Part 3

... regarding the Bad Lands National Park, [I] will state that the Park Service here will not approve a bill of that kind,—and therefore, we can not secure the legislation. They are, however, willing to approve the plan of having it designated by the President as a “National Monument”. In practice, this means nearly the same thing, so Congressman Williamson and I have come to an agreement that we are going to accept that plan and work it out that way.[82]

Nevertheless, Norbeck continued to work for a national park instead of a national monument.

To insure that he would include the most scenic parts of the region in the proposed park, Norbeck made frequent trips there. In answer to a constituent’s letter, he wrote in November 1927, “I have visited the Bad Lands every year for sixteen years. A year ago I spent four or five days in them and this year I have made five trips into that area.”[84] During 1927 a number of eastern newspapers carried photographs of the Badlands in their Sunday photo sections.[85]

In the late 1920’s Badlands visitors who arrived from the east via Kadoka or Cottonwood probably used Cedar Pass. The narrow and precipitous route through Cedar Pass was aptly described by one of those early visitors:

The passes become more crooked and the grades more steep. The road is bordered by profuse scrub cedar trees. There is a thrill in that drive! At first it looks dangerous, but the danger seems to minimize as we approach each more steep and more crooked and more narrow section. By taking it slowly the risk is small.[86]

The route passed the new Cedar Pass Camp (now Cedar Pass Lodge) and took visitors to the railroad town of Interior where they may have spent some time at Palmer’s Curio shop and at Henry Thompson’s souvenir stand which he called “The Wonderland.” From Interior visitors traveled west over the Washington Highway to the railroad town of Scenic. In the late 1920’s the Museum Filling Station in Scenic was widely known for its collection of Badlands fossils and Indian artifacts. They also provided guide services to visitors desiring to see Badlands features located off the road. Rapid City was reached by traveling northwest over 45 miles of good dirt road—except during rains.[87]

Support for the park proposal grew in the late 1920’s. In October 1927 the Wonderland Hiway Association, in a letter to Senator Norbeck, wrote:

At a meeting of the Wonderland Hiway Association, an orgization [sic] comprising the business men and local residenters [sic] of the Towns through the Bad Lands, It was resolved; That the Association would ask and petition the State Hiway Commission ... for a State Hiway, Starting from Kadoka, West over Cedar Pass to Interior, S. Dak. West through The Bad Lands to Scenic over Hiway #40 and from Scenic to Hermosa, S. Dak., Providing a sutable [sic] location can be found.[88]

The State Highway Commission gave the proposal its wholehearted support.[89]

The National Park Service, however, continued to oppose the area as a national park on two grounds. For one thing much of the land was in private ownership. Senator Norbeck explained in a 1927 letter:

The Park program is not as easy as it seems on account of so much of the land having gone into Private ownership. The Federal Government will not purchase land for park purposes. They never have. The State must and that will come slow.[90]

In the second place, the National Park Service believed that the area was more suitable as a national monument. The Senator continued in the same letter:

The Park Service is opposed to making it a National Park as they try to limit the Parks to the areas that are principally recreational. They would favor a plan to make the Bad Lands a “National Monument.”[91]

Despite the objections of the Service to the Senator’s park proposal, Norbeck’s continued desire for a national park in the Badlands was stated in a letter written in November 1927 to Hubert Work, Secretary of the Interior:

The Congressional delegation from this state will be united in an effort to create a Bad Lands National Park in South Dakota. If this is impossible they will desire to have certain areas set aside as national monuments.[92]

In April 1928 Norbeck wrote Representative Williamson asking him to help draft a bill for the park. The first part of the bill, Norbeck indicated, would “include the Badlands Wall proper, from a point about 4 miles east of Interior to a point 12 or 14 miles southwest of Wall.”[93] The establishment of the park would be contingent on the building of a road by the State through the proposed area and the State acquiring 90 percent of the privately owned lands within it. The second part of the bill would authorize a national monument which would include Sheep Mountain and the surrounding area, some six to seven miles southwest of Scenic. The authorization of this area would be conditional upon the construction of a highway from Scenic to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and acquisition of the lands within the proposed monument by the State of South Dakota. The third portion of the bill would authorize the abandonment of Wind Cave National Park![94]

The bills as finally presented to Congress by Norbeck and Williamson were somewhat different from the one which the Senator planned.

