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The Hidden Landscape ofYosemite National ParkCraig E. Colten a & Lary M. Dilsaver ba Louisiana State University , Baton Rouge, LA,70803b University of South Alabama , Mobile, AL, 36688Published online: 28 Jul 2009.

To cite this article: Craig E. Colten & Lary M. Dilsaver (2005) The Hidden Landscapeof Yosemite National Park, Journal of Cultural Geography, 22:2, 27-50, DOI:10.1080/08873630509478238

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journal of Cultural Geography Spring/Summer 2005 • 22(21:27-50

The Hidden Landscape of Yosemite National Park

Craig E. Colten and Lary M. Dilsaver

ABSTRACT. National parks share many obvious landscape characteristics. One of them goes largely unnoticed—infrastructure to provide water, sewerage, and garbage services. This paper traces the gradual adoption of romantic-era concepts about shielding human intrusions in parks from public view by Park Service landscape designers during the early twentieth century. It focuses on sewerage, water, and garbage facilities which were essential to serve growing numbers of visitors, but highly antithetical to the idea of wilderness parks. After several years of ad hoc practice, the Park Service ultimately crafted specific guidelines on how best to sequester sanitation and other intrusive facilities from view. These largely unnoticed utilities safeguard the public health of visitors and contribute to the consistent landscape of the park system.

INTRODUCTION

Two very dynamic forces have been at work in shaping the human landscape of Yosemite National Park. Since the U.S. government established the national park in 1890 and assumed management of the popular Yosemite Valley in 1906 (Fig. 1), two central tenets of federal administration have been to preserve the wild scenery of the rugged setting and to provide comfortable access for the visiting public. As visitor numbers soared during the first third of the twentieth century, short-term populations exceeded those of small cities and the Park Service had to constantly upgrade and enlarge the fundamental sanitation services available to visitors. In an effort to avoid unsightly intrusions on the natural landscape, the Park Service developed a policy of screening or sequestering the essential, but intrusive water, sewerage, and garbage facilities.1

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Hidden Landscape of Yosemite • 29

Although geographers tend to focus on the visible elements of the landscape, landscape is more than meets the eye. This is particularly important in the National Park Service as an organization that has set a worldwide precedent for creating and tending a unique landscape.

These precious asylums, officially wild and geologically, biologically, or historically memorable places, do vary greatly in size, shape, and appearance, but there are certain family resemblances, visual clues that set them apart from ordinary terrain (Zelinsky 1990, 316).

There are also certain largely invisible elements that contribute to those "family resemblances." Thomas and Geraldine Vale compared photographic images from the early and late twentieth century to track human impacts in Yosemite National Park. Their careful analysis of these photographic pairs identified numerous human influences on the natural landscape, but they concluded that "as crowded and developed as Yosemite Valley may be, it is still a pristine wilderness compared to the surrounding landscapes" (Vale and Vale 1994, 138). Beyond the heavily developed valley, the humanized landscapes within the park are even less evident. This suggests the federal influence of hiding intrusive landscape features has been highly effective.

This paper traces the evolution of the concept behind obscuring undesirable human structures in the parks. Congress set aside Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove for preservation and assigned the state of California their administration in 1864. One year later, noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted proclaimed that development should not intrude on the park's scenic wonders (Olmsted [1865] 1994). When the U.S. Army commenced management of a larger territory that surrounded the valley in 1890, it received a mandate to expel trespassing grazers, lumberjacks, and miners who were diminishing the park's natural wonders. In 1906, when California yielded administration of Yosemite Valley, federal authorities had to deal with sanitation problems stemming from a growing number of visitors who favored this portion of the sprawling park (Fig. 1). And finally, when Congress created the National Park Service in 1916, the new agency embarked on a course to protect the scenery, while also ensuring comfort and health for visitors. In order to do so, they had to expend considerable effort to hide the public works infrastructure in the park's most heavily visited sections.

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Yosemite National Park is not unique in shielding what the Park Service considers intrusive features. Nonetheless, it is the focus of this study for three reasons. It was one of the earliest units and western Park Service officials worked out the process of making unwanted features invisible in this region. In addition, Yosemite's vast and awe-inspiring landscape, not singular unique features like geysers, provided the impetus to set it aside as a park. Thus, any intrusive elements anywhere could interfere with visitor enjoyment of the heralded panoramas. Finally, Yosemite was the object of substantial publicity and was proximate to a large urban population in San Francisco (Muir 1890a and 1890b). These factors encouraged heavy visitation and placed exceptional demands on the park's facilities. Ultimately, what became apparent in Yosemite National Park was that the landscape obscured is equally as important as the scenery that is showcased (Herring 2004).

