Colorado -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Outdoor books; Rocky Mountain National Park (Colo.) -- History; Rocky Mountains
But the attractions in the Alps are being preserved, while the Rocky
Mountains are being stripped of their scenery. Yet in the Rocky
Mountains there are many areas rich in perishable attractions which
might well be reserved as parks so that their natural beauties could
be kept unmarred. It is to be hoped that the growing interest in
American scenery will bring this about before these wild mountain
gardens are shorn of their loveliness.[1]
[1] Since this was put into type, the Rocky Mountain National Park,
after a campaign of six years, has been established, and
campaigns have started to make National Parks of Mount Evans
and Pike's Peak. And the Secretary of the Interior has appointed
a Superintendent of National Parks and called attention to the
great need of legislation for these Parks.
The United States is behind most nations in making profitable use of
scenery. Alpine scenery annually produces upward of ten thousand
dollars to the square mile, while the Rocky Mountains are being
despoiled by cattle and sawmills for a few dollars a square mile.
Though Switzerland has already accomplished much along scenic
conservation lines, it is working for still better results. It is
constructing modern hotels throughout the Alps and is exploiting the
winter as well as the summer use of these. The Canadian Government has
done and is doing extensive development work in its national parks. It
is preparing a welcome for multitudes of travelers; travelers are
responding in numbers.
The unfortunate fact is that our scenery has never had a standing. To
date, it has been an outcast. Often lauded as akin to the fine arts,
or something sacred, commonly it is destroyed or put to base uses.
Parks should no longer be used as pigpens and pastures. These base
uses prevent the parks from paying dividends in humanity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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