be botched up this time ... at these meetings,
I have discovered all you have to do is bring this subject up, and then
duck.
Sunday at the Board of Trustees meeting one of your Trustees made
this statement: "Our Metropolitan Planning Commission has made
88 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
expensive studies of future highway location, but the State Highway
Department pays practically no attention . . . The Chairman of the
State Highway Department said, 'Sure, we will accept your plans, but
we do not pay any attention . . . We're building up our resistance to
fellows like you.' "
On the Sunday afternoon bus trip I sat next to a planning director
from a big Ohio metropolitan area. These are his words: "By the time
we got to the State Highway Department, they had already fixed the
location for the new routes ... In every instance we know, the State
Highway Department had never shown them obsolete plans. In some
instances, we found them using maps 10 years old, with nothing to
show what had been done with ground since 1945 . . . U.S. 40 is being
located without consultation with the local authorities at Dayton, and
without leaving underpasses or overpasses for the already-designated
loop highway that is on the official map."
I asked one planner what he was doing about a particularly unco-
operative and non-coordinating State Highway engineer. His answer
was and I don't think it can be offered as a comprehensive cure nor as
a universally applicable solution his answer was, "We got rid of the
so-and-so."
Here in Little Rock I've been hearing sad stories of the Little Rock
Third Street, or Downtown Expressway ; how the New York consultants
hired by the State worked up the plans, but your own Metropolitan
Planning Commission never saw the plans until they were unveiled to
the public in 1956; how the Metroplan came up with its famous Ten
Points, changes which it recommended to the State Highway Com-
missioners and asked for a meeting, with no success; how the City of
Little Rock finally approved the route but asked that the Ten Points
be considered; how an official of the State Highway Department said,
"Take it as is, or we will spend the money elsewhere"; and finally, in
May 1957, after strenuous editorials and questioning from your news-
papers, the State Highway Department agreed to sit down and discuss
the route with your local planners; now this, as I understand it, is
the position of Metroplan, as described to me by Jerry McLindon and
others . . . But there is another side to the whole matter of cooperation.
... In many States the State Highway Department has been the single
agency equipped to do the job of planning, locating and building high-
ways . . . Until recently, there were few, if any, local planning com-
missions able to come up with their own plans . . . Just yesterday a
planner described his first meeting representing a large metropolitan
planning agency, with his own State Highway people. The chairman,
a Highway Department man, looked around the room, and said "Gentle-
men, we here at this table have 150 years of combined experience in
building highways; how much have you had?" The answer was a feeble
"Two". Whereupon the State man said "Well, then, let us not be pre-
sumptuous" (meaning, of course, "Keep quiet buster, we gonna run the
MAIN STREET 1969 89
show.") If this is a one-sided picture, the fault lies equally with the
cities which have no planner, which have never adopted a long-range
highway plan, and have always depended on the State Highway De-
partments to do their thinking for them. Above all, however, the real
aim of the highway program should be to make each American town and
city a coherent unit, a community which can be grasped, understood,
enjoyed and appreciated as an organic whole, not just a collection of
brick and mortar, held together by a name and a handfull of tax bills.
This cannot be done by ruthlessly cutting through old neighborhoods
with new expressways, regardless of old neighborhood names, which
often appear on no official city map. It cannot be done by letting the
expressway locations fall wherever the Origin-Destination surveys
dictate. It cannot be done by making ourselves slaves to the Desire
Lines, those neat, straight little symbols on the planners' maps which
would mislead us into thinking that because a straight line is the shortest
distance between two points, those two points must necessarily be con-
nected by a straight expressway.
Sometimes, of course, there is no easy way; the highway must cut
through established neighborhoods, doing great damage. In such
locations, we, as onlookers, advisers, self-appointed buttinskis, or
whatever we may be called, we should insist that these cut-through
expressways be designed to enhance, rather than destroy property values ;
that they improve, rather than cut off, social contacts. This is easy
enough, though expensive in dollars, by the addition of extra under-
passes or overpasses for pedestrians, bicycles, or even vehicles. In
this way, old associations, friendships, and ways of doing business can
continue without destruction.
But my major point remains: the highways must be planned to
benefit both city and countryside alike; to improve life, as well as speed
up traffic ; to make our cities enjoyable, as well as fast-moving.
And now I turn to the aesthetic factors which are being either
neglected or forgotten in our rush to produce highways quickly, ef-
ficiently, at lowest cost.
A highway is a device for moving the human body, livestock, or
other commodities, properly packaged and we hope safeguarded, from
one place to another. But a highway is more than that it is a fascinat-
ing form of architecture; a permanent addition to our physical environ-
ment, and not merely a gadget we hope to trade in on next year's model.
As a work of architecture, then, highways have special meaning for us.
Architecture is an art which concerns the sensitive more than any other.
You can shut up a bad book, you can stay away from a concert hall, theater,
or picture gallery . . . But very few of us can wholly evade streets and houses
. . . What they have written, they have written, and though their work be,
by our ill chance, ugly, senseless, or destructive of natural beauty, we may
well have to endure it for two or three centuries .
90 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
These are the words of the English writer, Williams-Ellis ("The
Pleasures of Architecture") to which I add: Highways, and especially
expressways within the built-up portions of our city are truly a form of
architecture, the most expensive public architecture in our generation.
Also, as I see it, highways are the most neglected subject for archi-
tectural criticism in our national scene.
We have here the spectacle of billions of dollars being spent for public
architecture, yet few people have grown concerned about anything but
"How many cars per hour will it handle?" Consequently, we are getting
a full share of deadly dull, monotonous, uninspired architecture laid out
across the Nation.
Paraphrasing Williams-Ellis, I might add:
Owing to the massive and permanent qualities of the worst architecture,
even the most sensitive parts of the community may, from sheer force of cir-
cumstances, get so used to stupid architecture (that is, ugly highways) that
they will tolerate them to the point of becoming insensitive.
We have not yet gone to hell in a handbasket, however, and the
world still admires beauty where it can find it. The world beats its way
to the door of beautiful buildings, congregates at the viewpoints over-
looking a Pennsylvania valley, an English countryside hemstitched
with hedgerows, or a great and soaring bridge across a Swiss chasm
designed by an artist in concrete, the engineer Maillart.
The world knows that an object of beauty has the power to "steal
out and overwhelm us do not ask how but only if we take the time
to be overwhelmed", only if we pause in our headlong rush from here
to there. This requires us to acquire the "power to stare at a beautiful,
still thing," to use our eyes for looking rather than for glancing.
Just the other day, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
brought out its special report: "Art Education for Scientist and Engi-
neer." Here, too, we find a familiar criticism, that we do not fully use
our eyes ... As the report says "there is a discrepancy between the
average freshman's ability to think, and his ability to see. Already
scholastically mature, he has yet to learn his ABC's in visual terms".
And again the report tells us: "The practical value of the trained eye
is to inspire wonder and, ultimately, insight".
What does this mean for highway designers? First, I think, that
they should include more artists, landscape architects, as well as engi-
neers. Second, that they should provide along their highways and ex-
pressways more viewpoints, more spots from which we can enjoy a
beautiful vista. Every bridge should have, as part of its design, some
designated spot nearby from which the traveler can get the best view . . .
We need more of these viewpoints for enjoying a lovely scene, where we
can take in a handsome structure, a distant skyline, waterfall, or deep
and narrow valley unfolded for us by the genius of a highway designer.
MAIN STREET 1969 91
For publicity's sake alone, these viewpoints can do much to popu-
larize a work of highway architecture. Each viewpoint will attract
thousands of camera-toting travelers who will snap pictures that will
be passed from hand to hand, shown to friends, often published widely.
(Example: San Francisco end of Golden Gate Bridge.)
What these new highways need is informed criticism. We can and
should become a Nation of highway critics who, as has been said of
the Almighty, are "Easy to please but hard to satisfy", able to find
flaws, yet enjoy the virtues of highways. For a critic who can no longer
be pleased is no longer fit for his job. "What matters most in the arts
is that the pursuit of beauty should begin."
I hope the day will come when the Nation's highway designers are
confronted with a well informed, vocal, persistent, voluble and tireless
body of critics. We need more bridge-reviewers as well as book-reviewers.
We need columnists willing to tackle highway engineers in their own
back yard, as well as the problems of the Aswan Dam on the River Nile.
As a part-time amateur practitioner of what I preach, I do not happen
to carry a handy pocketsized formula for a beautiful highway. The
closest thing I have seen is the report of the American Society of Land-
scape Architects' Committee on Public Roads, Controlled Access High-
ways and Parkways. But if I were called on to produce such a formula,
I would ask that it include some of these ingredients: A big dose of
"Separation" so that the roadways will not only be divided, but sepa-
rated from each other sometimes by thousands of feet.
I would also seek out and destroy all traces of that disease known as
"parallelism" whose victims insist that every roadway, and every
thing connected with a highway be dominated by parallel lines. Some
victims recover, but some spread their disease far and wide.
I would prescribe a maximum use of native trees, and retention of
native vegetation: Wide bands of thickly matted vegetation such as
multiflora rose along the median strips, and even earthen barriers to
protect the eyes of drivers from headlight glare; a large dose of topo-
graphical features which are characteristic of the local landscape; the
addition or retention of stone fences, hedgerows, springs, cliffs, and other
geographic features; viewpoints, overlooks, parking areas (concealed
from the countryside by adequate planting so parked autos do not
intrude into the view; multiple-use planning from the start, so that ugly
ditches may become reflection pools, old borrow pits are turned into
fishing ponds and recreation lakes, so that trees planted along the right-
of-way may be selectively cut to produce fenceposts; so that the rights-
of-way become continuous strips of beauty, stretches of flowering trees,
and of wildflowers across the country.
Mixed into every expressway design throughout cities would be a
large dose of open space, extra right-of-way to create garden spots,
small parks, and green-belts into the heart of the crowded metropolis.
92 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Along these expressways should be high earthen barriers to absorb
the noise of traffic. Into this mixture I would add color a variety of
colors to offset the deadly-glaring white of monotonous concrete. And
I would add texture a rough portion of concrete here, a "singing strip"
there, a variation in the joints to give us a clickety clonk or a clackety
clack as we approach a town, or curve, or merely pass a milepost.
Somewhere in this mixture would be the kind of variety we now get
only on ancient country lanes, the variety of shadows from overhanging
trees, or the exciting enclosure in an old covered bridge. (I note that
Iowa State College engineering students are experimenting with the
stimulating results that come from bouncing back at automobiles the
noise of specially designed sides of bridges, anything, you might say,
to wake up sleepy drivers.
Not long ago, Douglass Haskell, editor of Architectural Forum maga-
zine, wrote something about the necessity for "Civilizing Roadtown,
U.S.A.". This, I take it, is why we are here, because we are determined
to civilize Roadtown, to humanize the highways and expressways, to
unify Townscape and Landscape, and in the end to unify our cities.
Will we get the public's support?
I say yes because we are dealing today with a sophisticated and in-
creasingly educated motoring public. True, they detour endlessly to
enjoy safe, efficient highways. But they also drive miles out of their way
to enjoy and there is no other word for it the cramped, crowded,
narrow, but utterly delightful country lanes of the Kentucky Blue-
grass, these lovely roads with their undulating miles of greystone fences,
grown up in honeysuckle, lined with ancient trees, casting deep shadows
over the pavement.
They flock to Europe, to the most inaccessible spots of the world,
and of their own country, seeking the same visual pleasures which will
be utterly denied them on many of the flat monotonous strips of the
efficient superhighways. They seek visual thrills in contrast to the out-
raged, mechanized, cluttered landscapes of our cities and suburbs.
You have today a public educated to structure and shape, aestheti-
cally aware of form and function. They spend billions of dollars for
aesthetic reasons on Car X instead of Car Y (while Manufacturer Z
rushes off to Italy to hire the greatest artist in steel he can find to de-
sign a new Z model). They are beginning to support aesthetic zoning to a
degree which in coming years will cause a great shift in court decisions.
They are suspicious of straight-line thinking, sensitive to ugliness,
conscious of contrast, anxious to find beauty in crowded lives, tired of
clutter and confusion.
And they recognize visual blight when they see it: billboards, ugly
and excessive cuts and fills, abandoned stone quarries, leftover borrow
pits, hit-and-miss street furniture, roadside dumps, rusting equipment
left behind by road contractors, old rights-of-way left to become dump-
ing grounds, festooned with waste paper.
MAIN STREET 1969 93
They know what they like, a total landscape designed to please the
eye, as well as to move traffic; a landscape to move men's spirits, as well
as automobiles; to lift the heart as well as cut the accident rate. Only
when this attitude becomes dominant among all highway planners can
we be sure that the new 41,000 miles of highways will be put to their
highest and best use.
GENERAL LOUIS W. PRENTISS
THANK you very much for a refreshing and stimulating approach
to the problem.
Our last speaker this afternoon is a graduate of Bradley University
in Peoria, Illinois. He is President and Director of the Le Tourneau-
Westinghouse Company. As a manufacturer of construction equipment
he is going to approach the problem from a practical point of view, that
of the man who designs the equipment to build the roads. However,
he is likewise a member of the Peoria Metropolitan Planning Committee
and he has just completed a four-year term as a Councilman of the
City of Peoria.
MERLE R. YONTZ
President, Le Tourneau-Westinghouse Company, Peoria, Illinois
MY SUBJECT this afternoon was to listen to the other speakers
and then tell you whether or not in my opinion I felt that the
contractors and manufacturers were equipped to meet the challenge
that this Federal Highway Program will bring.
First of all I want to say that they are ; and I will elaborate on that
later. Another thing I want to say right now is I feel that the Federal
Highway people are doing an outstanding job on this whole project.
It has been my privilege to become acquainted with people like Captain
Curtiss and Bertram Tallamy and others all the way down the line and
I have never before seen in any Federal undertaking as many competent
people heading up a program ; so I think we can feel a sense of gratitude
and appreciation for the fine job that is being done.
Now that is very important. It is important in this way. We look at
this highway program as a terrific expenditure. But far more than that
it is an investment. It is an investment in the future of our country.
And I am sure that we all feel that the money being spent in this Federal
Highway Program will be returned to each and every one of us as aver-
age citizens many times over.
I think we all recognize too that some people fail to appreciate the
fact that the United States is a leader in the world. We are a Nation of
great leadership. The other countries of the world recognize this, and
there is not a week that goes by that a group of people from some
foreign country, either a government or engineering, manufacturing
group interested in a highway program comes to the United States to
94 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
make a study of what we are doing here, and an attempt is made to
carry our experience back with them to their own country; of course,
in a limited way compared to what we are doing here in the States.
The eyes of the world are upon us and watching what we are doing.
So far this afternoon the emphasis has been on engineering and
planning. Certainly, these are very important parts of road building.
I am here, however, to defend the contractors who build the roads and
the manufacturers who make the roadbuilding equipment. I think
they, too, are playing an important part in realizing this highway
system ; and I want to develop this phase a little more.
Just to give you another idea as to the size of this highway program,
I might compare it with the Panama Canal.
Scope of Interstate Highway Program: 60 times greater than
Panama Canal job; Approximately 60 billion yards to move; Average of
190,000 yards per mile; 1.8 billion yards to be moved in urban areas.
Contractors of America are geared and ready to handle the highway
program. The number of contracting firms is increasing daily 33,100
new contractors (of all types) were added in 1955 a gain of 6J^ percent
over 1954. Over 8,000 contractors handled $100,000 volume or more in
1955. Over 2,500 of these contractors handled $1 million or more in
volume a gain of 11 percent over 1954. Number of contractors in
business today represents a gain of 19 percent in last 5 years. In 1955 a
total of 2,316 contractors handled 5,375 different projects at $1.9 billion.
Mechanization in Earthmoving is Key to Success. Le Tourneau-
Westinghouse developed the rubber-tired self-propelled scraper in
1938 and made large volume earthmoving at high speeds a reality. Use
of these rubber-tired units has resulted in holding earthmoving costs
down only an 8 percent increase in the last 30 years! This contrasts
sharply with the tremendous rise in costs in construction materials and
labor which increased 239 percent in that period!
Competition is a big factor in holding costs. As a whole earthmoving
contractors are using their equipment at only 49 percent of capability.
Bids are highly competitive, resulting in holding prices at lowest levels.
The Challenge to Contractors: Better planning and design for efficient
field operations; lower ratio of overhead to be absorbed per dollar
volume; tighter scheduling and fuller use of existing fleets, thus getting
more operating hours per year per machine; more selective use of ma-
chines to make sure the right size and type are on the right jobs; and
replacement of obsolete equipment to secure better production and
efficiency.
The Challenge to the Construction Equipment Manufacturers:
Improved designs for still better production; adequate parts and service
facilities at the local level.
The Challenge of Financing: Need for better understanding of con-
tractors' problems by lenders; a close look at "tight money" and its
MAIN STREET 1969 95
effect on the contractor and the highway program ; financial help for the
small contractor to help him get a share of highway construction work.
The Challenge to the States: Better and faster engineering to get
roads into actual construction stage; programming construction work
to allow contractors to better utilize their equipment and manpower.
The continuity of contracts would enable the contractor to spread
overhead costs over a wider range of contracts to help keep costs low.
In Summary: Highway program is necessary and realistic; con-
tractors have know-how and equipment to handle it; by-products of
the Highway system promise countless opportunities for new businesses,
industrial and housing developments. Most important new highways
will save the most precious of all U. S. possessions American lives.
We think it is wise that this program has been scheduled by Con-
gress over a definite span of years. This gives the manufacturers an op-
portunity to schedule their production each year of the program in
keeping with the contractors' scheduled equipment needs year by year.
I visualize future location of plants and factories out in the rural areas
with employees commuting to and from their homes in the urban areas.
This plan is a far more feasible arrangement than our present setup.
Thus huge new highway program will contribute greatly to such a plan.
There will be terrific economies to the people of this country be-
cause of this new highway program. We must therefore plan for maximum
efficiency in its construction.
I have digressed from my subject but as I close my talk now I want
to say that I feel confident that contractors and manufacturers are pre-
pared to meet the challenge that this Federal Highway Program offers.
GORDON C. WITTENBERG
OUR thanks to General Prentiss and this panel for the splendid
session of "41,000 miles to Tomorrow."
There is one point on which we can all agree. We must all work
together.
96 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
The Citizen's Role in Planning
HARRY N. OSGOOD, Director of Urban Programs,
Sears-Roebuck & Company, Chicago, Illinois
FIRST, let us take a look at Main Street 1957. Downtown the
business section faces many problems: inadequate off-street park-
ing, congested streets with traffic often at a standstill in busy hours,
state highways through the main street, mixed land uses of residence
and business with the resulting stranglehold on needed business ex-
pansion. Refore we pass out of the downtown central district let me
mention that Sears, Roebuck and Company is part of main street with
1416 units in cities all over the country.
Adjacent to and life blood to downtown Main Street are the resi-
dential areas. Rut some of the residential areas are blighted with a
mixture of problems. To mention a few: not enough houses, substandard
houses, too few recreation areas, crowded schools on double shifts, in-
adequate zoning of land uses, inadequate housing, and building, fire
and sanitation codes inadequately enforced are typical of the average
city.
Whose responsibility is it to do something about the current ills of
our cities to achieve a better planned Main Street 1969? Too long the
attitude has been "Let George do it" and usually by "George" is meant
the government city, state, or Federal as the case may be. Definitely
the technicalities of city planning must be the role of government. The
Mayor and council, city manager, city planner and other municipal
officials are appointed or elected to do what is needed to bring about a
better city. Rut as much as it is the citizen's responsibility of putting
the municipal officials in office so it is the citizen's responsibility to know
and support the planning of its city's present and future shape. Some-
times with an apathetic administration citizens must be the catalyst to
create a climate or perhaps prod officialdom into action. Private citizens
as a rule cannot be too effective individually. A team effort is necessary
whether it be to support or initiate a program of city planning. This team,
citizens council call it what you wish should not be a part of the
Chamber of Commerce or a committee of the League of Women Voters
but an entirely independent organization made up of leaders of the
entire community: civic, business, industrial, labor, religious, patriotic,
and social. I have yet to find a city where the press, radio and tele-
vision will not give full support to any worthwhile organized movement
to bring about community improvement. Nor do I believe that any
"city fathers" have any but the warmest feelings toward a sincere
group of cooperative citizens. Rusiness and industry should be an
important part of the citizen organization, for they realize their re-
sponsibilities as corporate citizens in the community.
My own company, Sears, has long recognized its corporate civic
responsibility. Almost a half century ago Sears began assuming this
MAIN STREET 1969 97
responsibility. Through national programs with such groups as the 4-H
Clubs, the Grange, the Future Farmers of America, and others, we
were able to make a contribution in the rural field by way of creating
rural leadership and improved agricultural methods. Working locally
with people, our store managers made available to youths pedigreed
sows, bulls, and hens.
Sears today has evolved into a business which is primarily urban.
This has brought about a similar trend in our public relations activities.
We are trying to do our part in improving conditions in urban commun-
ities.
The critical need of urban communities is intensified city planning
and urban renewal programs. A stagnant and decaying community is
unhealthy for people and it is equally unhealthy for business and
industry.
T. V. Houser, Chairman of the Board of Sears and a director of
ACTION, recently said: "A well-planned, carefully organized, and
skillfully executed attack on the spreading blight and decay which has
infested so many of our urban areas means not only a better community
and a better city for those who live there, but a better, more prosperous
America for all of us."
Sears has had a national Sears Urban Renewal Program for over a
year. In general, this program is one of informing the members of the
Sears organization of the complex problems in connection with urban
renewal and city planning and indicating how Sears people can in their
locale most effectively contribute towards their solution. Throughout
the country Sears store managers and other company executives are
associating themselves with, and lending active support to, the volun-
tary civic movements set up to deal with the urban renewal and planning
problems of their own communities. We are proud of the fact that in a
considerable number of instances the Sears people have been the catalyst
which has started a hitherto non-existing movement.
Awareness by cities of the importance of city planning has created
a situation where trained personnel in this field are in great demand.
Last year there were only about 170 graduates from all planning schools
job openings amounted to over 400. The Sears-Roebuck Foundation
through a recent grant created five fellowships in city planning and next
year there will be ten fellowships in use.
Recently we compiled and made available a primer type of booklet
on urban renewal and city planning called the "ABC's of Urban Re-
newal." Originally planned as an internal company education tool,
within three months we have had a national distribution of 30,000 copies.
98 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
1969 The People Are Deciding It Today
GORDON C. WITTENBERG
WE ARE to speak at this session on "1969 The People are De-
ciding It Today," gearing people's will to development. We have
as our Chairman, a native Pittsburgher, Park H. Martin, who is Execu-
tive Director of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development.
This is a private citizens organization spearheading and coordinating
the renaissance program in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. For
many years Mr. Martin was engaged in the private practice of engi-
neering and was former director of the Allegheny County Planning
Commission. He was educated at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.
Mr. Martin received the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering from
his alma mater in 1949. In June, 1955, Mr. Martin was elected as
honorary member of the American Society of Civil Engineers by that
Society's Board of Directors.
Mr. Martin has been Executive Director of the Allegheny Conference
since 1944. As operating head of the Allegheny Conference Mr. Martin
has exercised an important role in planning many projects in Pittsburgh's
rebirth.
PARK H. MARTIN, Executive Director,
Allegheny Conference on Community Development, Pittsburgh, Pa.
THIS is my first trip into this part of the country. And it certainly
is a very enjoyable a very fine conference.
When I was asked to serve as Chairman of this meeting, I was given
instructions that I was limited to fifteen minutes and they would like to
have me make some remarks about what has been happening in Pitts-
burgh and particularly stress how we have been operating.
I know that there has been a great deal of publicity over the Nation
on this so-called Pittsburgh renaissance. But I would like to say to you
that the real story in Pittsburgh is not the story of brick or stone or
mortar, buildings or highways; it is the story of the people; it is a story
of leadership. It is a story of cooperation which I believe is the type of
a theme to which this meeting is addressed. And for the short period of
time that I have I am going to talk about the Allegheny Conference;
what it is and how it operates, both inside its own organization and
with the public.
To really know the beginning of the Allegheny Conference you would
have to have known Pittsburgh in 1943 when the idea originated for a
strong citizens organization, to do a job, as we call it, of research and
planning to develop a community plan which then would be presented
to the public and receive through educational process the public's
acceptance. You would have to recognize Pittsburgh as probably the
dirtiest city in the Nation, a city that was struggling with traffic prob-
MAIN STREET 1969 99
lems, and with the rundown commercial area in the Triangle to realize
what has happened and how far we have come. I am not going to praise
our work. It should speak for itself. But it really has been something
that is almost beyond conception.
The Allegheny Conference was conceived by Mr. R. K. Mellon, Dr.
Robert E. Dougherty, who was the President of Carnegie Institute of
Technology, Dr. Edward Wideline, who was head of the Mellon In-
stitute and Mr. Allen Scape of Mellon-Scape Foundation. Dr. Dougherty
became the first head of the Conference. He started out with a type of
leadership which was beyond criticism from political approach and which
had the scholarly background for research and planning. This Allegheny
Conference was incorporated in 1944 as a non-profit agency under the
Internal Revenue Code of the United States. It is devoted to research,
to planning and public education, and now its most important work,
I believe, is coordination.
We are not in any sense a federation. We have only a hundred
members but those persons are drawn from the fields of labor, banking,
commerce, industry and education. They are top level people. We do
not believe that we should have persons who can only say No and never
say Yes. Our people represent the leadership that can make up its mind
and make its decisions.
We first set out to ascertain the facts about the community. Some
one of the speakers here yesterday speaking of Forrest City, said they
ascertained the facts about the community. Basically, we took our
community apart. We did not kid ourselves as to personnel, assets or
liabilities. And after that we then developed a program. It was im-
portant to recognize the fact that we have maintained a very good work-
ing relationship with public officials. That means from the Governor of
the Commonwealth down through the Board of the County Com-
missioners and the Mayor of Pittsburgh. In fact the Mayor of Pitts-
burgh, the mayors of our three third class cities and their County Boards
of Commissioners are all sponsors of the Allegheny Conference.
The first piece of public relations that we did was a brochure. We
have used three types of brochures for public education. This one was
called "A Civic Tonic for Better Living" in which we attempted to
show the pubh'c the need for studying the area to find out its problems
and what should be done about it.
After two years of study we developed a program. We then put out
what we called our "Challenge and Response." In this book we carried
on one side of the page the challenge, in this case, smoke and dirt, and
on the other page the response. We went through our whole program
with the challenge on one side and the response on the other. That type
of brochure could not be given to every person in the community. Then
we moved into a folder which we were able to put out to the schools and
which we called "You All of Us". Every person in Allegheny County
had an interest in this program. And in smoke control we used another
100 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
type of folder. Over 100,000 of these went out to the schools and the
children were asked to take them home to their parents. And we are
sure they have done so by the response of the people. And finally,
just last year we reported to our community through what is now called
"The Gold Book," which we called "The Allegheny Conference Pre-
sents" and in which by pictures and words we have told people the
story of what has been done in the past ten or eleven years. Personally,
and I hope modestly I think it is a striking presentation of a great
civic renaissance.
We have maintained a very fine working relationship with the press.
I will not have time to tell of our understandings but the public press
has been a very, very great asset to public education, and keeping the
public informed as to what has been done and what was being proposed.
We have made use of radio and TV. The stations have been very liberal
with time as a public service. And now with our educational TV station
WQED we have another opportunity of presenting to the public the
story of our community program.
I would like to mention quickly the relationship between the Alle-
gheny Conference and public officials. While I lightly touched on it, it
is important for you all to remember that a non-profit private agency
had not any part whatsoever to do with those things that are of a public
nature. And we work very closely with our public officials. We hold
conferences, explain the purposes of our program and I believe we have
had outstanding leadership on the part of our officials.
I use a very common expression that the Allegheny Conference and
myself as director never do what I call front run the public officials.
In other words, I say, we do not have to be elected to anything. They are
public officials and of course, expect to be elected again and can take
some credit out of the program by cooperating. More power to them.
We recognize their position in the community and we believe they
recognize ours.
We have a relationship with other civic agencies. We have never
transgressed, let us say, on the fields of other civic agencies where they
were doing a job. But where they were not doing a job, then we have
stepped in to see that the job was done.
I mentioned a few minutes ago the matter of coordination. I be-
lieve yesterday on the highway program that was discussed at some
length, particularly in the Detroit part. We think that is terrifically
important when you have three levels of government and in our case
we have 129 separate municipalities. We find it extremely important
to have coordination between the various levels of government. And
strange as it may seem this private agency of which I am a part, is used
and asked to serve as a coordinator by the public bodies. We have had
a Republican state government. We have had Democratic city and
county governments and we have been able to coordinate those various
political levels. And again, strange as it may seem, you will probably
MAIN STREET 1969 101
find that even inside of a political party there can be some very deep
feuding. As an example, last Friday just before I came down to Little
Rock, I went to the City of Erie to talk about a highway matter that
affected the cities of Erie and Pittsburgh. I went at the request of the
Secretary of Highways. He felt that I could do a job on this project
that he and his department could not do because of some differences
between the departments and the City of Erie. We have acted as a co-
ordinator between private industry and the Highway Department and
in various other ways has this agency been able to bridge over the various
problems which arise.
I would like to mention the level of the Conference members, particu-
larly our Executive Committee. It is unusual to find the type of men
who are willing to give of their time to the community effort such as
we have in this Pittsburgh program. For instance, we have the Presi-
dent of U. S. Steel Corporation serving on our Executive Committee.
We have the President of H. J. Heinz Company ; we have the President
of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation; Mr. I. W. Wilson, President
of the Aluminum Corporation of America; Mr. Arthur Van Bushirk,
Mr. Mellon's right hand man; Mr. Snyder, Chairman of the Board,
Crucible Steel Corporation, and men of that character. These men are
now so much inoculated with their civic responsibility that they turn
out every month to attend the meetings; in fact, I would proudly say
to you that we have had a 75 percent attendance of these special persons
at our Executive Committee meetings over the past ten or eleven years.
One other angle in which an organization such as ours has been able
to draw civic leadership into the community effort has been through
the use of authorities. You may not know much about authorities in
this part of the country. We have used the authority mechanism very
much in carrying out our program. And we have drawn on our member-
ship for persons to serve on the authorities.
These are public appointments. And I was asked a question by one
of our speakers on the leadership of the Mayor and the Council and the
Commissioners. They have kept politics out of these types of things
because most of our men are Republicans in their political persuasion
and yet in most cases the majority of members on these Authority Boards
are Republicans with the Democratic members in the minority. I say
to you that this is a high type of political leadership.
We still have a long road to go but I am confident that with the
community education of our members that the road ahead so far as
we are concerned is bright.
It is now my pleasure to introduce to you the first speaker on your
panel. He is William B. Arthur, Managing Editor of Look. Mr. Arthur
is a native of Louisville, Kentucky. He attended the University of
Kentucky at Lexington and after graduation returned to his home town
to join the staff of the Louisville Courier- Journal. During World
War II he was Chief of the Press Branch of the War Department,
102 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Bureau of Public Relations, and until recently maintained an active
Lt. Colonelcy in the U. S. Army Reserve. He also maintains two com-
missions as a Kentucky Colonel, both of which were bestowed upon
him in one six weeks' period. Mr. Arthur has been with Look for eleven
years. He joined the Washington Staff of Look in April 1946 following
his separation from the Army and shortly thereafter he became a
member of Look's New York editorial staff. He subsequently moved up
to Assistant Managing Editor and became Managing Editor of Look
in December 1953.
He plays a prominent part in all civic and charitable activities and
is president of the local civic group working for the betterment of the
community. He is a member of Sigma Delta Chi journalism fraternity.
WILLIAM B. ARTHUR, Editor, Look, New York, N. Y.
I AM here to tell you something about Look's interest in two specific
programs to encourage the cities of the United States to improve
their communities. These are programs which, in our opinion, are made
possible only because "The People Are Deciding It Today". The first
is the All-America Cities Awards program a unique program co-
sponsored since 1952 by Look and the National Municipal League.
Each year, eleven communities are named All-America Cities in
recognition of their outstanding civic accomplishments brought about
through the initiative and action of their citizens. An All-America
City's accomplishments may be in a number of important areas of
civic life such as improvements in city government, schools, public
health, municipal facilities. In fact, a citizen-led campaign leading
to any major improvement of benefit to the community as a whole
may help a city win.
It has often been said that an All-America City Award is the most
coveted honor that can come to a city. If that is true and, frankly,
we believe it is true then we are heartily glad of it. Not only do we
enjoy having our awards so well regarded, but we know that the higher
the honor, the harder people will work, and the more they will accom-
plish, in striving to merit it.
The second project sponsored by Look recognizes improvements made
in home neighborhoods and residential areas. This program, which was
inaugurated in 1956, is called the Community Home Achievement
Awards. You people here in Little Rock need not be told what a Com-
munity Home Achievement Award is. You have one. Little Rock is
one of the nine cities which in April became a charter member of the
first Community Home Achievement team.
For the benefit of those who are not residents of Little Rock, I
should like to point out that, as in the case of the All-America Cities
Awards, a high degree of citizen participation is a vital factor in winning
a Community Home Achievement Award.
MAIN STREET 1969 103
Many of you may wonder why a national magazine goes to such
trouble year after year to encourage communities to improve themselves.
You may say that a magazine's function is to print stories and articles
and these two award programs add up to only three or four stories out
of the hundreds Look publishes each year. To answer this question, I
would like to tell you briefly why Look sponsors the two award com-
petitions for the cities of America.
Look's greatest concern is in people what they do, what they feel,
what they believe, what they want. It is a never-ending story, which
we try to tell with warmth, understanding and wonder. We believe in
people, but our interest goes beyond a mere belief. We also know what
people can accomplish. We know that fellow citizens, working together
in their community for a common end, can achieve tremendous results.
We have seen it happen time and time again.
As we view it, American democracy is evolving in a new and exciting
direction almost under our very eyes. If we cast our minds bark to the
earlier days of the Nation, we see a much simpler pattern fewer and
smaller cities and towns, separated by vast areas of farm land, woodland
or prairie. Local governments had comparatively few functions and
responsibilities and, except for some half-dozen metropolises such as
New York, Boston and Philadelphia, civic affairs were relatively un-
complicated. The little red schoolhouse took the place of the Depart-
ment of Education, and Farmer Brown's horse solved his transportation
problems.
As we all know, the picture has changed greatly since that time, and
the change has come about with breathtaking velocity. First came the
growth of industry, which drew large groups of workers to metropolitan
areas. The second change was ushered in by the development of rapid
communication and transportation the telegraph, the railroads, the
telephone, the automobile and, finally, the airplane. And the third
change was brought about by our astounding population growth in the
past 50 to 75 years. The population of the United States has more than
tripled since 1880, and today there are more people in the three States
of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio alone than lived in the entire
country in 1860, at the outbreak of the War between the States.
At the risk of over simplifying a very complicated process, I should
like to compare our country to a boy who is growing so fast his wardrobe
is in constant need of readjustment. Unfortunately, however, a Nation,
or even a city or town, cannot go out and buy a new suit of clothes
ready-made. When growth and change outmode our schools, our streets
and highways, our residential sections, our transportation, sewage and
water systems and even the very methods by which we govern our
cities the adjustment must be made step by step. To be sound and
good and lasting, a Nation's new set of clothes must be woven strand by
strand, with the majority of citizens helping, or at least approving each
new design in the pattern.
104 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
As we watched and studied the work being done in the 800-odd cities
entered in our awards competitions since 1952, we began to see definite
outlines taking shape in this pattern in community living. And I want
to tell you that our cities are today embarked on one of the most exciting
ventures in the growth of America since the opening up of the territories
west of the Mississippi.
The problems of each community differ in detail, and different
solutions are being found to meet individual community needs. But
the pattern is built around one key design and that design is teamwork
and mutual responsibility at all levels of the community.
Take housing, for example a subject in which Little Rock has been
particularly concerned. The attitude of people toward housing has
changed immensely in the past few decades. Throughout history, the
lower-income groups or the poor, to call them by their historic group
nomenclature have been left to shift for themselves in the least de-
sirable housing areas the shanty towns, the tenement districts, or the
once-good neighborhoods which have fallen slowly into decay. All who
could afford to, moved as far away as possible, and then developed a
form of civic myopia to the existence of these pockets of blight.
That has been the custom wherever large cities have grown up in
imperial Rome and medieval Paris no less than in modern America,
that is, in America, until recently.
Frequently, we tend to take for granted such marks of progress as
zoning, city planning and minimum housing standards. But viewed in
their historic framework, such civic controls are very recent achieve-
ments, so recent, in fact, that as late as last year it took a decision
of the Arkansas Supreme Court to enable you people of Little Rock to
set up an effective housing code and the machinery for rigid enforcement.