DEVELOPING AN IDEA

The idea of hiding human infrastructure in a natural or wilderness setting developed more than a century before Yosemite's establishment as a state park in 1864. American ideas of landscape design derive from those promulgated in Britain during the middle and late eighteenth century (Carr 1998; Downing 1859; McClelland 1998). During that time British artists experienced a challenge to the classical style that imposed an orderly human dominion over the natural environment. In what has been called the "romantic movement," artists, authors, architects, and others instead sought the expression and inspiration of emotion in their works (Nardone and Okashimo 1982). English landscape gardening also faced this transition from a rigid formality to a more romantic sensibility. Two forms of landscape design became available for the estate owner— the beautiful and the picturesque. The former was part of the classical tradition and emphasized orderly, neat lines and prominent human additions such as large buildings and manicured lawns as the foci of attention. The picturesque style called for a rustic, natural, and vaguely unkempt scene in which human necessities such as residences and roads would be secondary and, to the greatest degree possible, visually integrated (Conway 1991; Downing 1859; Repton 1806).

The leading English landscape gardener of the early nineteenth century, Humphrey Repton, expressed the fundamental

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ideal of the picturesque design in his popular 1806 treatise on landscape fashion:

[The landscape garden] must studiously conceal every interference of art, however expensive, by which the natural scenery is improved; making the whole appear the production of nature only; and all objects of mere convenience or comfort, if incapable of being made ornamental or of becoming proper parts of the general scenery must be removed or concealed (Repton 1806, 33-34).

Subsequently American landscape designers elaborated on these principles. In the United States, the romantic movement celebrated the wilderness character of the country, partially in response to European derision of the unrefined culture and unattractive settlements of the young nation. Andrew Jackson Downing in particular translated the English picturesque ideal to the American scene and influenced generations of landscape architects. In the many editions of his popular guide to landscape design, Downing stressed the importance of "unity of expression" and "harmony" in the landscape (Downing 1859, 62-68, 393-412). He noted in 1849 that the picturesque had become more popular and reiterated the need to make any additions blend into the scene. As for infrastructure such as water pipes, he suggested hiding them under walkways even within a conservatory (greenhouse) to avoid detracting from the scene (Downing 1859).

In the late 1850s, the most important landscape design project in American history to that time began at Central Park in New York. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed this extraordinary island of nature to contrast as completely as possible, given the required buildings and pathways, with the surrounding urban scene. Their design stemmed from the maturation of the romantic idea that people, especially the working classes, could mentally and physically benefit from access to a natural, picturesque place (Beveridge and Schuyler 1983). Olmsted and Vaux emphasized the picturesque wherever possible and extended the concept of veiling inappropriate features by planting trees around the park's borders to block the view of the city outside. Other, "purely constructive features" were kept below the plane of sight and entirely concealed or buried if feasible. Most notable was the entrenchment of crosstown thoroughfares that traversed the park. The establishment of Central Park spurred many other cities to seek urban parks and to follow the design philosophy of Olmsted and Vaux (Beveridge and Schuyler 1983, and see Young 2004).

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32 • journal of Cultural Geography

As the urban park movement matured, the romantic era also spawned the development of state and national parks. Playing wilderness hunter or Indian became a popular avocation of the wealthy and they sought out wilderness settings for their adventures. At the same time the mighty sights of the American West awed explorers, tourists, and eventually, through various forms of media, the public. Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias became the first major non-urban park in 1864 when Congress removed the land from the public domain and transferred its management to California. In 1872, legislators set aside the Yellowstone area as a national park because there was no state to administer it (Runte 1987). By the time Congress created the National Park Service in 1916, John Muir had stirred the popular sentiments into what Roderick Nash characterized as the American cult of the wilderness (Nash 1967). Mui r ' s writing celebrated the rugged character of Yosemite and portrayed the landscape as a wilderness cathedral (Muir 1890a and 1890b).

