OUR NATIONAL PARKS AND HOW TO REACH THEM 



BY ARTHUR E. DEMARAY, EDITOR, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 



IN 1920 over a million persons visited the 19 National 

 Parks and 24 National Monuments. It would seem 

 that, with such a volume of travel to the Parks, pros- 

 pective tourists would have a general idea where the 

 Parks are located and how to reach them, but such is 

 not the case. Sixteen of the National Parks lie west of 

 the Mississippi River; thirteen of these dot the Rocky 

 Mountains and the Pacific Coast ranges; one National 

 Park is on the Hawaiian Islands; the Mount McKinley 

 National Park is in Alaska; and the only Na- 

 tional Park east of the Mississippi is on Mount 

 Desert Island off the Coast of Maine. Naturally, the 

 great bulk of travel to the National Parks has so far 

 been from the Middle West and from the States in 

 which the Parks are situated, although, more and more 

 persons living in the East are planning western trips, 

 either by railroad or by motor, to include one or more 

 of the National Parks. It is to these prospective Park 

 tourists that this message is addressed. 



The railroads have announced summer excursion 

 fares to the National Parks at much reduced rates, 

 effective June 1 ; return tickets may be used until Octo- 



ber 31, allowing for liberal stopovers enroute. These 

 tickets may be purchased to include one National Park 

 or to include several, and it is possible to combine the 

 major parks in a grand circle tour of the West. In 

 fact, these grand circle tours are becoming increasingly 

 popular. Among the large tourist agencies offering es- 

 corted tours are the American Express Company, Frank 

 and Company, Thos. Cook & Sons, and Raymond and 

 Whitcomb, while) the Travel Club of America and the 

 Massachusetts Forestry Association conduct such trips 

 each year. The Chicago and Northwestern Railway 

 and the Union Pacific System have established a Bureau 

 of Service of National Parks and Resorts in Chicago, 

 Illinois, which not only furnishes complete informa- 

 tion regarding accommodations, costs, and how to reach 

 the National Parks to a!! applicants without charge, but 

 also conducts escorted National Park tours to the 

 Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain National Parks. 



Let us follow a typical itinerary and make one of 

 these grand circle tours. Leaving Chicago, our first 

 objective is Denver, Colorado, which is ofttimes called 

 the "Gateway to the National Parks." The first Park 



Courtesy of National Park Service 



ONE OF TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND CAMPERS IN 1920 

 Only a few years ago less than 25,000 tourists went to all the National Parks every year; but in 1920 that number alone camped 

 in Yosemite National Park. The photograph shows one outfit comfortably located on the free public camp grounds there. 



