Thomas Chalmers Vint

[2] Born in Salt Lake City, Utah to Scots-Irish parents, Vint's family moved shortly after his birth to Los Angeles where he spent his grade school years.

Vint attended Polytechnic High School and upon graduation enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley into the field of landscape architecture.

One year later, in 1923, Vint rose to the position of assistant landscape engineer for the National Park System, working alongside architects Gilbert Stanley Underwood and Herbert Maier.

Drawing on his training as a landscape architect, Vint instead proposed a simple route of one switchback with a gently rising grade of 6% that would meet the NPS goal of “lying lightly on the land.” After that meeting Mather consulted with Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) engineer Bill Austin and others as to which route should be selected.

As another important result of this process the NPS and BPR (now Federal Highway Administration) entered into a collaboration that set a policy for all future National Park Service Roads.

His experimentation with using native materials such as logs and stone to construct buildings and bridges helped to naturalize the park environment.

He successfully created environments meeting the park service requirements of being accessible to the public while at the same time preserving the sites the way they are for future generations to enjoy.

Through his rustic designs, Thomas Vint managed to produce environments that were not a mix of buildings and trees, but rather fluid landscapes that emphasized the beauty of their surroundings.