That decision of the Arkansas Supreme Court is very much a case in
point. Why was it made last year? Or why was it made at all? Because
the people of Little Rock insisted on it, because the people of Little Rock,
like citizens of hundreds of other cities across the country, are helping
work out the new pattern. They are caught up in the new awareness of
mutual responsibility for the homes and neighborhoods of their city.
In many other areas of community life, as well as in housing, we
have found this same pattern of citizen action, citizen participation and
mutual responsibility evolving. City after city, and town after town,
is finding the solution to one or more of the problems that the modern
age has brought, along with its benefits. And more and more of these
solutions are being found in the active participation, devotion and
determination of large groups of citizens.
Let me flash back, for a moment, in our thoughts of tomorrow, of
the future you men and women here are planning and working to
accomplish. Let me dwell, for a moment, on the significance of what
you are doing.
MAIN STREET 1969 105
Did you ever stop to think that Main Street is a totally American
idea? Did you ever realize that they do not have Main Streets, as we
know them, in Europe or in Asia or in Russia?
To me, Main Street means a throbbing place an alive place a
place where people congregate, and walk up and down, and go to church
and do business and even whistle at the pretty girls. Sometimes Main
Street here in America is garish and uninhibited and sometimes even
ugly but it is also exciting, neon-lit, busy with cars, in motion. And
Main Street can be nostalgic too, reminding each of us of our lost youth
and the days when life seemed to be more simple.
Main Street is the American market. As magazine editors we con-
stantly try to take the pulse of this market, try to aim what we publish
at all the Main Streets in America. Every time we ignored the grass-
roots of our country, we lost touch with America. Main Street is never
"long-haired" or "egghead". It is lusty, and common and down-to-
earth. Main Street is Will Rogers, Sam Rayburn, Rilly Graham, John
McClelland, ,T. C. Penney and Lawrence Welk.
Do you know the significance of these Main Street towns: Shadwell,
Virginia; Kinderhook, New York; Mercersburg, Pennsylvania; Point
Pleasant, Ohio; Fairfield, Vermont; Staunton, Virginia; Plymouth,
Vermont; West Branch, Iowa; Lamar, Missouri and Denison, Texas?
Those were the birthplaces of American Presidents. Except for Theo-
dore Roosevelt, who was born in New York City, and William Howard
Taft, who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, every one of our Presidents
came from farms or villages or towns which gave them a knowledge and
understanding of the distinctly American concept wrapped up in the
idea of "Main Street".
Every day in Washington bus loads of visitors from every part of
the country pile out in front of the Lincoln Memorial and fill the air
with the excited talk and laughter of America on a holiday excursion,
but the moment they enter the sacred inner chamber of the shrine there
is reverent silence, a sense of awe, a hush. This is Main Street replenish-
ing the spirit in which it is formed.
Main Street evolved from frontier life. It was the starting point and
the terminus of the Oregon Trail. It was rutted with the tracks of
wagon wheels, a cloud of dust in dry spells and a sea of mud when the
rains came. It was lined with hitching posts. Its social center was the
livery stable or the saloon. The blacksmith, the wheelwright, the harness
maker, the keeper of the feed store these were solid citizens in Main
Street's unpaved era. I do not know for sure, but I strongly suspect,
that the continued popularity of Western movies among young and
old alike, stems from an instinctive love or homesickness for early Main
Street where women were pure and men were strong, where virtue was
rewarded and villainy was apprehended. On Hollywood movie lots is
painted the portrait of frontier America.
The first Henry Ford changed all this.
106 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
When cars scared the daylights out of horses hitched to posts on
Main Street, when streets and highways were paved after humiliated
citizens wearing absurd looking goggles had to get out of their Fords
with the shiny brass fittings and push while their wives took a hand at
steering, when these scenes were repeated often enough the dirt road
chapter of Main Street was ended and the campaign for good roads got
under way. When a farmer could drive into town in a Ford, pick up
supplies and get back to the farm in time to get in a day of haying or
ploughing our whole economy was changed.
Suddenly, before anyone else had articulated it, a red-headed, gang-
ling, thin-faced chap from Sauk Center, Minnesota, saw that Main
Street was tawdry and provincial and commonplace and held up the
lives of its men and women for all the world to see. The writer was
Sinclair Lewis, and the title of his book was Main Street. It was a
shocking portrait, but no one who had ever lived in a small town could
deny that the types described were real. The book came out in 1920.
It has become a landmark in American literature.
It depicts a Main Street all of us have seen. There is no beauty in it.
Sinclair Lewis put his finger on two characteristic American traits
the placid acceptance of the temporary so long as it is utilitarian and
the development of private enterprise without much regard for the
aesthetic.
Ours is a land of great resources and of great waste. We have never
hesitated to cut down a forest of trees or to pollute a stream or tear
down an historic building if a new road or a new plant is needed. On
the approaches of our big cities are to be seen piles of rusting vehicles
and machines. We make new models of everything before the old models
have served more than a small fraction of their usefulness.
The planners who want to make Main Street more than a bus stop
on a super highway started ten years too late to blueprint improvements
that ought to look ten years ahead. Main Street has jumped from
mudholes to concrete, from bandstand to jukebox, from cracker barrel
to supermarket in such a short space of time no one was prepared for
what in a real sense has been a social and economic revolution.
Why do town planning boards have such a problem on their hands?
To create form and beauty and stability which will give some perman-
ence to a community's unique personality or character, planners must
cope with the businessman's traditional restless activity, his need for
change, his pursuit of new and bigger markets. He will chip in for a
parking lot or a new airport but is often less eager to plant trees or build
an art gallery or library.
If you travel across this country in a car or on a train one impression
etches itself into your mind: our towns and cities seem new and un-
finished. They also look as though they had just sprung up helter skelter
with no planning whatsoever. Everyone built the kind of house or store
he wanted where he wanted it, and if old trees were in the way he cut
MAIN STREET 1969 107
them down. He knocked down old houses, regardless of what chapter
of American history might have been connected with them. From car
or train window, to right and to left, in towns and between towns, are
miles of ugly billboards. Added to these giant posters which mar our
view of distant lake and hill are the little local signs that extol the fine
food to be had at a diner or the restful beds to be enjoyed in Dew Drop
Inn. The citizen seems to be a trapped animal.
If you look for them you can still find little American towns that time
forgot, where the charm of other days still lingers in faded glory. You
can reconstruct the adventure of whaling days in old Nantucket, and
among the wide streets and ancient elms of Litchfield, Connecticut,
New England town beauty is as authentic as an old print. Reconstructed
Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia recaptures for us the grace and the
elegance and the amenities of a generation of men and women who knew
how to live. You cannot wander through the streets of the old French
Quarter in New Orleans without feeling the gay spirit and the reverent
attachment to beautiful things of a people who could build those delicate
iron grill work balconies and intimate little enclosed gardens and patios.
But these are isolated islands of charm. Are they dead things, ghosts of
a past that can never be relived? Or do they have in them the seeds of
life in the form of inspiration?
The mind of the American businessman is geared to the future. He
spends a lot of research money in an effort to blueprint the goals and
trends of the decade ahead. He loves forecasts and projections. He
calls his gamble on the future venture money. He has little desire to
dredge up the past, because sentiment gets in the way of progress.
Often the nearest he comes to compromise with the past is to indulge his
wife's passion for antiques. This preoccupation with tomorrow is the
religion of the empire builder, the pioneer. A dream? It has to be, since
tomorrow never comes, and since every living breathing moment of
man is Today and can be nothing else. But it has built America. It
is Western civilization. It is Main Street. Main Street will not stay put.
It is always having its face lifted. It is nervous and self conscious and
full of get-up-and-go. It is noisy, cocky, brightly illuminated, well
advertised and solvent. It is also magnetic, for all other roads and streets
lead into it like the tributaries of a great river.
Main Street's many sidedness, its pride and its shame, its alternate
renewal and decay make it complex, elusive and dynamic. I have al-
ready pointed out that it has evolved from mudhole to paving stones,
from hitching posts to parking lots. Once a frontier outpost, it is now
hemmed in by suburbs, choked with traffic. Its architecture has been log
cabin, clapboard, Greek revival, Victorian, American Gothic, ultra-
modern, it has been pine, and brick, marble, brownstone, granite and
now glass. Tomorrow it may be some new plastic we have never heard of.
This conference has made Main Street its central theme. It certainly
simplifies the discussion to stick to a single topic. Are we not forgetting
108 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
that a good part of our problem is not Main Street itself, but the little
streets a block or two off Main Street? Main Street has the lights, the
big flashy signs, the traffic cops, the glamor and the glitter and the
swankiest shops. Main Street has the attractive front, the impressive
facade. But what about the little streets lying back of it. Here, off
the main stem, are the parking lots, the garbage cans, the stinking slums,
the faded store fronts, the grubbier lunch rooms, the honky tonk ar-
cades, the saloons, the delivery trucks, the weed grown vacant lots
littered with tin cans and discarded mattresses, the junk yards, the
red light district, the abandoned factories, the broken windows and
the ubiquitous alley cats and 4000 people in one block no building over
4 stories. Main Street has been too busy polishing its own brass door-
knobs to take much notice of its filthy back yard. Often Main Street
has gone merrily on its way without any civic concern about its neigh-
boring streets. This is true of towns large and small. Even New York's
fabulously sophisticated and wealthy Park Avenue is but a short walking
distance from less fortunate avenues that fester with poverty and
human degradation. Just as some of our once pure streams are now
polluted with sewage and chemical waste, in the same way and to the
same degree are our Main Streets polluted by the filthy streets that
form their tributaries. Some town have recognized this blight and have
done something about it. Planning boards throughout the land must
continue to do more and more about it. The great super highways of
the future, now in the building, must not draw the thousands of visitors
who travel by car into these cesspools of off-Main-Street-slums. They
must be tidied up, not for the visitor's sake alone but for the sake of
those who have been forced to dwell in them. Men do not go out and
build slums. Once respectable neighborhoods become slums through
civic indifference and neglect. The human spirit is not born foul. It
becomes degraded by environment and man's inhumanity to man. To
have Dead End kids you have to have Dead End neighborhoods for
them to grow up in.
Something is happening in America today. It is happening because
of meetings like this, and wherever you go you are beginning to find
rich and poor, prominent and obscure leaders in commerce and in-
dustry, working men and women, housewives, city authorities, teachers,
and even school children, learning valuable new lessons in cooperation,
and pulling together to make their cities and towns a better place in
which to live.
Look is proud to take part in this exhilarating development in Ameri-
can democracy. We feel especially privileged, through our programs
sponsoring the All-America Cities Awards and the Community Home
Achievement Awards, to be in a position to watch the pattern take
shape, to encourage and reward its growth, and above all, to tell the
Nation through our editorial pages this great story about the American
people what they believe, what they want, and what they are going to
MAIN STREET 1969 109
do to make our land a Nation of stronger, better, more unified and more
prosperous communities.
CHAIRMAN PARK H. MARTIN
OUR next speaker is John Osman. He is from South Carolina and a
graduate of Presbyterian College. Following graduation he
served as assistant to the President and as a member of the Athletic
Department of that Institution. He also served as Assistant to the
President, Coach of Track and Professor of Philosophy at Southwestern
College, Memphis, Tennessee. Mr. Osman studied the Medieval City
at the University of Chicago and later pursued urban studies of the
medieval cities of Northern Italy, particularly Florence, Sienna and
Pisa. He studied the urban development of early American civilization
in the Southwest, in Mexico and in Yucatan. He also spent some time
in England and in the Scandinavian countries investigating the place
of civic studies in programs of education. Mr. Osman left Southwestern
College to become Director of the Test Cities Project of the Fund for
Adult Education in 1952. In 1953 he became the Eastern Regional
Representative of the Fund for Adult Education and in 1955 became
the Vice-President of that organization. Mr. Osman is presently
located in White Plains, N. Y. which is headquarters for the Fund for
Adult Education, an independent organization established by the
Ford Foundation to encourage and assist in the development of pro-
grams of liberal education for adults.
JOHN OSMAN, Vice-President,
Fund for Adult Education, The Ford Foundation, New York, N. Y.
FOR some years now I have been coming to Little Rock, after settling
on Madison Avenue, my mind returned to the Tennessee bacon in
the Marion Hotel and to the cornbread and turnip greens of Franke's.
I like to get back to Little Rock.
For some years I have been an ambassador heralding the Arkansas
renaissance which as I see it, was inspired by Edward Stone's return
to the State and the building of some of the best architecture in America
and then by the advent in your midst of Winthrop Rockefeller who
gave you a new faith in your State. Today Arkansas moves mightily
ahead and I want to congratulate you on the magnificent projection
that you have made for a greater Little Rock, build your city well.
Every child born in the City of Florence is baptized in the ancient
Baptistry. He becomes, at one and the same time, a child of the
Church and a citizen of the city.
This rite takes place in the venerable octagonal-shaped temple that
has been the focal point of Florentine life since the 9th century. Placed
like a jewel in the center of the city, the Baptistry once the Cathedral
has been the scene of historic civic rituals for centuries.
110 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Contrast the significance of this sacramental initiation of the Floren-
tine into citizenship with the casual manner in which an American
becomes a citizen of Atlanta or of Memphis or of Little Rock.
There is no ritual among our civic institutions to mark such an im-
portant event as becoming a citizen of a city. We become citizens of
Little Rock or Chicago with equal indifference. We move from city to
city without a ceremony to accent the change in our loyalty and in our
citizenship. We have no rites to extend and to deepen our civic aware-
ness. We ignore the shifts that take place in our civic responsibility.
It is no wonder that people are apathetic about civic obligations. We
should not be amazed at the plight of our cities when there is no civic
virtue.
The redemption of our cities from their present plight depends upon
our establishing a mature civic tradition in American life that will
both inspire and educate a civic leadership. Only then will Main Street
undergo the transformation called for today.
The failure of a civic tradition to mature in the American urban scene,
on the other hand, has lead to a crisis in civic affairs. It has prevented an
effective civic leadership. The amenities of urban life have been lost.
Without wisdom about urban ways, the city has bred its slums, its skid
rows, and its city bosses. Main Street is a shambles. It is not much
better than its extension Road Town. It is reason for civic shame.
The simple social structure of our early American society produced
the simple physical forms of villages and of small towns. Villages were
built around squares. Towns grew up along the roads which became the
main streets. These civic forms dominated this country for a century.
They gave shape to our cities. The prevalence of the village and the
town tended to make the Nation village minded. The village and the
town determined our ways of thinking about our cities. But the wisdom
of the village is not enough for a modern, industrialized society such as
ours.
The form and function of the village are not adequate for the con-
temporary industrial city. Little Rock requires a different kind of
knowledge to understand it. Little Rock requires a different set of in-
stitutions to make it work smoothly and efficiently. The problems of the
American city are ones of urban design. The modern American city
needs the urban mind. And the urban mind is the product of a civic
tradition.
Since our civic sin is a consequence of our ignorance in the arts and
sciences of civic life, my proposition is, further, that a restoration of the
civic tradition is a necessary preface to any effective city planning. If
we are to build our city, we must first of ah 1 uncover the civic soul.
Sometimes we call this intangible aspect of the city its civic spirit. The
ancient city referred to it as its genius.
Now building a city is a sacramental act on the part of the whole
people . For a city is the physical manifestation of an invisible reality
MAIN STREET 1969 111
the soul of its people. Ancient cities were worshipped by their citizens.
Americans appear to hate their cities. We do all we can to demean and
disgrace them.
But there is an intangible spirit at the heart of a contemporary com-
mercial city that must find its expression in and give purpose to the
city building of its people. We should endeavor to make an art out of
our town building.
The citizens of a city must discover the character of the city if they
are to build an image of its soul. They must understand its nature and
its function before they can design it. For, the design of a city is not
to be found on the drawing boards of the city planner. The forms of the
city live in its people. They emerge out of the mind and spirit of its
citizens. They reside in the very history of the place. The discovery, and
the organization of these subtle forms, is the task for a program of
civic study.
Such a program is the prelude to planning.
Perhaps we need to define some terms. By civic I mean that which
pertains to the city. By civic tradition I mean that body of customs,
of beliefs, of attitudes, of institutions, and of knowledge the accumu-
lated wisdom of centuries of city dwelling that is at once the source
and the heritage of our western civilization. By civic studies I mean the
arts and sciences that belong to the body of knowledge concerned with
the city. By townsmen I mean the people who live in and near our cities.
This new age of the city makes large requests of its townsmen. And
who are the townsmen today? Who are the inheritors of the sense of
beauty which belonged to the citizens of Athens? Who are the heirs
of the urban wisdom possessed by the burghers of Amsterdam? Who
are the descendants of the merchants who frequented the Globe Theatre
and built Shakespeare's London? What has happened to our townsmen
and what are the lessons they should have learned from the citizens
of the great cities of the past? Where is the civic way of life? Are the
American people really city people?
Many of our townsmen have moved out to the suburbs and to the
rural retreats beyond the suburbs. They fled to escape the city and to
seek the supposed stability of the villages and towns. Yet, when they
get to the country, they find towns and cities there and there, too,
puzzled people are endeavoring to restore civic traditions.
These refugees from our cities have been replaced by a new type of city
dweller. The townsmen of New York today come from the fields and
villages of Puerto Rico and of the South. The new townsmen of Atlanta,
of Tulsa, and of Little Rock come from the farms and villages of the
South and the Southwest. The city has been left to a new emigrant often
uneducated in the civic arts, and, consequently, incapable of civic
judgment.
Politics, the most sophisticated of the civic arts, and education, the
civic art that transmits and creates the civic tradition, have been placed
112 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
in the hands of these new townsmen. It is not easy to build a civic
tradition among these restless nomads who are ever on the move
within the city and from city to city. It is not easy to inculcate the
civic virtues in men and women who fear and hate the city, people who
fear and hate the city because they do not understand it.
Since our American culture and our institutions are changing under
the impact of urbanization our people must change, too. The present
urban revolution expects an accompanying intellectual revolution on
the part of the people. Our townsmen must learn to live in the context
of and with the image of a new city. They must learn to think with this
new image of the city which is shaping the mind and spirit of America.
The limited concepts of the village, the town, and the county of
which we have been thinking for centuries are obsolete. The relationship
of the State to its great cities is being reexamined in the light of the
growing political and economic power of the metropolitan region.
Some American cities have larger populations than some of the in-
fluential Nations of the world, and their budgets are many times as
large. The American city today is a new kind of city-state. And it is
giving rise to a new civic civilization. Some cities are ready for a declara-
tion of independence.
The Megalopolis of the Eastern Seaboard; the golden triangle of
New York, Washington, and Chicago; the Piedmont City from Dan-
ville, Virginia, to Anderson, South Carolina ; the urban path from Cleve-
land to Pittsburgh, from Chicago to St. Louis; the binary civic system
of Dallas-Fort Worth; and the Metroplex of the Los Angeles area are
parts of an America rapidly becoming an Interurbia.
Such rural regions as Arkansas, Virginia, Georgia, and even New
Mexico are in transition from ranch and plantation communities, vil-
lages, and towns, to vast urban complexes. The highways and turnpikes
have interlaced a civic system. The automobile and the airplane have
obliterated state lines. The emphasis of our time is upon the emerging
interurban region. Even the concept of the State may become obsolete,
in our growing Interurbia. A civic system is covering the whole country.
The emergency of this urban America and the extension of this civic
system over vast areas of the country destroy established institutions
and create new ones in their place.
One of the major revolutions is in the nature of local government.
States and counties and cities and towns and villages are now forced
to think in terms of a civic federation. There is a place for a new set of
"Federalist Papers", for metropolitan government. There is reason for
civic constitutional conventions. The assertion should be made that
many, perhaps most, of our urban problems, can never be solved within
the framework of our present local governments.
There have been golden ages of the city. The ancient polls of the
Mediterranean area was the inspiration of our own civic heritage. The
cities of medieval Italy refined the inherited institutions in bitter civil
MAIN STREET 1969 113
struggles between Guelf and Ghibelline. It was English townsmen who
won the right to representation in government. The towns of the Dutch
burghers achieved a nobility in domestic living rarely attained since.
And, in some ways, our American cities were the heirs of all this civic
wisdom from the past.
Cities of the past have reflected the virtues of their citizens. Athenian
merchants produced the dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles, which
honored the city and taught its citizens. The silk merchants of Florence
not only built magnificent palaces but commissioned Brunelleschi to
design a hospital for foundling children. The sturdy burghers painted
by Rembrandt and Hals lived sumptuously on the wealth of their world
trade, but at the same time they made a community art out of town
building.
The cities of Boston, of New York, of Philadelphia and of Baltimore
were havens of refuge for the emigrants from Europe who brought this
rich civic heritage to this country. The advent of these emigrants should
have ushered in a great age of the city on these shores.
But our civic heritage has been neglected. We come to this new age
of the city totally unprepared for it. The civic tradition which might
have been ours is lost to our use. So we must be about the business of
the restoration of the civic arts.
It is not easy to bring about a renaissance in the civic tradition when
the very idea of the city is being violated. In the breakup of our urban
forms the idea of a city has lost its meaning. The unity and coherence
of the ancient and medieval cities are gone. The city has no structure
today. It has no focus. The city is in motion. Incomplete, it is a series
of meaningless and unrelated parts. There are no civic institutions
comprehensive enough to integrate the sprawling urban complex of our
time.
This shattering of urban forms leaves us bewildered. There can be no
civic pride with "all coherence gone" from the city and in its place the
disorderly and shapeless tangle of ugly buildings and streets stricken
with paralysis. Urbanity is a lost virtue in an age that accents suburban-
ity. Civilities disappear in the rush of a city life which has lost its de-
sign. Civic wisdom is fragmentary and incomplete and we have lost the
art of making the city work for man's good. Civic patriotism disappears.
Civic statesmen who are needed to lead the renaissance desert the city.
Civic leadership is rejected because there is no tradition for it.
The redemption of civic leadership is in the hands of the civic human-
ist. The civic humanist reads cities as texts which contain and transmit
the civic heritage. He understands those values that help to build cities
on the human scale. He understands the history of the city. He speaks
an urban language. His is an urban mind. His documents are cities
themselves. They are the classics of civic history which must be searched
for the wisdom to be used in this new age of the city. The civic humanist
114 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
uses the past in order to understand the present and to plan for the
future.
As the civic humanist studies the cities of the past, he does not fear
what he sees as he looks at American cities of today. He understands
these cities of the present. He seeks out the history of his city. In the
American classics of civic history such as Pittsburgh he finds a wisdom,
too. He will not seek to flee the city, knowing full well that there is no
escape from the urban revolution which has overtaken us. Rather, he
will use the new age of the city to build a better civic civilization upon
the foundations of the heritage which he has redeemed. Thus, the re-
generation of our cities is the work of the men who possess the civic
attributes. Here is the true townsman. Here is the civic humanist who
places the humanities at the service of his city. Here is the man who
can help in the transformation of Little Rock, of Memphis, and of
Atlanta.
There are five attributes which belong to the city. These civic at-
tributes are the peculiar qualities or characteristics of city life.
The first is pride. A citizen ought to feel about his city as Paul felt
about Tarsus when he said, "I am the citizen of no mean city." Re-
longing to a proud city should distinguish a man.
Then comes the attribute of urbanity which is the peculiar heritage
of city dwellers. The deep set traditions of town life produce a person
who thinks with a civic mind and lives in an urbane manner.
The third attribute is civility. The civilities have to do with good
manners. Perhaps this is the civic virtue that is most absent from the
American city. The restoration of civil behavior to its proper place
would revive the amenities which once made urban living desirable.
The fourth attribute is a particular type of wisdom. This wisdom is
derived from the civic arts and sciences. The city is a teacher. And the
person who loves the city learns from it a wisdom which helps him live
in it. So you must love your city in order to live in it.
Then, there is the attribute of loyalty. The kind of loyalty which led
Leonardo, wherever he was, to sign himself "Leonardo, the Florentine".
The sense of devotion to his city which inspired Jeremiah to cry out:
If I forget thee, Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget her skill,
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth
If I remember thee not.
If I prefer not Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.
The man who incarnates these attributes would be equally at home
in the Fifth Century Athens, in medieval Rruges, in 17th Century
Amsterdam, in the Roston of 1850 and in Little Rock today. The men
who practice these attributes as virtues will be the civic statemen of
Memphis, of Saint Louis and of Tulsa. He will be the civic humanist
MAIN STREET 1969 115
who belongs to any age and who walks the streets of any city with
urbanity. He will shape his city rather than be shaped by the city. He
will so shape his city that it will teach his children well.
Not long ago I heard a story about a famous city. The dictator of the
country in which it is placed took the distinguished civic designer he had
chosen to refashion it up in an airplane and, pointing down at the
centuries-old Latin American town, he asked, "What kind of a design
will you give it?"
The planner remarked that he could put a shell around the old city
and keep the heart and brain of the people as they were. The envelope
would reflect the soul of the city. It would mirror the spirit which had
prevailed in the city for centuries.
"There is an alternative, however," the planner said. "We can put a
modern functional shell around the city, and it will change the heart
and brain of the people. It will give a new shape to the soul of the city.
The city will become modern and up-to-date a part of the twentieth
century instead of lingering in the past."
The dictator chose to make the city over all at once. He had this
power.
It has hardly been a decade since the conversation took place. The
building of the city began. At first the people protested this ruthless
murdering of their soul. They rebelled. They threw rocks through the
glass facades. They broke up the marble monuments with sledge ham-
mers.
But after a time the protests ceased. The rebellion was over. The
people began to change.
The new stream-lined city began to shape the brain and the heart of
the people. Today this city appears modern and efficient a part of the
twentieth century. It is a spectacular city full of architectural sur-
prises and displays of grand boulevards. But an uneasy quiet prevails.
The restless people walk the streets unhappy. They are strangers in
their own city.
For, you see, it was not the soul which made the city. It was the city
which made the soul.
You may say, this is not the American way. In this country "the
people decide it." But, do they? For, wisdom in decisions is born out
of understanding.
And understanding comes from a knowledge of the city a knowledge
of its nature and its purpose. Do the people possess such knowledge?
The "will to do" comes from the knowledge of "what should be done".
Before all else is the need for a program of civic studies.
The preface to planning is a knowledge of our civic heritage the
rebirth of civic virtues the reappearance of the "true townsman"
among our citizens!
116 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
CHAIRMAN PARK H. MARTIN
WHEN I left Pittsburgh last Saturday the Golden Triangle was in
Pittsburgh. Now somebody has pirated it and taken it to New
York, Philadelphia and Chicago. I knew I should never have left
Pittsburgh.
The Mighty Motorist of 1969
MICHAEL FROME, Travel Editor,
American Automobile Association, Washington, D. C.
IN THE country's imminent new era, the combination of mass leisure
and the greatest road building program in history very likely will
raise recreational travel to primary economic and social importance.
Recreational travel already is significant, but its greatest develop-
ment, demands, problems and opportunities are ahead. Half the popu-
lation, we estimate, will take a vacation trip this year, spending 12 to
15 billion dollars, but there are strong reasons to forecast that by 1969
the ratio of vacationists to population will be closer to 85 or 90 percent,
with their expenditures 30 billion dollars or more.
Half the States now consider travel as one of their three principal
dollar-earning industries, but probably by 1969 nearly all of them will.
As an industry, tourist travel is spoken of in West Virginia in the same
terms as coal; in Tennessee it is measured alongside agriculture; in
Wyoming, cattle, and in Florida it has exceeded by far the value of the
citrus industry. Industry-poor States have turned to recreational travel
and found a treasure house of resources in their scenery, historic sites
and the manifestations of cultural tradition.
Travel is a constructive force in many ways. In economic terms it
stimulates the sale and distribution of farm products, lumber, electric
power, petroleum and a variety of other commodities. It benefits the
banker, the merchant, the architect, the planner, the automobile dealer,
the builder. The States are finding there is no conflict between the pro-
motion of tourist travel and efforts to attract industry. To the contrary.
As factories have changed in physical appearance, from the old smoke-
stained sweatshop to the modern landscaped structure, the concept
of location has changed too. The dreary company town has largely
passed from the American scene. Now, a place worth visiting is a place
worth working in or for locating a plant.
But the economies of tourist travel are only one phase of it. Un-
developed communities swept up in the tourist tide take on a new look
of progress and pride. In presenting attractions for visitors, they serve
themselves and their children as well, through contacts with new ideas
and new people, opportunities for experience and learning which a few
years earlier were beyond imagination.
There is a magic effect on the traveler too. Remember, we have
emerged forever from the era when travelers few by today's standards
MAIN STREET 1969 117
congregated principally at such places as Hot Springs, White Sulphur,
Bretton Woods and French Lick. The spa will always have its eminence,
but in this period of mass travel America has turned to view, study and
appreciate its natural endowments and historic traditions. Places
like the Territorial Capitol here in Little Rock and Colonial Williams-
burg in Virginia are symbolic of today's attraction which gives pleasure
and satisfaction to the visitor, and makes a better citizen of him. To be
sure, there is the factor of health and peace of mind involved in travel
which is served through a variety of pursuits, including boating, fishing
and other outdoor sports.
Now we are approaching the time of the four-day week, the month
long vacation and the three-car family. As far as highway travel is
concerned, consider the advancement within the past 13 years. In 1944
there were 25 million cars and 166 billion miles driven, but that was a
war year. In 1947, ten years ago, there were 30 million cars and 300
billion miles driven, but by 1969 there will be closer to 70 million cars
and a trillion miles driven a 300 percent increase in 22 years.
Whether in time the commercial airliner, the monorail or the family
autoplane will measurably reduce the use of the automobile, the chances
are that in 1969 the private automobile will still account for the bulk of
all vacation travel. It is also quite likely that an appreciable segment
of highway mileage that year will be for recreational purposes. The
American Automobile Association is on record as favoring more road-
side rests and wayside parks. Such features, along with attractive
landscaping, would safeguard the new road network from monotony,
giving it more of a scenic aspect and helping the States through which
it will pass. We also favor strongly the principles of access control,
adequate rights-of-way and zoning of the roadside.
The road building program of the next decade and a half will open new
tourist frontiers in the United States and other countries. Considering
the inaccessibility till now of such roadless areas as Dinosaur and the
Four Corners, we have still not exhausted the possibilities. Rut by 1969
it may be quite a different story. While the AAA and its affiliated clubs
have always sought to have roads built where they should properly be
and the development of tourist facilities, we recognize the need of
preserving the natural areas, including the wilderness. A number of our
affiliated organizations have been actively identified with protection of
national parks in their areas, and presently several are working on
behalf of their state park programs.
Our experience in recent years has shown us that Government
agencies, both Federal and State, are devoting more interest and at-
tention to travel. In Washington almost every executive department
State, Commerce, Interior, Agriculture, Health, Education, and Welfare,
and Labor has at least one bureau actively concerned with foreign or
domestic travel. Even the Defense Department finds it a good practice
to show many of its military bases, historic installations and museums
118 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
to visitors. Likewise, we observe that in the States the departments of
conservation, forestry, parks, roads and state publicity, are placing
greater emphasis on tourist travel and where they do, they earn their
full share of the total tourist expenditure.
But our recreational travel in 1969 will extend far beyond the high-
ways of the United States. Early this year I drove to Key West, took
the car ferry to Havana, then drove to the western edge of Cuba 200
miles across the Gulf lay the Yucatan Peninsula, where a new road from
Mexico City will open in two or three years and another car ferry after
that. In Cuba, incidentally, a country which has learned the value of
roads, the tourist industry is exceeded in importance only by sugar.
Last year I traveled in Central America, where the Pan American High-
way extending to the Panama Canal will become a reality by 1960. I
had some interesting experiences there observing a national monument
in the Guatamala jungle, national parks along the shoreline of El Sal-
vador, and the need of them in Panama. I mention this to show that
planning in the tourist field extends beyond our own borders. The en-
couragement of tourist travel is one of the best ways of implementing
our foreign policy and we have a real opportunity to give technical
guidance to these countries at their early stage of development.
Tourist travel is tomorrow's meeting ground of the businessman, the
conservationist, the planner, the government official. It needs them all.
It needs the businessman to provide the capital to build new facilities
and the knowledge to operate them. It needs the conservationist to
insure protection of the outdoors and the historic sites, which are the
basic attractions in the first place. It needs the planner to design a
pattern in which the best elements are the most prominent ones. It
needs the government to administer and develop the parks, forests,
reservoirs and other areas, and to build the roads leading to them.
Tourist travel needs the user too, but there is no reason to worry about
his presence now or in 1969.
EIVIND T. SCOYEN, Associate Director, National Park Service
WE OF the National Park Service of the United States Depart-
ment of the Interior are well acquainted with the connection
between highways, the motorist and recreation opportunity. Many
years ago not too many, only 35 or so while I was a park ranger in
Yellowstone, I remember that my superintendent, one Horace M. Al-
bright, spent a lot of time on highway promotion. I remember the
caravans that came through boosting the Lincoln Highway, National
Parks to Parks Highway, Arrowhead Trail, and others. It seemed to
those of us on the working level that the superintendent spent a dis-
proportionate amount of his time herding representatives of Auto
Associations, Travel Agencies, Chambers of Commerce, Women's Clubs
MAIN STREET 1969 119
and Congressional Committees around the country trying to interest
them in better highways.
Now Horace Albright has always been a man who sees ahead and
during his career in the National Park Service was more than a fair judge
of the future. However, I am sure that if anyone had told him back
in those days that during about 4 months of each year more than a
million people would crowd through the gates of his beloved park, he
would never have believed it. But, it has happened! Today, paved roads
bring to the National Park System more than 55 million visitors annually,
and, we are beginning to believe that our estimate of 80 million by 1966
may be short by 20 million or more.
''The mighty motorist" who started to grow so many years ago is
just that today and he is still growing. He is the one who has forced
our Nation into this enormous program of highway development.
He wants adequate facilities so that he can go places. Among other
things, he wants to travel so that he can see his great country, gather
the inspiration of its sublime beauty, and stand on the places where
the significant events of our history took place. Furthermore, he wants
accessible places where the family can have good clean out-of-doors
recreation. Certainly the past proves beyond any doubt that a sure
result of our "41,000 miles to tomorrow" will be to multiply the demand
for space in which to spend a holiday or vacation.
This is a job the National Parks cannot possibly handle alone. Our
Mission 66 as related directly to the parks themselves has the objective
of making these sublime examples of God's creation available to the
people and improving the facilities so that their enjoyment of them may
be more full and complete. However, we are also charged with their
preservation and insuring that they will be passed on "unimpaired to
future generations". That is why we need help.
This brings me to the subject of State Parks. The record will show that
a full 35 years ago the problem outlined above was already in the minds
of officials of the National Park Service. Stephen T. Mather, our first
Director, back in the early twenties, took an active part in organizing
the first State Park Conference, and all along through the years our
bureau in the Government has pushed the State park programs. As of
now, we are authorized by law to work closely with the States in an
advisory capacity in their planning for park and recreation area pro-
grams ; also to help them to obtain for their park systems various Federal
lands such as surplus properties, reservoir properties, and public domain
lands.
Now the object of all of the foregoing is to explain why a repre-
sentative of the National Park Service was asked to speak at this session
of the Conference.
Here in Arkansas, we came in touch with the beginnings of their
State Park System. The late Dr. T. W. Hardison, whom I have often
heard referred to as the father of the Arkansas State Parks, was in-
120 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
terested in the preservation of Petit Jean Mountain and in saving it
from lumbering since he first saw it in 1906. Finally, in 1921, a proposal
was made to establish the area as a National Park and the owners of
some 1,540 acres offered to donate their lands for this purpose. This area
was inspected by our first Director, Stephen T. Mather, who sug-
gested, because of its limited extent, that it be established as a state
park. And this was accomplished soon after the Legislature created
the State Park Commission in 1923. Today, Petit Jean State Park con-
tains more than 4,000 acres and is one of the outstanding state parks in
the country.
Since then, we have continued to have most cordial and mutually
profitable relations with the Arkansas state park authorities. We have
dealt with Bryan Stearns I am told that everyone calls him Bill, al-
though no one seems to know why for many years. Bill, who is now
Associate Director of the Arkansas Publicity and Parks Commission
and Sam Kirby, its Director, are high on the National Park Service
list of good friends.
Furthermore, this cooperation is not a one-way street. Just a few
weeks ago, for example, the Legislature appropriated $250,000 for ac-
quisition of lands to be included in the Pea Ridge National Military
Park which was authorized by Congress last July to commemorate the
principal Civil War battle west of the Mississippi.
