The National Park Service * * * * 129 



inherited by the service when Rocky Mountain Park was created, and 

 as soon as funds were available private lands were purchased to make 

 public campsites. 



It is the policy of the Department of the Interior to secure, whenever 

 possible, the exclusive jurisdiction of national park territory for the 

 federal government. Yellowstone Park, being older than the states in 

 which it lies, has been completely under jurisdiction of federal authori 

 ties. The same is true in Hawaii and Alaska. In the other parks, the 

 states have certain civil and criminal jurisdiction, though some of them 

 have ceded this authority to the federal government, withholding only 

 the right to tax private property and sometimes to collect fishing license 

 fees. Some states, notably Arizona and Utah, have thus far not given 

 up jurisdiction, thus compelling the park service rangers to go about the 

 protection of park property just as a private property owner would 

 remove a trespasser from his own home. This complicates administra 

 tion somewhat and is one of the problems that remains to be smoothed 

 out by federal and local officials. 



It is the policy of the National Park Service to keep vast areas of 

 the parks in an absolutely natural condition, and for that reason road- 

 building plans contemplate making accessible only the most unusual and 

 distinctive features of the parks. As a rule, one main highway across 

 a park is enough, and as a matter of fact to build one such highway 

 according to modern standards will take all funds available for many 

 years to come. To care for the enormous number of Sagebrushers who 

 come to the parks each year, it is necessary to hard-surface all roads and 

 make them dustproof, else the beauties of the parks are destroyed by 

 those who want to enjoy them. 



Leading off from the roads are trails over which the wilderness 

 lover can find the solitude he craves. Some sections of the parks are 

 denied even to the trail rider. They are remote areas reserved for 

 Nature exclusively and for future scientific study. About the only 

 wilderness areas remaining in the United States are found in the 

 national parks. Vast areas, including more than half of the territory of 

 the parks, are so far off the beaten paths that they are visited by but 

 few parties a year. It is hoped that they will never become civilized, 

 even when the airplane makes all spots of the earth accessible, that they 

 will remain as wild, as unblazed and untouched as were the mountains 

 of the West when Jim Bridger and Kit Carson and other pioneer scouts 

 first pushed into them. 



The northern half of Yosemite Park is a wilderness area of more 

 than a quarter of a million acres. Nearly all of Glacier Park, fully two- 

 thirds of Yellowstone's great area, the vast Kern River extension of 

 Sequoia Park, are all untouched, unblazed wilderness. The same is true 



