On Behalf of an Idaho Park

Back in 1916, Stephen Mather, the pioneering superintendent of national parks, endorsed the idea of a new park embracing the spectacular Sawtooth Mountains of south-central Idaho, noting that it would constitute a most important link in a chain of national parks running from Yellowstone to Mount Rainier. The proposed park, Mather said, was unusually interesting because of the variety of landscapes included, representing characteristics of the Colorado Rockies, the California Sierra and the Washington Cascades.

In 1935 a park official called the Sawtooth and related nearby ranges an area of “magnificent quality,” but recommended against park status because it was so much like the Grand Tetons in Wyoming--a national park since 1926. But Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes called the Sawtooth “a superlative area,” and said that it should not be excluded from consideration just because of its similarities with the Tetons. As the country grows, Ickes said, it will need more and more parks in different parts of the country.

Today, alas, the Sawtooth region still is not a park, and Idaho remains the only state without a national park--not counting a tiny sliver of Yellowstone. But the rugged wilderness of the Sawtooth is so compelling that the idea just will not go away. Rep. Larry E. Craig, a Republican from Boise, has assembled an advisory board to study the idea and its potential benefits. In the past, mining and agricultural interests had opposed the park, although a Forest Service recreation area was created in 1972 that gives the region some measure of protection and special recreation value.

A 1975 National Park Service document outlined an area of about 1 million acres, of which about a third would be classified as a national recreation area in which activities like ranching, hunting and mining still could be allowed. While bills to create the Sawtooth park were introduced as early as 1913, no such legislation is currently before Congress. The key is for Idaho members of Congress to agree on a proposal and to be convinced that it would be good for Idaho and its economy. If that could be done, an Idaho park measure would have little trouble passing Congress, and the nation would have a magnificent new park.