Now, back to the subject of State parks. We have more than 2,000
state parks throughout the country with a total area exceeding 5 million
acres. They include a wide variety of areas of scenic, scientific, historic,
and recreation interest. Some preserve outstanding examples of the
State's natural and cultural heritage; others primarily provide non-
urban recreation opportunities. And they constitute an increasingly
important segment of the Nation's parks and open spaces as our "mighty
motorist" continues to roll with quickening pace. These parks were
used by more than 200 million visitors in 1956.
But what about the future? Our rapidly increasing population,
coupled with trends toward a shorter work week, paid vacations in
industry, longer vacations, pensions for retired persons, increased auto-
mobile travel, and increased interest in out-of-door activities point to a
demand for state park facilities that cannot be met with our present
set-up.
Right here those of us who are interested in providing adequate
recreation facilities for the resident of Main Street 1969 come in for a
three-way squeeze. We find ourselves in a market where we must
compete for our essential needs against groups that are much better
financed and organized than we are and perhaps can ever expect to be.
In this market, we must present our requirements for money and lands
needed for expansion, and fight to hold on to what we already have.
First, as to money. The other evening I sat through a very interesting
TV show on the subject of automation. Being a parks man, I was
MAIN STREET 1969 121
particularly interested to find that the main problem that the leaders
of industry, labor, science, and education were concerned with was not
economic, not adjustments of labor and capital, but what are our
people going to do with their leisure time? I gathered the impression
that all were in agreement that the way our citizens use their leisure
time will do more to affect the future of the United States than any other
single result of the time and man-power savings of automation. I
mention this because there is a widespread tendency to think that pro-
viding for the recreation needs of our people is putting the "frosting on
the cake". I think we will be in a much better position to handle the
problems of Main Street 1969 if we give this part of our job a high
priority in our budgets.
Now let us consider the land situation. During the years that lead
up to Main Street 1969, our potential park and recreation resources
will continue to disappear at an alarming rate because of population
pressure and competing demands. As an example of what is happening
to one of our most important recreation resources, let me tell you of one
of our findings. In 1935, we made a survey of the Atlantic and Gulf
coasts to identify and appraise the unspoiled seashore areas that were
suitable for public recreation. We recommended that 12 major strips
with 437 miles of beach be preserved as national areas. In 1955, just
20 years later, we made a similar survey and found that all except one
are now in private and commercial developments.
Incidentally, we have recently undertaken similar surveys of the
Pacific Coast and of the shores of the Great Lakes. The former will be
completed in 1958 and the latter in 1959.
Because of the need by 1969 for at least twice as many state parks
as we now have, and because of our rapidly diminishing recreation
resources, it behooves us to move rapidly in acquiring suitable lands
and in developing facilities. The land problem is fast becoming critical.
If we fail to acquire needed and desirable areas soon, our best op-
portunities will be lost forever.
Many of the States are alert to the situation. Many of them are
acquiring significant sites for future development. A recent session of
the Arkansas Legislature authorized establishment of three new state
parks Mammoth Springs, Hampton Museum, and an unnamed area
that has been offered privately for donation. Similar instances could
be cited for many of the other States. And I should mention specifically
that Arizona and Utah have recently taken steps to establish State Park
Systems which means that all the States will now have a state park
agency. This is excellent progress, and the States are to be congratulated.
But, in my opinion, state programs needs to be greatly accelerated.
California is presently leading in park conservation. Last year its
Legislature appropriated $31 million for a five-year state park land
acquisition program for 40 new areas and additions to 83 existing areas.
Substantial additional funds were appropriated for operation, mainte-
122 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
nance, planning, and special projects. In this connection, however, it
is only fair to point out California's unique and favorable position. The
State had made available to it by the Supreme Court's decision on the
"tidelands" oil case, its oil royalties that had been accumulating over a
period of years, 70 percent of which were ear-marked by law for state
park purposes.
Unfortunately, provision of more parks and more facilities will not
alone solve our problems. We must constantly defend what we have
from encroachments. Because of pressures of increasing population and
congestion, we see more and more proposals being advanced to use park
lands for other uses such as reservoirs, highways, schools, hospitals, and
installations for a variety of purposes. I am sure that many of the ad-
vocates of such proposals are fully sincere and believe that what they
propose is in the public interest. What they largely fail to realize is that
lands dedicated to park purposes should not be diverted to other use
just because they are in public ownership. In many instances, however,
I suspect that the possibility of a "free" site and the inconvenience of
looking elsewhere are the principal motives. And furthermore, I antici-
pate that proposals to divert land from park use will increase as our open
space diminishes. Thus it is apparent that we are being caught in a
squeeze between our exploding recreation needs on one hand and our
diminishing resources on the other.
The question naturally arises, what can be done to meet the need for
state parks?
It is axiomatic that the initiative, direction, and guidance of the state
park programs can be furnished only by the States themselves. The
National Park Service is glad to assist in planning to the extent that
it can and when asked to do so.
As an important part of our 10-year program that we refer to as
MISSION 66, we shall initiate next month the development of a na-
tional outdoor recreation resources plan in cooperation with other
Federal, state, and local agencies. We plan to inventory and appraise
the Nation's recreation resources, determine long-range recreation needs,
evaluate the plans and programs of all concerned, and help formulate
a comprehensive overall plan that will provide a basis for public agencies
at all levels of Government to do their appropriate share in providing
adequate recreation opportunities for the people of the United States.
This plan not only will be concerned with quantities of areas and fa-
cilities, but also with quality. We shall also explore policies, practices,
and methods to find out which will contribute most to establishing and
maintaining the kinds of recreation opportunities we seek. An essential
element will be a provision for the complete preservation of selected
areas in their natural wilderness condition.
It must be remembered, however, that this is only assistance. The
States themselves must develop imaginative and generous programs of
park conservation if they hope to meet the situation with which they
MAIN STREET 1969 123
will be faced in 1969. And this will require the best efforts of each State
to preserve those areas and resources that it most cherishes and to pro-
vide adequate recreation opportunities.
Did you ever stop to think that if predictions now being made as
to working hours come true and the chances are that they will
that perhaps by 1969 our Mainstreeter will only work about 180 of the
365 days of the year. And that will only be a cut of about 35 or 40
days from the time now spent on the job.
Therefore, let me again urge that all the planners of our future
United States, all of those citizens whose cooperative efforts and interest
can make good plans great accomplishments, and all of those in govern-
ment who must provide the means to execute the plans, not to overlook
or minimize the problem of providing for the wise use of leisure time.
President Eisenhower is deeply interested in this, particularly as it
relates to youth fitness.
Our plans will be filled with programs for expanded schools, hospitals
and other public institutions, with streets, highways, water systems,
sanitation facilities, and many other public improvements. The cost
of each totalled up will perhaps reach a figure that will scare us. How-
ever, I hope that the need for additional playgrounds, recreation areas,
city, county, regional, and state parks will not be placed far down the
list as something that can be done when what might be considered the
more important things are done. Above all things, let us face the
necessity for no longer considering our parks as a luxury item.
Regional Development of 1969
CHAIRMAN WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER
WHEN I spoke to you on Monday morning, I told you that I
would be wearing many different hats. The last and most pleasant
hat that I am going to wear is that of your host with Mrs. Rockefeller
today. We are both delighted that you could be here with us at Winrock
Farm. We could not have picked a better time, a more timely occasion
to welcome you here when we have the distinguished group of gentlemen
from Washington who are coming here and having a chance to view
what the Arkansas River can do uncontrolled.
We know that on the platform we have many of the gentlemen who
have been devoting much of their lives to dealing with the particular
problem of the Arkansas River uncontrolled.
We are also glad to have many other people who are interested in the
great problem of the region, our River, which is one of our greatest
resources our River, which can cause so much damage when not con-
trolled.
We are here today to think in terms of our planning program on a
regional basis and for that very reason we are delighted to have so many
124 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
of our neighbors from Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Missis-
sippi and Tennessee.
In the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission we are pleased
that we have friends coming from so far to join with us in this Confer-
ence. Planning is the concern of every person in this room and we are
proud in Arkansas to have so many distinguished guests and visitors
here, who are joining with us here in Arkansas to work together for
a broad and a generous program, and it seems to me that there is no
more fitting occasion than to wind up this conference with a person
who has been thinking for years and years about regional planning,
for us to wind up this Conference with distinguished speakers who are
thinking in terms of regional planning and human manpower.
I am going to call on Colonel Brown, who is our District Engineer
here in charge of this area on river and water control. Colonel Brown is
going to set for us the background of our discussion today, the back-
ground of this great regional problem that we are all facing; the back-
ground very possibly of the great potential of the Arkansas River, one
of the largest rivers in the United States, flowing from Colorado through
to the Gulf. And I think with the background that Colonel Brown can
give us we will have a better setting for all that will follow in today's
session. So, Colonel Brown, I will turn over to you and the two dis-
tinguished guests on this side, Mr. Lilienthal and Senator Fulbright, the
program for this afternoon.
COL. STAUNTON BROWN, District Engineer,
Little Rock District, Corps of Engineers, Little Rock, Ark.
FOR the past two days I have been rather deeply involved master-
minding from behind the scenes two ceremonies of considerable
significance to the State of Arkansas.
The theme of your conference Main Street 1969 and its purposes
may have a different significance to each of you here, depending upon
your particular interest. "Main Street 1969" suggests to me that Main
Street through Arkansas in 1969 may very possibly be the Arkansas
River.
Less than two hours ago, at a point about 15 miles northwest of here
as the crow flies, a ceremony was held marking the start of construction
by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers of the first of the authorized
projects in Arkansas of the billion-dollar program for the development
of the Arkansas River Basin, the last great undeveloped river basin in
the United States. That ceremony heralded the ground-breaking for
Dardanelle Lock and Dam, a project which will cost about $94 million
and will be one of the outstanding units of the entire system.
To paraphrase a current popular song, the Arkansas River is a many-
sided thing. From its start as a clear, trickling rivulet near Leadville,
Colorado, it flows 1,450 miles southeastward through Colorado, Kansas,
MAIN STREET 1969 125
Oklahoma, and across Arkansas to its confluence with the Mississippi
River, 575 miles above the Head of Passes. In its journey, the Arkansas
often is a tranquil, lazy stream; then it may become a wild, raging torrent
which can do incalculable damage. In some places it travels in a fairly
straight line between stable banks. In other places, it is a meandering
stream carving away its banks, taking away in a single year a million
tons of silt in the form of thousands of acres of rich farmland.
If you had stood with me on this mountain top two weeks ago, you
would have had cause to wonder about the Arkansas River and its
unpredictable characteristics. The river was in flood stage, it had topped
several levees, and we and all the landowners up and down the river
were in the midst of a round-the-clock flood fight. I tried to locate the
channel of the Holla Bend cutoff just upstream and could not because
of the surging waters. The water has gone down now and about six
miles to the northwest is the cutoff just to the right of the great loop
in the channel.
That cutoff is just one of the many, many items connected with the
development of the river which was authorized by the Congress of the
United States in the River and Harbor Act of July 24, 1946 and subse-
quent acts. The plan calls for the improvement of the river and its
tributaries in Arkansas and Oklahoma by construction of coordinated
developments to serve navigation, produce hydroelectric power, afford
additional flood control, and provide related benefits in connection with
other activities, such as recreation and wildlife propagation.
To carry out the current project and this depends on the continued
and timely appropriation of funds by Congress there will be constructed
seven multiple-purpose reservoirs in eastern Oklahoma; the canalization
of the Verdigris River from Catoosa, near Tulsa, to its junction with the
Arkansas; the construction of four high-head locks and dams in Okla-
homa and Arkansas; the construction of 16 low-head locks and dams on
the main stem of the Arkansas River; a canal downstream from Pine
Rluff to the mouth (this has been adopted for planning purposes only) ;
and bank-stabilization and channel-rectification works required to
control the meanderings of the river. All this will result in a waterway
to lift commercial loads 325 feet in the 525 miles from the mouth of the
Arkansas to Tulsa's port at Catoosa.
The navigation route extends from near Tulsa through Muskogee,
Fort Smith, Dardanelle, Russellville, Little Rock, and Pine Bluff.
The four high-head locks and dams, Dardanelle, Ozark, Short Moun-
tain, and Webbers Falls, are on the main stream. Two of those Darda-
nelle and Short Mountain are planned to incorporate hydro-power
facilities initially. The other two will be so designed that power fa-
cilities can be added when the economics are justified.
In eastern Oklahoma, the seven reservoirs are Pensacola, Markham
Ferry, Fort Gibson, Tenkiller Ferry, Oologah, Keystone, and Eufaula.
The Pensacola, Fort Gibson, and Tenkiller Ferry reservoirs are complete.
126 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Markham Ferry is to be constructed by the Grand River Dam Author-
ity. Construction of Keystone, Oologah, Eufaula, and Dardanelle is
under way, the first three by the Tulsa District and the latter by the
Little Rock District of the Corps of Engineers.
Bank-stabilization works at critical areas and several channel-
rectification jobs, such as the Holla Bend cutoff, have been under con-
struction since 1950.
If there are no unforseen circumstances, we hope that navigation
will be available up to Little Rock by 1967, to Fort Smith by 1970, and
all the way to Tulsa by 1972.
Let us look at the work which has been done on the program during
the past two years and take a quick glance into the future. About the
only work performed up until two years ago was bank stabilization and
channel rectification. Construction was started on the $36 million, earth
embankment Oologah project in 1955. This is a flood control, water
supply, and power project. The office buildings at the site are complete
and first-stage embankment and outlet works are nearing completion.
Construction of access road and spillway excavation are under way and
are expected to be completed this fall.
Plans and specifications for the $137 million, earth-fill Keystone
project for flood control, power, and sediment control are being worked
up while two small construction jobs are under way.
Eufaula will be the largest project in the Arkansas River program,
money-wise, costing about $150 million. One of the major problems is
the control of the tremendous silt load in the river, a large part of which
comes out of the Canadian River. Eufaula is designed for flood control,
hydroelectric power, and sediment control, and, according to our plans,
will be completed before Dardanelle is finished in order to cut off that
silt. It will be a combined earth and concrete structure.
Construction work now at Eufaula includes the office buildings;
clearing of the dam site, which is just about finished ; access road ; and
initial excavation, to be completed late in the fall. Incidentally, Eufaula
will have a normal lake of 100,000 acres, affording outstanding op-
portunities for recreation.
The construction of Dardanelle Lock and Dam was started officially
today, although the first contract was actually let on May 28th. This
will be an all concrete structure and, as I said earlier, will cost in the
neighborhood of $94 million. The first job there is the construction of
the access road on the south bank from Dardanelle to the site.
Dardanelle is a navigation and hydroelectric project which will give
a limited amount of flood protection and will form a beautiful reservoir
for aquatic recreation. It, just as each of the other 22 dams in the navi-
gation channel, will have a lock 600 feet by 110 feet for the passage of
tows. The main difference will be that this lock will have a lift of 54 feet
while the low dams built purely for navigation will have an average lift
MAIN STREET 1969 127
of about 14-15 feet. The power plant will house four 30,000 kw gen-
erators.
After completion of the access roads and office buildings, the next
step in the Dardanelle project, as presently planned, will be the con-
struction of the north end of the main structure. This will require a
large cofferdam, excavation in the river bed, placing of some concrete,
and a small earth embankment extension to the dam. It is likely that
this contract will be awarded in the fall of 1958.
As presently and, may I emphasize, tentatively planned, work on the
Ozark and Short Mountain projects will start in about two or three years
with actual construction getting under way at each a year or two later.
The Webbers Falls project can be expected to be started within five or
six years. Some of the small navigation locks and dams may be started
within three years. The bank stabilization and channel rectification
work will continue throughout.
All of this, of course, depends on the appropriation of funds by Con-
gress which made the first appropriations for the program two years ago.
Additional funds were voted last year and it is presumed that more
money will be made available at this session of Congress since the
President's budget suggested certain appropriations for use on projects
which will become a part of the Arkansas River program.
To sum this up we are on the road to making the Arkansas River
the Main Street through this State. The early stages of the project seem
slow and there will undoubtedly be discouraging setbacks. But, each
year the future of the project seems more secure. And each year the
work will gather momentum. Once this program gets fully under way,
construction activity will surpass anything ever seen in the Arkansas
River Valley and most other places, for that matter. As usable seg-
ments of the program are completed, they should bring a comparable
upsurge in the valley's life and economy.
CHAIRMAN WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER
/COLONEL BROWN, thank you for that splendid review of the
V^/ tremendous problem that the Army Engineers are dealing with.
Sometimes, here in Arkansas we get a little impatient with the Federal
Government, with ourselves, with other people that we can not accom-
plish as quickly as we would like what we know we need. But I think
the Colonel has given you the background here of the problem in a way
that nobody else could give it. But as we deal with a problem we also
deal with the spirit of the people who are concerned with the problem.
We have been talking about regional planning. We have been talking
about people working together on a problem and our next speaker
epitomizes the spirit of a region working together. Clarence Byrns who
is the editor of the Southwest American in Fort Smith has dedicated the
last 43 years, more or less, to the region in which we live. He has not
128 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
only been interested in the political aspects, the economic aspects, but
this great natural resource which we have here with the Arkansas River.
If one could think of any person who might affectionately be called Old
Man River, he is Clarence Byrns.
CLARENCE F. BYRNS, Publisher,
Southwestern Publishing Company, Fort Smith, Ark.
I am very pleased to be here in these surroundings and for this
purpose. I think the greatest need we have had in Arkansas is somehow
to get people to look beyond next Saturday night in their thinking about
their communities, and about their area and about their resources and
the things they can do with them.
Wherever two or three people are gathered together and can not
get away, it takes very little urging to get me to talk to them about the
Arkansas River, about its impact on the lives of our people, about the
contribution it can make to the strength of America.
I speak to you in a multiple capacity, as Editor-in-Chief of the
Southwest American and Times Record at Fort Smith on which staff I
have served 43 years. In addition, I am a citizen of the Arkansas Basin
by choice and as such I have dedicated most of my interests and my
activity to the development of its natural resources to the end that its
people might have a higher standard of living. And I appear also as
Chairman of the Arkansas-Oklahoma Interstate Committee for pre-
sentation of the case to the Congress.
Main Street 1969 will be the Arkansas River controlled and put to
work. Paralleling the controlled river through all Arkansas and all of
eastern Oklahoma will be a controlled access Interstate Defense High-
way connecting Memphis, Little Rock, Fort Smith, Muskogee, Tulsa
and Oklahoma City. These arteries of transportation will reach into
the heart of the greatest undeveloped frontier there is left in America.
They will bring to us a return of our lost population, an industrial and
agricultural development, a wealth production and a living standard
which we have never experienced and find quite difficult to visualize.
I live on a bluff overlooking the Arkansas River in the City of Van
Buren just across the river from Fort Smith. From my front porch which
is 300 feet above the valley I can see forty miles downstream to ma-
jestic Magazine Mountain. And then I can lower my vision below me
and I see the Arkansas River in all its capricious moods.
We all look at the same things but we do not all see the same things
and the difference is significant. You can look at the Arkansas River
and see a lot of different things. I look at it as it is today and as it has
been for weeks a rushing, destructive torrent, that is ravishing our
farm lands, drowning our cattle, invading our cities and our towns, dis-
rupting our business and sometimes drowning our people. Since May
20th the Arkansas River has been over six feet above flood stage until
only yesterday when it dropped to five feet above flood stage. Thousands
MAIN STREET 1969 129
of acres of land have been under water. If we had not had these struc-
tures upstream that Colonel Brown has told you about, it is my sincere
opinion that we would have had a worse flood than in 1943, which was a
record flood of all time. And then in the middle summer in the long
droughts which we have experienced in the last five or six years I look
at the river again and I see there a trickle of water playing hide and seek
through the sand bars. I see there on its banks our crops burning up.
I look at our municipalities and I see that so many of them are con-
cerned about where tomorrow's coffee water is coming from because we
have not conserved our water resources and made them available at the
sources where they were needed.
And then I look at the river again through somewhat imaginative
eyes, with the vision and the foresight that you have been talking about
and hearing about all through this Conference and I see something else.
I see the river controlled by these reservoirs upstream. I see the river,
instead of a flowing stream, that varies greatly in its volume and in its
height; I see a series of placid lakes all the way from Tulsa down the
Mississippi River. I see the barge tows coming upstream bringing to us
the heavy materials such as steel from the great centers, automobiles,
farm machinery, fertilizer, all sorts of non-perishable materials that
we need and must have and do not manufacture ourselves.
And then I see the barges going back downstream carrying our
agricultural products, our timber, our mineral products, our cotton,
our coal, some fifty billion tons of it now landlocked in Arkansas and
Oklahoma.
I see the country converted to a competitive valley with all of the
rest of the Mississippi system, a situation which we have never known.
That is the vision that all of us have who have been working through
all these years in the effort to develop this Arkansas River. I see the
people. And we have lost people. Since 1940 Arkansas and Oklahoma
have lost population while the rest of the country was gaining 20,000,000
people. I see in the development of this River the means by which our
lost population will come home to us. The means by which people from
all over this country will come to share in the great experience of de-
veloping a great frontier. I see higher standards of living. I see more
money available for our roads and our highways, for our public schools,
for every facility that we need to make life more livable, and more
abundant.
Is all this an idle dream? Far from it. Such programs have already
been accomplished on the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Tennessee, the
Cumberland, the Illinois and the Missouri, altogether a total of 29,000
miles of inland waterways. If we can expedite the program described
by Colonel Brown and get the appropriations as we need them, this
program can be complete by 1969.
I am advised that in the Ohio River Valley 2,500 new industries
have come in there since the end of the second World War, with a total
130 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
investment of ten billion dollars. And why? Basically because of cheap
water transportation and because of plentiful water supply for consump-
tive use.
We have what it takes here in Arkansas and Oklahoma to do what
the Ohio Valley has done and more. And we have the Arkansas In-
dustrial Redevelopment Commission of which you have heard so much
in the past few days.
You do not have to dream to live here. But if the people who dream
and can see ahead, and want to do something about it they are the
people in whose army I wish to enlist.
CHAIRMAN WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER
THANK you very much, Mr. Byrns. I am glad that you have shared
with the people here today a little bit of the experience of living on
the Arkansas.
If I were to pick the theme that seems to have woven a thread through
practically every speech that has been made I think that theme would
be to "Think Big" to "Plan Big".
We are fortunate in our next speaker, a man who epitomizes think-
ing big. I could introduce him as the former Chairman of T.V.A. I
could introduce him to you as the former Chairman of the Atomic
Energy Commission and say nothing more, and you would all know
who he is. Today his capacity to think big is being put to use all over
the world. He is today the Chairman of an organization known as the
Development and Resources Corporation. And he and his associates are
thinking big in terms of our problems here in the United States.
They are thinking big in terms of the problems of the people of Iran,
of Italy, and of South America. It is exciting that a person who has had
the opportunity to think big and who through the validity of it, is able
to share that experience with people in other parts of the world. And
so David Lilienthal is known to us in this country as a man who has
always thought big and is thinking big today.
We are happy to share you, David Lilienthal, with the people around
the world who are beginning to experience the rewards of thinking big.
DAVID E. LILIENTHAL, Chairman of the Board,
Development and Resources Corporation, New York, N. Y.
I WANT to talk to you today about something that has been a pre-
occupation with me for a long time and which is fast becoming more
and more of a preoccupation with a lot of people in this part of these
great and expanding southern regions of America. I want to talk to you
about regional economic development, more specifically, about the
economic development of the South, and the new role that private
businessmen already are starting to play in it.
MAIN STREET 1969 131
This is not an abstract nor an academic subject with me. When I
last talked about it in Arkansas some sixteen years ago, it was my job,
as head of a governmental agency, the T. V. A., to promote the business
and general economic development of a region of the South the Ten-
nessee Valley. Economic development is still my job, though now not
as a public servant but as head of a corporation whose function it is, on
a private business basis, to develop natural resources and business op-
portunities overseas and in North America.
Certainly there could be no more appropriate place in which to talk
about regional development than here in the heart of America's South-
land.
The South in the past twenty-five years has made probably the
greatest strides in economic progress of any part of this country, in our
history. It is a heartening story, one of which Southerners and all
Americans are justly proud. Most of us here have witnessed and taken
part in this remarkably rapid development of productive capacity in
agriculture, industry and commerce, and of educational and health
facilities, which has transformed our cities and farmlands.
In this mid-Twentieth Century, when Americans speak of economic
growth, they talk about what has happened in the whole mid-South,
in Oklahoma, the Tennessee Valley States, in the Gulf Coast States,
and to an ever-increasing degree, what is happening here in this new
frontier of the South, the State of Arkansas.
In short, the South has come to mean economic progress on a grand
scale. This story of its development since the mid-1930's is well known
not only in the United States but also in countries throughout the
world, where people are beginning actively to seek a practical way out
of the bogs of poverty and lethargy in which for centuries they have been
mired. What has happened here in the South has stimulated the imagi-
nations and the hopes of men in many so-called underdeveloped coun-
tries. In far-distant parts of the world, the South is correctly recognized
as one of the most dramatic and comprehensive demonstrations of
economic development in history.
But what is not so generally accepted is this: The development of the
South is just at its beginning. What you see today is a mere prologue to
a future development which can surpass anything seen heretofore in
this country. You have had here today a look at the future potential of
your Arkansas valley which new transportation facilities, a navigable
river and a great interstate highway, promise to open up to full de-
velopment. And here at Winrock we have seen a living example of
modern agriculture which is known throughout the region and points
toward a future prosperity for Arkansas farmers which will make the
standards of today seem meager by comparison.
To me, these glimpses of the future demonstrate that, like peoples
in countries scattered throughout the world, we, too, are just beginning
132 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
to understand and to grasp the power we have to make our lives richer,
more meaningful.
Perhaps one way of stating it is to say that America and the South
is underdeveloped, too. And, I might add, we will never be developed,
as long as we retain our curiosity, our search for new ways and new
products and new ideas and new goals for ourselves and our children.
We may be a bit farther along the road to the kind of life we dreamed
about years ago, but for us, as well as for others, this is still a time to
look ahead.
Let me suggest to you a few of the reasons why I think that discussing
regional development and looking ahead or planning will be so im-
portant here in the Arkansas valley and in the other valleys of the
South; why I feel that the changes to come in the next two decades will
far overshadow what is now taking place.
First of all, the pace of change is becoming faster and faster. Today,
whole industries spring up in new locations almost overnight; new
processes and products come tumbling out of research laboratories and
pilot plants in increasing numbers; roads, bridges, factories are created
at a speed which would amaze even the most far-sighted businessman
of the 1920's. All of these things feed on natural resources, on the water
of the rivers, the chemicals of the air and the soil, the minerals beneath
the earth, and as the rate of their feeding increases, so do the dangers
of maverick, uncontrolled growth.
Technology of the immediate future can mean an enormously higher
standard of living for our people; it can also mean waste, misuse and
destruction of our natural resources. And our great America, rich as it is,
cannot afford to waste Nature's bounty. We all know what overgrazing
can do to a pasture; let us bear in mind the dangers of overgrazing of
our basic resources. There are, I am afraid, more than a few examples
of this waste and misuse in the United States: cut-over forests, eroded
farmlands, polluted streams, exhausted soils. Looking ahead to watch
out for these dangers, planning ways to avoid these often irreparable
mistakes is even more important today than it was in 1930 or 1935.
A more affirmative reason for looking ahead is not simply to avoid
making mistakes but, positively, to adapt the good features of economic
development elsewhere for use in this region. It involves making some
careful observations and asking some questions. For example: we
have seen in recent years the enormous impact on our economy of the
fruits of basic research which has been sponsored by corporate enter-
prises, by private foundations, and by government. The questions to
be asked here are: In this region, are we doing all that we can to see that
enough of our talented young men and women obtain this training?
Can they find the opportunities to study here in this region? And, when
their training has been completed, are there opportunities here for
entering research programs, for profitable and stimulating experience?
MAIN STREET 1969 133
Are the products of these research programs flowing to this region in
full measure? If not, what should we do about it?
I do not have to tell an audience like this one about the importance
of such questions and about the importance of the decisions they can
lead to. And, parenthetically, I might suggest that some of these
questions intelligently asked, intelligently considered led to the
recent decision here to establish a Graduate Institute of Technology.
Certainly these questions are the kind most public-spirited citizens
raise from time to time. But the degree of importance they attach to
these questions depends on how strongly they are convinced that their
region and State are just beginning to develop. I am strongly convinced
that this is true of the South, and I think that a few facts about the
State of Arkansas, as an example, will help bear me out.
Arkansas has the basic assets for a great economic future. It has
ample rainfall, a long growing season, and an abundant supply of good
water for domestic, agricultural and industrial uses, as well as for the
increasingly important tourist and recreation industry. As the Arkansas
Water Study Commission reported last year, present water use is "only
a fraction of the supply". Although the Commission went on to warn
of the dangers of stream pollution and other damaging or wasteful
practices, its members stated their belief that with proper management
and that means capital outlay, public and private Arkansas would
have ample water in future years.
In a second major category of potential for future development
that of energy Arkansas also is strong. There are important reserves
of natural gas and of coal, some of which are expected to be opened up
as a result of the development of the Arkansas river valley where we are
today. Most potential hydro-electric power of Arkansas, which has been
estimated at nearly two million kilowatts, remains to be developed.
The new program of industrial development in Arkansas has de-
pended strongly on the existence of a first-rate supply of the most im-
portant resource of all a vigorous, trainable working force.
Another relative advantage Arkansas possesses, compared to States
in older parts of the Nation, is the fact that its industrial and commercial
development is not bound up and restricted by an earlier, obsolete
pattern. Thus, Arkansas can spend more energy planning for the future
and less on revamping the results of the decisions of bygone years.
There is yet a further and most significant factor which points toward
a promising future for this State. That is the determination of outstand-
ing citizens to devote themselves to the development of Arkansas. I
speak here specifically of the efforts of Governor Faubus and of Winthrop
Rockefeller and other public-spirited men, who have taken part in and
supported the remarkably successful program of the Arkansas Industrial
Development Commission.
This is a rather impressive list. Arkansas has important basic assets.
It need not be hamstrung by errors of the past. And it is fortunate
134 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
enough to have thoughtful and imaginative men who are deeply com-
mitted to the welfare of their communities and their State, and to the
goal of creating new opportunities for a new generation.
Just as fortunate, I think, for the future of this State and this region
is the fact that in the last twenty years we have seen a new concept
of how to achieve economic growth come into maturity. Our society
has reached agreement in important areas as to the purposes and scope
of public activity in relation to private activity, and there has been an
encouraging growth of awareness of public responsibility on the part of
private interests.
These new concepts of the relation of public and private spheres of
activity are great American achievements, achievements perhaps as
important as any of the great social innovations or technical inventions
of our past. True, some of these points of view are still being debated
and will continue to be argued for years to come. But others have been
generally agreed upon by responsible people. On these questions, the
debates are a matter of the record of the past, and only the echoes linger
on among extremists and dogmatists. Let us not be distracted by these
echoes. Let us not mistake them for pertinent discussion about the
living issues of 1957.
What are these issues that were so alive in the recent past but which
now are matters of broad agreement in our society, in terms of the
regional economic development that you and I are so concerned with?
One is that a river, as a precious regional asset with a multiplicity
of benefits, must be developed as a whole not piece-meal, not haphaz-
ardly, not wastefully. In 1933, when T. V. A. was first established, this
was a central issue; it is certainly no longer an issue; it is a matter of
general agreement. As a corollary: twenty-five years ago navigation
improvements of our rivers were denounced as wastes of public funds;
today everyone can see that making our great rivers navigable the
Arkansas included can be the soundest kind of investment.
Another generally accepted proposition nowadays is that govern-
ment local, state, and Federal has an important part to play in
regional development. The time has long gone by when this broad
principle was the occasion for great national debate.
Now, this is not to say that there is no justification at all for dis-
agreement about the degree and kind of government participation in
regional development. These questions are certainly alive and kicking.
But today, very few seriously challenge the idea that government has
an important share in stimulating and guiding the growth of our economy.
Let me move on to a third issue which has led in the past to the
shedding of words on a grand scale. The subject is electric power. The
issue, as it has usually been stated, is Public Ownership versus Private
Ownership. I do not believe that this issue is truly central to the problem
of energy supply in a regional development movement. I do not feel
MAIN STREET 1969 135
that the crucial question today is who owns and operates the sources of
basic energy oil, coal, gas, hydro-electric power.
The real issue now, I believe, is whether this basic energy supply is
recognized as vital to the growth of a region, and whether it is being de-
veloped and used with care, with foresight, with imagination, for the
good of the region as a whole. If these great power resources are being
stupidly and blindly wasted and mis-managed, or priced so high as to
make the energy sterile, your community and your State and your
region will suffer grievously. It does not really matter whether this
waste or this mis-management is the work of public office-holders or
private utility directors. What matters is whether the region has the
abundant power it needs, when it needs it, at the lowest possible cost.
An abundance of energy is absolutely crucial to a region's industrial
growth. Failure to recognize this has happened before in this country
and the community-at-large has suffered for it. It would be just as
crippling to your dreams and hopes if it happened in your region.
Economic development calls for electric energy. It will be more im-
portant to businessmen and farmers for Arkansas to have this needed
supply of energy than to listen to abstract debates about public versus
private power.
The fact is that many people have tried without success to draw
final map of responsibility between what is private and what is govern-
mental. They have tried to say: This area is for Government, and beyond
this Government shall not go; This area is for Private Enterprise, and
beyond this, Private Enterprise cannot go. This attempt to fix definitions
is natural enough in a period of far-reaching change and uncertainty.
But it is too simple, too abstract and academic for the needs of a fast-
growing economy.
This point of view should be labeled out of date. It does not serve the
progressive development of natural and human resources. It does not
help us see the ways in which the several forces in our society are work-
ing together and can work together for common goals.
Certainly, nowadays, most of us accept the proposition that the
principal role of local, state and Federal government is to provide the
basic services of society such as schools and roads and other essential,
but non-profit making facilities. And we accept the idea that the
principal role of private individuals and groups is to make use of these
facilities.
But these bare statements do not adequately describe the true
measure of the striking changes that have taken place in this country.
We have seen government expanding as the needs of the people have
expanded; we have seen government entering fields that were tra-
ditionally preserves for private enterprise. But we have also seen
something fully as significant as this movement taking place in the
vast private world of business, trade and finance and I think that this
later phenomenon has not been given proper recognition.
136 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Let me try to describe this phenomenon. It is the realization by
responsible businessmen that a successful business venture depends
in large part on how well it serves the best long-term interests of the
community and the region. Specifically, it is the realization that schools
and housing and the condition of local and state government are things
which the businessman must consider, just as he must know the facts
about the site of his plant or office and the chances of obtaining the
necessary capital. Further than this, the responsible businessman of
today knows that his prospects for success are inevitably linked to the
prospects for success of the community and region he serves. If the
region is on the move, then the chances are that he will prosper and
that the demand for his product will grow. If the region is research-
minded, then the chances are that he may be able to develop some new
products, or benefit by supplying new manufacturing enterprises which
spring up as the result of research.
Therefore, he makes his judgment more and more on the basis of
factors outside of his own relatively narrow concerns. There are a lot
of questions he wants answered. Are the region's water supplies being
controlled intelligently and conserved carefully? Are other resources
being wisely tended and renewed? What is the standard of public ser-
vice? Do public officials work actively to promote economic develop-
ment, or do they sit back and let things slide? Is the region making a
realistic effort to solve its social problems and to improve the quality
of opportunity?
These are some of the things that a businessman from another region
asks himself when he looks around for new opportunities. The same
questions are being asked by businessmen within a region. Through the
years they have been asking: Why are we not doing better than we are?
What is holding us back? What can we do to move ahead faster?
In the old days, the search for these answers was confined to internal
management situations and labor relations and got outside the plant or
office only as far as the specific market or competitive problems.
Today, the businessman is concerned with all respects of the life
of his community and region. His excursions into the realm of public
affairs are no longer simply to lobby for special attention or to block
the aspirations of a rival group. Now he is taking an active part in
public affairs, and his aim is to promote his own special interest by
promoting the general welfare, because he has come to realize how
much he depends on this general welfare. He is sitting on public com-
missions and committees, working side by side with public officials,
conservationists, and other representatives of broad interests in our
society.
Business, so to speak, has invaded the public domain, and with
notable exceptions it is a far cry from the kind of special interest in-
vasion that called forth the trust-busting and other reform movements
earlier in this century. This new concept of the public role of the business-
MAIN STREET 1969 137
man has been the result of a steadily-maturing growth in this country,
just as the new concept of the role of government has gradually un-
folded and has become widely accepted. I have had the opportunity to
see these concepts from both the public and private standpoint. I
have been intrigued to discover that the basic managerial ideas and
principles that seemed sound and workable to me when I was in public
service are substantially the ones that guide the private company
which I now head. And I wonder whether this does not give some sub-
stance to a proposition in which I believe, namely, that productive,
creative governmental activities, and productive and well conducted
private business need to be, and increasingly in fact are, guided by some
of the same underlying principles. To me, there seems to be little doubt
that cooperation between public and private interests on the basis of
these principles leads to results in regional development which are both
good government and good business.
