108 FOREST OUTINGS 



A. Waugh, professor of landscape architecture of Massachusetts State 

 College, was retained to make a comprehensive survey and report. 



Public demand was analyzed. Plans were made for several important 

 areas, such as the Mount Hood region in Oregon. In an effort to improve 

 hunting and fishing, the first game refuges were established, and efforts to 

 restock fishing streams were launched. 



Then came the World War, and all activities not absolutely necessary 

 to protect the forests from fire and for the production of wood, minerals, 

 meat, wool, and leather were curtailed. Many foresters enlisted in the 

 American Expeditionary Forces' forestry regiments and other branches. 

 For 3 years, which were exceptionally bad forest-fire years, a greatly reduced 

 field organization did the best it could on our national forests. Little or no 

 attention was paid to recreation until 1920. 



THE RUSH OUTDOORS . . . That was when it really started, after the World 

 War. Prior to our joining the conflict, the San Francisco Fair of 1915 and 

 a vigorous promotion of national parks, at their outset, had stirred per- 

 ceptibly stronger tides of travel westward; but these tides lapsed as eyes 

 strained eastward and all thoughts turned to the battle fronts overseas. 

 Then came post-war "normalcy," and the boom. Most people were rela- 

 tively prosperous. They were restless. Millions of them now had cars and 

 the rapid extension of highways constantly widened the domestic-travel 

 horizon. 



Curtailed foreign travel also helped to swell the throng. During the 

 World War and for several years after, pleasure travel to Europe was very 

 light. Many Americans were for the first time persuaded to look to their 

 own country for vacation-travel opportunities. And this impulse was 

 heightened by a vigorous domestic-travel propaganda: "See America 

 First." 



A rather definite measure of the post-war American rush to the open 

 spaces may be had from national park attendance statistics. The present 

 park system was consolidated on a Federal basis in 1916. At the outset, 

 annual attendance ran approximately 350,000. By 1919, it was three- 

 quarters of a million; by 1921, more than a million. In 1926, it was close 