California, meanwhile , asked Frederick Law Olmsted for recommendat ions on the operation of Yosemite Valley. He replied with a lengthy statement of both philosophical and practical ideals that the state should pursue in managing an unspoiled, hence inherently picturesque, landscape:

The first point to be kept in mind then is the preservation and maintenance as exactly as possible of the natural scenery; the restriction, that is to say, within the narrowest limits consistent with the necessary accommodation of visitors, of all artificial constructions and the prevention of all constructions markedly inharmonious with the scenery or which would unnecessarily obscure, distort or detract from the dignity of the scenery (Olmsted [1865] 1994, 22-23).

Thus, by the time Congress established Yosemite, a century of tradition and a phi losophy of romanticism demanded that managers screen infrastructure in a picturesque scene, especially those elements " inharmonious" with a wilderness enclave.

Although California's Yosemite Park Commission did not aggressively pursue Olmsted 's ideals in Yosemite Valley (Runte 1990), the National Park Service inherited much from the urban park movement . According to Terence Young (1996), the concept of a national park system derived from the American Civic Association which envisioned the national parks as America's "larger playgrounds ." Fundamenta l to its vision w a s that parks contained

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natural elements and provided scenic beauty (Young 1996). On the eve of the Park Services' inception, Mark Daniels, its first landscape engineer, declared a formative concept about landscape preservation. He pointed out that while some land has value for its timber or minerals, the parks' economic and aesthetic value derived from scenery and that it was to the country's advantage to preserve this resource. "Natural phenomena," such as great canyons and waterfalls had "an educational value that can not be estimated." As such, they were worthy of protection. Additionally, one of the fundamental functions of parks was to further "knowledge and health" [emphasis added]. In terms of health he referred specifically to the medicinal qualities of places like Hot Springs, Arkansas, while recognizing that parks also should provide adequate facilities to prevent the spread of disease. And finally, he included in his "general policy" the statement that "to foster tourist travel it will be necessary to develop the roads, trails, and other accommodations in the parks to a point where the traveler will not be subjected to serious discomfort" (Daniels 1915, 846). Comfort included lodging and food services, but also the removal of nuisances and health threats by way of water, sewerage, and garbage service.

CONFLICTING IDEAS

During the late nineteenth century, urban America went through what J.B. Jackson has called the "sanitary awakening" which resulted in fundamental landscape changes (Jackson 1972, 228). Historian Joel Tarr (1996) characterized the process as a "search for the ultimate sink" during which urban residents gradually replaced private wells and privies with municipal public water and later sewerage systems. Subterranean water delivery systems became increasingly common in the second half of the nineteenth century and revolutionized domestic sanitation as households abandoned privies and installed interior water closets. Gradually wells and outhouses disappeared from the urban landscape. Plumbing discharged sewage from the internal facilities to buried septic tanks or other receptacles that released effluent into the earth. With increasing population densities and also increased sewage volumes that exceeded the soil's absorption capabilities, cities by the end of the nineteenth century turned to municipal sewerage systems to transport the effluent to an alternate sink for dilution. As a result, cities relied on large rivers and lakes as sinks and sewage entered waterways untreated. Downstream

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communities had to treat often polluted raw water before sending it through delivery systems to consumers. To deal with public water supplies overwhelmed by waterborne bacteria, after the acceptance of germ theory, municipalities began to chlorinate their water supplies to insure their purity in the twentieth century. By the 1920s, many cities had begun to construct sewage treatment systems as they finally took responsibility for their discharges (Melosi 2000). Consequently, large water and later sewage treatment facilities appeared near most cities.

It was in this context that the first assessment of Yosemite's sanitary condition was carried out and the inherent conflict between nature preservation and public sanitation became obvious. The park's acting superintendent noted in 1907 that river pollution was a problem and that the water delivery system needed improvements. In particular, campers were taking their water from the river that also received wastes from the hotel and these circumstances presented a public health problem (USDI 1907). M.O. Leighton, the chief hydrographer of the U.S. Geological Survey, visited Yosemite in 1907 to formulate a professional appraisal of the situation. He claimed that "the most important consideration with maintenance of Yosemite Valley as a tourist resort is the water supply" (Leighton 1908, 437). While bacteria and nuisance conditions were invisible in the landscape, urban-like pollution problems were wholly unacceptable in a national park. Leighton pointed out that "below the hotel the water is grossly polluted and the superintendent of the park properly refused to permit campers to occupy any of the sites along the lower portion of the valley" (Leighton 1908, 438). He acknowledged that it would be impossible to completely restore the river's pristine condition and that the river would have to carry some sewage. Consequently, the park could not rely on the river for its potable water supply. In addition, he argued that since visitors and downstream communities continued to use the foul water that it was essential to treat sewage to minimize risk (Leighton 1908). In keeping with urban remedies for nature overwhelmed, Leighton recommended turning to more remote pure water supplies and its delivery to the places where people congregated.

