The Lobbying Push to Make Mount Rainier a National Park
Senators and scientists press a Senate committee to carve a national park out of the forest reserve surrounding Mount Rainier — before the session runs out.
Washington City, Feb. 24 — Special. The fate of the Washington National Park, to be carved out of a portion of the Pacific forest reserve surrounding Mount Rainier, is a matter of solicitude to Senator Squire and others. If it is not established at this session, it will be through no lack of hard work on the part of either before the Senate committee on public lands, where the matter has long been pending. Senator Squire was before the committee again yesterday, accompanied by Prof. Gardiner G. Hubbard, president of the National Geographical Society, and Prof. Bailey Willis of the Geological Survey, all of whom advocated the beauty and utility of the park. It is believed a favorable impression was made on the committee.
“If it is not established at this session it will be through no lack of hard work on the part of either before the senate committee on public lands.”
Mount Rainier became a national park four years later, in 1899, and now draws well over two million visitors a year. This 1895 lobbying fight — preservationists against those who saw the mountain's forests and minerals as resources to be exploited — is the same argument that still shapes how Washington manages its public lands.
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