How do these results come about? How does this kind of coopera-
tion I have been talking about bear fruit in the form of new industries,
new jobs, greater income, a higher standard of living for the people of
a State or a region?
I am convinced that the results depend primarily on the initiative of
local people who are aware of the possibilities for development of the
resources of their own locality. There is no substitute for this. Cer-
tainly, from my own experience in the Tennessee Valley, I can testify
to this. By no stretch of the imagination could anyone attribute the
growth of a rich and diversified agriculture in that valley solely to the
work of T.V.A. and other governmental units and agencies. The farmers
took over right at the start; they carried the program from the testing
stations and the demonstration projects out onto the land itself. They
developed it; they are the ones who are making it work. It has been
the same story in urban and business activity.
I am sure that anyone coming to speak to an audience in the State
of Arkansas nowadays does not have to labor stories about local initia-
tive, because there is a wealth of examples right here in this State.
The work of local town people and the Arkansas Industrial Develop-
ment Commission in attracting new industry and in helping established
industry to expand, is becoming widely known. The record of this
effort new plants and plant expansions and thousands of new in-
dustrial jobs since the Commission was established is a remarkable
achievement.
The work being done in this State and here and there in other States
in recent years is not exceptional any more. These success stories, fortu-
nately, are no longer isolated instances. This, surely, is a measure of
progress, an indication of the growth of a dynamic community spirit of
partnership, built around the simple, venerable idea that what helps
your neighbor more than likely will help you, that what helps the whole
community will help each individual member. More and more farmers
138 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
realize that development of local industry will not threaten their way
of life but will improve their chances of making a better living. More and
more businessmen are concerned about a sound public policy of water
conservation and park development, because good water and recreation
facilities attract people and industry, and thus the opportunities for
more business are increased.
CHAIRMAN WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER
THANK you very much, indeed, for your most inspiring messages.
We will all go away today with a greater determination in terms
of our hopes and aspirations and our regional thinking, and we are
grateful to you for the word that you brought us.
The next speaker, if you were just an Arkansas audience, I would
probably say, is Bill Fulbright. But for some of our out-of-town guests
I might say a few more nice things about him. Bill Fulbright, a lawyer;
Bill Fulbright, an able college president; Bill Fulbright, also a big
thinker.
We have been talking about water resources and other resources that
are available to us in this country. I think Bill Fulbright has contributed
more to our thinking in human resources; the Fulbright scholarship;
the Fulbright approach to better understanding among peoples of all
Nations is one of the most outstanding contributions that he has made
to us.
The fact that Senator Fulbright also happens to serve on the Bank-
ing and Currency Committee of the United States Senate is incidental
to us because we in Arkansas are always happy to hear Senator Ful-
bright speak to us. With a man who thinks big, I know will have a very
stimulating message.
HON. J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT,
U. S. Senator from Arkansas, Fayetteville, Ark.
I CONSIDER it a real privilege to be invited here today to this
meeting and to have a part in it. As you can see we have already
had some wonderful speakers, some of my favorite speakers. I think
Clarence Byrns is one of the great poets of this State and the South.
And we all know that David Lilienthal is our finest evangelist in this
field, and of course, Colonel Brown has told us what is being done in a
very practical way. But I want to say one word to those visitors who
are from out of the State, that I am so pleased you could come and see
one of our hilltop farms that is so typical of our State. You can see that
we are beginning to make progress in many ways.
I am almost ashamed to try to add anything to the wisdom that you
have already heard. I have never heard better expositions of what we
are concerned with here in this valley.
MAIN STREET 1969 139
However, as I listened to these very fine speeches I kept thinking
of the little school boy who was asked to write his description of Soc-
rates, and he wrote Socrates was a man who made many speeches to
Athenians; they poisoned him. I keep thinking what in the world can
I say that could add anything to this meeting. There is a limit to one's
capacity to absorb ideas and these are all big thinking ideas and have
great value to them.
My part in this program is to relate the needs of the people of the
State and Federal cooperation in regard to the resources developed.
As far as natural or physical resources are concerned, it seems to me
that our Federal and state relationships are fairly well established and
generally are well regarded.
Just yesterday and today we have been on a rather strenuous trip
up River to celebrate the acceptance by the Congress of the program
in which we have been so long engaged in this State, particularly Clar-
ence Byrns and all the people up and down this River. Colonel Brown,
of course, knows this. But in this matter of cooperation in the field of
these natural resources the pattern it seems to me has been accepted.
Federal and State cooperation in highway development is now long
standing and is being expanded. It is recently recognized with much
greater responsibility in this field, throughout the transportation in-
dustry, airports, railroads, steamships, there has been a widely recog-
nized area of Federal responsibility which is no longer controversial.
So, as far as these fields are concerned, the cooperation among States,
communities and the Federal government is quite well established.
So anything I may say or fail to say in recognition of the importance
of this river valley is not because I do not recognize its importance.
It is because you have already had a fine description of that and be-
cause it is fairly well settled.
What I should like to emphasize, without de-emphasizing the im-
portance of natural resources, is the greater question of how we or-
ganize and use our less tangible and even more important human and
economic resources. This is what will determine our ability to make full
and effective use of these great natural resources which are being de-
veloped.
One of the great problems in atomic energy as so well pointed out by
my predecessor, is not the development of it, but what do we do with it.
How are we to use it?
I have been very greatly impressed with what the people of my
State, the people of Arkansas, have been doing this past year in recog-
nition of the most important aspects of this problem of mobilizing our
human and economic resources. And I mean, the decision that was
made to give far greater financial support to education and the de-
cision to create an agency which will assist in financing our own eco-
nomic development. I, for one, certainly hope that nothing is done to
undo the action of this last Legislature in this field.
140 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
CHAIRMAN WINTHROP ROCKEFELLER
Thank you very much, Senator Fulbright.
And now as the Conference closes, I want to ask those present to give
a round of applause to William Ewald, Gordon Wittenberg and fine
staff who put this Conference together and made it this great success.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM
PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE 37TH ANNUAL MEETING OF
THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON STATE PARKS, HELD AT
ITASCA STATE PARK, MINNESOTA, SEPTEMRER 18-21, 1957.
Greetings From Hon. Orville L. Freeman,
Governor of Minnesota
Extended by Dr. GEORGE A. SELKE, Commissioner,
Minnesota Conservation Department
I REGRET that you do not have the opportunity to meet, to see, and
to hear the dynamic young Governor of the State of Minnesota,
Orville L. Freeman. I have known our Governor for many years
and regard him very highly. It was he who induced me to retire from
retirement and come back to aid in this important work of Conserva-
tion. The Governor asked me to extend his greetings and the hospitality
of the State of Minnesota, to express his hope that you will have a
very successful and pleasant meeting, and at the same time that the
proceedings of this convention would be profitable to one and all.
In my experience I have always associated conferences and con-
ventions with the exchange of ideas. Let me put it this way. If you
have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange them, we will both
be the richer for the transaction. I think that the important thing to
remember as we exchange ideas, we are always helping one another
without any expense to ourselves. At these conferences we are con-
stantly exchanging ideas and we carry them back home to put into
operation. Sometimes they do not bear fruit for a decade or more, but
good ideas continue just as the ripples of a lake continue until they
reach the farthest shore.
At the outset may I express a viewpoint that has a very considerable
bearing on our state park planning. We understand that it is not just
a matter of game and fish, but it is the opportunity to have the right
kind of environment and facilities so that you and your family may
completely enjoy the area. I remember two years ago when I noticed
in Minnesota so many people from Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and
having been at God's Lake and at Lac la Ronge in northern Manitoba
and Northern Saskatchewan and knowing what a wonderful fishing
and hunting area Canada has in those places, I asked, "Why do you
come to Minnesota?" They said, "Those places just have camps for
hunting or fishing and we like to have a place," they didn't say va-
cation, "we like to have a place to go for our holidays where we can
bring the entire family." I wish to point out that in state park planning
we must adapt it to the recreational requirements of the entire family.
I like to tell people that we believe that in every State there should
be parks close enough so that dad and his son will have a place to go
141
142 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
on a camping trip, or the entire family can go for a picnic or weekend
excursion. Parks should be within easy driving range of any community
or metropolitan area.
State parks may be selected for their great natural beauty or for
the history of the area, but my advice is visit these places, become
acquainted with them and make them an integrated part of our lives.
Not only see your own State but we think it fine if people go to visit
other States, and thereby become acquainted with the great outdoor
heritage that is America.
May I say to you very frankly that outdoor recreation is a bulwark
against some of the evil things we permit to operate in many of our
communities. State Parks teach many things, enrich our lives, and
build character which may cause the youth to exclaim: "Well, there
is something fine and worthwhile in this world!" Parks are the fresh
air, the sunshine and the outdoor activities where the young folk learn
their relationship to Nature. And having learned their relationship
to Nature they understand better their relationship to our history, to
people and the great heritage we have in things that the Creator has
given us so abundantly. In other words our state park environment is
helping youth build for this life and beyond.
That is why I think we should have a dignified, idealistic approach
to this whole problem in providing state parks that mean enriching
activities for young people particularly, and, of course, tremendous
enjoyment for older people. We have folks who have contributed much
to programs of this kind.
Looking back on the history of state parks in Minnesota I find it
paradoxical that our greatest progress was made during the period of
drought and depression. It was back in the days when we had little
money and had to think very carefully as to how best it could be in-
vested that through our made-work programs we made our greatest
progress in park development. On the other hand in the intervening
years, days of great prosperity and industrial advancement, we spent
so little on state park improvement. It is only of recent date that we
have come to realize that unless we act now to acquire lands and de-
velop facilities many sites of great historical significance and natural
beauty will be lost to all posterity. Adequate appropriation now is our
greatest need. I say shame upon the American people that during these
years since World War II, we have invested so little in the things that
will bring a richer, more wholesome life for our people.
I remember well the great Historian Charles Beard at Northwestern
University where I once taught. We asked Charles Beard if he could
not do an hour's talk on all that he learned from his exhaustive studies
in the field of history and human progress. At the outset he decided
he could do it in four chapters giving 25 minutes to a chapter, then he
thought he could do it in about four paragraphs, and finally he said he
could do it in four sentences, each a quotation.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 143
I think I ought to pass on to you these four sentences in which Charles
Beard summed up all that he had to say about a lifetime of study. The
first quotation was,
"Those whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad" and of
course, we thought of Hitler and Napoleon and others.
The second sentence was, "Though the wheels of the Gods grind
slowly, they grind exceeding fine," and we could think of course, of King
George III and of thirteen colonies that would be conquered and could
be taxed without representation, but you know destiny was not revealed
to him until after the battle of Yorktown.
The third was "The flower that the bee robs is fertilized." In other
words, sometimes the people who take things from us strengthen us
because we overcome the obstacles and the handicaps.
The fourth sentence was one that I liked very much, "It is only
when darkness falls that you can see the distant stars." So I think it is
important that the American people understand that even in the bright
sunshine we should see the distant stars and have visions about the
things that lie far, far ahead.
We are fortunate in Minnesota to have a Governor who has great
faith in public service, the integrity of Civil Service, and the dignity
of the state employee as an individual in society. It applies to park
personnel, as well as the entire state service.
Every person employed by the State should have the right to expect
to be on the job tomorrow, the next month, the next year, provided
he is physically fit and does his job. In other words, security or per-
manency of tenure. Every employee is entitled to adequate compen-
sation so that they can live according to the American way of life, so
that they can have decent homes and provide for the education of their
children. Every employee should have the assurance of adequate and
proper retirement. And finally it is important to recognize that per-
sonnel deserve the best in training for they are front line in public re-
lations and performance so essential to successful administration. In
other words the park service, as well as all branches of state employ-
ment, must be ever mindful of the necessity to provide security on the
job, adequate compensation, proper retirement, and carefully directed
training on the job to achieve the best in public service.
I would like to close these few introductory words with a poem that
I think reflects the philosophy from which we may with profit fashion
the objectives of our state park program. It was written by Edwin
Markham, the great poet, whom I knew as a young man:
"We are blind until we see that in the human plan
Nothing is worth the making that does not make the man.
Why build these cities glorious, if man unbuilded goes,
In vain we build the world, unless the builder also grows."
144 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Our Great Natural Heritage
By DR. R. G. GUSTAVSON, President
Resources for the Future, Inc.
I hope you will pardon me for relating some personal experiences. It was
my lot to be born on the other side of the tracks, as it were, in the city of
Denver, and as a boy I sold newspapers. "The Rocky Mountain News,"
the newspaper that I had the privilege of acting as a salesman for, gave an
annual picnic to the newsboys which was held at Morrison, Colorado, and
most particularly at a place called "The Red Rocks" which has now be-
come a very fine park. Incidentally, this is a distance of seventeen miles
from Denver and at that time one travelled there by train. A part of the
entertainment presented to us on that occasion was a talk and hike under
the leadership of a geologist from the neighboring Colorado School of
Mines. He talked to us about the rocks and the hills around us and gave
us a picture of their past history. One of the things he pointed out to us
as we followed him on the hike, was a large footprint in the sandstone of a
dinosaur. I am sure it was the first time that any of us had ever heard of
the great geologic past with its great oceans and strange animals. This
gave me my initial interest in geology which was followed by taking a
course in that subject at the first opportunity, when I entered West Side
High School.
Since that time the wonderful mountain park system has developed,
providing some of the finest recreational opportunities found anywhere.
Red Rock Park can now be reached by automobile in the course of half
an hour, travelling over a very fine cement highway.
Let me pause for a moment to contrast this experience with my recent
experience on coming to the city of Washington, D. C. Arriving in the
month of July, my wife and I tried to use the first Sunday we were in
Washington to make a trip to the ocean to have the opportunity to feast
our eyes on a great body of water. We had our automobile, we had maps,
we travelled and tried our best to get to the ocean's edge. We finally ate
our lunch in the woods and we turned home because everywhere that we
tried to reach the ocean we were met by a sign "No Trespassing Private
Property." It was therefore no surprise to me when I read in the report
by the United States Department of Interior, National Parks Service,
entitled "Our Vanishing Shoreline" that "of the 3,700 miles of general
shoreline constituting the Atlantic and Gulf coasts only 6}^ percent, or
240 miles, are in Federal and State ownership for public recreation."
Before going further, let me describe another experience which I had in
the city of Chicago on visiting the great Museum of Science and Industry
in that city. It was shortly after the Atomic Energy Commission had
been established and the Museum of Science and Industry had set up an
exhibit for the citizens, and I presume especially the youngsters of the
city of Chicago, to give them some ideas and firsthand experience con-
cerning the great discoveries that are in the process of remaking the world.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 145
This particular exhibit was one in which a group of frogs had been fed
radioactive phosphorus, in the form of phosphates I suppose. Another
group of normal frogs was also kept in the case. The exhibit provided
a simple Geiger counter which could be moved around, so that the youngster
could place it near a frog in whose tissues radioactive phosphorus was
stored, so he could hear the clicking of the Geiger counter and he could
compare it with the experience of placing it near a frog which had not
been given any radioactive phosphorus, and consequently no clicking on
the Geiger counter occurred.
A group of boys was fascinated with this isotope experiment and placed
the Geiger counter first on one frog and then on another. A guard whose
job it apparently was to keep things in order saw this continued interest
on the part of the boys, came over to them, and said: "You've done that
long enough now. Cut it out. What are you trying to do? Kill that frog?"
Obviously the guard had not the slightest notion of the experiment.
Now it seems to me that these three simple episodes have a very pro-
found lesson for us. In the early days in Colorado the only problem was
transportation. One train a day was the only answer. Taking into con-
sideration the time to get to the Denver depot, the total time required from
home to the Red Rocks was about three hours. Today you can make that
same trip over a cement highway in less than one-half hour.
The mountain parks were available then. They are available now,
thanks to the foresight of fine Denver leadership. How different is the
situation in the East, where settlements took place hundreds of years
before the West was settled, at a time when recreation was not a problem.
As a consequence the citizens of the East, in spite of the fact that they
have excellent roads and fine automobiles, are denied the right to look at
the ocean in a great many places because the seashore has been pre-empted.
Let me call your attention to the inspiration that can be given to young
people by a trained and knowledgeable person. I hope the Park Services
in general will continue and expand this kind of educational work.
Let us examine the situation a little further to see what has happened
in the fifty years that have elapsed since my original visit to the Red Rocks
of Morrison, Colorado. Let us look ahead eight or ten years and see what
further changes we may expect. By 1975 the population of our country
will be something between 225 and 230 millions of people. Most of these
people will be city people. Five-sixths of all of the Nation's employment
in 1957 is located in the urban areas. City associated activities have grown
from 70.6 percent of all employment in 1940 to 83.4 percent in 1957. By
1975 it is expected that only one-fifteenth of the Nation's projected popu-
lation of some 227 millions will be residing on farms. Even now only 9.5
percent of the United States employment is in agriculture, forestry, fishing
and mining. We need to orient ourselves to the fact that the United States
is now largely an urban entity. The city is the heart of our economic life
and is the natural focus of settlement. Within an area containing 15 per-
cent of the total land surface of the United States, there were in 1950 over
146 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
half of the total population; nearly three-fourths the total industrial
employment and 59 percent of the total income. In fact, within eight
percent of the area of our country are to be found 43 percent of the popula-
tion and 68 percent of the manufacturing. What does this mean in terms
of great demands for outdoor recreational facilities? Over the next two
decades 41,000 miles of super highways will be constructed, connecting
every major urban area with an expressway network over the United States.
This was authorized in the 1956 Federal Aid Highway Act, Public Law
627, and it is what we are now commencing to pay for in increased gasoline
taxes. This new super highway system cannot fail to have almost revo-
lutionary impact upon the recreational facilities of our country. The
recreational areas will be bound even more closely to the cities than they
have ever been bound in history.
Today we have one of the highest per capita incomes of any country
in the world. We have the shortest working day and the shortest working
week. We have the highest per capita ownership of transportation in the
form of the automobile of any place in the world. This tremendous in-
dustrialization and high standard of living have been made possible by
great mechanization and specialization. Men today are bound as never
before to routine tasks. I shall never forget my visit to one of the great
plants in our country manufacturing radios. I saw the radio start out as
a plain piece of board at one end of the assembly line of workers. As it
passed each worker, he or she added a screw, a nut, a piece of wire, a tube,
a bit of solder, until the finished radio appeared at the other end of the
line. While we were watching this magnificent picture of modern industry,
my friend said to me: "We must get out of here now because it is almost
quitting time and these people will drop a screwdriver in mid-air when the
bell rings and there will be a stampede to get out." And I thought to my-
self, if I had been using a screwdriver to put a single type of screw at a
certain place for eight hours, I, too, would drop the screwdriver in mid-
air and stampede to get out.
What is the impact of the high nervous tension which the executive
faces today in modern industry? What is the result of the prolonged ner-
vous strain that the modern schoolteacher is under with her large classes?
What are the needs of the industrial worker carrying out routine tasks day
in and day out? What kind of recreation is available and what kind of
recreation should be available? Recreational needs in the out-of-doors
would seem to fall in three definite classes. In group 1 are city parks,
where people in the course of one-half hour, or maybe even less than that,
can get to one of these parks to appreciate the out-of-doors. Good city
planning calls for more and larger city parks. In group 2 are the state parks,
which should be available for an outing where the entire trip can be made
within one day or a week-end. And finally, our great national parks which
should be available for the longer vacation period. To take care of the
ever increasing number of people seeking recreation calls for a great effort.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 147
Let us be philosophical for a moment. Every American is entitled to a
number of deep and lasting impressions; sunrise or sunset over oceans,
deserts, mountains, clear blue skies sprinkled with stars, wind and rain in
a forest; a view of the spectrum of life from the tiniest plant to the great
redwood; the simple protozoa to giant elephant.
Our high national income, our shorter working day and shorter working
week, our ever improved highways, our large number of automobiles, are
giving and will give in increasing numbers thousands of people the oppor-
tunity to broaden their horizons. They want to see the mountains and the
plains, the great rivers and the great lakes, they want to hear the splash
of still waters when fish disturb them, they want to be at home in their
world. Kenneth Patton has said much better what I am trying to say in
his poem.
Gather into yourself all the world.
Lie on the earth and feast on the sky.
Print upon the films of your eyes' inner theatre the
images of all its forms and creatures.
Record upon your inner ear the sounds of water
and wind, leaves and birds, the voices and songs of people.
Gather the stars into your mind, and the knowledge of
huge spaces and the length of time.
Be rich with friends and companions.
Discover the loveliness of your mate and your fortune
in the faces and hands of your children.
Give and be given unto, that within you may be
stored and reborn all of the world about you.
You, who are nature, be all of nature;
For nothing can be strange to you, and never in
the heavens and earth can you be homeless.
So much for the world of "First Impressions."
The second world is the world of Science. It is a world of corrected
sense impressions. The world is round and evolves about the sun. The
heavens are sprinkled with giant suns so far away that the light which
falls upon our eyes tonight started from them long before Christ was born.
The radio astronomer is peering into depths, as it were, far beyond any-
thing that the light telescope could make available to us. The universe
is expanding, expanding not only in reality but our concept of the universe
is expanding. But what about living forms? The physical scientist has
done a remarkable job in the last several hundred years in separating out
for us the now something like a hundred basic elements which are the
fundamental building stones of the universe.
Chemistry has now worked out very complicated and extensive rela-
tionships that exist between the elements. The biologists also have been
busy cataloging living forms and they have done a remarkable job. The
complicated problem of dynamic relationships between living forms,
however, has only been scratched on the surface. Only recently did we
148 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
discover the antagonisms existing between certain fungi and disease-
producing organisms. The field of antibiotics is just one example of the
practicality of knowing these relationships. Modern industry and agricul-
ture by their very nature are destroying many of these biological entities,
and of course the nature preserves that have been established and will
be established and kept, are most valuable in preserving for us living forms
whose real place in nature has yet to be determined. They therefore have
a value that cannot be estimated. To destroy these reserves might result
in something comparable to a chemist losing some of the basic elements.
There is a third world which in some respects is of greater significance
than either the world of first impressions or the world of science. It is
the world of values; sometimes called the world of reality; sometimes called
the world of religion. It is the world which gives meaning to the scientific
world. It is one thing, for example, to know all about the chemistry and
biology of milk. This information is most valuable. However, all of this
information is of little or no significance unless somehow we know how to
distribute that milk to the children of our society.
Now I should like to call your attention to some recent work in a field
of science which I believe bears heavily on the place of recreation in the
life of our people living in this modern industrial and atomic age. This is
a new field that is just opening up and which is very hard to describe. Let
me attempt it by outlining some recent experiments. Professor Curt P.
Richter, of Johns Hopkins Medical School, in a paper presented recently
before a memorial seminar in honor of the late Professor Walter Cannon,
begins his paper with the following statement:
' 'Voodoo Death' that is the title of a paper published in 1942 by Walter Cannon.
It contains many instances of mysterious, sudden, apparently psychogenic death,
from all parts of the world. A Brazilian Indian condemned and sentenced by a
so-called 'Medicine Man,' is helpless against his own emotional response to this
pronouncement and dies within hours. In Africa a young negro unknowingly
eats the inviolably banned wild hen. On discovery of his 'crime' he trembles, is
overcome by fear, and dies in 24 hours. In New Zealand a Maori woman eats
fruit that she only later learns has come from a tabooed place. Her chief has been
profaned. By noon of the next day she is dead. In Australia a witch doctor points
a bone at a man. Believing that nothing can save him, the man rapidly sinks in
spirits and dies.
"Cannon made a thorough search of reports from many primitive societies be-
fore he convinced himself of the existence of voodoo deaths. He concluded '. ; .
the phenomenon is characteristically noted among aborigines among human
beings so primitive, so superstitious, so ignorant, that they feel themselves be-
wildered strangers in a hostile world. Instead of knowledge, they have fertile and
unrestricted imaginations which fill their environment with all manner of evil
spirits capable of affecting their lives disastrously . . .' '
Professor Cannon then asked himself the question: "How can an
ominous and persistent state of fear end the life of man?" Having accepted
then the possibility of "Voodoo Death" Professor Richter proceeded to
set up experiments trying to place limiting values on this preconception.
His experiments in my opinion are fundamental. He found, for example,
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 149
if he trapped rats, wild rats, in a sort of leather bag which provided ample
air for their living purposes, but kept them trapped, they struggled for
awhile, then apparently gave up the struggle and died. Why did they die?
Not for lack of air, not for lack of stored chemical energy in their muscles.
What physiological and psychological processes were involved? If one
repeats the experiment, only this time after the animal has made a struggle
he is temporarily liberated, and then trapped again, this second time the
struggle goes on to complete exhaustion, a much longer struggle than the
initial one. The same kind of an experiment can be carried out by forcing
rats to swim, under conditions from which they cannot escape. The crux
of the experiment is that if the rat has reason to believe, by virtue of a
single experience, that the situation is not hopeless, he makes a struggle
far beyond what he would make and lives much longer than he would
ordinarily do under the same conditions, just because he thinks the struggle
is not hopeless. The implications of this kind of study for the world in
which we live which is one dominated by fear, must be obvious. Here is a
new field asking for the most careful kind of experimentation.
The routine of mechanized industry which I have already referred to,
the heavy burden carried by the modern executive, all speak for a life
that may be filled with frustration. If there is any significance at all to
the Richter experiment it w r ould seem to me to indicate the great necessity
of release from this kind of a trap. Our parks the city park, the state
park, the national park offer this great opportunity.
And so let me say that you people here who are working in this great
field of preserving a heritage of nature undisturbed; who are offering
recreation out-of-doors; who are teaching our people how to commune
with Nature, are also offering a way out, at least in part, from the frus-
trations of our times and so you are contributing in the last analysis to
the extension of life itself.
Toast to National Park Service
By IRA B. LYKES, Chief, Park Practice
In the nearly one-quarter century during which it has been my honor
and privilege to serve with the National Park Service, I have been asked
to perform many duties and to do many things some relatively easy,
others more difficult. Tonight, however, the assignment given me ap-
pears to be just about impossible. I have been requested to take Connie
Wirth's place in offering the National Park Service toast and everyone
will agree, I am sure, that no one can truly take Connie's place. The best
I can do in this instance, therefore, is to offer my best, though inadequate
representation.
Director Wirth has asked that I extend to you each and every one
his warmest personal regards, and to express for him the sincere regret
that he finds it impossible to be with us on this occasion.
150 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
We are gathered here in conference through our dedication to parks and
their place in human society. It is fitting and appropriate that we take
these few moments to reflect upon a significant event in the park move-
ment a movement that plays a role of ever-increasing importance in
present-day American life.
One week ago tonight, at about this same hour, several hundred na-
tional park superintendents, their families and friends, gathered at the
confluence of the Fire Hole and Gibbons River where the Madison is
formed in Yellowstone National Park near the base of National Park
Mountain there to witness the re-enactment of one of the truly great
moments in our Nation's history. Certainly this was an important oc-
casion to all of us who have dedicated ourselves to the development and
administration of parks and park systems. At this very moment, this re-
enactment is being repeated, for precisely 87 years ago tonight on Sep-
tember 19, 1870 the Washburn-Doane Expedition camped at that same
spot and there, around a glowing campfire, was born the national park
idea an idea that has blossomed forth as an ideal befitting a great and
powerful Nation.
Permit me to quote the words of the distinguished Montanian Cornelius
Hedges as stated in the re-enactment of this memorable scene. Hedges is
speaking to General Henry Washburn, Nathaniel P. Langford, Samuel
Houser, and others of this intrepid band of men who, during the preceding
weeks, had made their way by horseback through that wonderland of
nature. Here are his words:
It seems to me that when nature brings into being a region such as we have seen
these last 25 days, that it belongs, not to a few men but to the people, all of the people.
That it should be an area for enjoyment and recreation, free from all the strains of com-
mercialism, selfish interests, and private ownership. We have here just now conceived
an idea that of setting aside the area we've covered as a kind of park. That's my idea,
too, but I feel, and strongly, that it must not be a privately owned or operated park,
but a national park.
This statement was followed by utter silence, for Hedges' suggestion
was such an innovation in view of their earlier consideration of a program
of private exploitation.
It was Nathaniel P. Langford who voiced the first response to this
proposal, and may it be said to the everlasting credit of those who were
present on that memorable occasion that all gave unselfishly in their efforts
to gain their appointed objective.
The public enthusiasm in response to the Washburn-Doane Expedition,
not only in Montana but throughout the Nation, was astonishingly effective.
This was not only due to the respect people in the state held for such men
as Washburn, Langford, Houser, and Hedges, but also due to the energy
these men threw into promoting the idea conceived at that campsite on
September 19 so many years ago. The expedition not only created vast
interest in the region of the explorers, but among laymen and politicians
in the state of Montana, in Washington, New York, Philadelphia, and the
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 151
country at large. It also started a movement which grew through their
efforts in the conception of establishing national areas "dedicated and
set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoy-
ment of the people, with proper administration, protection, and develop-
ment by the Federal Government."
The principal exposition of the idea of a national park was chiefly
promoted by Nathaniel P. Langford who later became the first super-
intendent of Yellowstone National Park.
On December 18, 1871, a bill to establish Yellowstone National Park
was introduced simultaneously in both Houses of the Congress. This bill
ten weeks later became a law on March 1, 1872. On March 13 a civil act
was introduced in Congress carrying an item of $40,000 for the continuation
of the Hayden Survey under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior.
This survey proceeded to set the boundaries of the park and our great
movement of national parks in America was established and under way.
To say that Yellowstone National Park was the first "pleasuring ground"
for the citizens of this Nation would be inaccurate, for a number of years
previous to the Washburn-Doane Expedition the people of California,
for example, had satisfied their requirements for nature-recreation in the
beautiful Yosemite Valley, now another of our Nation's vast and spec-
tacular areas.
In a larger sense, the memorable Yellowstone incident is symbolic
not alone of the national park movement, but of the nationwide movement
to create and preserve "pleasuring grounds'* as the best example of
nature's handiwork and as the places where recreation opportunities are
available for the many and not alone for the few.
Our glasses have been filled with sparklingly clear water taken from the
confluence of the Fire Hole and Gibbons Rivers, and sent to us on this
occasion by Director Wirth. We raise them now to this toast: May we
increase our dedication in the cause of preservation of our historic scenes,
our cultural and scientific heritage, and in the magnificence of nature's
handiwork as exemplified in the parks given into our hands for safekeeping;
may we gain strength from the inspiring work of others who have gone
before us and who have given unselfishly of themselves so that this cause
might survive and grow throughout the years. To the past, and to the
future of parks in a free society under God, I offer this toast. Thank you.
152 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
State Park Philosophy
NEWTON B. DRURY, Chief, California Division of Beaches and Parks,
Sacramento, Calif.
THERE is a saying: "If you want to know how short the winter is,
just sign a ninety-day note." This is not unlike my feeling as the
due date rapidly approached on the assignment that I so casually
and proudly accepted some time ago to discuss here today the subject
of "State Park Philosophy."
In the midst of a large and varied program involving a-hundred-
million-dollar Five Year Plan, toward which the Legislature in the
first two years has appropriated more than half, with such engrossing
problems as the Redwood By-pass Highway, the Emerald Bay bridge
proposal, the organization of the display next summer of the fabulous
Hearst Castle, the prospective Maritime Historical Monument in San
Francisco, together with over a hundred more or less active acquisition
projects for the next three years, on top of the administration, protection
and interpretation of 145 diverse areas, 600,000 acres with over 40 mil-
lion annual visitor-days of attendance, there is not a dull moment.
There is a state park philosophy in the sense of a set of guiding prin-
ciples for what we consider an important human institution. Otherwise
we would not be here today.
Park people, if successful, need and have certain rare characteristics.
One of them is what the management experts call "a high frustration
tolerance." All who have had to deal with pressure groups, with the
inevitable delays in the governmental process, or with misunderstanding
of our purposes and motives even by friends all who walk the tight
rope and evade the pitfalls of park operations, will readily grant that
they have in truth to be philosophers.
There is another characteristic. I remember that our naturalist on
the C & Canal National Historic Site in Maryland had to meet an
emergency when the horse drawing the barge suddenly balked and re-
fused to go further. Nothing daunted, the naturalist substituted him-
self for the horse and brought the barge to its destination. He was duly
praised for his ingenuity, but was told that the episode was not unique
in the park business, where everybody "works like a horse."
This industry, this dedication to the work is indeed typical of park
people National, State and Local whether it be in Maine or Florida,
Minnesota or even California.
And I think the reason for this devotion is clear enough. It is not
just the fascination of accomplishment in what we at least think is
one of the most complex of human activities, running the gamut from
the most material, like providing sewage disposal to the most ethereal,
like trying to define the elements of beauty in Grand Canyon or the
Redwoods. It is the sense of contributing in a very special way to the
welfare and enjoyment of our fellow men, of giving them a worthwhile
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 153
and oftentimes a great experience that physically and spiritually en-
riches their lives.
Turning them from park people to the guiding principles the
"philosophy" if you will of the work in which they are engaged, this
unique phase of land and resources management, I think, is distinguished
in this: that while other lands are administered to conserve their re-
sources to serve man's material needs, park lands are managed to min-
ister to the human mind and spirit. They are set aside to preserve their
beauty, reveal their meaning, and maintain their integrity. They involve
a trusteeship on the part of the present, to use the words of Carlyle,
"toward the past and generations yet unborn."
That this purpose is hard to define is patent. This is true of all mat-
ters of the spirit. No one has fully expressed hi simple terms the purpose
of a great institution like a university or a religion. Yet those engaged
in the park movement feel this purpose even when they do not put it
in words, and their whole endeavor, whether they realize it or not, is
shaped and guided by it.
Let us consider some of the principles that by common consent have
evolved and by most are accepted as to state parks, in their establish-
ment, development, management and interpretation.
One of these, and it is in my opinion basic, is that state parks have
as a dominant purpose the preservation, insofar as feasible, of the quali-
ties of native landscape. It was the wonders of nature, as revealed to
the explorers and pioneers, that in places like Yellowstone and Yosemite
first led to the conviction that here were lands too fine to have their
beauty or their interest cheapened or destroyed by turning them to
base uses for the advantage of the few or of the moment. "This place
should be preserved for us and others after us to enjoy as we have
enjoyed it." This was the thought in the minds of park pioneers over a
century ago, and it is the thought behind the growing public demand
for parks at all levels of government.
We are concerning ourselves here with state parks. Obviously, there
are some lands of such distinction that their preservation is the concern
of the Nation as a whole. This is exemplified in our great National Park
System. Most of its units are recognized as being beyond the respon-
sibilities of the States in which they happen to be located. In many
cases and I think offhand of Great Smokies, Mammoth Cave, Carlsbad
and Yosemite the States have taken the initiative and then passed on
the responsibility to the Nation for varied reasons: financial inability,
desire for prestige, or to obtain the fruits of increased travel. But mainly
because of recognition of national significance and the importance of
national parks. True, local promotions have resulted in some areas of
less than national caliber being forced upon the National Park System,
but even this is a tribute to the prestige of National Parks. Doubtless
every extensive portfolio of investments contains some "cats and dogs."
154 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
When we come to the state park category this is likewise true. Parks,
like gold, are where you find them. But as funds for state parks increase,
there is a tendency to strive for the diversion of appropriations to pro-
jects not justified by their importance to the entire State. Even Cali-
fornia has not been immune from this, and only a year ago it was found
desirable for our Commission to re-state its criteria as to statewide
significance. In the main it has been possible to hold to the principle
that "state park funds are not intended to be used as a subsidy to local
recreation."
This is not to say that there should be as far as possible a fair geo-
graphical distribution of areas, and a fair proportion among different
types. This has been reasonably well accomplished in the California
State Park System and will be even more so when the 40-million-dollar
appropriation already made for new areas and rounding out existing
parks has been expanded under the Five Year Master Plan.
The additions to round out the 145 present units of the system are to
us even more important than the 40 to 50 new areas provided for. The
ideal is to have unified and complete areas, preferably entire watersheds
where attainable. Inholdings, with the adverse uses that are the bane
of the park administrator, will, we hope, be largely eliminated. This
ideal is never completely realized, but it surely is a part of the park
philosophy. As to types of areas, the system when the five year pro-
gram is completed will roughly be apportioned as follows: Natural and
Scenic Areas, 35 per cent; Historical Areas, 15 per cent; Recreational
Areas, 50 per cent. Needless to say, effort has been made to give highest
priorities to the best examples of each type.