Work on a "collecting well" where water from springs would be collected and fed into a delivery system for Yosemite Valley began in the summer of 1911 and installation of a new set of delivery pipes took place the following year (USDI 1912 and 1913). There was virtually no discussion about the landscape impacts of

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these improvements , however. Public health concerns were the driving force. When more water becomes available to consumers , a corresponding increase in sewage inevitably results and this was the case in Yosemite Valley. By 1913 the superintendent declared a need for a sewerage system terminating in a septic tank. Waste effluent from the hotel and workers residences, plus cesspools at various campgrounds , flowed into park streams. "In consequence of these conditions, the waters of the Merced River, which is a beautiful mountain stream, and should be maintained by the United States, are polluted" (USDI1914,723). Thus h u m a n wastes were despoiling nature and bringing what had been largely urban nuisances into what many visitors considered a wilderness. Balancing the demands of allowing visitor access and preserving scenery has long been a problem the Park Service has faced (Dilsaver 1992). To contend with these particular problems, water, sewerage, and garbage facilities were necessary, and they would have an impact on the park 's landscape.

PUTTING AN IDEA IN PLACE

In the 1890s, the a rmy took charge of most of Yosemite from the state of California in order to deal with degradat ion being caused by trespassing grazers, lumberjacks, and miners in the park territory. Instructions from the Secretary of the Interior advised the first military superintendent that his duties included enforcement of park rules against grazing, timber removal, and mining so that park landscapes could be "restored to their pristine condit ion" (quoted in Meyerson 2001, 96). It was soon apparent that visitors too contributed to landscape disfigurement. Col. S.B.M. Young, the army commander, in 1896 reported that:

The majority of campers are careless and negligent about extinguishing their fires and policing their camp grounds when leaving. The spectacle of empty tins that had contained preserved fruits, soups, vegetables, sardines, etc., together with offal from the cook fire, and other more objectionable [wastes], is detestable anywhere, but is abominable in the superlative degree when included in the view of a beautiful mountain stream skirted with meadows, luxurious grasses and gardens of wildflowers (U.S. Congress 1896, 736).

Although the a rmy commanders noticed deteriorating conditions in the campgrounds , they focused their principal attention on the large-scale d a m a g e caused by out lawed land uses.

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Between the time of Olmsted's 1865 statement concerning intrusive structures and a formal expression of policy about screening intrusive infrastructure in 1935, the Park Service commonly applied this basic concept. This is particularly apparent in Yosemite— a unit that underwent a tremendous rise in visitor use during the early years of the National Park Service (1916-1930). Summer populations rose from 31,000 to over 460,000 between 1915 and 1928. In 1916, there were as many as 5,000 visitors at any given time in the valley, two-day populations in 1929 were as high as 25,000 (USDI 1916b and 1930). These numbers placed urban population density pressures on one of the Park Service's "crown jewels." In order to preserve the scenery and public health, the Park Service had to undertake major renovations of its water, sewerage, and garbage infrastructure. Unlike in cities, park planners had to take exceptional steps to minimize the visible intrusion of these essential features.

Whenever Yosemite's superintendent planned construction projects, the landscape impact had to be considered and the regional or local landscape engineer/architect had input into the project. One of the first intrusive features was the park's hydroelectric power plant which had to occupy a position near the Merced River and the main entry road that followed the stream. After careful consideration of various sites the Park Service carefully positioned it behind two huge boulders (Figs. 1 and 2) making it nearly invisible from the road in 1916. In the Park Service's own words, the power plant was constructed "with special care so as to be as inconspicuous as possible" (USDI 1916b, 14).

