FOR AN APPALACHIAN NATIONAL PARK 



By Donald Gillis 



TO promote the establishment by 

 the United States of a great na- 

 tional park system in the South- 

 ern Appalachian mountains The 

 Appalachian Park Association was 

 formed at Asheville, N. C, a short 

 time ago, with Governor Locke Craig 

 of North Carolina as president and 

 George S. Powell as sercetary. The 

 conduct of its affairs is entrusted to a 

 board of directors, headquarters being 

 in Asheville. 



The scope of the association is not 

 sectional, its list of vice-presidents, not 

 yet completed, including the governors 

 of Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, South 

 Carolina, and Tennessee, and citizens 

 representative of other parts of the 

 country such as Charles Lathrop Pack, 

 of Lakewood, N. J. ; E. W. Grove, of 

 St. Louis ; Mrs. William Cummings 

 Story, president of the D. A. R. ; nor is 

 any suggestion made as to location of a 

 park, although it is assumed that a great 

 mountain park would naturally be 

 where the Appalachians culminate in 

 their highest peaks and where climate 

 and natural beauty would make for the 

 most attractiveness. 



The association plans look to con- 

 verting the most suitable parts of pur- 

 chases under the Weeks law into parks, 

 thus making them available to the peo- 

 ple for recreation, pleasure and health, 

 as well as serving the primary purpose 

 of conserving the water supplies of nav- 

 igable streams. It is therefore declared 

 in the constitution that "Its principal 

 purposes are to urge the National For- 

 est Reservation Commission to acquire 

 as rapidly as possible under the Weeks 

 law the larger areas proposed or recom- 

 mended by the Commission and the 

 Forest Service for purchase in the Ap- 

 palachian mountains, and to ask Con- 

 gress for such additional legislation as 



may be necessary to carry out these 

 purposes and to make the most suitable 

 parts of such purchases available to the 

 people for recreation, pleasure, and 

 health." 



It is the intention of the association 

 to be an auxiliary to the Reservation 

 Commission and the Forest Service, at- 

 taining its aim by supporting these gov- 

 ernmental agencies in securing the ex- 

 tensive purchase areas they desire. It 

 will therefore seek to have purchases 

 under the Weeks law concentrated and 

 consolidated and not made in fragmen- 

 tary units incapable of harmonious de- 

 velopment. The organization merely 

 seeks results — to attain them it is en- 

 tirely willing to efface itself. 



The organization believes its purpose 

 and methods of procedure to achieve 

 it are practicable. Certainly the men 

 back of it are practical ; they are for the 

 most part men of affairs, familiar with 

 difficulties and the means of overcom- 

 ing them, but sentimental enough to dis- 

 interestedly work for the preservation 

 of this mountain wonderland for pos- 

 terity. If they day-dream it is that a 

 comprehensive system of national roads 

 through national parks, connecting with 

 radiating State roads, may become a 

 reality in the near and not distant 

 future. 



The association seeks to popularize 

 itself and make itself an agency through 

 whom the people will act. To this end 

 its membership dues are placed at ten 

 cents. Most of those who have sub- 

 scribed to its organization fund have 

 furnished lists of names to the payment 

 of whose dues the subscriptions were 

 applied. The organization has already 

 eft"ectively interested influential agen- 

 cies favorably to its aims and is work- 

 ing persistently and methodically, if 

 not swiftly. 



The gathering and selling of acorns is a new industry, in Arkansas, to supply eastern 

 nurserv firms with material for forest planting. 



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