Let us turn to the subject of development. This is the critical phase,
as many a fine area has suffered from ill-considered, inappropriate modi-
fication of its original qualities in hasty development for public use.
A well thought out Master Plan of Development should precede con-
struction, based upon the principle that each area should be developed
to serve its highest use.
Restraint should be the watchword in development. The burden of
proof should rest upon those who propose modification of natural con-
ditions.
There is the constant problem of balancing the preservation of na-
tural conditions with the provision of facilities for public use in keeping
with the highest values. Obviously parks are intended for human en-
joyment, but there is always the danger of development which will pro-
mote over-use, of passing the point of diminishing returns, so that the
satisfactions sought by many are lost to all because of excess in develop-
ment and use. The fact that a park is popular is no good reason for
developing it beyond its carrying capacity. Many a great landscape
carries in its beauty the seeds of its own destruction.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 155
This has been the subject of much earnest thought and careful plan-
ning in Yosemite, for example, and it is surely the case in the Redwoods
and other state and national parks.
Needless to say a natural reserve like Point Lobos, with its rugged
seacoast crowned with wind-blown Monterey Cypress, its wealth of
flora and fauna, its clamoring sea lions on the offshore rocks, its rare sea
otters and its birds of shore and sea, would be developed primarily as a
great natural exhibit. It would be used with more restraint than would
the recreational beaches of the south or the recreational areas on the
shores of reservoirs, as at our recent developments on Folsom Lake.
Rut even in these so-called recreational areas it is, I hope, an element of
the state park philosophy that emphasis should be upon preservation of
natural environment, and the harmonizing of necessary developments
therewith. Our planners, engineers, and landscape architects, consider-
ing the limitations imposed by relentlessly mounting public use, have
worked skillfully toward this end.
It follows, since state parks are primarily natural areas, that "de-
velopments are for the purpose of making the areas available for public
enjoyment in a manner consistent with the preservation of landscape
quality and should be of the simpler sorts in a natural environment
(i.e. camping, picnicking, sightseeing, nature study, hiking, riding,
boating, swimming, fishing, etc.) involving no major modification of
their lands, forests and waters, and without extensive introduction of
artificial features such as athletic fields, playgrounds, golf courses, and
other forms of recreational developments primarily for local benefit."
This is quoted from our recently-issued criteria for state parks in
California, and while it may be challenged in some quarters it has been,
up to now, the pattern followed in our neck of the woods.
In state, no less than in national parks, we should always be alive to
our obligation, before it is too late, to set aside, in reasonable proportion,
outstanding representative areas of forest, seacoast, desert, mountains,
lakeshore, rivers and marshland as outdoor laboratories for nature
interpretation, scientific and aesthetic study. This is the basic of our
naturalist program. If we succeed, these will be a heritage for which
future generations will be increasingly grateful, as in the not too distant
future they will in all probability be the only places where forests evolve
naturally, plants and animals live in harmonious relationship with
themselves and their environment and Nature and her works can still
be studied in the original design.
Regardless of the principal purpose of any state park area, we are
conscious that we are primarily managers of lands and are always in
the landscape business. This is primarily true, of course, of scenic areas.
Rut it is also true of recreational parks; and it is true of "history written
on the land," in those areas like the Gold Discovery Site and La Purisima
Mission. There have developed many types of state parks, depending
on local conditions and public demand. Rut with respect to all of them
156 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
we are charged with maintaining the integrity of native landscape inso-
far as it is humanly possible.
Everywhere the relentless march of material progress, of urbaniza-
tion, industrialization and consumption of resources for commercial
ends are making their impact on the native landscape. Everywhere
they are rubbing the bloom off the land. Except in the parks and even
there we know that we are righting what sometimes seems to be a losing
battle. Except in the parks, and in some areas with a partially related
purpose, such as the National Forests, the qualities of great open spaces
that we took for granted a generation ago are rapidly disappearing. We
all know the reason. In California, for instance, population is increasing
at the rate of a million every three years. We are destined or con-
demned to have 25 million people by 1975. We have 14 million now,
and undoubtedly the great upsurge in our park program is in response
to the recreational needs of these people. As part of the nation-wide
highway program, our California Department of Public Works is spend-
ing at the rate of a million dollars a day. Should we not ask ourselves:
"Where will these highways lead?" "Will there be left any place worth
going to?" "Where will our teeming millions, when they take the road,
find relief from the tensions of modern life and the healing influence of
contact with Nature as created?"
These are not new questions, but they have not been fully answered,
and will not be unless programs like that of the National Conference on
State Parks continue and increase.
And one more thing. The heart of our movement is a thing of the
spirit, although the material that we deal with is the land. The quest
for beauty is the basis of our great travel industry. Sightseeing is by
far the predominant form of outdoor recreation. In the midst of the
turmoil of administration and the perfection of our techniques we must
remember this.
It is a high calling that has as its purpose to assure the people of the
future that they will have the great experiences in the out-of-doors
that we have had. It has been my privilege, as it has been yours, to
help preserve representative examples of the great pageant of America.
In working to maintain this environment we have been a part of it.
There are many scenes that I like to remember: the lengthening shad-
ows of the Sequoias, the flight of the White Ibis, the pastel colors of
hardwood forests in the Fall, the gleam of glaciers, the battle of sea and
land, the thunder and mist of waterfalls, the silence that hangs over the
habitations of forgotten peoples, or the quieter but not less satisfying
beauty of lands and forests and waters preserved in many hundreds of
state parks, such as Lake Itasca in Minnesota.
Concern for preserving these spectacles for themselves and as an
environment for active outdoor recreation is at the heart of the state
park philosophy. The spirit and meaning behind this concern is the all-
important thing, but, as I have said, it is hard to put in words. Many
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 157
have thought about this, and quite a few, like John Muir, have written
eloquently about it. Turning to the Redwoods that I know best, I think
of Dr. John C. Merriam's statement that "they connect us as by a hand
touch with all the centuries that they have known"; or Edwin Mark-
ham's that "they seem to be forms of immortality standing here among
the transitory shapes of time"; or the poetic words of Joseph Hergesh-
eimer regarding Bull Creek flat, now in the Rockefeller Forest:
Nothing could bring back the serenity the forest had accumulated after a hun-
dred million years. Standing in a grove I thought of the bitter and vain resentment
that the future when it learned that a commerce was not enough to keep the heart
alive would hold against the past, our present. The grace of the towering trees
masked their gigantic span; the ground, in perpetual shadow, held only flowering
oxalis and emerald ferns. It was raining very softly. The fallen trunks of an utter
remoteness, too great to see over, were green with moss. The whisper of the wind
was barely audible, far off, reflective; the gloom in the trees was clear, wet and mild.
It was the past. And this was the Redwoods' secret, their special magic, that they
absolved, blotted out the fever of time, the wasted years, the sickness of mind, in
which man spent the loneliness of their lives.
All this, I hope, has bearing upon the philosophy of state parks.
Impact of The Federal Highway Program on
Federal, State and County Parks
PAUL F. ROYSTER, Assistant to the Federal Highway Administrator,
Bureau of Public Roads, Washington, D. C.
YOU are to be complimented first, I believe, in choosing to meet in
this beautiful Itasca State Park. While I welcomed your invitation
to speak about the new National System of Interstate and Defense
Highways and their probable effect on our public parks, there was an
added inducement. I also wanted to see this Arrowhead section of
Minnesota.
As so many have before, I always have been attracted to this section
of the country by the beauty and poetry of the place names. I learned
to my surprise some time ago that names such as Itasca, Algoma,
Allegan, and Alpena are not an inheritance from the Indians, but were
manufactured by Henry Schoolcraft. He is almost a forgotten man in
American history and he should not be. He was the Indian agent at
Sault Ste. Marie, and he was an all-around, first-class American. He
was a geologist and an explorer. He was the first to discover, in 1832,
that this lake is the true source of the Mississippi. He juggled around
the two Latin words "caput" for head and "veritas" for true and came
up with Itasca. Wherever he traveled in Michigan, Wisconsin, or Min-
nesota and got the chance, he endowed these States with lovely names.
It is too bad he did not get to more places first.
158 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
It is appropriate, I think, to recall the memory of Henry Schoolcraft
in such a convention, for in his day when there were so many destroyers,
he was a conservationist and a preserver. He compiled the Indian lore
and legends and his books on Indian thinking and customs still are
among the best we have in that field. It was he who gave Longfellow
the story of Hiawatha, our first American epic poem.
There is a real link between this versatile man and you, who are
charged with preserving the beauty with which the Creator endowed
everyone of our States. His job was to attract settlers to what was in
his day the Northwest and he used beauty as an attraction.
You are expected to attract visitors to our parks and from what I
hear, you have done a good job. At one time they were rural mauso-
leums, remote and inaccessible except to the wealthy. The domestic
tourist is one of the greatest distributors of wealth in our country, be-
cause he spends more than $15 billion a year on vacation travel. Some-
thing like $7 billion plus is spent for business travel. Every State needs
and wants some of this travel money. They get it and I am sure you
want to see your State gets its share of the traveler's dollar.
Your job of maintaining and improving our historic and recreational
sites is of proven financial, educational, and recreational value to many
millions of our people. But in the next twenty years or so, it will not
only become more important, but even critically important. According
to reliable predictions from many sources, this country of ours will be
jammed with people by 1975. To accommodate this exploding population
we will have to build the equivalent of about 50 new San Franciscos.
We will have to build a fantastic number of homes, schools, shopping
centers, business structures, and get ready for an expected automobile
registration of 100 million, compared with about 65 million today.
Undoubtedly we will be able to give our exploding population what it
will need except for the one asset we cannot add. That is land.
At one time, and not so long ago, a city or town was an incident in
the countryside. Today the countryside in many areas can hardly be
seen. There is a vast urban, metropolitan area stretching unbroken
from north of Boston to south of Washington, D. C. You will look hard
for some open spaces in the Great Lakes area from Buffalo to Chicago
and up to Milwaukee. We have a Gulf and Atlantic coastline of 3,700
miles, but the Interior Department reports that only 240 miles of this
vast stretch remains in the public domain.
In an attempt to accommodate more and more people crowding into
our metropolitan areas we are adding suburbs and these are bulldozing
away about 1,000,000 acres of land a year. If we continue at this rate,
open space anywhere will not only be important, it will be precious, and
the man or men charged with keeping it open become very important.
As you know, most of our metropolitan areas are in a state of crisis.
Some of them are barely solvent, with revenue just about able to sup-
port essential city services. Today our population is about 171 million
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 159
and the figure has to be a round one, because the Census Bureau says
a new American is born every 1% seconds. Every month we add in
numbers the equivalent of a new Providence, Rhode Island. By 1975
our population is expected to soar to around 226 million and of these
about 60 million more people will be living in and around our cities
than we have now. What is significant for us in these figures is that
since 1930 ownership of motor vehicles has kept pace with population
figures, except during the last World War. By 1975 our vehicles will
travel one trillion motor vehicle miles a year. Even two years ago our
American motor vehicles traveled a distance equal to 274,000 round
trips every day between New York and San Francisco.
In an attempt to accommodate our growing population and the in-
creasing number of automobiles, we tried adding more thoroughfares.
In the ten years after the last war we added 100,000 miles of streets and
roads, but the automobile manufacturers were away ahead of us. If
all the vehicles they turned out were placed bumper-to-bumper, they
would have stretched 200,000 miles, or twice the length of the new high-
ways.
The automobile has made our big metropolitan areas possible, but
because we failed to adapt to the motor age, automotive transportation
now threatens to strangle the very cities it fostered. The cars, buses,
and trucks that service homes and business places in the city fight the
free flow of traffic and slow it to a crawl. But traffic fights back with
death, accidents, dirt, noise, and extravagant waste of time and de-
preciation of equipment. It is a real hot war.
But, fortunately, we may have the answer in the controlled access,
arterial highway to separate the flow of traffic from the city buildings
which are at war with each other and cause the city distress.
There is nothing long-haired about the claims for the new express-
ways. We have wholesale evidence that they are the biggest advance in
traffic management since the all-weather road replaced the footpath.
That they are immensely safer than the old, conventional streets and
roads has been proven. In Chicago, the death rate is nine persons for
every 100 million vehicle travel miles on older streets. But travel on
the Chicago Congress Street Expressway in about a year amounted to
210 million vehicle miles and there was not one traffic death! This im-
pressive record is more impressive when we consider that speed on the
expressway is about 45 miles an hour, but only 19 miles on adjacent
streets. On all roads in New York State the accident rate is around
300 per 100 million miles. On the New York Thruway it has been cut
to 30.
The cost of constructing new freeways is high and may seem extra-
vagant, but the evidence is in that they bring benefits and savings all
out of proportion to their cost. The Chicago Motor Club estimates that
the expressways will save $71 a year per vehicle, because of lower gas,
oil, maintenance costs, and prevention of accidents. The Los Angeles
160 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Freeway saves motorists about $24 million a year. These savings have
paid for 46 miles of it in a little more than eight years!
The freeways raise land values. There has been criticism because
they take buildings and land off tax rolls, but everywhere they have
brought in new construction with double the valuations taken away.
What does all this mean to our National and State parks?
If these new freeways are used for the twin purposes of relieving
traffic congestion and marking out areas for better land use in our cities,
they could halt the suburban sprawl by making our cities more attrac-
tive places in which to live. This could prevent the hacking away of at
least a part of the 1,000,000 acres a year at our urban edges.
The Stanford Research Institute predicts that by 1975 about 83
percent of our population will live in and around cities. And the best
antidote or relief from city living is getting away from it into the open
country. Today about 70 percent of our people own an automobile and
more than seven percent own two or more. If per capita income con-
tinues to keep pace with our population increase, these city-bound
people are going to head for your State and National parks in numbers
that would make your heads spin. The safety, comfort, and economy
of driving on our new expressways is now experienced by millions, but
they still are only a fraction of the driving public.
Within 15 or 16 years there will be 41,000 miles of these super-high-
ways. Then a tourist will be able to drive from Acadia Park in Maine
to the Everglades without being stopped once by a red light. He can
travel from Mount Rainier in Washington to Jamestown, Virginia,
probably without meeting on-coming traffic in the same roadway. He
will be able to travel from the Canadian border, here in Minnesota, to
the Mexican border at Brownsville with little chance of meeting cross
traffic or going over railroad tracks.
Your state parks have an excellent history, but their most spectacular
era is ahead. Now the Pacific States get 9.6 percent of their tourist
trade from New England and New England gets almost three percent
from California. These North Central States, including Minnesota, get
13 percent of their tourist trade from the Pacific States, about ten
percent from New York-New England, and almost 15 percent from
Texas. Our people are on the move now and I leave it to your imagina-
tion how much more they will move when they have a nation-spanning
highway network, really doubling the distances they can drive, and
with the assurance of easier driving, cheaper driving, and the chances
of meeting death or accident slashed sharply.
There have been complaints in the past, and fear is often expressed
now, that a highway in or adjacent to a site of natural beauty destroys
the attractiveness of parks. You need not have this fear about the new
Interstate Highway System. One of its salient features is that no com-
mercial or residential buildings can front on the roads. We all have seen
new highways opened that for a time carried traffic efficiently and safely,
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 161
but in time their margins were crowded with buildings. These feed
traffic in and out of the new highway and soon there are red lights,
deaths, accidents, and general confusion. Soon the highway is outmoded,
its buildings decay and spread their blight to adjacent areas.
These new highways, we expect, will have beauty engineered into
their design. Our Federal Highway administrator, Bertram D. Tallamy,
designed the New York State Thruway which is praised not only for
efficiency, but for its beauty. Woods, streams, and even interesting out-
croppings of rock are used to separate lanes, and in some places the
road was placed to take advantage of fine scenery. This highway is a
handsome asset, not a blight, and we expect that the National System
will duplicate it in this. An interesting, beautiful highway prevents
driver hypnosis and the designers know it.
Construction of these new freeways is progressing splendidly because
there is an awareness everywhere in the States of their pronounced
value and a promise of immense benefits.
To date we have made excellent progress, for since passage of the
Act in 1956, about 1,780 miles of the Interstate System have been
placed under construction contract involving a cost of around $775
million in Federal aid. In addition, there has been obligated $552
million for design and purchase of rights-of-way. We are not neglecting
our primary, secondary, or urban roads by any means. During the last
fiscal year, about $827 million was obligated for construction or recon-
struction of about 24,000 miles of highways and city streets.
These new freeways are our highways into the future. Already they
are a symbol of a new America ahead of us. More than 100 years ago
Walt Whitman wrote: "Strong and content, I travel the open road."
We haven't been able to do that recently, but hopes are high that we
soon will.
162 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
The Oklahoma Story
TYE BLEDSOE, Director, Division of Recreation and State Parks,
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
THE Oklahoma Story started conventionally enough in the early
1930's and in 1935. After the careful consideration of many areas,
and with the cooperation of the National Park Service, six blocks of
land totaling some 40,000 acres were put together in areas of natural
beauty, well designed to serve the people of our State equally geographi-
cally. To a large measure the manpower and much of the money for the
development of these parks came from the CCC Program. Until 1951
no new areas either recreation or parks were added to the system,
though a number of historical sites became the responsibility of the
Division of State Parks.
In 1951, Lake Texoma State Park and Sequoyah State Park were
brought into the system. In 1953, Tenkiller, Sequoyah Bay, Lake
Heyburn, Lake Wister, three areas on the Lake of The Cherokees and
Alabaster Caverns were made a part of the State Park system.
Bringing these new areas into the Park System nearly tripled the
number of areas under the care and supervision of the Division of State
Parks. Obviously, the areas would serve little useful purpose if allowed
to lie fallow. Development then became the paramount order of the
day and the ever-present specter of too little money to do a real job
became all the more apparent.
In Oklahoma, as in all States I suppose, there is always a great dif-
ference between the funds available and needs for funds to maintain
and operate the schools and other institutions and to build highways.
Parks always have been low in the order of precedence in appropriation
matters.
Additionally, the people of Oklahoma adopted a constitutional
amendment some fifteen years ago which precludes deficit financing or
legislative appropriations amounting to more than the actual tax col-
lections during the appropriation period.
Before full faith bonds can be sold in our State, a favorable vote of
the people is required.
As a result of this constitutional provision the Universities and Col-
leges found a method to finance the construction of facilities, student
union buildings, dormitories, libraries, et cetera, selling bonds and
pledging the revenues from rentals or student fees to the retirement
of the indebtedness.
I would point out that in 1949, the Oklahoma Planning and Re-
sources Board sold $850,000 of Park Improvements Bonds to finance
the construction of a 26-room lodge and 44 cottages in the already very
well developed Lake Murray Park.
The revenue from the operation of the revenue-producing facilities
in Lake Murray Park were pledged to the payment of the indebtedness.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 163
From the outset the Lake Murray facilities were well accepted by the
public, and the revenues proved more than adequate to meet all debt
service requirements.
In 1951, then, an apparently successful method had been found for
financing the construction of park revenue producing facilities. Based
on the Lake Murray experience the Oklahoma Planning and Resources
Board began its efforts to market a series of bonds to produce funds to
construct housing and feeding accommodations in all of the state parks,
with special emphasis on such improvements in Lake Texoma, Sequoyah,
Quartz Mountain and Roman Nose parks. Additions doubling the
capacity of Lake Murray Lodge were also planned.
After gaining the necessary amendments to the revenue bond pro-
visions of the Statutes as related to Parks and after gaining Supreme
Court approval, State Park Improvement Bonds in the amount of
$7,200,000 were sold in September, 1954. Facts regarding this issue are
as follows: Term: 30 years. Interest: 4J^ percent. Sale price: 98.
Purpose of the Issue: (1) To retire $850,000, 4 percent Lake Murray
Bonds sold in 1949. (2) To build lodges, cabins, swimming pools and
other resort facilities in: Lake Texoma, Sequoyah Peninsula, Sequoyah
Bay, and Quartz Mountain Parks. (3) To build additions and a pool at
Lake Murray Lodge. (4) To build cabins, pools, group cabins, or im-
prove facilities at: Roman Nose, Beavers Bend, Tenkiller, Robbers
Cave, Boiling Springs, Osage Hills, Wister, Greenleaf, and Alabaster
Caverns parks. (5) To pay interest for 18 months. (6) To capitalize a
reserve fund. (7) To pay fiscal, audit and engineering fees in connection
with construction and the issue.
All of the Revenues of the Park System are pledged to the debt retire-
ment. Payments: Under the Trust Agreement provisions, the Oklahoma
Planning and Resources Board is to pay the Trustees $665,000 a year.
In such years as income permits, additional payments of $50,000 into
the contingency fund are to be made. (Until such time as that fund
reaches $250,000.)
I mentioned to you that the bonds were 30-year bonds, yet our pay-
ments as called for in the Trust Agreement cause the bonds to be amor-
tized over a period of 17 rather than 30 years. If the schedules of pay-
ments can be maintained, the bonds will be paid out June 30, 1971.
Under a 30 year amortization plan, the annual payment to the trustee
would be $441,000. Our lease contracts at the five lodges were made on
the basis of the 30-year amortization and therefore were actually suf-
ficient to meet our payments. Now we must look elsewhere for $224,000
the elsewhere being the remainder of our parks and at the present
time this sum would be a terrific load. Also to convert to 30 years in-
stead of 17 years would cost several hundred thousand dollars and the
interest rate would probably be higher in view of the present money
market condition. We in Oklahoma believe we have encountered three
separate periods, each peculiar to its own and each with problems to face.
164 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
1. Construction and Pre-opening Period
A. The problem we faced here was timing. More time was consumed
for plans and specifications than was first estimated. Construction was
slightly slower than estimated.
B. The inadvisability of constructing the Sequoyah Bay Area elim-
inated what was believed to be a guaranteed income of $53,000 annually.
C. The Soonerland Resort Company cancelled out Lake Texoma
State Park Lodge under a valid provision in its lease and bid provisions.
2. Opening and First Year Period
A. Public acceptance of the new facilities was not as great as had been
conservatively (everyone thought) forecast. There were several reasons
for this:
1. The Lodges were opened at fairly close intervals.
2. The Lodges were opened late after most people had already
planned their summer vacations.
3. The rates were not comparatively great and were probably not
too high when considered against the Lessee's annual rent re-
quirement; however, the rates were too high for average Okla-
homa incomes when spent in Oklahoma.
4. The Lodges had not been and budget-wise could not be ade-
quately advertised and promoted.
5. Other necessary recreation facilities had not been completed.
B. The Southwest Resorts Corporation, after the first season, ex-
pressed a desire to be relieved of their contract on November 28, 1956.
C. Western Hills Corporation, lessees of Sequoyah Lodge, asked for
and received a moratorium on their payments in order to recapitalize
and issue additional stock.
The Past Season and Present Time:
The Oklahoma Planning and Resources Board is now operating three
of the five lodges without concessionaires or lessees. We have enjoyed
nearly full occupancy during the season just finished, and we look for-
ward to continued good business during the fall months. After using
our period of grace, we have made our entire bond payment this year;
we have deposited $50,000 into the contingency fund and feel that
with continued good support of the people of Oklahoma and all sur-
rounding States we will continue to make all trust agreement pay-
ments as called for.
There are several advantages to revenue bond financing:
1. Such financing permits the construction of fine facilities well in
advance of the time such construction could be accomplished if ap-
propriations were the only source.
2. The indebtedness is repaid from moneys collected from people
using the park facilities.
3. After the indebtedness has been repaid the moneys expended for
debt service are available for general park purposes.
There are also disadvantages to such financing:
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 165
1. The interest is considerably greater than the cost of other munici-
pal moneys.
2. There can be a tendency to subordinate all park undertakings to
that of making money. For instance, it is possible that functions or
programs will be considered more on the basis of money making poten-
tial rather than on the basis of service. We need to be as proud of our
Youth Camps which will accommodate 1800 campers a day, as we are
of our lodges which will accommodate about the same number of guests.
Of ckxurse, there are advantages and disadvantages other than these
but I believe for the most part they are covered in the categories men-
tioned.
So there will be no misunderstanding, I want to say that the con-
struction of improvements such as these does not eliminate the need for
appropriated money. As a matter of fact, more appropriated money is
needed to expand and maintain picnic areas, camping areas, fishing
piers, free beaches, trails, etc. As parks are made more attractive, more
people use them.
There is no charge in Oklahoma's state parks for entering, parking,
picnicking, camping or fishing. There is no fee for placing a boat in the
water, the youth camps are subsidized to a considerable degree. From
revenue producing facilities this year, we estimated the Board's net
return before making its debt service payment will be approximately
$800,000. In addition the Board will spend $1,046,000 from appropriated
money to maintain and operate the free public use areas.
Before any Park administering agency undertakes park financing
through the issuance of revenue bonds, it is my opinion that the follow-
ing factors should be present:
1. Parks already well developed with all facilities except a lodge,
cabins and perhaps a swimming pool.
2. A system of parks well attended by many visitors.
3. An informed legislature that understands more appropriated
money will be necessary if the public is to be served adequately
and well balanced parks maintained.
I would like to invite each of you to visit Oklahoma's state parks
and personally to see our expanded program. I am grateful for this
opportunity to meet with you, and appreciate your courtesy.
166 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
West Virginia Revenue Bond Financing
KERMIT McKEEVER, Chief, West Virginia Division of State Parks
WEST VIRGINIA, a State of many mountains, has been slow in
putting on display its natural beauty to the vacationing public.
We have much to offer to those who would visit with us. Our fast mov-
ing streams with waterfalls, our mountainous terrain covered with
Allegheny hardwoods, our cool atmosphere with low humidity and bright
sunshine are not to be excelled anywhere.
West Virginia is within a day's travel by automobile of one half the
population of the Nation and, being so located geographically, has en-
couraged many people to come to the State in quest of outdoor living.
Our state parks have been some of the main points of interest both to
our own people and those who visit with us. This was particularly well
illustrated in the late 40 's and early 50 's when we were able to house
only about 20 percent of those who would like to spend more than a day
or two in our parks. It would have been desirable if private capital
would have provided this needed housing whereby our scenic and cli-
matic natural resources could have been used. Such was not the case.
The public officials of the State therefore recognized the need of park
expansion in order to solve the immediate problem and to give leader-
ship for private capital to follow in the future.
The Legislature, from surplus in the state treasury at the end of
the fiscal year, solved some of the more urgent minor state park problems
with appropriations for park improvements that have been made over
a number of years. The request for vacation housing and other park
facilities grew more acute, however, until 1952. In that year the ques-
tion of state park improvements was of sufficient interest to cause the
successful candidate for governor, William C. Marland, to make it a
a part of his campaign pledge.
With the coming of the 1953 Legislature, it was apparent that there
could not come from appropriations from the general revenue sufficient
funds to do the needed park job. The income from parks was then in-
vestigated and it showed that we had one park which showed more
collections from facilities than it showed expenditures for operations.
The thought of revenue bonds then came into being. Revenue bonds
had been used in Virginia, our neighbor State, to a limited extent for
park cabin construction, and the State of Oklahoma was then in the
midst of a park improvement program that was so financed. These
States were contacted for a copy of their enabling legislation. Using the
legislation from these States as a guide, a state park revenue bond en-
abling bill was drawn up and submitted to the West Virginia Legislature
at its regular session in 1953. This bill was passed unanimously by both
houses and signed by the Governor.
What, if anything, could be done with this legislation was the next
question.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 167
Before bonds could be sold, where only the revenue from the facilities
constructed from the funds derived from the sale of the bonds, plus
the facilities already in existence on the parks where this construction
was to take place, were pledged for their retirement, the proposed pro-
ject had to be planned as to construction cost, the operations cost es-
timated after construction, and the income from such a program after
its completion projected. In other words is the project feasible?
The Governor called in an architectural and construction firm, the
Walter Butler Company of St. Paul, Minnesota, to gather this infor-
mation.
The master plan for the development of the then existing parks, plus
the additional information gathered through our recent years of opera-
tion, determined to a great extent what facilities were to be constructed
under this program on four of the eight areas involved. The other four
parks were new and required a master plan of development along with
this construction program. Our Division of Parks did all of the park
layout or master plans.
After the completion of the program plans, a firm of consulting en-
gineers, one that is recognized by the New York bonding houses, then
actually made the feasibility report and determined that the project
was sound in their opinion. Bonds in the amount of $4,400,000 were
then sold through a negotiated sale at a discount of 8 percent. The
discount was necessary because of the lack of historical earning record
of state park revenue bonds. The bonds were for 25 years with an in-
terest rate of 4 percent, which will give the bond purchasers a yield of
4.52 percent. As is customary in this type of program, the first two
years of interest were set aside from the sale of the bonds, or until
revenues from the facilities constructed could be collected.
The program was made up of park cabins, and lodges chiefly, with
swimming beaches, riding stables, park lakes and game courts also
getting attention. Part of the access roads and utilities were paid for
from bond money and two real estate purchases were made from it.
The construction is now some 85 to 90 percent complete and will be
entirely completed before the summer park season of 1958. We are
behind our original schedule for completion because of a fire which de-
stroyed the old Mont Chateau Lodge on that park, which was originally
scheduled for repairs and an annex. This necessitated an entirely new
design.
We have also encountered some labor problems that stopped work
on two of the jobs, one of two months' duration on the Blackwater
Lodge in the spring and early summer, a period we had planned for
some of our most productive work. The other, on Mont Chateau, a
jurisdictional dispute, lasted about three weeks.
In May of 1957 the revenues from park operation started to pick up
the bond service cost, with the first payment to the bond trustee being
due in November, 1957. This payment will be met as scheduled. The
168 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
complete bond service load, because of the date of the bonds, will not
be assumed from revenues produced until May of 1958.
It is anticipated that additional funds from the State's general
revenue will be needed, when this program is in full operation, over and
above our present and past needs, for operation and maintenance so
that a greater per cent, or possibly all, of the revenues received from
operations can go for bond interest and retirement. I feel that the
legislature had this in mind since the bond service has first priority on
collections from the system, and operations and maintenance can have
what is left if any.
In support of this line of thought, I quote to you from the Charleston
Gazette Editorial of September 8, 1957 :
The Legislature will have to provide temporarily for park maintenance out of
general revenue, a possibility it foresaw in passing the 1955 park improvement act,
but that money as well as much more will come back to the State in the next decade
or so.
From the park administrator's point of view, the revenue bond
method of financing park improvements is not as satisfactory as legis-
lative appropriations, but it is a method of accomplishing such improve-
ments, and the method our law making body chose for our park system
to operate under. It is not a way of getting something for nothing, as
some of our people have thought, but a method of paving later for im-
provements needed now.
Basic Economics of Revenue Bond Issue Financing
ROY G. PRENTIS, Executive Director, Minnesota State College
IN GOVERNMENTAL financing involving the borrowing of money
for an extended period of time, some form of bonds are usually em-
ployed. These bonds may generally be thrown into two categories. The
first type of bond is the general obligation bond, where the full faith and
credit of the governmental unit is pledged for the payment of principal
and interest. This means that such bonds are to be retired by the levying
of a tax on all of the property in the governmental unit. Such a debt
thus becomes a responsibility of all the taxpayers. A good example of
bonds of this type are those issued by a school district for the construc-
tion of a school building. In this case all of the taxpayers in the district
are assessed taxes for the payment of the principal and interest until
the debt is retired.
The second type of bonds is the so-called revenue bond, sometimes
called a special assessment bond or a special fund bond. Bonds of this
type today are used to finance a variety of activities. These bonds are
retired by pledging a special source of income which is usually associated
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 169
with the earning capacity of the facility that is constructed with the
proceeds of the bonds. A good example of where this type of bond is
used is for the installation of sewers or water works, and the debt serv-
ice is handled, not by a general property tax, but by a special assess-
ment against the users of the service. It is true, however, that special
fund bonds may be retired from taxes or from a combination of a pledge
of revenue plus taxes. In fact, it is possible to arrive at situations where
the distinction between general obligation bonds and special fund bonds
becomes very obscure. For the remainder of my remarks I am thinking
of purely revenue bonds, or those bonds which are retired entirely from
earnings.
Without going into a lengthy discussion of the development of the
various types of bonding, allow me to say that the revenue bond pro-
cedure is relatively new in comparison to the general obligation bond.
The W.P.A. Act of 1934 probably did more than any one thing to en-
courage the use of revenue bonds. Under this program the Federal
Government allowed governmental bodies to borrow money on the
pledge of earnings from certain public works. This prompted many
States to pass permissive legislation authorizing revenue bonds so that
the subdivisions could take advantage of the act.
There are a number of reasons why revenue bonds are employed
rather than the general obligation bonds.
First: It can be argued that in many cases it is fairer for the users of
a facility to bear the cost of the capital expenditure than to impose a
general tax. Under a special use assessment, the user can be charged
roughly in proportion to the service he receives. If the cost were to be
borne by a general tax, some taxpayers might be charged for a service
which they did not receive. Of course, to pursue this line of thinking to
its ultimate would lead to difficulty. Few responsible people would
suggest, for instance, that public school construction should be financed
by a special tax against the parents of the children in school. It is
generally held that public education is in the public good and all should
share in its support. The same argument surely could be advanced in
behalf of sewers and water works, which contribute to the public health
and safety. I suppose the same general arguments could be applied to
student housing facilities in public institutions of higher education or
to public recreation grounds.
A second very powerful argument in favor of revenue bonds is that
they are not considered in computing the public debt in most States.
Quite commonly state governments and their subdivisions have con-
stitutional or statutory debt limits. Quite often these are so low as to
hamper an adequate public works program. Since revenue bonds are
not usually considered a tax obligation, they are not a part of the debt
on which a limit is placed. The revenue bond, therefore, may be a way
around a debt limitation. The validity of this argument, of course, is
open to question. Supposedly there is a reason for the existence of the
170 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
debt limitation. If the situation has changed since the limit was im-
posed so that the limit is no longer reasonable, it would seem best to
revise or eliminate the limit rather than to attempt to circumvent it
by subterfuge.
A third possible reason for using revenue bonds, and I am sure a very
attractive one, is that the revenue bond approach to a public works
project is sometimes easier to accomplish. Commonly the authority
to issue such bonds is given to some board or commission which body
can proceed by its own action to issue bonds without the necessity of
holding a bond election. A bond election often means that the public
must be educated to the need, and the natural resistance to a probable
increase in taxes must be overcome. When the necessity for this can be
avoided the public officials' task is much easier. However, since it is
the public's money which will be required to repay the debt, it can be
argued that the public should be given the opportunity to express itself.
It might appear from my remarks that I have doubts about the
advisability of the use of revenue bonds. Quite the contrary. It has
been conclusively demonstrated many times that revenue bonds have
provided a sound means of financing where other methods would not
have done the job under the existing circumstances. In fact, I am a
party to a fairly sizeable revenue bonding project here in the State of
Minnesota. I believe our program is sound, and I believe we are ac-
complishing something that could not or would not have been done
otherwise. I do wish to say, however, that there are limitations to the
revenue bonding procedure, and that where it is employed it should be
entered into only after careful study and with the best professional
advice that is possible to obtain.
I am employed by the Minnesota State College Board. The Minne-
sota State Colleges have been experiencing rapid growth, and if esti-
mates of future college enrollments in Minnesota are only partly cor-
rect we can expect a much greater increase. To meet our present and
future needs, a great many new buildings will need to be built. One very
definite need and one for which the legislature has been reluctant to
appropriate money is student dormitories. The State College Board
found that many colleges in other states have been financing this type
of contsruction by revenue bonds bonds which are retired by income
from the dormitories and food service operations in the colleges. As a
start on this project, the Board engaged a team of consultants from
Michigan State University to survey the needs of the colleges and to
outline a proposal for the program of construction. People from Michi-
gan State were selected since that institution has a long and successful
record of this type of operation.
It was determined that a program of self-liquidating dormitory
construction appeared feasible for the Minnesota State Colleges. The
Board agreed to move ahead and asked permission of the 1955 legis-
lature to move into the plan. At this point legal help of a specialized
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 171
nature was required. The Board wisely engaged a recognized legal firm
that specializes in municipal bonds. A specialist from this firm has
worked with us as needed since late in 1954. It was first necessary to
draft a rather lengthy enabling act to establish the general authority
for the State College Board to enter into the revenue bond program and
to define the conditions of our operation. A second act setting forth
our immediate and specific authorization was also written and passed.
In 1955 the legislature authorized the Board to borrow a total of
$3,100,000 in 30 year serial bonds. Our bond counsel next had the task
of drafting the authorizing resolution for the issuance of the bonds. This
is a lengthy document written in strict accordance with the enabling
act. This resolution, after it is adopted, has the force of law. It sets
forth all of the conditions of the bond sale, carries the statement that
appears on each bond, sets forth the nature of the accounting procedure
that will be carried out by the Board, and states clearly all of the prom-
ises and covenants made by the Board to the bond holder. A revenue
bond authorizing resolution is a bulky technical document in compari-
son to a general obligation bond resolution. The Board sold the bonds
in 1955 to the State Investment Board at 3 percent interest.
