A Century of Giving

By Eric L. Reiner, Parks Magazine

Imagine no Yellowstone, no Great Smoky Mountains, no Acadia, and you begin to sense what the National Park System (and the nation) might look like without the generosity of individuals. The National Park Service is funded by Congress, and all 391 NPS sites—from parks and monuments to seashores and recreation areas—receive federal support. But for more than 100 years, the parks have received enormous benefit from the gifts of citizens, foundations and corporations. Some donations of land, buildings, money and artifacts have been staggeringly generous, in some cases not only supporting existing parks but creating new ones. Yet for every Rockefeller there are hundreds of thousands of other donors who contribute dollars, expertise or that most personal commodity of all—time.

1872

Yellowstone becomes the first national park when Congress sets aside 2.22 million acres of wilderness, mostly in Wyoming’s northwest corner, to forever be “a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”

1907

Brisk logging activity chews toward the redwood canyons north of San Francisco, spurring future congressman William Kent (shown here with parks pioneer Stephen T. Mather at right) and his wife to buy the old-growth redwood forest to protect it. The Kents donate the land, which later becomes Muir Woods National Monument, to the federal government when it’s threatened by a proposed dam project.

1910’s

Both before and after serving as first director of the National Park Service, Stephen T. Mather devotes time and personal funds to help establish the NPS and to further its mission. In Yosemite National Park, he joins with others to buy, then donate, the privately owned portion of Tioga Pass Road, securing passage through the heart of the park.

With development encroaching on the rugged shoreline and tranquil coves of idyllic Mount Desert Island, Maine, George Dorr (seated, far right) and others form a corporation to acquire land for preservation. Their donation of 5,000 acres leads to the first national park east of the Mississippi—once named Lafayette National Park, in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette’s role in securing American independence, but known since 1929 as Acadia.

1920’s

Troubled by felled timber and other clutter along roadsides in Yellowstone, John D. Rockefeller Jr. donates $12,000 to clear a stretch of road as an experiment. Thrilled by the result, the philanthropist funds cleanup throughout the park. Congress eventually begins including funds for clearing brush in appropriations for new park roads, such as this one with a stagecoach in Yellowstone National Park.

Modest until now, park museums rise to a new level with gifts from the Rockefellers for museums at Yellowstone (the Norris Museum, shown here), Yosemite and (with Stella Leviston) Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado. Rockefeller money also helps erect the Yavapai Observation Station on the Grand Canyon National Park’s South Rim.

1933

National monuments and military parks (such as Gettysburg National Military Park, pictured here) under War Department jurisdiction are transferred to the National Park Service.

1940’s

Unable to attract a buyer for the family mansion, Margaret Louise Van Allen heeds the urging of her Hyde Park, N.Y., neighbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and donates the 54-room, opulently furnished home to establish the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site

1945

The Fort Frederica Association, a preservationist group seen here breaking ground on the Fort Frederica National Monument, donates the remains of a fortification that colonial leader James Oglethorpe built in 1736 on the Georgia coast to keep the Spanish in Florida at bay.

1946

Outside Boston, the home of presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, owned by Adams descendants, is donated to the park service by the Adams Memorial Society and becomes Adams National Historical Park.

Watercolors, pencil sketches and personal items of western art icon William Henry Jackson arrive at Scott’s Bluff National Monument in the Nebraska panhandle, a gift of the Pioneer Trails Association. Businessman-conservationist Julius Stone builds a museum wing to display the collection

1950’s

Philanthropist Paul Mellon, son of former treasury secretary and financier Andrew Mellon (left, about to embark for Bermuda), along with the State of North Carolina, help fund the Park Service’s acquisition of the Outer Banks for the first shore park, Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Paul and his sister, Alisa Mellon Bruce, also underwrite coastal and Great Lakes shoreline surveys that lead to the creation of additional national lake- and seashores

1954

Claud E. Fuller, fascinated by the history of military firearms, builds an epic collection, and his gift of 355 long-arm rifles to Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park in northwest Georgia includes everything from Revolutionary War muskets to the Springfield rifle, standard military issue during World War I.

1959

A young oil-company geologist is promised “the most beautiful spot in Texas” when he travels to the high desert mountains between Pecos and El Paso. An ancient sea’s fossilized reef, hidden woodlands and abundant wildlife eventually inspire Wallace Pratt to buy McKittrick Canyon (Pratt shown here in his beloved canyon), where he vacationed with his family until donating his cabin and unspoiled land during the late 1950s to create the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

1966

Seemingly unrelated experiences—touring the concert halls of Europe and witnessing urban sprawl spill out from our nation’s capital —inspire Catherine Filene Shouse to donate farmland in northern Virginia, along with money for Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. Shouse, seated at center with Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus, is shown at the park’s annual opening reception

1967

Congress creates the National Park Foundation as the national charitable partner of America’s national parks, to accept gifts from private citizens and strengthen the connection between the American people and their parks

1980’s

Business executive Lee Iacocca leads the largest park fund-raising effort ever, bringing in more than $350 million from individuals, corporations, foundations and nonprofits to renovate the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island’s Great Hall. Pennies contributed by schoolchildren from across the country help pay for Liberty’s new platform

Donation boxes show up in parks. Today Pearl Harbor visitors pour $300,000 into the boxes at the USS Arizona Memorial

1990

A $10.5 million gift from the Richard Mellon King Foundation aids four Civil War battlefields—Fredericksburg, Antietam, Petersburg and Gettysburg—as well as Shenandoah National Park, high in the Virginia Blue Ridge mountains, and the Spanish mission and Pecos Indian pueblo ruins of New Mexico’s Pecos National Historical Park.

1996–7

Four corporations donate at least $1 million each to fund significant improvements throughout the National Park System. Canon U.S.A. and Toyota U.S.A. fund educational programs, and a gift from American Airlines provides grants to improve trails throughout the National Park System. Also, Target stores help underwrite the Washington Monument restoration

1999

A 10-year drive for funds to give Mount Rushmore National Memorial a facelift concludes after raising $56 million

2000

Corporate stewardship takes a major step forward with the launch of the Proud Partner program. These national partnerships help the NPF provide critical support across the National Park System, increase public awareness and encourage individual giving. Support from companies has included American Airlines, Discovery Communications, Ford Motor Company, Kodak and Unilever, and has been valued at approximately $75 million.

2001

Save-the-Redwoods League acquires and donates the largest grove of giant sequoia trees in private ownership to Sequoia National Park at a cost of $10.3 million

2005

The Yosemite Fund raises $13.5 million to refurbish and enlarge the viewing area at iconic Lower Yosemite Falls, with more than $11 million coming from 14,000 private contributors

Photo: Eivind T. Scoyen, NPS Historic Archive; Henry G Peabody, NPS Historic Archive; F. Ransom, NPS Historic Archive; Courtesy of Acadia National Park; E.B. Thompson, NPS Historic Archive; National Park Foundation; Courtesy of the Museum at Yellowstone National Park; National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection; Courtesy of Fort Frederica National Monument; Courtesy of Scotts Bluff National Monument; Courtesy of Library of Congress; Courtesy of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park; Courtesy of the National Park Service; George Doyle/Getty Images; Don Cabrera, NPS Historic Archive; Courtesy of Library of Congress; and the National Park Foundation.