Jul 14, 1915 CE: Mather Mountain Party

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• Background Info
• Vocabulary

• On July 14, 1915, Stephen Mather hosted a party in Visalia, California, for influential conservationists and businessmen. Mather promoted the idea of creating a single federal agency to manage America’s far-flung national parks—including Yellowstone in Montana, Yosemite in California, Crater Lake in Oregon, and Mesa Verde in Colorado. Mather and his supporters thought a unified agency could better organize and protect the parkland.

   

  Mather himself was a powerful businessman, having made his fortune in California’s borax industry. (Borax was mined for use as a key ingredient in detergent.) He was a passionate conservationist, and, having resigned from his business, worked for the U.S. Department of the Interior. He immediately began lobbying for the creation of an agency to manage the national parks.

   

  The group of men who gathered at Visalia’s Palace Hotel on July 14 included Gilbert Grosvenor, president of the National Geographic Society; Ernest O. McCormick, vice-president of the Southern Pacific Railroad; Mark Daniels, a landscape architect who was consulted in the design of hotels around Glacier National Park in Montana and Mount Rainier National Park in Washington; Robert Marshall, chief geographer of the USGS; Henry Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History; and Rep. Frederick H. Gillett (R-Massachusetts), a powerful leader on the House Appropriations Committee.

   

  The morning after enjoying a Mexican meal in the warm California weather—“the coolest condition was the Tabasco sauce,” Mather’s assistant Horace Albright said—the 30-man Mather party set off on a ten-day trek through nearby Sequoia National Park. The trek was luxurious, with meals prepared and catered by the USGS’ exemplary Chinese chefs and served on white linen tablecloths. Horses and pack mules carried the party’s cargo. The party hiked through redwood forests, swam in the Kern River, and even ascended Mount Whitney. 

   

  The trek through the national park convinced the party a national park agency was a goal worth pursuing. Grosvenor and other journalists featured stories and photos of national parks in their newspapers and magazines. McCormick organized railroads to provide reliable transportation to national parks. Osborn encouraged the scientific community to support national parks. Gillett worked to create a new federal agency: “It was entirely due to [Mather’s] generous hospitality that I was introduced to [Sequoia National Park’s] wonders and imbued with some of the enthusiasm for the development of all our national parks.”

   

  The Mather Mountain Party was incredibly successful. Less than a year later, the National Park Service was created, with Stephen Mather as its first director.

• Term	Part of Speech	Definition	Encyclopedic Entry
  appropriation	Noun	money set aside or authorized for a specific purpose.
  ascend	Verb	to go up.
  borax	Noun	(sodium borate) white powder or crystals mined for industrial use in glass, porcelain, and other manufacturing processes.
  cargo	Noun	goods carried by a ship, plane, or other vehicle.
  cater	Verb	to provide food and food service for an event.
  conservationist	Noun	person who works to preserve natural habitats.
  enthusiasm	Noun	excitement.
  exemplary	Adjective	outstanding.
  federal	Adjective	having to do with a nation's government (as opposed to local or regional government).
  geographer	Noun	person who studies places and the relationships between people and their environments.
  hospitality	Noun	the treatment of guests.
  influential	Adjective	important; having the ability to lead the opinions or attitudes of others.
  journalist	Noun	person who reports and distributes news.
  landscape architect	Noun	person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of open spaces such as gardens.
  linen	Noun	light, thin, durable fabric made from fibers of the flax plant.
  lobby	Verb	to try to influence the action of government or other authority.
  luxurious	Adjective	rich or self-indulgent.
  mine	Verb	to extract minerals from the Earth.
  National Geographic Society	Noun	(1888) organization whose mission is "Inspiring people to care about the planet."
  national park	Noun	geographic area protected by the national government of a country.
  National Park Service	Noun	U.S. federal agency with the mission of caring "for special places saved by the American people so that all may experience our heritage."
  promote	Verb	to encourage or help.
  transportation	Noun	movement of people or goods from one place to another.
  trek	Noun	journey, especially across difficult terrain.
  unify	Verb	to become a single unit.
  USGS	Noun	(United States Geological Survey) primary source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment.	Encyclopedic Entry: USGS
  weather	Noun	state of the atmosphere, including temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind, humidity, precipitation, and cloudiness.	Encyclopedic Entry: weather