The Board then proceeded to construct facilities in each of the five
colleges. However, the $3,100,000 was only sufficient to give us a good
start. We returned to the legislature in 1957 and requested and received
authorization to borrow $6,700,000 more, only this time we asked that
we be allowed to issue forty-year bonds. Once again we are borrowing
from the Minnesota State Investment Board, but we are now paying
4 percent interest rather than 3 percent.
With the total of $9,800,000 we are constructing both dormitories
and food service facilities in the five colleges. The entire construction
program and the operation of the dormitories are controlled by budget-
ing procedures from the central administrative office of the State College
Board. The payments on the bonds and interest are secured by a pledge
on the part of the Board to hold the charges for board and room high
enough to meet all operating costs to preserve the buildings in good
repair, and to carry on hand at all times in the bond and interest account
sufficient money to meet the current year's payments plus an amount
equal to at least 125 percent of the following year's payment. This re-
serve amount is a protection to the bondholder. Our annual payments
will run about $490,000 per year, and we will need to carry an additional
amount of about $650,000 continuously in bond and interest reserve at
all times. We have authority to invest our reserve so that we will receive
some income from that. From the total of $9,800,000 we expect to
construct housing facilities for about 2,560 students plus dining facilities
as needed. If we had to finance the cost only from the income from the
new facilities, I feel that it would be rather difficult. Fortunately, we
had room for approximately 2,000 students when we started, and we
are able to use the income from all students housed to help finance the
172 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
new facilities. When the new construction program is completed we will
abandon some of the old and unsafe buildings so that we will have about
4,200 students housed. We estimate that an average of about $120 per
year per student housed will carry our debt service requirements once
the reserve has been established.
At the present time it is my feeling that for the type of clientel that
we serve we have gone about as far as we can with 100 percent self-
liquidating financing. Of course we will need to test the situation with
experience, but as of the present I believe, in order to be on the safe
side, that future extension of this program may require that at least a
part, perhaps one half, of the money will need to come by means of a
legislative appropriation.
Since the nature of my discussion is supposed to center around the
basic economic issues, perhaps I should conclude by touching briefly
on some of these issues.
Dr. Lawrence Knappen, in his text on revenue bonds, lists the fol-
lowing points for and against revenue bonds from the standpoint of the
investor.
Points in favor of revenue bonds include
1. The pledging of a specific type of income may be surer than
taxes.
2. Preferred status is usually given to a limited amount of bonds,
whereas general obligation bonds are usually all equally
secured.
3. In case of default, better remedies are usually available than
is true for general obligation bonds.
Dangers in investing are listed as the possibility of
1. Invalid issuance,
2. Use in connection with promotional and experimental projects,
3. Obsolescence of the project before the bonds can be retired,
4. Too large a bond issue relative to the cost of the project.
It is generally recognized that a revenue bond issue will usually de-
mand a higher interest rate than a general obligation bond. This prob-
ably is associated with the fact that revenue bonds are relatively new.
Some investing bodies are not given authority to invest in revenue bonds,
and thus the market is somewhat limited. Experience has shown, how-
ever, that revenue bonds have had a better experience than general
obligation bonds in that there have been fewer defaults.
There are a number of conditions that will make for better market-
ability of revenue bonds. One of the more important of these is the
ability to pledge several sources of revenue rather than a single source.
For instance, in our dormitory bonds we list three sources the first
is the income from the new facilities; the second is the income from the
old facilities; and the third source, not employed at present, is the
authority to charge a direct fee to students for the use of spaces available
to all students. Another favorable aspect is the fact that we pool all
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 173
our dormitories in all colleges into one fund. This is considered to be
superior to financing each college separately or each project separately.
One of the real problems faced in starting a revenue bond program
is that of financing the debt service in the early years. Quite commonly
principal payments do not start for a year or two or more after the con-
struction is completed. This, of course, is for the obvious purpose of
giving the project a chance to produce income. Interest payments,
however, ordinarily start immediately, and so some provision must be
made to meet these payments. Quite commonly authorization is given
in the bond enabling act or the bond resolution to provide for interest
payments until the project is completed out of the bond proceeds. In
our case, we had existing buildings that produced sufficiently so in the
$3,100,000 this was not a problem. In the new issue we may, if needed,
place as much as 5 percent of the bond proceeds in the bond and interest
account for the purpose of bringing the reserve up to the stated require-
ment. This is in essence the same thing as using bond proceeds for
interest payments.
In conclusion, allow me to state that there are certain very basic
principles involved in revenue bond financing. Some of the most obvious
ones, stated perhaps in an over-simplified manner, are:
1. There must be a definite need for any facility that can be financed
in this manner. This need must be a present need and offer clear
evidence that it will continue without serious competition from
some other source.
2. The period of bond retirement should be appreciably less than
the expected life of the facility to be financed.
3. The period of financing should not be made so short that it pre-
sents too great a burden on the user in the early years of the
operation. Too short a bond period with resulting high retirement
payments may be more hazardous than a longer payment period.
4. The expected income from the facility should be sufficient to-
(1) guarantee its successful operation,
(2) guarantee its proper maintenance,
(3) provide sufficiently for debt service plus an adequate leeway.
Some authorities mention from 30 to 50 percent of the re-
quired debt service payments.
174 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Trends in Tent Camping
JOHN R. VANDERZICHT, Director, Washington State Parks
and Recreation Commission
WE DO NOT have a camping trend in Washington, or in any other
State for that matter. The national movement to the woods and
beaches is a stampede which threatens, at times, to trample not only all
available park grass and trees, but staff and facilities as well.
That Washington is not alone with the problem is indicated by the
latest National Park Service statistics for 1956, with which most of
you|are probably familiar. These statistics, however, are so pertinent
here that I wish to bring them to your attention again.
Tent and trailer camping in state parks, says the report, increased
19 percent in 1956 over 1955, doubling the figure of four years previously.
A matter of interest to those in the West is that the three Pacific Coast
States accounted for one-third of the campers. California reported the
most, 2,359,522 camper days; Oregon, 216,443 ; Washington had 510,837.
Statistics also show that Washington was one of three States exceeding
5 million day and overnight visitors for the first time in 1956. Texas
and Wisconsin shared the honor.
All of us are gratified to have our state parks used and appreciated.
It is good to be a part of a system which brings happiness to so many
people. We note with pleasure that outdoor living has become a way of
life with thousands of families. There is no better kind of family recrea-
tion than family camping. It provides opportunity for parents and
children to get better acquainted and to enjoy outdoor activities to-
gether. The camping situation is a wholesome one, with opportunity
to enjoy the beauties of Nature. At the same time, children can be
taught self-reliance and the art of living in the woods and near the
water. This is ideal for carry-over into adult life, together with such
pleasurable shared family pursuits as fishing, hiking, boating, and
skiing.
But let us face it, increased numbers of visitors, whether day or
overnight, mean a constant struggle in most States, both financially
and administratively, to provide sufficient overnight facilities in areas
where families can use them to the best advantage.
By 1950, we knew we had a "tiger by the tail." In Washington, as
in many other States, we did not have enough park facilities or areas.
We lacked financial means to acquire new areas and develop those we
already owned, and the demand was growing. For example, increase in
our day visitors between 1950 and 1956 was 253 percent; in overnight
campers, 270 percent. The yearly rise was fairly steady 20 to 30 percent
more each season, slightly more than the 19 percent national increase
reported. Our preliminary 1957 figures, however, indicate that our
1957 increase over 1956 is approximately that of the national average.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 175
Acreage. As is true in many of the States of the Middle West and
West, we are comparatively new, and much in need of additional park
areas. These should be secured while desirable land is still available at
a price that is not out of reach of a public agency. As in other States,
we have been adding to the system. Since 1950, we have increased our
holdings by several thousand acres. These include historical and geo-
logical sites, boat moorage tracts, and group camps, as well as our picnic
and overnight camping areas. But this is not enough, and we did not
have funds to do more.
To help in presenting the picture to the legislature in 1957, we made
a questionnaire survey of our overnight campers in 1956. From this
we learned a great deal about campers and their opinions regarding
state parks. (We also got our money. This, however, is another story.)
What I want to emphasize at this time is what the survey showed us
about camping trends, hoping that this information will be of use to
other States faced with the same or similar problems. Perhaps you
can provide us with some suggestions that will help us to do a better
job in our park system as a result of our findings.
Survey Techniques. We distributed 23,376 questionnaires during the
summer of 1956; 10,976 were completed, for a 46.95 percent return.
Distribution was in the 40 Washington state parks having overnight
camping, during four selected weeks between May 27 and September
7, 1956.
The questionnaire was given to the overnight camping parties upon
registration. They were asked to fill it out and deposit it in a box pro-
vided at the park entrance before leaving. Some questionnaires, of
course, came back through the mail, but for the most part, campers
left their answers in the box.
Replies were recorded on IBM cards and distributions made. On
these our study was based. The information obtained is proving valuable
not only to us, but also to other state agencies and the tourist industry.
It is not too much to say that we got a good picture of the overnight
camping trend, and we learned first-hand what the campers want.
Therefore, I would like to take a few minutes to comment on a few of
the answers.
Who Camps? First of all, who camps in our state parks? We learned
that the average-size camping party was four persons, two adults and
two children. Sixty-one percent were Washington citizens; 39 percent
came from the other States and Canada. Our state borders on British
Columbia, which explains, in part, the fact that 21 percent of our
campers come from Canada, nearly 18 percent of them from British
Columbia. These people are our brothers in more than name only.
They enjoy the same pleasures that our western citizens enjoy, centered
around the woods and the water, with which our areas are so abundantly
endowed.
176 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
We received answers from camping parties from 45 of the 48 States.
More than 90 percent used tents or sleeping bags; the remainder came
in trailers. California supplied the most Washington campers, 7.3
percent. We had another 5 percent from Oregon, with the midwest
States of Illinois and Michigan supplying considerable numbers. It
would be interesting to know how many of our Washington campers
use the facilities in other States.
Why They Came. Our visitors were using state parks for vacationing
in greater numbers than we had thought. We had been under the im-
pression that weekend park visits supplied us with the largest number
of campers, at least among Washington citizens. We found, however,
than 56 percent of the Washington residents stated that they were
using state parks for vacationing ; 82 percent of those from other States
said the same, 73 percent of the Canadians so indicated. Overall, 65
percent of the campers mentioned vacationing as the reason for the
visit; only 26 percent said they were taking week-end excursions. The
remainder mentioned fishing, clamming, swimming, and other reasons
for staying in parks.
Family Income Distances Traveled. We have a mobile population in
these United States. Three out of four American families have a car.
Our Nation is networked with highways. Our people are using these
highways to get to parks and vacation spots in increasing members.
The lower income family may not have as new or as large a vehicle,
but it runs just as well and is restrained by the same speed laws. The
family can go as far and stay as long as resources hold out.
Results of our questionnaire bear out this statement, and contra-
dicted any preconceived notions that camping is only for "poor people"
who cannot afford other accommodations. Average incomes of U. S.
residents camping in state parks was $5,967.84, slightly more than the
national average family income of $5,520 reported by the U. S. News
and World Report in October, 1956. Furthermore, 17 percent of our
campers indicated incomes of $7,000 to $10,000 a year. An additional
5.7 percent stated that their earnings exceeded more than $10,000.
Yet they took a camping vacation. Only 14.3 percent of the campers
showed incomes of less than $3,000 a year.
Proximity to a camp site did not appear to be a major contributing
factor to choice of park. Washingtonians indicated that they traveled
an estimated average of 822 miles round trip from home on the trip
covered by their replies. Visitors from other States traveled an average
of 3,192 miles; Canadians, 1,722. The "call of the wild" must be quite
loud to bring people so far.
Length of Stay. Most of the campers visited more than one park.
Average length of stay in one park was 2.3 days, with 5.1 more days in
other parks on the same trip. Some visitors mentioned considerable use
of other lodgings, indicating that state park usage is a stimulus to oc-
cupation of commercial lodgings, such as motels, hotels, and resorts.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 177
For example, 35 percent of the campers reported that they stayed in
motels part of the time; 16.4 percent of the trailer campers used private
trailer parks a part of the time. About 30 percent of the campers men-
tioned that they were also visiting friends and relatives on the trip.
Estimated Expenditures. Although it must be kept in mind that
parks and recreation areas were not originally established for the pur-
pose of returning a profit to the State or Nation, the fact cannot be
overlooked that tourist expenditures do bring in sizeable revenues, not
only to the governmental agency but to private industry. Good public
parks and recreation areas stimulate travel, bring new buyers into the
areas, promote manufacture and sales of recreational equipment and
clothing. Property values in recreational areas incline upward, with
resultant increased property tax revenue. Tax revenues of other kinds
are also increased. In Washington, for example, state benefits from
vacationers' payments of gasoline, sales, and amusement taxes are
important sources of revenue.
Questionnaire returns indicated that average estimated expenditures
were $7.43 per person per day, or a total of $27.14 per day per family.
In multiplying this out, we found that, by their own estimates, tourist
campers are spending more than 7J^ million dollars per biennium during
state parks camping trips, nearly three times as much as our biennial
budget for parks during the biennium in which the survey was made.
If we added day visitors' expenditures we found that expenditure of
40 to 50 million dollars was the almost unbelievable amount that state
park visitors alone paid out to private business in the State.
As might be expected, Washington residents estimated that they
spent less per person per day than campers from out of the State.
Washington residents estimated expenditure of $6.57 per person per
day. Canadians spent the most, $9.35, with many of them stating that
they combined the camping trip with shopping in the States. Visitors
from other States estimated their expenditures at $8.61 per person per
day.
What Influenced Choice of State Park. Nearly 40 percent of the
campers said that they came to the state parks because they had been
recommended by friends. Another 38 percent stated that they had
enjoyed previous visits so much that they came back, many of them
each year for several years.
As might be expected, the largest proportion of repeaters are Wash-
ington residents because of proximity and familiarity with what the
area has to offer. Thirty-eight percent of the Washingtonians had been
using the park campgrounds for more than five years. At the same time,
16 percent stated that they were camping for the first time in state
parks; 14.4 percent for two years; 14.9 percent for three years.
A steady increase in use of Washington state parks by Canadian
campers was noted, with 47.1 percent saying that they had come to
178 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
the park for the first time, as against 6.4 percent who had been coming
more than five years, 14 percent for 3 years, and 21 percent for two.
Seventy-four percent of the campers from other States were visiting
state parks for the first year, 7.7 percent for a second year, 6.1 percent
for three, and 8.4 percent for more than five years.
Only a small percentage of persons learned about Washington state
parks from sources not involving friends or previous visits. National
articles and advertising, news stories, travel agencies, talks, and road
signs, each exerted some small influence, but no one item was mentioned
by more than 7 percent of the campers. Whether this indicates that
these media are not as effective as sometimes pictured, or whether our
State has been too lax in the use of some of these media, cannot be
judged from the data available. Canadians did mention need for more
information in Canada about Washington parks.
Most Important Consideration. The most important consideration
given for deciding on the trip varied considerably according to places
from which campers came. Most of the Washington campers stated
that they took the trip especially to get to state parks. More than 50
percent so indicated.
Among visitors from other States, a tour of Washington State and
visits to state parks naturally appeared to be secondary to travel
"around the Northwest," "tour the West Coast," "trip to Canada."
Nearly 30 percent of the Canadians, however, stated that they took
the trip especially to visit this park, or this and other state parks.
What Visitors Like Most. One of the primary purposes of the ques-
tionnaire was to determine what our visitors "thought" about state
parks. We wanted this information to guide our future planning. We
gave ample opportunity for campers to record what impressed them
most, what they liked least, and the improvements they would suggest.
Their reactions were revealing and worth considerable thought to park
planners.
"Pleasure of being out-of-doors" topped the list of what impressed
visitors most about state parks, with 72 percent so indicating. Follow-
ing, with high percentages, were "good, clean overnight camping fa-
cilities," "economy," "friendliness of other campers and camp per-
sonnel," "good place to bring the children," "scenery." Other items
mentioned were swimming, fishing, clamming, proximity to home and
place to launch a boat, but none of these mentioned as frequently as
we had supposed they would be.
What Visitors Like Least. As expected, overcrowded camping con-
ditions was a major criticism of our parks. We were glad that our visitors
mentioned this item. We knew that our camp sites were overcrowded,
but we had no composite expression of feeling from the campers them-
selves until they answered the questionnaire. About 30 percent of the
campers pointed out overcrowded camping conditions.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 179
Closely related to overcrowded camping was a second item, men-
tioned by 8.6 percent of the campers. They wanted more of a wilderness
area in which to camp. Because of our overcrowding and lack of super-
visory personnel, this request is almost impossible to fill at the present
time.
Very few campers asked for more activities of a program nature.
Only 5 percent said that they felt such activities were too limited in our
state parks. Only one percent requested camp programs such as camp-
fire sings, slides, nature talks, and hikes. Such programs are not cus-
tomary in Washington state parks. This may explain why our campers
do not expect them. In some of the other States, I know, these are
important visitor attractions.
Actually the percentage of "likes" to "dislikes" was overwhelmingly
favorable. We appear to be dealing with thousands of persons who have
smiles on their faces, pleased with what they find in state parks. I
think most of you have had the same reaction.
We had 44,769 favorable comments, only 5,581 unfavorable on the
two sections in the questionnaire asking for this information. In addi-
tion, many campers went out of their way to write complimentary
comments regarding facilities and personnel, both of which seemed to
meet with general approval.
Improvements Desired. We do not, however, feel complacent about
the expressed approval. We have a lot of work to do. For example, 30
percent of the campers made one or more suggestions for improvements
in camp site facilities. All kinds of suggestions were made, some even
contradictory. Some people wanted more trees at camp sites, some
fewer. Campers asked for better water and rest room facilities and
increase in number and type of facilities, all of which were related to
overcrowded camping conditions.
A related problem was lack of wood. We are no longer able to supply
free wood in all parks. Campers, particularly those who had been re-
turning year after year, miss the wood pile. We are trying to alleviate
the situation by supplying wood substitutes and by installation of metered
stoves, but the campers miss the cheerful flames of a blazing campfire.
Twelve percent told about it, and made some very good suggestions.
Small percentages of visitors also registered requests for improve-
ments in roads, parking, and hiking trails. A few each wanted telephones,
mail service, better lighting, different types of tables, stoves, cupboards;
in fact, almost anything they had found and liked in other state parks
throughout the country.
All of the requests seem to verify our experience that campers, gen-
erally speaking, like the comforts of home in camp areas. Showers, hot
and cold water, covered kitchens, electric lights, laundry tubs, all "go
over." (A Seattle newspaper cartoonist illustrated a feature on our
survey last spring, putting in everything the campers had requested.
180 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Needless to say, there was no room left for the tent. But the survey got
good notice, and the readers a good laugh.)
Trailer Campers. A word should be said about trailer campers. As
trailers become more popular for vacation purposes, our parks are get-
ting more trailer campers, with 9.2 percent of all our campers in 1956
in that category. We admit trailers in 26 parks, but in only seven of
these are there special, modern, designated trailer areas, with sewage
and electrical hook-ups. In other parks, trailer campers use regular
individual camp sites or are grouped in a certain part of the overnight
camping area.
The pattern of trailer campers did not differ materially from that of
tent campers. Trailer campers appeared to take longer trips, and to
stay a little longer. Like tent campers, they thought state park camping
was too crowded, and they wanted more and better trailer areas.
What We are Doing About the Trend. We have been attempting to
follow the lead of older and wiser state park departments by working
out a long-range plan for Washington state parks. Our completed plan
was adopted about a year ago by the Commission. We tried to base this
plan on standards accepted by the best park authorities in the United
States. We know, for example, that use of a camp site unit should be
limited to four persons, four days a week, for a period of 10 weeks. The
remainder of the time the area should rest. We found that 1956 Wash-
ington camp unit use was 3.93 persons 3.15 days a week for 10 weeks,
almost to capacity.
During the summer of 1957, even with more camp sites, we know
that camp site use has been even greater. Some parks have reported
overcrowding of some areas almost to twice their capacity. We note
with dismay the disappearance of grass in some of our areas. Twin
Harbors, our only ocean park, reported 5,000 parties using the 175 sites
during July, or an average use of 250 sites for each of 20 nights at the
recommended four-day per week capacity. Sun Lakes in Central Wash-
ington reported 4,701 camp site parties in the same month. At Sun
Lakes we have 150 camp sites. Average use, therefore, was 235 camp
sites for each of the 20 nights at recommended capacity. This is too
much.
In our long-range plan, we conservatively set park attendance by
1975 at 13,000,000. For these millions, we estimated that we would
need 39,000 parking spaces to accommodate 156,000 cars, at 140 cars
parked to an acre. We estimated that we would need 10,423 camp sites
to accommodate the 1,950,000 campers. At the present time, we have
only 2,447 camp sites to accommodate approximately 600,000 campers.
We have a long way yet to go.
To reach these goals, we need substantial enlargement of some of
our existing parks. Our plan calls for the development of 16 areas with
park potential, already in our possession. The plan calls for at least 12
acquisitions in areas where no parks currently exist or where there are
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 181
insufficient park areas. These specific areas are outlined in the plan.
We hope to go ahead on this basis, following the "trend" but not over-
run it.
Every State has its particular charm. Many States have done much
more with what they have in developing state parks than we have done
in Washington State. But we have a great potential. As one of our
jobs, we must preserve the charm of the wilderness. At the same time,
we must provide enough creature conveniences to bring people back
to the same places again and again. We must do more to prevent over-
crowding. Our continuing problems, and I am sure that most of you
here have them, too, are to get funds, enough know-how, and sufficient
qualified personnel to keep this nation-wide camping trend from en-
gulfing us in some of our own sand and water. We must learn to "see
the forest through the trees," and find the best ways to get the job done.
I hope we are on our way, and that a hundred years from now, those
who come after us can still enjoy what we have preserved for their
enjoyment.
Public Land Recreation Policy
CHARLES P. MEAD, Assistant Director, Bureau of Land Management,
United States Department of the Interior.
IT IS A pleasure for me to have the opportunity to be here and speak
before your 37th Annual Meeting of the National Conference on
State Parks. You have honored the Bureau of Land Management and
the Department of the Interior by your invitation. Director Woozley
was sorry that the pressures of other duties would not allow him to
attend. He has asked me to extend you his personal regards and best
wishes for a successful meeting.
At your meeting last year at Grand Teton National Park, you will
remember, Mr. Harold Hochmuth, the Bureau's Lands Staff Officer,
discussed the general policies and programs for public land management
and disposal. This afternoon I would like to tell you about a recently
developed policy statement dealing with recreation land use on public
lands under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management.
As you know, the Department of the Interior has been in the recrea-
tion business for a long time. This has chiefly been through the programs
of the National Park Service. That agency's primary concern is with
the management and administration of the National Park areas, fur-
nishing recreation lands and facilities to meet a wide range of uses by
many millions of people.
In recent years there has been a greatly increased interest in and
need for public recreation areas and facilities. Under the stimulus of a
rapidly growing population, a rising standard of living, and increased
182 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
leisure time, more and more people are looking to the outdoors as a
source of recreation for themselves and their families. As our large
urban centers of population grow, more and more people are seeking
recreation areas away from the din of city streets.
Then, too, we are becoming an increasingly mobile Nation. With
over 50 million automobiles on the highways, approximately three out
of every four American families now own a car. Add to this the results
of the great new highway program which will link the areas of the
Nation and increase travel by bus, plane, and train. All of these factors
and more, portend an increasing emphasis on lands for recreational use.
The rising needs for recreation lands will take several forms. Lands
will be sought for summer homes and cottages. When those lands are
public lands, part of the demand will probably be met through the
operation of the Bureau's small tract program allowing individuals
or groups to acquire areas up to five acres for such purposes. Other
lands will be desired for picnic areas, camping sites, and places for hiking
and horseback riding. Still other areas will be sought for hunting and
fishing, and for both summer and winter sports, for canoeing and boat-
ing, for scientific study and hobbies, and for the appreciation of wilder-
ness areas that preserve the primitive values of virgin lands.
This list of recreational uses for land suggests that even within this
one type of land use recreation there may be important conflicts
that will have to be resolved.
But, there will be other competing demands for land use, too. As
the Nation grows in population and economic wealth there will be an
increasing demand for the land and raw materials necessary for growth.
There will be important conflicts between the use of certain lands for
recreation and the development of those lands for other purposes. In
many cases, dual or multiple use of the same land areas will be possible.
In other instances, it may be necessary to exclude or modify one use
in order to permit development for a higher use. Any program of land
and resource management must take into account a balanced program
of development, involving many economic and social factors and po-
tentials for land use.
As the custodian of the remaining 440 million acres of unreserved
public domain lands in the United States and Alaska, the Bureau of
Land Management will continue to play an increasingly important role
in the development of areas of the public lands for recreation use. Of
course, not all of the lands that will be devoted in the future to recreation
uses will be Federal lands. Some will be set aside by the States, some by
local governments, and some by private citizens and organizations.
Much of it will be lands now in private ownership.
We may also expect further development of public lands now re-
served or used for recreation such as the national parks, the national
forests, and others. Two major programs, called "MISSION 66" and
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 183
"Operation Outdoors," undertaken by the National Park Service and
the Forest Service respectively, are now underway to accelerate the
planning for and development of these areas for recreation purposes.
The Bureau of Land Management is actively cooperating with both
agencies in their programming and planning for land needs.
Within this context, then, and recognizing that recreation is but one
of the important elements of a balanced program for public land man-
agement and disposition, what is the Bureau's policy toward the future
of recreation on public lands? And how does that policy specifically
relate to State and local programs for the development of recreation
lands and facilities?
First, we believe that the foundation upon which future programs
must be based is a comprehensive inventory of the Nation's current
recreation needs and those future needs that can be measured and de-
scribed with reasonable accuracy. Because of the wide variety of
specific recreation developments all the way from an urban play yard
through city parks and golf courses, to State and National Parks and
recreation facilities the task of inventorying recreation needs must be
a job shared by all levels of Government and by private industries,
organizations, and individuals who will participate in the programming
and planning of area developments.
Briefly, the Bureau's recreation policy operates under the land
classification provisions of Section 7 of the Taylor Grazing Act. This
part of the law provides the mechanism for classifying public lands prior
to their disposal, for their highest and most suitable use. Providing the
highest use classification so permits, and as an element of its recreation
policy, the Bureau will endeavor to give higher preference to the satis-
faction of national, state, and local needs for public recreation lands by
recognizing applications for such lands as having a higher priority than
certain competing applications.
In providing public lands for public recreational use, the Bureau will
cooperate with national, state, and local efforts, both public and private.
Bureau policy is directed toward two primary categories of recreation
land use. The first of these deals with recreation on broad general areas
of the public lands where recreation is diffused over relatively large
areas. In such areas recreation is generally only one of several uses for
the lands.
An example of such extensive public recreational use would be the
free access to Federal rangelands for hunting and fishing. The avail-
ability of these lands for hunting and fishing by the public is specifically
provided for in the Taylor Grazing Act. This kind of recreation on public
lands can seldom be pinpointed on a map. There are large areas involved,
with few locations of concentrated use. Because of this fact, it may be
many years before any need develops for providing specific recreational
area developments and facilities.
184 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
The second large category of recreation lands includes those areas
subject to intensive recreational use. This would include sites having
some specific physical, locational, or historical attribute, including areas
used intensively for hunting and fishing.
It is these areas that are now being used intensively or areas having
such potential use with which we are chiefly concerned.
Suitable sites having important multiple-use values which should be
retained in Federal ownership under Bureau administration generally
will be made available to state or local agencies by lease or permit.
The establishment of suitable public recreation areas, the use and
significance of which relates to state or local use and enjoyment, is or-
dinarily the responsibility of the State and local government agency. In
order to meet local needs, State and local agencies are encouraged to take
timely action in filing applications to lease or purchase public lands for
public recreation purposes. As you know the principle method by which
States, local government and nonprofit organizations may make applica-
tion to lease or purchase lands for use as recreation areas or for other
public purposes is under the provisions of the Recreation and Public
Purposes Act of 1926, as it was amended and broadened in 1954.
In its investigations of public lands the Bureau will give appropriate
consideration to recreational values, either present or potential, in
making land classification. Special attention will be given to the possible
recreational value of public lands in three categories: (1) Ocean coast-
land frontage and adjacent lands providing access to them; (2) frontage
on inland waters and the lands that provide access to them, with par-
ticular emphasis on lands presently used for public recreation purposes;
and (3), other public lands of manifest recreational or key access value.
In investigations leading to the classification and opening or reserva-
tion of public lands not involved in state exchange or prior state in-
demnity apph'cations, vacant public lands identified as having significant
present or future value for public recreation use, or lands that provide
valuable access to such areas, will receive special attention. Upon the
completion of such investigations the information developed will be
given to appropriate State or local government agencies and to the Na-
tional Park Service. These agencies will be asked for an indication of their
interest in the lands and recommendations for their future use and
management.
If a Federal, state, or local agency demonstrates an interest in de-
veloping the lands for public recreation purposes the lands may be
classified for lease or sale under the Recreation and Public Purposes Act.
Final disposition would, of course, depend upon the development of a
planned program for the area. If the lands are believed to be proper for
recreation purposes, but no application has been filed for them, the lands
may be classified as recreation potential under the Taylor Grazing Act
and therefore proper for sale or lease when an application is filed and a
definite project proposed.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 185
When lands have been classified as suitable for development as public
recreation sites, applications for such lands will be given priority over
competing applications. Such a program, we feel, will assure full and
timely development of those areas having distinctive qualities favoring
recreation use.
Two land areas under the jurisdiction of the Rureau of Land Manage-
ment deserve special mention. The first of these is the so-called O&C
forest lands in western Oregon. The Recreation and Public Purposes
Act and the classification-for-disposal provisions of the Taylor Grazing
Act do not apply to these lands. The Rureau does, however, have specific
legal authority to provide certain recreational facilities on these lands.
A program designed to meet these needs is being worked out in coopera-
tion with the counties involved. As in the case of other public lands, the
Rureau will endeavor to encourage appropriate state and local agencies
to develop local recreation areas through lease or special land-use per-
mits when consistent with forest management practices.
In recognition of the necessity for inventorying public land recreation
needs, the Rureau is now engaged in a study and inventory of recreation
needs on the O&C lands.
In this area of rich timber values, containing some of the West's most
beautiful timberland scenery, we are making a study of the recreational
needs and uses of the lands. We will attempt to answer at least two im-
portant questions by our study. First, we will want to know what lands
are now suitable for and being used as sources of recreation as camp-
sites, as picnic areas, or so on. We have a few campgrounds in there now.
Second, we will want to know what the probable demand will be upon
those lands and other areas of demonstrated recreational value during
the predictable future.
A similar program is underway in Alaska, in which RLM is develop-
ing campsites and roadside areas for public use. This program was
authorized by a 1956 law which provided for the development of certain
recreation areas in the Territory and authorizing the subsequent transfer
of title to such lands to the Territory upon their request. The Territory
will be encouraged to maintain improved sites pending such transfer.
We in the Rureau of Land Management are firmly convinced that
there are areas of the vacant public domain which are chiefly valuable
for recreation use. As a potential use for public lands, all other things
being equal, recreation is no less important than other uses.
Recause of the fact that no single land use has in and of itself, a pre-
emptive dominance over other uses, the final determination of the land
use pattern must be a continuing process. Each case must be decided
on its own merits. Each use must be balanced with the other actual or
potential uses. We must look again to the idea of a balanced land pro-
gram. For if the Rureau is to meet its assigned responsibility to classify
lands for their highest use, it must weigh all the competing demands for
186 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
land use, including all the various types of recreational use along with
forestry, grazing, mineral development, or private land tenure.
In some cases the answer will be multiple-use development, whereby
lands are used and developed for more than one purpose concurrently.
In other cases compromise will be necessary by adjusting land areas,
period of use, or types of development. And in other instances decision
must be made against a single purpose in favor of classification for a
higher or more balanced use.
In all of these operations the Bureau will cooperate with State,
Federal, and local governments to process applications expeditiously to
permit such agencies to purchase annually up to the maximum acreage
permitted by law.
The key elements of this program, then, involve three things: first,
a comprehensive study and inventory of public recreation needs; second,
the development of action programs for specific areas designed to meet
those needs; and third, the filing of timely applications for available
public lands. The Bureau of Land Management will cooperate with
such programs in every possible way, continually seeking to provide a
balanced program for the conservation, development, and management
of the Nation's public lands and their resources.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Bureau of Land Management Recreation Land-Use
Policy Statement, was subsequently approved by the Secretary of the Interior
on April 16, 1958.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 187
Roll Call of the States
Alabama. James L. Segrest, Chief, Division of State Parks reported:
A turbulent session of the Alabama Legislature has just ended. The
Legislature adjourned sine die on Friday, September 13. This is the
last regular session of the Legislature during the present Administration.
When the General Appropriation Bill was first prepared the State
Parks Fund was conspicuous by its absence. No general fund money
was set up for the Parks Division compared with the customary pro-
cedure of a biennial appropriation. This was most alarming as the only
alternative seemed to be to lease Alabama's parks or to close them.
After many conferences with the Administration forces, the Chairmen
and Vice Chairmen of the House Ways and Means and the Senate
Finance and Taxation Committees, the State Parks were included in
the General Appropriation Bill to receive $150,000 for each of the next
two years. This Bill was passed. In addition to this amount the antici-
pated revenue from operation of park facilities will amount to $180,000
per year, making a total of $330,000 available per year for operation
and maintenance. No funds were allocated for capital improvements.
However, the State Parks Division receives an average of $100,000
annually in royalties from sand and gravel sold from the State's public
water bottoms. The revenue from this source can be used over and
above the established budget and it is planned that it will be spent on
capital improvements during each of the next two years.
The 1955 Legislature made a conditional appropriation of $200,000
to the State Parks Fund for this fiscal year, but due to a legal technicality
none of this money could be spent until the present Legislature clarified
this matter by passing a Bill in late August authorizing its expenditure.
This money has now been encumbered for the purchase of materials
for major deferred maintenance work, replacement equipment and
$150,000 for capital improvements. This means that the projects under-
taken this late in the year will not be completed until next year. This
$200,000 together with the aforementioned $100,000 from sand and
gravel will permit many improvements such as erecting six new con-
cession buildings, three bathhouses, a boat harbor, two fishing piers,
additional picnic areas, and the installation of Propane Gas systems on
two reservations. During the current fiscal year $355,000 was spent on
operation and maintenance.
Attendance at the Alabama State Parks for the current year is esti-
mated at 2,800,000 persons. Approximately 518,879 fish weighing
166,139 pounds were caught by 141,570 fishermen during this year from
the 16 public fishing lakes operated by the State Parks Division.
Recently a sizeable portion of one of the larger park areas was leased
to a private corporation for development. The leased area includes
approximately one mile of beach frontage on Alabama's Gulf Coast.
The agreement provides that the corporation must spend $150,000 in
188 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
permanent improvements during the next five years. In order to protect
his investment it is reasonable to believe that the lessee will spend from
one to two million dollars in the development of this leased property
within the next several years. Since it is becoming more difficult each
legislative session to obtain funds for capital improvements it appears
that there is no alternative other than to lease to private enterprise
some of the undeveloped land comprising the Alabama State Parks
System. It may well be the trend in the near future to enter into this
type development program. Several similar proposals are now being
entertained. It is felt that the State is protected adequately in this
venture by the fact that it is the controlling agency as the contract
provides that the State must approve all development plans including
the master plans.
By an Act of Congress approved by President Eisenhower on July
25, 1956, the Horseshoe Bend Battle Ground was designated a National
Military Park. This Act provided that the lands to be included within
this area were to be acquired and transferred free and clear of all en-
cumbrances to the United States without expense to the Federal Govern-
ment. Representatives of the National Park Service made a survey and
study of this proposed project and established the boundary line for
this reservation which includes 2,040 acres. The Alabama Power Com-
pany owns about one-fourth of this acreage and will donate its property
for this purpose. The Alabama State Legislature has just appropriated
$150,000 to the Department of Conservation for the purpose of acquiring
the additional land to be included in this reservation. Steps are now being
taken to acquire all the land requested by the National Park Service.
It is felt that title to this property can be conveyed to this Agency in
the next few months. Needless to say, Alabama is deeply pleased to
have an area within its bounds administered by the National Park Service.
In conclusion, considering the circumstances that exist in the deep
South today, it is felt that the State Parks System was more fortunate
than at first anticipated in the outcome of legislative action and that
the State Parks of Alabama can now be administered for another two
years at least on the same level as in the past.
