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Sierra Club Bulletin 



this park since 1914. In that season 3735 visitors registered in the park, 

 last year the number jumped to 10,523, and this year to 15,360; 8612 

 people entered this year in automobiles. 



The fees from automobiles so increased the revenues of this park that 

 it may now be administered without appropriations by Congress. How- 

 ever, an appropriation will be needed for a water system, a new ranger 

 station, and other improvements that are absolutely essential. 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK 



This park had more visitors than any other large scenic park during the 

 past year, and the accommodations were taxed to their maximum capa- 

 city. Additions to the larger hotels will take care of this heavy travel 

 next year. It is quite essential that the Government appropriate addi- 

 tional money for improvements in this park. A bill now pending before 

 Congress provides for the addition of a number of scenic tracts which 

 will bring the entire boundary of the park close to the city limits of 

 Estes Park. 



National Parks Conference 

 The National Parks Conference, held in the auditorium of the New Na- 

 tional Museum, Washington, D. C, January 2 to 6, not only resulted in 

 stimulating discussions of every phase of national park development, but 

 also aroused unusual public interest. The evening sessions in particular, 

 four of which were devoted to illustrated lectures on the parks, brought 

 out such increasing crowds that on the final evening an overflow audi- 

 ence of between two and three hundred persons waited patiently for over 

 an hour in an anteroom to hear the "Bear vStories" of Enos Mills, who 

 generously repeated his talk for their benefit. We have not space even 

 to enumerate the speakers, more than fifty men prominent in administra- 

 tive, departmental, civic, and editorial work, men whose co-operation in 

 this movement indicates the growing importance of the parks in national 

 affairs. Talks by W. A. Welch, Chief Engineer of the Palisades Inter- 

 state Park, by J. B. Harkin, Commissioner of Dominion Parks, Canada, 

 by Professor E. M. Lehnerts, of the University of Minnesota, and by 

 Herbert Quick, the author, were especially significant. One session was 

 devoted to "Motor Travel to the Parks," another to "Wild Animal 

 Life," and another to "Recreational Use of National Parks." The names 

 of such speakers as Henry S. Graves, Chief of the Forest Service, E. W. 

 Nelson, Chief of the Biological Survey, Dr. Charles D. Walcott, Secre- 

 tary of the Smithsonian Institution, Charles Sheldon, of the Boone and 

 Crockett Club, Gilbert H. Grosvenor, Editor of the National Geographic 

 Magazine, Huston Thompson, Jr., Assistant Attorney-General, and Mrs. 

 John Dickinson Sherman, Conservation Chairman of the General Feder- 

 ation of Women's Clubs, indicate the scope of the conference and the 

 broad, constructive policy of the National Park Service. The success of 

 the conference was in great measure due to the untiring work of Mr. 

 Robert Sterling Yard. 