During the first session of the 70th Congress, Norbeck and Williamson introduced identical legislation in their respective houses on May 8, 1928, to set aside the Badlands as a national park. Norbeck introduced S. 4385, “A Bill To establish Teton National Park in the State of South Dakota....” The bill authorized the Secretary of the Interior, through negotiation, to exchange privately owned lands within the proposed park for public lands of equal value outside. The bill contained a provision that when 90 percent of the privately owned lands within the proposed area had been acquired without expense to the federal treasury and transferred to the government for park purposes, the park would be set aside for the people, “... Provided, That the State of South Dakota shall have first constructed” approximately 40 miles of suitable road to specified points inside and outside the proposed park.[95]

Norbeck’s bill was referred to the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys. On May 19 the bill was reported out without amendment. The accompanying report (No. 1246) gave a strong endorsement to the proposal.[96] On May 23, the bill was considered as in Committee of the Whole and passed the Senate.[97]

However, in the House where Williamson had introduced an identical bill (H.R. 13618), the park proposal ran into trouble. In a circular letter dated November 7, 1928, the National Parks Association claimed that the proposed Teton National Park had not been examined for standards by the National Park Service before the Senate acted on the proposal and that the bill was hurried through that body. Asserting that the proposed area was reported below standard by the National Park Service, the association charged:

Neither of these Senators [Norbeck and Nye], nor the Public Lands Committee which reported the bill and resolution, nor the Senate sessions which carelessly passed them, discussed the national aspects of this legislation. They did not consider the plan and standards of the national system which Congress had been building unit by unit, each painstakingly chosen, since 1872. They ignored the half century Congressional custom of awaiting the report of the Interior Department, to which Congress had entrusted the System’s shaping from the beginning. They ignored the American people’s enthusiastic interest in the plan and purpose of this unique world-famous institution, and its insistence in recent years upon park selection by the expert National Park Service....

Thoughtlessness, apparently, but in practice this amounts to localism defying national aspirations. It seriously threatens national park standards.[98]

In a letter to Robert S. Yard, Executive Secretary of the association, Senator Norbeck accused the association of sending out a misleading report:

You criticise me for introducing and securing action in the Senate on a bill fifteen days after it was introduced and especially in view of the fact that it had not been investigated by the National Park Service.

You could truthfully have said that this legislation has been pending for a great many years—at least five years.

You could also have said that I have been trying all these years to get the Park Service to investigate the proposed area.

You could also have added that the Government land in this area was withdrawn by Presidential Proclamation many years ago in anticipation of park legislation. Why carry the idea that it was all a fifteen day affair when it is all of five years? It would be a hard rule to apply that the failure of the Park Service to investigate an important project should preclude a member of Congress from taking any action whatever....

You also state that the project has been investigated by the Park Service and reported adversely. It is an astonishing fact that the knowledge of such reports should be withheld from me. Therefore, I doubt very much that any report has been made. I therefore wired the Park Service, asking who made the report and when. I have no response.[99]

Acting Director Arthur E. Demaray of the National Park Service, meanwhile, wrote Norbeck advising him that the Service had never prepared an official report on the park proposal and that the statement by the association that the proposed park was “reported below standard by the National Park Service” was without authority.[100]

In the House of Representatives where the proposal was considered in the second session, the bill (S. 4385) underwent substantial revision. After being considered by the Committee on the Public Lands, it was reported out with amendments on February 19, 1929.[101] The revised bill changed the boundary of the proposed area, reducing it from 69,120 acres to about 50,760 acres[102] (50,830 acres according to another source[103]). The name was changed from Teton National Park to Badlands National Monument. It modified the requirements for the road which the state had to construct from 40 miles to 30 miles of total length. The requirement that 90 percent of the privately owned lands had to be acquired before the park could be established was dropped. Instead, it was now at the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior to decide when enough privately owned lands within the proposed boundary had been purchased so that the area could be proclaimed a national monument by the President. As before, the bill stipulated that the lands would have to be acquired without cost to the federal treasury. The amended bill had a new provision that the Department of the Interior could grant hotel and lodge franchises in advance of the fulfillment of the conditions.[104]

The amended bill was considered by the Committee of the Whole House on February 25, six days after the Committee on the Public Lands had acted on it. Two additional amendments were offered on the floor of the House and were accepted. The idea that the Secretary of the Interior could decide when enough privately owned land had been purchased so that the area could be proclaimed as a national monument was dropped in favor of requiring all privately owned land within the proposed boundary be purchased before the area could be established. The provision giving the Department of the Interior authority to grant franchises in advance of the establishment of the national monument was also deleted. This amended form passed the House of Representatives on the same day, February 25.[105]