California. Earl P. Hanson, Deputy Chief, Division of Beaches and
Parks, reported:
The great interest of the 1957 Legislature in California's growing
State Park System was evidenced through continued support in the
form of appropriations amounting to $22,000,000. Nearly all of the
projects are within the purview of the Five Year Master Plan adopted
by the State Park Commission in 1956. To finance this program, the
Legislature raised the ceiling on moneys accruing to the Division from
oil drilling on State-owned tidelands from $7,000,000 to $12,000,000
annually. Governor Goodwin J. Knight approved most of the legislative
appropriations, including the $12,000,000 annual financing program.
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 189
The operational budget of the Division of Beaches and Parks, of
nearly $6,000,000, provides for important personnel additions. The most
significant is that of an Information Officer to direct the Division's pub-
lications and press program. Specialists in forestry, natural history, en-
gineering and construction, and aquatic recreation have been assigned
to the six geographic districts of the State in accordance with specific
needs. Our construction budget provides $1,500,000 for new facilities.
The Division of Beaches and Parks has embarked on a program of
reservoir recreation by assuming jurisdiction from the Federal govern-
ment of the Folsom Lake Reservoir and its afterbay, Lake Natoma. It is
relevant that as much money has been provided for the extension and
development of Folsom Lake State Park as was appropriated for the
support of the entire Division in 1950. The Division is also in process
of accepting jurisdiction of the Millerton Lake National Recreational
Area from the National Park Service and the U. S. Bureau of Reclama-
tion. About twenty additional reservoir projects have been studied by
the Division and their operation as state parks will be considered by
the State Park Commission on the basis of the relative worth of each,
particularly in view of the limited state funds available. Although
$2,500,000 has been appropriated for reservoir recreation purposes,
the Division's experience at Folsom Lake encourages us to believe that
this amount is sufficient only for the expansion and development of a
single reservoir area.
Five roadside rest areas are in process of construction at this time,
part of a $450,000 program approved by the 1956 Legislature. Other
legislation provides for two additional State Park Commissioners and
proposes that the seven Commission members be selected with a view
toward geographic area representation.
The Legislature also asked that the State administration study the
organization, operation and development of the Division of Beaches and
Parks, including provisions of the existing codes under which the Park
Commission, the Department of Natural Resources and the Division
of Beaches and Parks operate. In this study, now nearly completed,
consideration is being given to decentralization to the District offices of
some of the Division's technical services. To effect a pilot program of
decentralized development planning, a staff of landscape architects and
civil engineers is assigned to one of the six districts.
The most important current acquisition project involves a gift by
the Hearst Corporation of the buildings, grounds and furnishings of the
San Simeon Estate, including the fabulous Hearst Castle, as a memorial
to the late William Randolph Hearst and his mother, the late Phoebe
Apperson Hearst. $256,000 was provided for developments that will
permit the public to view this magnificent exhibit shortly after the
State takes title, which is expected to be during the summer of 1958.
A visit to this Castle will be one of the highlights of the 1959 meeting
of the National Conference on State Parks in California.
190 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
In cooperation with local park administrators, we have been suc-
cessful in getting Sacramento State College to consider the establishment
of an upper division curriculum in Park Management, with appropriate
counseling, for those who would prepare for this course through lower
division work at Sacramento State or other colleges. This is a long for-
ward step toward providing for college training in the specifics of park
management and administration.
Information about the current status of the California State Park
System is available through the Division's house publication, News and
Views. Agencies may be placed on the mailing list upon their request.
Colorado. David M. Abbott, Director of Parks, Department of Parks
and Recreation for the City and County of Denver, reported :
Colorado can report progress even though it does not yet have
any state park areas nor any of the appurtenant facilities such as other
States report. The 1937 Colorado Legislature provided for the establish-
ment of a state park board comprising the same personnel, ex officio, as
were appointed to the State Land Board. However, no appropriations
were ever made to it for state parks, either for land or improvements.
The 1955 Legislature amended the 1937 law by providing for a Board of
Seven members, five of whom were heads of existing state agencies, and
two lay persons, one each to represent business and labor. A small ap-
propriation was made to employ a director for one year, but no such
funds were appropriated for the past year thus nothing was accom-
plished. A joint committee representing many groups, drafted proposed
amendments to the existing law which were subsequently adopted by
the 1957 Legislature. They called for the appointment by the Governor
of a Board of seven electors, one from each of the four Congressional
Districts and three to serve at large. The original appointments were to
be made on a two-year staggered basis up to six years and thereafter
for six-year terms.
The law was further amended to simplify the mandates to and duties
of the Board. An appropriation was made for the employment of a
trained and experienced Director; for the development of some highway
wayside parks; and, to inventory existing recreation facilities of the
State and prepare a long-range program for the development of a state
park system to supplement the extensive National Park and Na-
tional Forest facilities within the State of Colorado. The new law author-
izes the Board to promote recreation consultant services to communities.
Every effort will be made to utilize lands now under the control of
state agencies and other subdivisions of government, where such are
adaptable by character or location for inclusion in the state park and
recreation area pattern.
The new State Park and Recreation Board has been functioning for
less than three months, but it has adopted some definite policies and
procedures. Specifications have been established for the position of
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 191
Director, and applications are now being received by the State Civil
Service Commission for such position. Thus, it is expected that as soon
as a qualified administrative officer is appointed, Colorado will begin
making some real progress in the planning and subsequent development
of a good State Park System.
EDITOR'S NOTE. Since this report was made, Harold W. Lathrop has been
appointed Director of Parks and Recreation. Mr. Lathrop served twelve years as
Director of State Parks in Minnesota, 11 years on the Minneapolis Park Board and
for some years has been Special Representative of the National Recreation Associa-
tion for eighteen Western States. Mr. Lathrop is a life member of the Board of
Directors of the National Conference on State Parks, and a former President.
Connecticut. Elliott P. Bronson, Superintendent of State Parks,
reported :
During this past season, Connecticut had the largest park attendance
in its history. Over 4,000,000 people used the parks; ten percent of
these were campers.
Sherwood Island State Park, which was the first one acquired by the
Connecticut Park Commission (1914), now has a new and deh'ghtful
beach constructed by the Beach Erosion Control Board of the State
Water Resources Commission of the State of Connecticut and the U. S.
Army Engineers at a cost of $512,755, of which the Federal Government
will pay one-third. This park of 214 acres originally cost the State of
Connecticut about one million dollars and is now undergoing major
development. In addition to the new beach, a large parking area is
being created and a $60,000 self-service bathhouse is being installed.
The State Highway Department has built a two-lane connector from
the Connecticut Turnpike into the park and it is expected that the park
visitor attendance will treble here in the next two years.
At Harkness Memorial State Park in the area maintained for handi-
capped people, a new combination recreation dining-hall and pavilion
has been constructed and was in operation this summer. From an ad-
ministrative standpoint this was a major accomplishment and it is no
longer necessary to use an ancient fire trap for these purposes.
At Hammonasset Beach State Park, which is the largest shore park
in Connecticut and which had a Beach Erosion Control Program ef-
fected in 1955, a new self-service bathhouse (cost $100,000) is in progress,
replacing buildings that were constructed in 1920 and still in use in 1957.
During the past year a new park dedicated to the late Commissioner
George C. Waldo was acquired containing 150 acres. Commissioner
Waldo was a member of the Park and Forest Commission from 1939
until his death October 1956 and was Chairman for seven years.
Another major addition was the gift of Wolf Den Farm, so called,
of 131 acres which joins Wolf Den State Park scene of the historical
efforts of Israel Putnam to subdue the last of "Connecticut's varmints."
To date there are (71) Connecticut State Parks with 20,928 acres.
192 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
No new acquisition money was made available by this present
General Assembly. Through one of those rare legislative mixups, one
million dollars, which was intended for the purchase of the last available
shore park in Connecticut (Bluff Point), was not appropriated. Every
effort will be made to have this money appropriated in the near future
in order to acquire this last undeveloped section of the Connecticut
coastline consisting of some six miles of beach.
Like everybody else on the Eastern seacoast, we have had a hot,
busy and overcrowded season. Adequate seasonal personnel was very
difficult to obtain, particularly the (100) lifeguards needed, but every-
body else in Connecticut managed to get by and from now until next
season can settle down to "being the land of steady habits."
Florida. Emmet L. Hill, Director Florida Park Service, reported:
The Florida Board of Parks and Historic Memorials is pleased to
report continued progress in its program of development and public
service in its State Parks and Historic Memorials.
The past year has brought many improvements to 26 of our areas.
Approximately 40 major structures have been built. Most noteworthy
of those structures are two new Refreshment Buildings and two Mu-
seums. Picnic Facilities, Camping and Water Systems were expanded.
Several Boat Launching Ramps were constructed. Renovation of our
older buildings continued and considerable maintenance equipment
was purchased.
The personnel of the Park Service was placed under the Florida
Merit System. Each job was classified. A salary schedule for each job
was set in six steps. The employee is now reasonably assured of an
adequate wage and job security as long as his conduct and job per-
formance are satisfactory.
The highlight of the year was the biennial session of the State Legis-
lature. The Legislators were friendly, sympathetic to our requests, and
increased our appropriations over the last biennium. The appropriation
for Expense was increased by 45 percent and Building Program appro-
priation increased by 95 percent.
Counties are beginning to realize the value of State Parks. We will
receive $50,000 in matching funds, giving us a total of $1,068,000 for
building construction in 30 areas.
We were also authorized to employ 39 new personnel. Attendance at
our Parks increased 160,000 persons this year. Public acceptance has
been good. Revenues have increased.
Our work load for the future is heavy, but we are happy to accept it
as long as we can progress, develop and serve our patrons.
Illinois. William R. Allen, Superintendent, Division of Parks and
Memorials, reported:
Illinois Parks (44) and Memorials (29) had an attendance of 10,126,163
persons during 1956. The areas contain more than 40,000 acres of parks
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 193
and recreational sites including 1,759 acres acquired during the year.
During the year there were eighty-five thousand tent campers and a
total of more than 32,000 nights spent in the eight group camps.
There were more than 50 concessions operated in the various areas.
Most of the concessions were refreshment stands; however, there are
four lodges having sleeping and dining facilities as well as several boat
concessions, horseback riding and other concessions. The State received
$126,495.12 from concessionaires who operate the facilities.
Admission fees were charged in seven of the parks, bringing in
$87,837. Direct cost of collecting the fees amounted to almost $30,000.
The money received from admission fees, concession contracts and group
camping is deposited in the State Park Fund and appropriations are
made from it for the construction of permanent improvements.
During the year 1956 Illinois spent $1,639,541 for normal operation
and maintenance of parks and $614,369 for land and improvements.
Most of the money spent came from general revenue funds raised by
taxation. About $180,000 came from the State Park Fund.
In the past 4 years there has been an admission fee of 10 cents per
car and 10 cents for each person over 12 years old. However, the fee
was charged in only 7 parks. Under legislation recently enacted there
will be a $2 sticker system applicable to all parks of more than 100 acres.
Those who wish may pay 10 cents per person and 10 cents per car.
One of the major projects being planned is a 112 room lodge at Illinois
Beach State Park. There will be 3 bath houses along the beach. The
total cost of this development will exceed $2,665,000. Improvements
in other parks will cost a total of about $540,000. There is a total appro-
priation of $7,635,360 for the next two years.
Indiana. K. R. Cougill, Director, Division of State Parks, reported:
The 1956-57 fiscal year is marked as a significant year, in terms of
attendance and income, with an all-time high of 2,093,269 paid admis-
sions to the Indiana State Parks. Added to the paid admissions to the
parks are the paid admissions to the State Memorials and free admission
of children under eight years of age which make a total of 2,585,083
visitors to the state properties under the administration of this Division.
The all-time record of $1,053,559.82 in earned income marks the
third time the earned income has exceeded one million dollars. Of the
total earned receipts, 30 percent ($324,749.03) came from gate and
automobile admissions. Although pluralities in numbers are impressive,
the true significance of these record-breaking attendances is in the fact
that more people are being served. Population increases expected by
the United States Census Bureau indicate that by 1970 Indiana's popu-
lation will be 5,715,000 people, an increase of 45 percent over the 1950
census. These facts speak for themselves.
The 1956-57 fiscal year is further marked as a significant year be-
cause the 1957 General Assembly did not appropriate funds for the
194 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
operations and maintenance of the State Memorials. The principal
source of revenue to defray the operation and maintenance costs of the
State Memorials as well as the State Parks will therefore, for the first
time in history, come entirely from the revenues from the State Parks
for the 1957-1959 Biennium.
In order partially to off-set the lack of appropriations, the Conserva-
tion Commission approved an increase in the state park admission fees
from the present 12 cents per person over 8 years of age and 10 cents
per vehicle to 15 cents per person over 12 years of age and 15 cents per
vehicle. The admission to the State Memorials was also increased to
25 cents for each person over 12 years of age. The effective date of the
increased fees was August 5, 1957.
Expenditures for the fiscal year, which ended on June 30, 1957,
amounted to $1,483,675.49. Of this amount, $2,529.25 was spent for
land, $441,460.88 for improvements, and $1,039,685.36 for operation
and maintenance. Revenue, in the amount of $1,053,559.82, exceeded
our costs for operation and maintenance by approximately $13,800.
Once again, the Indiana State Parks earned sufficient revenue to defray
all costs for operation and maintenance.
During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1957, in addition to the usual
maintenance and operation of the properties, the following major con-
struction was accomplished; involving expenditures of over $440,000.
An earthen dam and concrete spillway, which will impound a lake
of 230 acres, were completed at Versailles. Also, at Versailles, work com-
menced on a new road and a bridge to the public beach, where con-
struction of a bathhouse-concession building was started.
At Potawatomi Inn, a structure which was used formerly as a garage
and then as an employees' quarters, was converted into ten motel-type
units to accommodate additional Inn guests. These units, which are
air conditioned, were completed for use on May 27, 1957.
The Chain 0' Lakes State Park Project progressed further, when an
Act was passed by the 1957 General Assembly officially establishing
this new State Park as Chain 0' Lake State Park, and appropriating
$10,000 to be used to continue the purchase of additional land. The
Joint County Park Board has accepted title to nearly 1,000 acres of the
proposed 2,700 acre project. Additional land will be purchased as funds
become available.
At Whitewater State Park, work was nearly completed on a service
building, and a new gatehouse was completed. Several new row boats,
new picnic tables and picnic grills were put into use at Whitewater, as
well as in other properties. At Shades State Park, funds were allocated
for the extension of the water lines and the construction of a modern
rest room in the picnic area.
New diving piers were constructed at both Bass Lake and Scales
Lake State Beaches, respectively. Also at Scales Lake, an implement
shed is scheduled for construction. General development plans for a new
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 195
campground are being prepared for Bass Lake, where 12 acres of addi-
tional lake front property has been purchased.
At Cataract Lake State Recreation Area, construction is well under
way on a shelter, with a concession in one end. The new bathhouse at
Cataract Lake was placed in operation this summer for the first time.
A launching ramp, for boating enthusiasts, has been designed for this
property. General development plans for a new campground were also
prepared for this property.
Other capital-improvement projects include: continued development
of Wildlife Exhibit at Brown County State Park, initial use of the newly
completed bathhouse and concession at Lincoln State Park, remodeling
of four buildings at Shakamak into modern family cabins, and road-
resurfacing work in many of the parks.
The Great Lakes Park Training Institute, again held at Pokagon
State Park, was attended by over 200 park and recreation personnel
from the United States and Canada. This Institute is conducted by
Indiana University and sponsored by several park departments in the
great lakes region as well as the National Conference on State Parks and
other park and recreation organizations.
In order to continue highest possible standards of lifeguard service,
our in-service training program was extended to include a pre-service
examination and training program for all Indiana State Park lifeguards
and waterfront personnel.
EXPENDITURES, EARNED REVENUE, IMPROVEMENTS
LAND, AND COSTS FOR OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE
1956-1957
Total Expenditures $1,483,675.49
Land $ 2,529.25
Improvements, etc 138,778.89
Other Improvements from Rotary. 120,000.00 (est)
Post War Fund Improvements . . . 182,681.99
Total Capital Investments 443,990.13 443,990.13
Total for Operation and Maintenance $1,039,685.36
Revenue Earned from Operations 1,053,559.82
Estimated Excess of Revenue 13,874.46
Estimated Percent of Self-Support 101.33 percent
Iowa. Wilbur A. Rush, Chief Division of Lands and Waters, Iowa
State Conservation Commission, reported:
In making the report for Iowa there are a few points I wish to bring
out about our State that should be mentioned to show the relative
position of Iowa in comparison to other States in the Union. Iowa is
not large either in total area, total population or total wealth. It is the
smallest State west of the Mississippi River and ranks only 24th in
the Nation in size and 35th in water area. Our total population is only
196 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
slightly more than 2J^ million and we rank only 22nd nationally in
this respect. Likewise, we rank only 29th in expendable income in the
Nation. Our State is the most intensely farmed area of the world and
even our neighboring agricultural States of Illinois and Indiana are
veritable forest lands as compared to Iowa which has less than 3 percent
of its area in woodlands. We have the lowest percentage of Federally
owned lands of any State in the Union, thus placing the burden for sup-
plying recreational areas almost entirely on the State and her counties
and cities. These facts should be kept in mind as I mention attendance
figures, appropriations and water recreation.
For the second year in succession park attendance in Iowa will exceed
6 million visitors. Indications are that the 1957 total will be approxi-
mately 9 percent increase over 1956. This is about the same rate of in-
crease we have been experiencing in Iowa for the past several years.
Camping, on the other hand, seems to be increasing at a more rapid
rate. Our records show about 26 percent increase over 1956 and about
400 percent increase over 1950. Cabin and group camp use has remained
static for the past several years principally because no new cabin units
have been added to our system. As a general rule, all of our park cabins
are well filled throughout our limited vacation season and group camp
facilities are used to capacity.
Iowa has not been overlooked in the national trend toward water
sports and boating. 15,000 new motor boats were registered with the
Conservation Commission this year. Although Iowa ranks only 35th
in water area, it ranked 19th in the Nation in the sale of outboard motors.
This is a drop from 9th place the year before, but it represents no de-
crease in the number of motors sold. It only indicates that the develop-
ment of water areas in other States has created a more rapid increase in
boat and motor sales elsewhere.
An important factor in the popularity of boating in Iowa is the
stabilization of the Missouri River by the flood control program of the
Corps of Engineers. This program has created several reservoirs within
easy travel distance from our western border and has stabilized the
river for safer boating along our western boundary.
While there have been benefits from the stabilization of the river it
has also created some serious problems. The prevention of floods and the
reduction of river stages has caused lower ground water tables and de-
creased water levels in the Ox-bow lakes in the Missouri Valley. This
has become so serious that it was necessary to divert a stream by means
of a dam and connecting 48 inch concrete tube 7,000 feet long to provide
a water supply for Lake Manawa, one of our most popular areas. Many
difficulties had to be overcome to build this tube such as crossing an
airport, tunneling under 2 major railroads, 3 pipelines, a transcontin-
ental telephone line and a major state highway and cutting through a
lakeside subdivision along with the usual problems attendant to con-
struction of this type. I am happy to report that thus far the diversion
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 197
structure has operated successfully and the once nearly dry Lake Man-
awa area has again been revived. However, we face similar low, water
problems on several other lakes in the Missouri Valley without any
readily available auxiliary water supply.
On October 13 the Iowa Conservation Commission will dedicate its
newest state park and artificial lake to be known as Viking Lake State
Park. This will be our 89th state park and the 25th artificial lake. The
dam for this 150 acre lake in a 950 acre park was completed this past
spring and access roads and parking areas have been graded and sur-
faced and a beach area graded and sanded. Construction of a new resi-
dence and service building is now in progress.
Another major construction job nearing completion is the recon-
struction of Lake Macbride State Park. This work is being doi^e' by the
Corps of Engineers as remedial works in connection with the construc-
tion of Coralville Reservoir on the Iowa River near Iowa City. It has
been necessary to raise the dam of Lake Macbride 29 feet creating a
lake 6 times its original size and to relocate nearly all the park facilities
on higher ground to prevent flooding by the pool created by the Coral-
ville Dam. This project is scheduled for completion this year.
In addition to these larger projects we have also completed many
smaller ones such as a new road in Nine Eagles State Park, many new
toilet buildings with our new fiberglass type of roof and new water
treatment plants at Green Valley State Park and Lake of Three Fires.
Wherever possible we are now turning to treatment of surface water
for drinking water because we encounter fewer problems than with wells.
Several hundred new picnic tables and steel charcoal fireplaces were
made and distributed and camping areas and picnic areas have been
enlarged and improved in an effort to meet increasing crowds.
Quite important to our program of adding smaller facilities to our
areas is our prison labor program. This is only the second year for this
program in Iowa, but we have worked out a schedule of winter work
making tables, signs and prefab buildings for areas over the entire State.
During good weather the men are kept busy on larger projects in three
principal areas where camps are located making necessary park im-
provements to those areas. A new camp will be opened in Palisades-
Kepler State Park about October 1.
In an effort to reduce operating costs and at the same time produce
additional income we hope to change the cooking habits of our patrons
from the wood fire to the charcoal broiler. Taking advantage of the
present trend to outdoor cookery with charcoal we expect to produce
our own charcoal and sell it through park concessions. A pilot charcoal
plant has been erected in one of our state forest areas and charcoal was
offered for sale at 5 state parks this year.
In order, better to serve the public in our two major lake resort areas,
we have put into operation short-wave radio stations at Lake Okoboji
and Clear Lake. Each area is serviced with a base station and mobile
198 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
units in park vehicles, lake patrol boats and the Commission airplane.
Although the primary reason for acquiring the radios in each area was
to provide better law enforcement on the lake, they have proved to be
a boon to the park men in providing better service in the several scat-
tered areas in each locality.
Appropriations for maintenance voted by the Legislature which met
early this year remained the same as last year which was $550,000 of
which $75,000 was earmarked for rehabilitation of prison inmates. A
capital improvement bill for $1,500,000 passed both houses of the
Legislature only to be vetoed by the Governor. Another bill considered
of major importance to us which was vetoed would have permitted the
Conservation Commission to employ a full-time attorney as legal coun-
sel for the department. Aside from our appropriations the most im-
portant piece of legislation passed was a bill eliminating roads adjacent
to parks from the park road system and returning these roads to the
counties for maintenance.
A year ago I reported to this group on the enactment of the County
Park Law in Iowa and the establishment of 3 county park boards. This
year I am happy to report that 13 additional counties have created
county park boards, bringing the total in the State to 16. These new
park boards will add a great deal to the Recreational Resources of the
State of Iowa.
Kentucky. Mrs. Violet Kilgore, Director of State Parks, reported :
In Kentucky, the outstanding project for the year 1956-57, has been
the three to four million dollar bond issue. In preparation for this ven-
ture, the feasibility report on the parks and shrines was made by the
Hammer Company with Charles Graves as consultant. After a year's
study, work, and planning, that really began at the National Park Meet-
ing last year, we are now in the process of selling our bonds.
Construction on cottages, swimming pools, and camping areas will
be started at once. Along with the bond issue, another park program is
on the way. That is the establishment of eight new parks and the ex-
pansion of two existing ones. This grew out of the report of the Action
Program for Eastern Kentucky. This program will be spear-headed by
money raised locally and funds backed by a direct appropriation from
the State Legislature. This could not be included in the bond issue as it
was not recommended as a project from the standpoint of feasibility.
It is recommended as an item of development for tourism in Eastern
Kentucky. If this program is added to the bond issue, there will be a
State Park or recreational area within 60 miles of every Kentuckian.
At the Breaks of the Sandy, an Interstate park of Virginia and
Kentucky, much development has begun. We are in the process of con-
structing a superintendent's house and maintenance building. A water
plant has been established, as well as roads throughout the area. There
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 199
is a lodge building under construction containing a concession and din-
ing room and picnic areas have been developed through the park area.
A swimming pool at Levi Jackson and an 18-hole golf course at Lin-
coln Homestead are in the process of being built. In both cases, the
local citizens raised part of the money for the local projects. Camping
areas in all parks are to be improved, also.
In preparation for an enlarged operation, we have completely reno-
vated our fiscal control. This has been done by the installation of an
accrual system of accounts following the recommendation of Harworth
and Harworth, made during 1955-56. At the end of every week, we
get a daily report from all operations with a profit and loss statement
received at the end of each month.
We estimate that we have had 5 million visitors in the Parks with
approximately $500,000,000 worth of tourist money being spent in
Kentucky. With a $225,000 operating budget, our estimated gross
receipts for this year will be $2,150,000, $100,000 of that was pulled out
of the operating budget for capital improvements. Among our expendi-
tures were:
1. The swimming pool at Levi Jackson $35,000
2. New front desk machines $10,000
3. New boat dock at Kentucky Lake State
Park $15,000
4. Enlargement of existing boat dock at
Dewey Lake State Park $ 5,000
5. New buildings at Cumberland Falls State
Park $10,000
6. New gift shop operations $10,000
7. New shelter houses $ 5,000
8. Air conditioning $12,000
We have had the biggest and best year in Kentucky Park history from
the standpoint of attendance, use of parks, gross receipts, and profits.
The future of State Parks of Kentucky, as in most States, looks
bright. People are becoming more state park conscious every year,
which means that future expansion will be necessary to accommodate
the increased number of visitors.
Otter Creek Park, Louisville. Clinton G. Johnson, Director, reported:
Otter Creek Park had a good year with attendance 25 percent above
last year. Our budget was slightly less than for 1956, but we were given
$7,500 for new shelter and toilets. Thanks to the fact that our senior
foreman, Alvin Wichser, is an architectural engineer, the design of the
buildings is fine and we were able to keep cost low.
We had two school camps in the spring I believe the first in Ken-
tucky and they were a great success.
All forms of camping are on the increase and in October we will
have a boy scout jamboree 750 boys and men.
200 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Our foot trails are getting good use and the wild life that can be seen
from them is increasing.
1957-58 Budget, $42,450.
Maine. Clyde Man well, reported:
The expansion and improvement of Maine's State Parks and Mem-
orials are being continued with a $264,000 capital appropriation for
biennium. Emphasis is being placed on providing additional tent camp-
ing facilities to meet this rapidly expanding problem. Also, certain
fundamental problems at several of our historic sites are scheduled for
correction.
There has been considerable public response to the Commission's
plan for acquiring additional parks in Maine. Several encouraging pros-
pects are in the wind, involving gifts of lands including the possibility
of a park in the Moosehead region. A small area of scenic coastal head-
land in southern Maine has been acquired from the General Services
Administration for park purposes, and the remains of Fort Pownall,
constructed in 1759 in the Penobscot Bay region is being acquired as a
historic site.
A substantial factor involving park operations has been the recent
salary increases granted by the legislature, one of several such moves
in recent years to bring salaries into line with job classifications. In-
cidently, Maine's park employees have been under civil service and the
merit system for quite some time.
Interpretation is receiving more emphasis each year. Considerable
interest in Fort Popham State Memorial was stimulated by the 350th
anniversary celebration of shipbuilding in America and the Popham
Colony settlement of 1607. Fort Knox State Park has been improved
by the addition of narrative texts throughout the area along with guide
services.
Several new nature trails have been developed at various parks with
the cooperation of local Garden Clubs. The Department has also been
cooperating in a teachers conservation workshop program which had a
successful start this year.
Maryland. Joseph F. Kaylor, Director, Department of Forests and
Parks, reported:
Maryland is meeting the challenge of a rapidly exploding population
by an equally rapidly exploding state park system.
Now the seventh fastest growing State in the Union and exceeded
only by Florida east of the Mississippi River, we have tripled our state
park acreage since 1950. I doubt if any other State can equal that rapid
expansion in park area in the same period. We have done it by acquiring
five new state parks and by expanding many of those already existing.
In 1950 our state park acreage was 5,305. Today it is 15,761.
Great momentum was given to our plans early in 1950 by starting
the development of Sandy Point State Park the^first public tidewater
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 201
park site in Maryland. At the same time, ambitious plans were initiated
to expand Patapsco State Park to an ultimate 8,000 acres, extending
25 miles along the Patapsco River.
Our progress the past year has been going with accelerated speed.
Today some 4,446 acres of the proposed 8,000 acres for Patapsco State
Park have been acquired. In June we dedicated the "Governor Theodore
R. McKeldin Recreation Area," 12 miles up the Patapsco River from
Baltimore. It is the sixth recreation center in the riverside park to
provide facilities for picnicking, camping, group games, hiking and
nature study close to the State's most congested population area.
We have acquired a new park in Charles County, "The General
William Smallwood State Park," which is also an historic site and will
be developed as a memorial to one of Maryland's Revolutionary War
heroes and the third Governor of the State.
In the same general area, we have received a gift of 275 acres for a
state park, 25 miles south of the District of Columbia. Both of these
new state parks will serve an area in Southern Maryland previously
without state recreation facilities. Seneca Creek State Park in Mont-
gomery County is being expanded and developed to meet the needs of
an increasing population in northern Maryland. Negotiations are under
way in the local courts to clear title to land on Assateague Island to
provide for the first oceanside park in Maryland.
The Governor and the Legislature were most generous to the De-
partment of Forests and Parks by increasing the original budget by
approximately $200,000 in order to provide funds to purchase park
land and to expand and develop existing areas. Funds were also made
available to add a landscape architect to the department personnel for
the first time.
Much credit is due to Governor McKeldin for his great personal in-
terest in adding new open spaces for recreation purposes for Maryland's
growing population. Not only does he keep currently informed on the
progress of the Department's park activities, but he makes frequent
personal inspection of the areas scattered over the State.
Michigan. Arthur C. Elmer, Chief, Parks and Recreation Division,
Department of Conservation, reported:
Weather conditions in Michigan were responsible for another major
upswing in state park use. By the end of the year we will have issued
more than 115,000 permits to camp; attendance has also increased pro-
portionately. Park lands, roads and parking areas are literally worn out.
We acquired, through General Services Administration, two Coast
Guard properties as additions to existing state parks at Fort Wilkins
and Ludington, for one-half the appraised value plus National Park
Service administrative costs; also, by lease from the Army, 1,800 acres
of land in the Fort Custer military area as a recreation area. Due to
lack of funds, we were unable to put this area under administration.
202 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
We continued the Conservation-Corrections Camp Program by
which some 1,000 inmates are used on conservation work projects, with
probably 50 percent on state parks and recreation areas.
At its May, 1957 meeting the Conservation Commission increased
the camping fees from 50 cents to 75 cents per day and the electrical
service charge from 20 cents to 25 cents a day. This change was made to
make Michigan in line with other States and is expected to bring in
additional revenue from $75,000 to $100,000 per year.
A bill providing for a $2 annual sticker and a 50 cent daily fee for
the operation of a vehicle in a state park passed both houses of the Legis-
lature, but was vetoed by the Governor.
The 1955-56 Legislature appropriated $1,500,000 for capital im-
provements which included $300,000 for the purchase of the 124-acre
Port Crescent State Park Site, one of the outstanding areas on Lake
Erie still undeveloped. It also provided that not less than $600,000 be
spent for sanitary facilities, water and sewage. The remainder of the
funds were spent for other developments, some major, others minor.
All of us are faced with problems of financing our programs. I am
becoming more and more convinced that we are making a mistake in
trying to finance parks by revenues from facilities; fees and charges,
entrance fees or parking meters or stickers. We will end up as Indiana
has with "y u get only what you collect." We have of necessity had
to refuse admission to both campgrounds and day-use areas because of
overcrowding and because of use beyond the designed capacity.
Serious situations in state parks and recreation areas are developing
state-wide and the impact of the new $100,000,000 Straits Bridge, which
will open on November 1, 1957, will make them even worse.
Michigan's "Mission 66" is still in the "larvae" stage.
Michigan's park and recreation study, called "State Parks of Mich-
igan A Report of the Past and a Look Into the Future," is now being
published. It is not as comprehensive or detailed a study of outdoor
resources as proposed by the National Park Service, but it does
cover Michigan's need for land and water for state park and recreation
areas in the next 10 or more years.
Minnesota. U. W. Hella, Director, Division of State Parks, Depart-
ment of Conservation, reported:
Minnesota State Parks have been subject to the same expanded
volume of public demand in all activities, particularly tourist camping,
that other State Park systems are experiencing. There has been some
progress in expanding areas and facilities, but the rate of expansion
lags behind the demand rate.
The Minnesota State Park sticker permit system has been a great aid
in providing means to finance some facility expansion in a number of
our parks. Public resistance to the sticker permit has diminished greatly
since the program was established in 1953. The enforcement of this re-
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 203
quirement has been gradually stiffened each year and is now accepted
with rare incidents of objection. Income from sticker permit sales has
increased from $73,000 for the first issue to the current 1957 issue which
is going to reach $125,000.
The anticipated income from sticker permit sales was the basis of
borrowing capital. In 1953, $450,000 was borrowed from Surplus Game
and Fish license funds without interest and this has been repaid. A
second indebtedness was authorized totaling $525,000 for the biennium
1955-57. This second loan is to be paid on a ten-year retirement program
with annual payments covering capital and interest. The amount of
income in excess of the debt retirement program each year will be avail-
able for operation and maintenance.
This past year has included a biennial legislative session. The State
Park problems in Minnesota received more favorable consideration
than heretofore. The need for expanded facilities and the importance
of the State Parks in the welfare and economy of the people was recog-
nized by the establishment of a Capital Improvement Program as part
of the State-wide needs. A special appropriation from general revenue
funds was authorized in the amount of $254,000 for Capital Improve-
ments in several specific parks. One State Park, namely Alexander
Ramsey, was transferred to the City of Redwood Falls which has grown
up surrounding this park.
Five State Park areas were established which resulted in a net in-
crease of four State Parks. The new State Parks, when acquired, will
increase the dedicated State Park total land area by approximately
8,500 acres of which approximately 1,000 acres are to be purchased and
the remainder consists of State lands transferred from other govern-
mental jurisdiction. The Minnesota State Park System will expand
from 62 to 66 areas of all classifications embracing approximately 97,000
acres of land. 42 will be major park and recreational areas and 24 will
be waysides and monument areas.
Progress in expansion of facilities included : one bathhouse and beach
development at Mound Springs; three modern tourist camp service
buildings at McCarthy Reach, Lake Remidji and Lake Carlos State
Parks; three maintenance shop and office buildings at Helmer Myre,
Nerstrand Woods and Split Rock Creek State Parks; two modern toilet
buildings at William O'Rrien and in Itasca Campgrounds; two employee
residences at Gooseberry Falls and Jay Cooke State Parks. A new 30
unit tourist camp area has been completed at Jay Cooke State Park.
An 80 unit expanded camp area is now under development in Scenic
State Park.
In addition to the new structures and developments many repair and
remodeling projects were carried out in the interest of increasing service
facilities and affecting the ravages of time in the older installations.
The present finances are not adequate to provide the increased oper-
ating requirements and the newly established park areas will have to
204 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
remain undeveloped and unsupervised until such financial reserves de-
velop. We look to the sticker permit program to provide a good share
of the requirements in future years after the first large debt payments
are satisfied.
Missouri. Joseph Jaeger, Jr., Director of Parks, reported:
Since the last report to this conference, Missouri's state parks have
been moving forward and enjoying visits by the largest number of
various park users ever. One of the major highlights in 1957 was legis-
lation enacted by the 69th General Assembly affecting the Missouri
State Park Board. Revenue bond authority for capital improvements
was granted the Missouri State Park Board and another bill, which
corrected an administrative deficiency, allows concessions to be operated
by state park personnel for a maximum period of ninety days if and
when necessary.
Missouri's state parks undertook an expansion program during the
past year with the addition of three new parks and one memorial shrine.
Thus the state park system now consists of thirty state parks and two
memorial shrines, encompassing approximately 70,000 acres.
For the first time in recent years, Missouri is now on an annual budget
by executive order. The General Assembly did not complete all appro-
priation bills before adjourning, however, the Missouri State Park
Board was allotted $1,010,000 for this fiscal year and have a sum of
$435,000 for additional capital improvements to be considered by the
Legislature when it reconvenes.
The year 1956 broke the all-time attendance record for park visitors
when 2,612,999 persons visited Missouri's state parks. And along the
same trend, the state income from concessions soared to an all-time
high of $158,389.88 which was deposited to the Park Board Fund to
be used for state park purposes.
The Missouri State Park Board has initiated work on a color movie
depicting various scenes, attractions and activities in the parks. This
movie will be 28J^ minutes long and present plans call for its completion
by the end of November. This movie will be available for showing to all
types of groups as well as television stations.
