National recreation area
Because the reservoir had disturbed the natural state of the environment, a new designation was devised that allowed for more intensive land use while maintaining the NPS's role in conservation and historic preservation.
The car was expanding access to travel in the growing Southwest and the USBR wanted to bring about the outdoor activities that would be enabled by its enormous project, but it lacked the experience and desire to provide facilities and services for recreation.
[5] A proposed 8,000 sq mi (21,000 km2) Virgin National Park in that region promoted by Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur was praised for its scenic and historic resources but rejected in 1930 by NPS Director Horace M. Albright due to a reservoir's inherent lack of a natural landscape expected for a national park.
[6] As part of the New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt strongly promoted tourism to a growing NPS, with increased emphasis on recreation at facilities constructed by the job-creating Civilian Conservation Corps.
The Park Service, now under Director Arno B. Cammerer, took advantage of federal funds to claim the reservoir area and highlight natural features and development needs.
[6] Despite the lack of legislation establishing the reservation, the USBR's inability to manage the influx of tourists at the newly finished Lake Mead led Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes to direct for negotiation of a memorandum of agreement that gave the NPS responsibility for the reserved lands and surface of the lake, but not Boulder Dam itself, maintaining mining and grazing so long as they did not disrupt recreation.
Ickes signed it on October 13, 1936, establishing the Boulder Dam Recreation Area, and the NPS quickly built significant infrastructure for sightseeing visitors and contracted with concessionaires.
The Act's mandates and provision for interagency cooperation however resulted in more versatile land acquisition as the NPS defined its mission.
[10] The Forest Service had traditionally focused on forestry for timber and custodial management, and the 1950s saw debate among the agencies, extraction interests, and conservationists as demand for recreation increased the need for multiple-use planning.
The Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 for the first time established recreation as well as wildlife as an equal priority for the Forest Service with range, timber, and watershed oversight.
[11][12] The Park Service took a utilitarian approach to its recreation areas, acknowledging their less-than-national significance and focused on providing useful facilities and allowing a wider range of activities.
Through the 1950s, many traditionalists at the NPS saw recreation areas championed by Wirth as distractions with open questions of how to manage and square them with the broader aims of the agency.
As increased visitation forced answers to these, Lake Mead served as a model for administration at other recreational units, experiencing changing demands of the public, with more day-use visitors.
Wirth advocated for changing the Lake Mead's designation to "national recreation park," which would emphasize its importance with autonomy from the USBR.
The policy also called for national recreation areas to be established by acts of Congress and for them to be able to be managed by multiple agencies as necessary, including as partnerships with states.
Spearheaded by Director George Hartzog,[9] this controversially expanded the Park Service's responsibilities into local urban recreation (in addition to the National Capital Parks), and after he left, the NPS opposed the creation of Cuyahoga Valley NRA south of Cleveland and Santa Monica Mountains NRA west of Los Angeles.
