PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 309 



SCENIC DRIVES AND THEIR RELATION TO A STATE PARK SYSTEM. 



By Frank H. Culley. 



The scenic drive serves two very important missions in the great sys- 

 tem of parks. First, there is its natural beauty which is of an aesthetic 

 value, and second, its adaptability as a close connecting link in the great 

 chain of parks which in the future will not only cover our own great 

 state border to border but will cross and merge into the park systems of 

 our sister commonwealths in such a manner as to bring them into one 

 harmonious whole called the national park system. 



To understand fully the special value of the scenic drive, we must 

 realize the extent and complexity of the organization of this great Amer- 

 ican institution The National Park System, which contains first the 

 national holdings such as national parks, national forests, national 

 monuments, and national reservations, both Indian and military; sec- 

 od, state holdings, such as state parks, and reservations; third, county 

 parks; and fourth, the smaller and more intimate public properties of 

 the township, local community, village, town and city. These lands 

 which have been preserved for their historic interest, their natural 

 beauty, or their service value to the community, represent today about 

 200,000,000 acres of scattered public property. 



To become the more effective and to render to the public the high- 

 est service, these scattered areas must be tied together in some syste- 

 matic manner in order that they may create a harmonious workable 

 whole. With this as one of the objectives in view, the transcontinental 

 and interstate highways, such as the Lincoln and the Jefferson, have been 

 and are being created. These form the skeleton or backbone, as it were, 

 upon which this scheme is being developed. Within the smaller unit, the 

 state, state highways such as the River-to-River and the Daniel Boone 

 are created in order that the state parks and reservations may be tied 

 together and thence connected by means of the national .(highways to the 

 national parks. This system of highways tying parks and local reserva- 

 tions together is repeated on down through the smallest unit the com- 

 munity holdings. Thus we find that the national park system, ranging 

 from reservations containing hundreds of acres down to local reserva- 

 tions of perhaps only a few acres resembles a well planned municipal 

 park system such as that of Minneapolis or Kansas City where the boule- 

 vards, avenues and streets bind together in one harmonious whole the 

 parks, cemeteries, school grounds, playgrounds, squares, et cetra. While 

 there are many valuable scenic qualities attached to our transcontinental, 

 interstate and state highways, still it remains for the local, less pre- 

 tentious, but more intimate roadways to serve the purposes of the scenic 

 drive. 



Functionally the scenic drive is not a thoroughfare for through traf- 

 fic, but rather an indirect route or pleasure drive which discourages this 

 through traffic. It has been said that the approach to a house on an 

 estate serves as the connecting medium between different parts of the 

 grounds as well as a means for displaying the various beauties and 

 peculiarities of the place. Just so with a scenic drive, it carries the pub- 