Montana. Ashley C. Roberts, Director, State Parks Division,
reported :
The Montana State Park system has experienced a tremendous sea-
son in 1957 so far as attendance is concerned. Last year we reported an
all time high in attendance at our parks . . . this year we report an
attendance that far exceeds anything that we have ever had before.
Our feature park, Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park, has already ex-
ceeded last year's record attendance and we still have some ten days to
go before we close for the season. All other parks in the system have
experienced a heavier use than ever before. We estimate the attendance
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 205
in all our parks, some seventeen in number, to reach somewhere between
175,000 and 200,000 for the 1957 season.
During the past two or three years we thought we had noted a very
significant increase in the number of campers. We must confess, how-
ever, that this year's crop of campers far exceeds anything we have ever
witnessed. They seemed to come from all directions and with all types
of equipment. Our best camping customers come from the Canadian
Provinces just to the north of Montana and we noted them in greater
numbers than ever.
All types of water sports in our state parks were enjoyed by more
people than we have ever seen. This was particularly true at Tiber
Reservoir, a Bureau of Reclamation project on the Marias River in
northern Montana. Prior to the closure of the dam and filling of the
impoundment, the Fish and Game Department rehabilitated the entire
drainage and re-stocked with rainbow trout literally millions of them.
From the opening day of the fishing season this year right straight on
through the entire season the area has literally been swarming with
fishermen. When they get tired of fishing then out come the swimming
suits and the water skis. Tiber Reservoir is located in a dry land wheat
farming section and water sports of this kind offer an entirely new play-
thing for these folks. To say that they are having the time of their lives
would indeed be the day's understatement.
Our operating funds for the current fiscal year and the next fiscal
year have been increased almost 100 percent. Our appropriated moneys
on an annual basis have been increased from $20,000 annually to $60,000
annually and our earned funds will probably rise from $30,000 annually
to about $35,000. Thus our annual expenditures will be somewhere be-
tween $95,000 and $100,000 as against $50,000 the past two years.
When these figures are compared with some of the others read here
today they do not amount to very much. Yet, for us, they represent a
considerable increase and it would appear that perhaps we are heading
in the right direction so far as our park system is concerned.
Two new parks have been added to our system during the past year.
One is the Tiber Recreational area we just talked about and the other is
Medicine "" * 3 State Park in Southeastern Montana. Medicine Rocks
is an area made up of huge, grotesque sandstone rock formations used
by the Indians for mystic ceremonies. It promises to be an interesting
area when developed.
So far as the future is concerned we continue to be optimistic. Each
year we find more and more people using our areas and we find an ever
increasing interest on the part of our Montana folks in getting more
recreational areas developed. We cannot help but believe that this in-
terest is significant and will eventually result in a bigger and better park
system for Montana.
206 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Nebraska. Jack D. Strain, Supervisor, Land Management Division,
Game, Forestation and Parks Commission, reported:
A discussion of highlights of the year for Nebraska State Parks could
probably be summarized in a very few words by paraphrasing Mr.
Churchill: Never before have so many descended so much on so few!
Attendance reached new heights, surpassing last year's record, with
numbers of campers doubling in many instances.
Nebraska's drouth years heavily influenced the already economy-
minded Legislature which was reflected in a 38 percent reduction of our
budget request for the 1957-1959 biennium.
Nearly all requests for capital improvements were stricken with a
few minor exceptions, however, we came through in pretty fair shape in
operation and maintenance.
We were badly hurt in capital improvements: Only $85,000 was
authorized for the biennium opposed to $199,000 for the past biennium.
The Legislature approved a "sticker fee" to be effective in 1958,
which will apply to Nebraska's 44 State Recreation Areas. It will not
apply to the eight state parks.
The bill was patterned after Minnesota's and a great deal of help
was received from both U. W. Hella, and Art Elmer of Michigan, who
were most generous with their data.
In addition to the routine, we opened a new modern swimming pool
at Niobrara State Park, and launched the new park facility at Fort
Robinson where among other facilities adobe quarters constructed in
1874 have been remodeled into rental cabin units and have proved most
popular in the short time they have been opened to public use.
In the coming year, we will make some much needed improvements
in our camping facilities but our program will, of necessity, be confined
largely to operation and maintenance.
New Hampshire. Russell B. Tobey, Director of Recreation, Recrea-
tion Division, Forestry and Recreation Dept., reported:
The steady trend toward more park use has accelerated in the last
season. The serious overcrowding of some day-use parks and of all of
the campgrounds within our parks caused unusual wear and crowding
of visitors. An unusual number of complaints about being jammed
have been received. The proposed study to recommend an orderly and
early extension of the park system is timely. This study would be made
by the State Planning and Development Commission and carry recom-
mendations to the legislative session hi 1959. It is timely also since the
effect of the accelerated highway program upon the state park program
can be considered.
The legislative session of 1957 has placed us in a better position to
cope with expanding park use by breaking the strict "pay-as-you-go"
policy. Contributing to this change was a lack of snow last winter,
which limited the operations of Cannon Mountain and Mount Sunapee
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 207
ski areas to the extent that little of the anticipated income was realized.
This in turn necessitated a deficit appropriation by the then-sitting
legislature in order to open the parks for the summer season.
Beginning with the fiscal year of July 1, we are no longer required
to meet the expenses of administration, operation, maintenance and
development of the park system from park income. Appropriations
have been made for authorized salary increases ; for upkeep and improve-
ments to our historic sites; replacement of dams; development of addi-
tional wayside areas ; and a study for the expansion of an existing park.
Funds were also allowed on the basis of pay-back from future income
for the development of a small park on Lake Winnipesaukee and for
the acquisition and development of a major park in the southwestern
section of the state. Other capital improvements on a pay-back basis
include two additional ski lifts; a shelter building; expansion of other
park structures ; and extension of campground facilities.
New Jersey. Joseph J. Truncer for Dr. Joseph E. McLean, Com-
missioner of the New Jersey Department of Conservation and Economic
Development, reported:
Dr. McLean sent greetings to all fellow associates in the field of
State parks. He also expressed sincere wishes for a profitable conference.
The highlights of the past year were the dedication by Governor
Robert B. Meyner of two newly developed parks for public use. They
were Allaire, with its historic village; and Barnegat Lighthouse with its
100 year old picturesque lighthouse along the Atlantic.
During the past year a non-profit corporation has been formed for
the purpose of raising funds, restoring, and operating Allaire village.
This was done at the request of an organized citizens group. Control
of the corporation remains in the hands of the State, since five members
of the nine-member Board of Trustees must hold specific positions in
the Department of Conservation and Economic Development.
Historic Batsto village has been opened to the public on a guided
tour basis. This village of colonial times produced iron pots, skillets,
cannons and cannon balls during the Revolutionary War. Its water-
powered grist and saw mills, blacksmith shop, iron master's mansion,
country store and workers houses still stand in their original setting.
Funds for capital improvements totaled $500,000 last year and are
$590,000 for the current year, exclusive of funds for roads and parkings.
There were no major land acquisitions during the past year, but work
continued on title problems and the consolidation of existing areas.
The program of replacing and reconditioning old facilities is con-
tinuing. Two new bathhouse-concession combination buildings were
constructed and three new picnic areas were developed. During the
current year a project for ocean side bathhouse and beach will be in-
itiated at Island Beach, a bathhouse-concession combination will be
208 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
developed at Hopatcong, and seventy-five new camp sites are planned
for Bass River and Stokes.
There is one other subject worthy of attention in New Jersey. The
high average density of population, (650 people per square mile) is
creating a strain on the remaining elbow room. Recognizing this, plans
for use of the State's largest land holding, the 150 square mile Wharton
Tract, include the principle of multiple use. Coordinating the many
uses raises knotty problems. We are proceeding carefully to integrate
water, parks, forestry, wildlife management, recreation and historic
interests on this property which represents 2% percent of the total land
area of the State.
Ohio. V. W. Flickinger, Chief, Division of Parks, Ohio Department
of Natural Resources, reported:
I. Accomplishments
Reaches 4 4100 lineal feet
Boat Docks 156 Boat capacity 312
Dredged 895,000 cu. yds., cleaned 7.75 mile channel
Parking for 3135 cars
Park Road
New 4.12 miles, blacktop 35 miles, dustproof 16 miles
Manor House
First lodge opened November 15, 1956, nine rooms
Completed Two Lakes
Hargus Creek, Pickaway County, November 2, 1956, 146 acres
water
Hueston Woods, Acton Lake, February 2, 1957, flooded April
4, 1957, 625 acres water.
Strouds Run
Contract awarded April 1957, 161 acre lake, contract 55 percent
complete
Belmont County Lake
25 acres purchased to date, mineral rights settled
Preliminary plans for dam, lake 117 acres
Legislation
Reclassification of parks personnel, improved salary effective
October 1, 1957
Revenue Bond authority to Division to issue bonds for construc-
tion of income producing facilities. Faith and Credit of State
not pledged. Park admission bill introduced but not passed.
Director
Appointment of Herbert E. Eagon to succeed A. W. Marion.
II. Attendance
12,050,329 an increase of 481,860 4 percent 9 percent-5
76,192 in cabins, increase 28,648 61 percent increase 14
percent +47 percent
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 209
261,813 tent and trailer, increase 81,688 31 percent increase
19 percent +12 percent
III. Fiscal
Appropriations
Capital Improvements
Ear-marked for specific areas $1,363,900
Statewide, picnic, facilities, water
system, bathing facilities, sanitary
facilities, beach improvement,
parking areas 1,621,600
$2,985,600
Maintenance & Operation 849,028
Receipts from Operations 602,853
Total Available $4,437,481
Expenditures F.Y. 1956-57. . . .
Capital Improvements appropriated. . . $2,240,494
Rotary C 297,539 $2,538,033
Maintenance & Operation 1,146,127
Total Expenditures $3,684,160
Expenditures F.Y. 1957-58 Estimated
Capital Improvements $1,264,016
Maintenance & Operation 1,451,881
$2,715,897
IV. Program
Refine Long Range Development Program
Activate Revenue Rond Program
Development of camping facilities, roads, parking areas, sanitary
facilities.
Sales of lands not suitable for recreational development.
Oklahoma. Tye Rledsoe, Director, Division of Recreation and State
Parks, reported:
The past season has been one of the greatest the parks system of
Oklahoma has ever enjoyed. With completion of the 7J4 million dollar
revenue bond construction program our park system was able to offer
its public the utmost in every type of recreation facility. Lodges did a
flourishing business during the summer months and indications show
that fall and winter attendance will also be good.
Projects recently completed would include 32 modern cabins and
picnic shelter in Tenkiller State Park; floating boat service dock at Lake
Murray State Park; shower and latrine building at Roiling Springs
State Park; two picnic shelters at Sequoyah State Park; swimming pool
210 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
at the newly acquired Red Rock Canyon State Park; and numerous
minor additions in other of our state parks.
Our Legislature appropriated $2,093,870 for the operation and main-
tenance of our park system for the next two years. It also set aside
money for two new recreation areas to be added to our system; these
are Great Salt Plains and Black Mesa.
Attendance reports show that nearly eight million visitors attended
our state parks this year as compared with seven million of a year ago.
This tends to indicate the wide acceptance of these areas.
Plans for the forthcoming year include hard surfaced air strips for
Sequoyah and Texoma state parks; golf course for Sequoyah, Quartz
Mountain, Roman Nose, and Texoma state parks ; and cafes for Robbers
Cave, and Reavers Rend state parks. Of course, expansion of picnic
and camping facilities will be of major importance in all areas in an
attempt to keep up with the growing demand.
Oregon. C. H. Armstrong, State Parks Superintendent, reported:
During the calendar year of 1956 expenditures for Oregon State Parks
exceeded the million dollar mark for the first time, totaling $1,294,414.
A revenue of $118,393 applied as a credit made the net figure $1,176,021.
Capital outlay expenditures included those for land acquisition, $42,765,
with park improvements amounting to $563,321. Surveys and equip-
ment purchases brought the total to $644,214. Park operation costs
exceeded those of capital outlay slightly, being $650,201, of which ad-
ministration was $118,137 with the balance expended on operation and
maintenance of parks and roadways.
A total of 15 parks were enlarged acreage- wise during the year and
2 entirely new ones added, representing 1,659 acres or about 435 more
than was acquired the preceding year. The development of 5 new parks
for the public's enjoyment was either started or completed in time for
public use the following season. The emphasis was on an overnight
camp construction with camper capacity being increased by about 1,000
in eight parks. Most of these are located along the Oregon Coast, the
so-called "playground" region of the State where 60 percent of this type
of use occurs.
Overnight camping use was 58,000 camper nights greater than in
1955 and it is anticipated that the 216,443 usage of 1956 may reach
300,000 this year. General day use continued to rise amounting to
7,690,690 visitations and should exceed 8 million during 1957. Con-
sidering Oregon's population of 1,700,000 persons, this is a very high
per capita use.
During the early part of the year a 20 year park program was com-
pleted in which public recreational needs were outlined as to area and
facility requirements as well as park betterment and operation costs.
These estimates were based upon future anticipated use of state parks.
Using this as a guide, it is believed that recreational requirements may
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 211
not only be determined in advance of actual needs, but the proper pro-
visions can be made, and at such time, that the park system will con-
tinue to grow in an orderly manner.
Last year, for the first time, brochures on Oregon State Parks were
published. While these will promote park use, it is hoped that they will
also assist visitors to better enjoyment of the features set aside for
their enjoyment and the facilities constructed for their convenience.
The department participated in several surveys and studies with
other governmental organizations and agencies. One had to do with a
recreation inventory in cooperation with other States comprising the
Columbia River Basin. Another had to do with preliminary planning
studies with member agencies of the State Natural Resources Committee
related to the establishment of an integrated land-water use manage-
ment plan for a typical river basin.
The parks program during the past year has been one of providing
for present needs by an orderly expansion of areas and facilities, as well
as taking a long look into the future to determine as nearly as possible
what park requirements are necessary to fill the needs in the next 10
to 25 years.
Pennsylvania. W. P. Moll, Chief, Division of Recreation Department
of Forests and Waters, reported:
At the outset, may I say that it is a sincere pleasure again to enjoy
the opportunity of meeting with you at this outstanding conference,
in addition to the hope of taking back to Pennsylvania new ideas,
methods, procedures and the feeling of accomplishment.
Undoubtedly, the highlight of this past year in Pennsylvania has
been the encampment of some fifty thousand boy Scouts of America
at Valley Forge State Park on the occasion of their Fourth National
Jamboree from July 12 to July 18.
Literally the encampment was a city under canvas; almost every-
thing one finds in a City was included for the safety, health and welfare
of the campers. To name a few: Fire and Police Departments, Utilities,
Transportation, Hospitals, Radio and Television Stations, Newspaper,
Rank, Post Office and Places of Worship.
Think of it. In 1777 and 1778 General George Washington had
eleven thousand troups encamped at Valley Forge. In 1957 fifty thou-
sand individuals came by almost a hundred special trains, a hundred
buses and thousands of automobiles, making the Jamboree one of the
biggest peace time movements of People in America.
Federal, State and local agencies combined their resources to make
this an effective and enjoyable experience for the boys.
Three demonstration areas, all similar in content, were prepared
with conservation as the theme, and every camper had an opportunity
to visit one of these demonstration areas.
212 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
Our Department of Forests and Waters not only had an extensive
exhibit on Forest Conservation, Protection and Recreation, but also
constructed an Outdoor Amphitheater which contained every camper
during the various stage productions.
Ten months prior to the Jamboree we initiated a Poison Ivy Eradi-
cation Program which was so successful, in comparison to the previous
Jamboree held at this site, that only one hundred seventy five boys
were infected.
There have not been any organizational or administrative changes
during the past year.
I reported last year a Legislative Act which provides funds for Capi-
tal Improvement Work in State Parks, as well as the Construction of
Flood Control, Dams and other Conservation Projects. These funds
are derived from royalties paid to the State from oil and gas leases on
State Forest Lands, and had triggered the greatest State Park Hunt
in the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We have inten-
sively studied and surveyed some one hundred seventy five sites for
the development of new State Parks. Of these, thirteen sites have been
approved and four sites are in the process of acquisition and master
planning. We anticipate two completed new parks by May 31, 1958.
June 1 of this year saw the initiation of our $740,000 improvement
program in existing State Parks. This work in the main encompasses
the expansion of facilities in thirty-six State Parks.
Again last year I reported a one and a half million dollar construction
program which involved our General State Authority, an agency which
provides funds from public Bond issues for construction projects related
to State Institutions, Roads, Dams, etc., not provided by Legislature.
This program is now underway with one project completed, four pro-
jects advertised for bids, and nine projects in the final planning stage.
Park attendance for the year beginning October 1956 and ending this
month again illustrated the ever increasing use of State Parks, with
some eleven million nine hundred thousand visitors.
To say the least, we look forward to an extremely active year in all
phases of State Park Administration, and we know that our improve-
ment program will keep us on our toes for at least five years hence.
South Carolina. C. West Jacocks, State Park Director, reported:
1. Highlights of Events of Past Year:
a. Annual attendance of 3,249,000 which represents more than a ten
percent increase over last year. Attendance at our 22 state parks
for the past six years averages 3,154,000. This in a state that has
a population of 2J^ million.
b. Tent and trailer camping is increasing with us, as it no doubt is
in all states. Our use in these areas has doubled in the past two
seasons. One of our parks, Myrtle Beach on the coast, has our
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 213
greatest number of campers more than 35,000 camper days for
the four summer months.
2. Major Changes in Organizational Set-up:
a. The State Legislature has enacted laws declaring that South
Caroh'na State Parks shall be operated only as "racially segre-
gated" parks. One state park, Edisto Beach, remains closed to all
public use, in line with this legislation.
3. Changes in Administration:
a. None
4. Funds Available for Capital Improvements:
a. Carry-over funds of $21,000, plus.
b. Funds available from operation of Ocean Fishing Pier. This
facility, constructed with private funds, provides that profits
revert to the Park for any improvements within the park. This
is unique in our accounting procedure. The fund will amount to
approximately $12,000 annually.
5. Acquisition and Developments:
a. The construction and the beginning operation, of a fresh-water
swimming pool at an ocean-side park. The pool and filter plant
cost approximately $80,000, an unusual feature of this facility
is that it was given to the park by a citizen of the State, and the
only stipulation being that he would be repaid from the net prof-
its, if any, from the operation.
6. Accomplishments and Developments:
a. None of sizeable consequence.
Planned Program for Next Year:
a. Inauguration of a program of interpretation if requested funds
are appropriated by the State Legislature.
b. Endeavor to obtain legislative authorization to make bond issue
for funds to expand facilities to more adequately serve increasing
attendance and use. Repayment to be made from park receipts.
NOTES:
a. All receipts of state agencies pass to general treasury, consequently
state parks cannot spend receipts without special authority.
b. The State Legislature meets annually, and makes appropriation for
one year at a time.
c. Our per capita cost for operations is 10-and-a-fraction cents per
person.
d. It is not our purpose to have our state park program approach a self-
supported status. The scope of our revenue-producing facilities is
perhaps below the national average; also, we endeavor to make as
many facilities as possible free of charge for instance in the twenty
years of our operation we have never levied an admission or parking
fee, nor do we charge for picnicking. Our purpose is to make avaliable
to park users a maximum of facilities at a minimum of cost.
214 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
South Dakota. Robert J. Arkins, Deputy State Forester, reported:
In order to keep pace with the increasing needs of the people it
serves, the Forestry-Parks Division, on January 1, 1957, underwent a
complete structural reorganization. The State was divided into 12 dis-
tricts with a District Forester in charge of each district. As the repre-
sentative of the State Forester in his area, each District Forester is
charged with all of the State Forester's responsibilities. He directs the
activities of the parks program, represents the State Forester in range
and forest fire control matters, and provides technical forestry service
to private landowners. Each forester is assisted in the parks program
by a District Park Supervisor who directs the work of the park labor
crews in the field.
During fiscal year, 1957, parks activities were necessarily curtailed
due to a lack of funds. No major park development occurred during
this period except for initial developments on Angostura and Shadehill
reservoirs. Public use of all areas during this same period had, however,
remained at nearly a million and a half visitors a year.
New life was given to the parks program by the 1957 State Legisla-
ture when an appropriation of $600,000 for the biennium was granted
the Forestry-Parks Division. This appropriation will enable the Division
to carry out an active program of improvement and further development
of parks facilities throughout the next two years.
There will be a great deal of work to do. The development of four
large reservoirs on the mainstem of the Missouri River in South Dakota
has opened a new door to recreational development for the Forestry-
Parks Division. When completed, these four reservoirs will replace the
original river with more than three hundred miles of artificial lakes. I
hope you can realize, without further elaboration, that the recreational
potential here is tremendous.
The next few years should see a marked increase in the number of
roadside parks on South Dakota's highways. The 40 roadside parks
presently serving over a quarter of a million users a year are already
inadequate for the increase in traffic on our highways. A tentative
total of 50 roadside parks was originally thought to be adequate for our
needs. The development of the Interstate System will probably make
this estimate somewhat obsolete.
A complete re-evaluation of our existing parks facilities, planned for
this winter, will provide us with the information necessary to obtain
the greatest efficiency and use of our present system. This information
will also enable us to develop a detailed operating plan for future de-
velopments consistent with our final goal of perfecting a balanced sys-
tem of state parks and related recreation areas.
Texas. Bill Collins, Executive Secretary-Director, Texas State
Parks Board, reported:
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 215
In 1957 Texas became realistically state park minded. Legislators
voted the State's largest bi-ennial state park appropriation. Citizens
formed a State Park Development Association. Texas Research League
and an interim legislative committee were asked for state park surveys.
Humble Oil and Refining Company televised state park scenes, and 252
weekly papers participated in a "Park of the Week illustrated feature.'*
Maurice E. Turner of Huntsville became Chairman of the Texas
State Parks Board. J. Carter King of Albany succeeded Mr. Turner
as Vice Chairman.
Of the $1,048,821 appropriated, $215,040 is ear-marked for first year
capital improvements ten times more than in 1956.
Five new areas totalling 4,487 acres became state parks Monahans
Sandhills, Boca Chica Beach, Varner-Hogg Plantation House, Lake
Stamford and Mission San Francisco de los Tejas.
Monahans Sandhills, near U. S. Highway 80 in Ward County, was
presented fully equipped by the county and a citizens' committee. It
has an air-conditioned, glass, steel and masonry museum and adminis-
tration building, a lookout tower, roadways, picnicking areas and
utilities.
Boca Chica Beach will be farther south than any other state park.
It is on Brazos Island named by the 1955 Seashore Recreation Survey
among the 54 best sites on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. Its climate,
fishing and boating opportunities, historic significance, and accessibility
to large population led to its inclusion in the top list.
A perpetual maintenance fund was included in the gift of the Varner-
Hogg plantation House by Miss Ima Hogg of Houston.
Formal re-opening of Huntsville State Park celebrated completion
of the rebuilding of the park dam that was washed out in 1944.
President Eisenhower's birthplace in Denison, Texas, will become a
state park on completion of transfer. It was purchased by individuals
with surrounding ground and parking area. Restoration and furnishing
was with advice of the President and Mrs. Eisenhower.
West Virginia. Kermit McKeever, Chief, Division of State Parks,
Conservation Commission, reported:
Attendance this year in West Virginia State Parks showed an increase
of more than one quarter of a million visitors over last year, to reach an
all time high of one and three quarter million visitors.
Most of the increase was due to the expanded summer vacation and
day use facilities, but some was due to the year around operation of two
lodges and cabins in four parks. One of these two lodges is located
within 15 miles of two privately owned ski slopes and derives consider-
able winter business from skiers.
No major changes were made in our organization set-up during the
past year; however, an additional Assistant Chief was added to the
central office staff.
216 AMERICAN PLANNING AND CIVIC ANNUAL
West Virginia's park expansion program, which was financed with a
total of $4,400,000 in revenue bond funds, is now practically complete.
The only remaining major project is the State's third lodge, Mont
Chateau, which is scheduled for completion in the spring of 1958. Com-
pleted during the past year were 10 vacation cabins at Bluestone, one
large cabin at Lost River, and Blackwater Lodge at Blackwater Falls
State Park.
During the past year capital improvements totaling a quarter of a
million dollars of appropriated funds were made in various state parks.
For the 1957-58 fiscal year the legislature has authorized the expenditure
of $133,000 for capital improvements on eight state parks.
It is now felt that we have sufficient cabins and lodge facilities
adequately to take care of the demand for several years; however, we
are short on campgrounds for tenting. Since the demand for this type
of facility is increasing we expect to develop campgrounds in two more
parks this year, which will make a total of four parks so equipped.
Further development along these lines is expected to be extended to
several other parks as rapidly as possible.
Wisconsin. John Beale reported for C. L. Harrington, Superintendent
of State Parks and Forests, Conservation Department:
The season of 1957 has been a busy one for the state parks of Wis-
consin. While the attendance figures have not been compiled for the
year, the general movement of people has been on a par with the past
several years. All indications are that camping receipts have increased
and again it is commonly reported, by the park managers, that family
camping is on the increase. This, of course, has resulted in the effort of
the Department to extend camping areas. We are at work on a number
of new family-type camping areas particularly on the northern lakes
and also on developments by way of extensions on the more heavily
used camping parks.
The 1957 Wisconsin Legislature passed a budget for the state parks
that is only operational in character. However, the Legislature gave
consideration to a financial plan for the state parks which included a
$1.00 state park sticker arrangement. This bill was passed by the State
senate but was defeated in the assembly. The Legislature has not as yet
finally adjourned, but will resume on September 23 after a limited ses-
sion. It is understood that the park financing sticker bill will be on the
calendar for additional consideration. All agree that some method for
state park financing is needed, but difference of opinion arises over the
method considered best to do the job.
In the meantime, I can report continued progress in the physical
facilities available for public use on the state parks. We have tried to
concentrate on domestic water, sanitation and shelters. The appro-
priation of $500,000 for this purpose made by the 1955 Legislature is
still ourjnain reliance for these capital expenditures. All of the state
STATE PARKS PROGRAM 217
parks 30 in number are receiving benefits from this fund and through
contract, or by force account the Department is advancing priority
projects to good advantage.
The spirit for state parks in Wisconsin on the part of its citizens is
good and of a positive character. While no new parks of this type have
been established since a year ago, there have been land additions to
existing state parks. All the state parks, as well as state forests, are
contributing to the over-all well being of the affairs of the State not only
for Wisconsin people, but to the very large number of visitors to the
State each year. There is a lot of good work to be done in expanding the
recreational, educational, inspirational and other values in the state
parks of Wisconsin and making them more useful in the daily affairs of
many interested people. This responsibility can be met satisfactorily if
a reasonable financing plan can be worked out and this question is the
main one that still has to be solved in Wisconsin.
Wyoming. Harold S. Odde, Director, Wyoming State Parks Com-
mission, reported:
Wyoming has started on its initial development during the past year.
Since the department is in its beginning stages, no provision was made
for actual construction until 1957. We are beginning with toilets, refuse
cans, fireplaces and picnic tables in our park areas, and building is now
in progress.
All areas, at present, are located on withdrawn lands surrounding
Bureau of Reclamation Reservoirs, which have been turned over to the
State for recreational development, and we are constantly negotiating
with Federal agencies to acquire new areas. We now have 5 parks and
are contemplating 3 additional areas.
From a budget of $10,000 in 1953, when all department business was
taken care of by a truly civic minded Commission, to a 1957 budget of
$51,000 may seem incredibly small to those of you in large departments.
However, to us, it indicates progress. People are gradually becoming
aware of the existence of the department, and as our initial development
is noted, the necessity for increased improvements will be apparent.
Besides providing a limited budget for actual expansion, the 1957
State Legislature also passed Wyoming's first Anti-litterbug legislation
with a special bill applying to State Park areas which prohibits destruc-
tion of plants and shrubs and also use of firearms or fireworks in our
areas. We were also successful in the enactment of a bill which provides
that a Coast-Guard-Approved life jacket be available for all occupants
of boats and rafts. Since our state parks are all located on reservoirs,
this safety measure is of much importance.
In defense of our small department and recent late beginning, I
might call to your attention that the entire population of Wyoming is
in the neighborhood of 300,000, somewhat less than the population of
many cities.
INDEX
Abbott, David ML, 190.
Alabama, 187.
Albright, Horace M., 119.
Allegheny Co. Conf. Com. Dev., 98.
Allen, William R., 192.
Allessi, Mrs. N. P., ix.
Am. Assn. State Highway Of., 71, 79, 85.
Am. Auto. Assn., 116.
Am. Inst. of Planners, 78.
Am. Municipal Assn., 71, 85.
Am. Park & Outdoor Art Assn., 1.
Am. PI. & Civic Assn., ix, 1 ff, 71, 78, 81.
Am. Soc. Landscape Archs., 91.
Am. Soc. PI. Of., 78.
Architectural Forum, 92.
Ark. Ag. Mech. & Normal College, 34.
Arkansas Gazette, 32.
Arkansas Industrial Dev. Commn., 57.
Arkansas River, 125-127, 128-130.
Arkins, Robert, 214.
Armstrong, C. H., 210.
Arthur, William B., 101, 102-109.
Automotive Safety Foundation, 69.
Baker, Dr. Norman, x.
Banner, Knox, ix.
Bartholomew, Harland, 67.
Beale, John, 216.
Bledsoe, Tye, 162-165, 209.
Bonner, William S., ix.
Bozarth, Donald, ix.
Burnham, Daniel H., 34, 64-65.
Bronson, Elliott P., 191.
Brown, Col. Staunton, 124-127.
Butler, Walter, Arch., 167.
Byrns, Clarence F., 128-130.
C & O Canal Nat. Hist. Park, 152.
California, 188.
Campbell, W. W., 58.
Chamber of Commerce of U. S., 57.
Chapman, Edwin P., x.
Charleston (West Fa.) Gazette, 168.
Clark, Judge M. D., 58.
Clay, Grady, 86-93.
Collins, Bill, 214.
Cannon, Prof. Walter, 148.
Colorado, 190.
Connecticut, 191.
Cougill, K. R., 193.
Curtiss, C. D., 64-72.
Dallas, Highland Park Shopping Center, 15.
Delano, Frederic A., 67.
Detroit, Northland Center, 14.
Dixon-Yates, 59.
Dougherty, Robert E., 99.
Drury, Newton B., 152-157.
Eisenhower, President D wight D., 1.
Elmer, Arthur C., 201.
Ewald, William R., ix, 57, 62.
Fairbank, H. S., 67.
Faubus, Gov. Orval E., 32, 50, 55, 62.
Fed. Aid Highway Act, 1956, 146.
Fed. Housing Adm. Act, 38, 43.
Forrest City, 49 ff, 53-58.
Flickinger, V. W., 208.
Forbes, Dick, ix.
Freeman, Hon. Orville, Gov. Minn., 141-
143.
Florida, 192.
Ford Foundation, 109-115.
Frome, Michael, 116-119.
Fulbright, Sen. J. Wm., 139-140.
Geiger, Anton C., x.
Gen. Motors Research Center, 21.
Grant, U. S. 3d, 1-3, 11.
Gruen, Victor, 16-22, 23, 27, 28.
Gustavson, Dr. R. G., 144-149.
Hanson, Earl P., 188.
Hardison, Dr. T. W., 120.
Hare, S. Herbert, 15.
Harguth, Dr. J. C., x.
Haskell, Douglass, Ed., 92.
Hatcher, James A., ix.
H. J. Heinz Co., 101.
Hedges, Cornelius, 150.
Hella, U. W., x, 202.
Highway Act, Fed. Aid, 1956, 146.
Highway Research Bd., 71.
Hill, Emmett L., 192.
Hinds, Dudley, ix.
Holiday, 87.
Holloway, J. J., ix.
Houser, T. V., 97.
Illinois, 192.
Indiana, 193.
Iowa, 195.
Itasca State Park Conf., 141-217.
Jacocks, C. West, 212.
Jaeger, Joseph Jr., 204.
Johnson, Clinton J., 199.
Kaylor, Joseph P., 200
Keidel, Albert, 14, 23-27.
Kennedy, G. Donald, 67.
Kentucky, 198.
Kinney, Knox, 53-58.
Kirby, Sam, 120.
Kilgore, Mrs. Violet, 198.
Land Management, Bureau of, 181-186.
Langford, Nathaniel P., 150.
Le Tourneau-Westinghouse Co., 93-95.
Lilienthal, David E., 131-138.
Little Rock, Ark. Conf., ix, 1-140.
Look, 102-109.
Los Angeles Freeway, 160.
Louisville Courier-Journal, 86, 102.
Lykes, Ira B., 149-151.
MacDonald, Thos. H., 67.
McKeever, Kermit, 166-168, 215.
Magney, Judge C. R., x.
Maine, 200.
Manwell, Clyde, 200.
Marcum, Walter, x.
Marcus, Edward S., 4-7.
Martin, Park H., 98-102, 116.
Maryland, 200.
Mass. Inst. of Tech., 90.
219
220
INDEX
Mather, Stephen T., 120
Matthews, John, ix, 13.
Mead, Charles P., 181-186
Mellon, R. K., 99.
Memphis, Tenn., 61.
Michigan, 201.
Minnesota, 202.
Minnesota State College, 168.
Missouri, 204.
Moll, W. P., 211.
Montana, 204.
Nat. Conf. on City Planning, 1.
Nat. Conf. on State Parks, ix, x, 2, 120.
Nat. Municipal League, 102.
Nat. Park Service, 119, 144, 149.
Nat. Parks Assn., 2.
Nat. Recreation Assn., 2.
Nat. Safety Council, 69.
Nebraska, 206.
Neiman-Marcus Co., 4-7.
New Hampshire, 206.
New Jersey, 207.
New York City Decentralization, 40.
N. Y. Thruway, 69, 159.
Nichols, J. C. Co., 15.
Odde, Harold S., 217.
Ohio, 208.
Oklahoma, 162-165, 209.
Oregon, 210.
Osgood, Harry N., 96-98.
Osman, John, 109-115.
Otter Creek Park, Louisville, 199.
Owen, Wilfred, 18.
Patterson, Hugh, 32-34.
Pennsylvania, 211.
Pomeroy, Hugh, 72-79.
Prentis, Roy G., 168-173.
Prentiss, Maj. Gen. Louis W., 63, 72, 86, 93.
Pulaski Co. Met. Area PI. Commn., 33.
Purcell, C. H., 67.
Redwood Highway, 152.
Richter, Prof. Curt P., 148.
Rich, Jack W., 59-62.
Richards, Glenn C., 79-86.
Roberts, Ashley C., 204.
Rock, William P., 58.
Rockefeller, Winthrop, ix, 1, 3, 4, 6, 10,
13, 31, 58, 62, 124, 128, 131, 139, 140.
Rolls Royce Co., 4-7.
Royster, Paul E., 157-161.
Rush, William A., 195.
Saarinen, Eero, 21.
Savig, Mrs. O., x.
Scape, Allen, Mellon-Scape Found., 99.
Schoolcraft, Henry, 158.
Scoyen, Eivind, 119-124.
Sears-Roebuck & Co., 96.
Segrest, James L., 187.
Shelley, Ben R., ix.
Shepherd, Wm. M., 34-36.
Smith, Larry, 28-30.
South Carolina, 212.
South Dakota, 214.
Southwestern Publishing Co., 128.
State Highway Depts., 62.
Stemmons, John D., 45, 53, 58, 62.
Stearns, Bryan, 120.
Stanford Research Inst., 160.
Strain, Jack D., 206.
Stone, Edward D., 8-10, 15.
Tellamy, Bertram A., 161.
T.V.A., 131, 134, 138.
Texas, 214.
Thornton, Ralph S., x.
Tobey, Russell B., 206.
Truncer, Joseph J., 207.
Tugwell, Rexford, 67.
Twyman, Elmer F., 56, 47-52, 55.
U. S. Bureau of Public Roads, 62, 64-72, 79
U. S. Steel Corp., 101.
Utter, Miss Colleen, 22.
Van Buskirk, Arthur, 101.
Vanderzicht, John R., 174-181.
Washburn-Doane Expedition, 150.
Washington State Parks, 174.
Wideline, Edward, 99.
Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 101.
West Memphis, 59-62.
West Virginia, 215.
West Va. Div. of Parks, 166-168.
Williams, John, 9.
Williams-Ellis, author, 90.
Wilson, T. W., 101.
Wisconsin, 216.
Wittenberg, Gordon C., ix, 63, 95, 98.
Wright, Frank Lloyd, 9.
Wulf, George A., 56 ff.
Wynne, Angus Jr., 13-16, 22, 27, 30.
Wyoming, 217
Yale & Towne, 45-52, 53-58, 59-62.
Yellowstone National Park, 149-151.
Yontz, Merle R., 93-95.
Zeckendorf, William, 13, 35, 36-44.