When the House act was referred to the Senate on the next day, Norbeck asked his colleagues not to concur with the amended proposal. He asked instead that the modified bill be considered in a conference committee of the House and Senate.[106] On March 2, the conference committee recommended that the two amendments that were attached to the bill on the floor of the House on February 25 be dropped, returning the bill to the form it had when it was originally reported out on February 19.[107]

On the same day, March 2, the final bill was passed by both houses.[108] Known as Public Law No. 1021, the act authorizing Badlands National Monument was approved by President Calvin Coolidge on March 4, 1929. The signing of the act took place on the last day of Coolidge’s term as President of the United States.[109]

The area authorized under this act (45 Stat. 1553) included 50,830.40 acres; of this amount, 39,893.85 acres were in the public domain. The remainder was state land or privately owned land.[110]

It is interesting to note that Senator Norbeck introduced a new bill (S. 5779) to establish Badlands National Monument on February 11, 1929. It was identical with the House amendments proposed for S. 4385 which were later reported out by the Committee on the Public Lands on February 19. The new bill, after being referred to the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys, was returned on February 20 with Senate Report 1842.[111] Meanwhile, Williamson introduced H. 17102 in the House, which was identical to S. 5779; it was referred to the Committee on the Public Lands.[112] Both of these bills died without further consideration.

THE DEPRESSION YEARS

Among local persons who worked hard toward the establishment of Badlands National Monument after it was authorized in 1929 were Ben H. Millard, the original owner of Cedar Pass Lodge; A.G. Granger of Kadoka; Leonel Jensen, local rancher; Ted E. Hustead, owner and operator of the well-known Wall Drug Store; and Dr. G.W. Mills of Wall.[113]

Of these individuals, Mr. Millard made the greatest contribution to the establishment and development of the national monument. Born September 15, 1872, in Minnesota, he moved to South Dakota in 1893 with his parents. Millard entered the banking business in Sanborn County in 1899. In 1917 he sold his banking interests and entered the State of South Dakota Banking Department. On an assignment to Philip, South Dakota, Millard first saw the Badlands and became interested in them. He left the Banking Department and moved into the Badlands in 1927, homesteading below Cedar Pass on the present site of Cedar Pass Lodge, which he later built and operated.[114]

Millard worked closely with Senator Norbeck on development plans for the proposed Badlands National Monument. From September 1934 through July 1936, he was employed as a local Resettlement Administration project manager. In this capacity he was responsible for federal acquisition of private lands, most of which later became part of the national monument after it was established in 1939. The alignment of the first Badlands road, alternate U.S. 16, was largely a result of his ideas. In 1931 he selected what he believed to be the most scenic route, and staked it out with the aid of his employee, E.N. “Curley” Nelson (who returned to the Badlands in 1964 to become the first concessioner of Cedar Pass Lodge). Millard and his sister, Mrs. Clara Jennings, and later his son, Herbert, operated the Pinnacles concession from about 1935 to 1950.[115] Three important parcels of land were donated by Millard to the NPS in 1941, 1946, and 1955 for inclusion in Badlands National Monument.[116] Millard died at Cedar Pass Lodge in March 1956.

In special ceremonies on June 28, 1957, Millard Ridge, a prominent portion of the Badlands wall six-tenths of a mile long just east of Cedar Pass, was named and dedicated to his memory.[117]

In 1929 western South Dakota, in common with most of the farm belt, had been suffering almost a decade from the deflation which followed World War I. Both farmers and ranchers had been unable to fulfill obligations assumed during an earlier period of high prices. Many of the banks of the state were forced to close.[119]

With the beginning of the Great Depression in the fall of 1929, conditions became increasingly worse. A combination of disasters which included grasshopper infestations, crop failures, and drought struck the country. The south central and western counties of the state were most severely affected by these disasters.[120]

Several government programs on both the federal and state levels were authorized to assist those in need. The NPS made use of a number of these programs in various ways during the 1930’s.

In November 1934, NPS Director Arno B. Cammerer recommended to Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes that additional area be approved for inclusion in the proposed Badlands National Monument. He contended that the proposed additions, which included a portion of Sheep Mountain, were as outstanding as the area originally authorized by Congress in 1929. Wildlife problems and administrative difficulties of the originally proposed area would be lessened by the change in boundary.[121]

In order to implement the proposed boundary change Mr. Cammerer recommended (1) that the President should be asked to issue an Executive Order withdrawing all public lands involved; (2) that all privately owned lands be acquired through an existing federal government relief program; and (3) that the next session of Congress be asked to establish the Badlands National Monument with the boundaries now recommended.[122]

The Secretary of the Interior approved the proposal for the boundary extension and in the same month President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that all unreserved and unappropriated public lands in Pennington, Jackson, Fall River, and Custer Counties be

temporarily withdrawn from settlement, location, sale, or entry, for classification and use as a grazing project pursuant to the submarginal land program of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.[123]

By January 1, 1935, the NPS had already obtained options for 23,000 acres from private land owners living within the proposed boundary extension area. This work was being done under the auspices of the Land Program section of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) which had been authorized by Congress in 1933.[124]

Early in April 1935, the NPS completed the “Final Report on the Badlands National Monument Extension Project, South Dakota R-1.” The report included both the area previously authorized under Public Law 1021 and the proposed extension. The area, to be known as the Badlands Recreational Demonstration Project, would include 119,557.88 acres, of which 72,316.22 were privately owned. The proposed boundary extension received the support of Governor Tom Berry, Senator Norbeck, President C.C. O’Harra of the South Dakota School of Mines, and a number of prominent geologists, naturalists, educators, and others.[125]

In a letter to Harry L. Hopkins, FERA Administrator, on April 15, 1935, Acting Secretary of the Interior T.A. Walters wrote:

I hereby recommend for purchase certain lands for a project known as the Badlands National Monument Extension in Jackson, Pennington, Washington and Washabaugh Counties, South Dakota, proposed by the National Park Service of this Department for the conservation and development of the natural resources of the United States, within the meaning of Section 202 of Title II of the National Industrial Recovery Act, pursuant to which funds have been allotted and transferred to the Land Program, Federal Emergency Relief Administration.[126]

Secretary Walters further stated that this project came within the classification of lands as stated in a memorandum to him dated July 16, 1934. In it the Director of the Land Program said:

Demonstration Recreational Projects: These include projects in which the land to be purchased is to be used primarily for recreational purposes, as submitted by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior.[127]

The Secretary of the Interior recommended that the Badlands National Monument Extension be accepted as a Demonstration Recreational Project of the Land Program, FERA. The project was approved and adopted by the Land Program. The NPS expected that the cost of all the lands considered would not average more than $2.66 per acre.[128]

Meanwhile, President Roosevelt, by a series of executive orders, created the Resettlement Administration, an independent agency, and transferred to it the land and related activities of the FERA. The Resettlement Administration operated until the end of 1936 when its powers, functions, and duties were transferred to the Secretary of Agriculture. Later, the name “Resettlement Administration” was changed to the Farm Security Administration.[129]

The work of appraising, securing options on, and purchasing private lands, begun under the submarginal land program of the FERA, continued under the Resettlement Administration.

In a 1935 letter to Assistant NPS Director Conrad L. Wirth, Senator Norbeck pointed out some of the problems and drawbacks of the land acquisition program by writing:

The land varies a great deal in quality, and the poor lands are being obtained for the scheduled price, but the good lands are not.

He went on to say that

A very large percentage of this land, maybe thirty to fifty per cent, is on the tax delinquency list, with about four years of taxes. The price offered is less than the taxes held against the land, and the owner is not anxious to sell if he cannot get a nickel out of it....

Considerable of these lands, however, have already been abandoned by the owner on account of the amount of taxes due.[130]

Counties were reluctant to sell land to the federal government because this would mean withdrawal from the tax lists, thus reducing the counties’ incomes. Norbeck recommended that the federal government pay more for the land by a “boost of one dollar an acre....”[131] Meetings were being held in various parts of the region to protest the low prices being offered.[132]

The desperate situation of the times was expressed well in a letter dated September 2, 1935, from a local rancher’s wife who wrote:

After 6 years [of] crop failures on the so called submarginal land of Western South Dakota we are facing financial disaster unless we sell our land to the government.[133]

During the same month, the average price being offered per acre was $2.85.[134]

To gain Congressional approval for the boundary extension of the proposed Badlands National Monument, the proponents secured the attachment of a rider to the Taylor Grazing Bill revision authorizing the enlargement. The grazing bill was vetoed in 1935 although there was no opposition to the rider.[135]