Yosemite's superintendent noted in 1915 that work on an improved water supply system was nearing completion. With increased water use, sewage had become a more pressing issue and he called for a new sewerage system and disposal plant to replace the existing septic tanks in 1915. In alignment with Leighton's 1907 assessment, he noted that water below the hotel was polluted with sewage (USDI 1916a). The following year, R.B. Marshall, Superintendent of the National Parks (before the creation of the National Park Service later in 1916), visited Yosemite with J.A. Hill, an authority on hotel sanitation, and declared that public health conditions were deplorable. Urging adequate funding for a new sewerage system, he proclaimed, "I shudder at the probability of an epidemic of typhoid or some other common epidemic that could be directly charged to the lack of proper sanitation" (USDI 1916b, 15).

Congress was not prompt in funding sanitation and the park superintendent continued to recommend sewerage improvements

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% . Fig. 2. Hydroelectric power station completed in 1918. Plant is below road level and sequestered behind two massive boulders and numerous trees that effectively screen the facility from view. Photo by C. Colten.

through the 1910s. A particularly adamant appeal appeared in the superintendent's 1919 annual report. W.B. Lewis pointed out that the septic system at one camp in the main valley failed completely during the high water season, which corresponded with the peak travel period when the soil had no capacity to absorb the effluent. Consequently, "The entire sewage discharge from a community of 1,000 people.. .goes to the pollution of the river" (USDI 1919,195). Despite warnings from the Park Service, visitors continued to use tainted water from the Merced River for cleaning and cooking purposes and exposed themselves to great risk. The superintendent warned "that these conditions exist is most unfortunate, and it is not pleasant to cogitate on what might happen in the way of a serious epidemic within the valley or in any of the settlements along the river outside the park that are dependent upon the river for their supply of drinking water if these conditions are allowed to continue" (USDI 1919, 196). In an effort to further strengthen his case, he noted that the California Board of Health had indicated that the only way to contend with the problem was to install a sewage treatment plant. The fear of an epidemic emanating from Yosemite ultimately convinced Congress to appropriate funds for improvements; and the Park Service carefully installed it to avoid scenic

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38 ' Journal of Cultural Geography

Fig. 3. Eradication of Imhoff tanks at 1920s sewage treatment facility. The Park Service quickly demolished the old facility and completely removed all the concrete that provided treatment for sewage. Trees surrounded site from the valley floor, but the clearing was visible from the cliffs above. Superintendent's Monthly Report, June 1932, Yosemite National Park, Yosemite National Park Library.

distractions. While the superintendent proclaimed in 1920 that river pollution was worse than in previous years and that "the public health of the valley was being seriously endangered," construction of a new sewerage system was underway (USDI 1920, 241).

The site selected for the treatment facilities was below the village complex and near the Merced River in the midst of a pine grove (Figs. 1 and 3). This location adhered to the landscape engineer's standard policy to "screen" industrial structures (USDI 1920). Behind a roadside border of trees, the Park Service cleared about ten acres of forest to make room for the Imhoff tanks and settling beds. According to Donald Tresidder, one of the principal concessionaires in Yosemite, the Park Service came under sharp criticism for this forest removal. He claimed that "from the trails and points of the rim of the Valley the beds are very prominent and mar the landscape" (Tresidder 1927, 114-15). Odors from the plant also began to intrude on visitor comfort and enjoyment of the stunning scenery. The consulting sanitary engineer from the Public Health Service, H.B. Hommon, was summoned in 1925 because the "odors arising from the concrete settling tank at the sewer farm

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have been obnoxious . . . ever since the plant was put in operation" (Yosemite National Park October 1925, 3). Again in 1927 Hommon visited to try to remedy the odor problem (Yosemite National Park March 1927). Despite visual screening, offensive odors drew people's attention to what was already an overtaxed infrastructure.

The odors stemmed from the fact that the sewage treatment plant was undersized for the demands placed on it. Designed to handle wastes of about 6,000 people, it was receiving the effluent of as many as 25,000 visitors in peak periods. Furthermore, the Park Service never expanded the plant to its original design size. In 1927 H.B. Hommon began deliberations with park personnel on ways to alleviate the odor problem. An obvious solution was to simply enlarge the existing plant. According to Hommon, there "was vigorous objection by everyone to cutting down timber and clearing five more acres in the forest and this plan was abandoned" (Hommon 1929a, 1-3). Ultimately, Hommon, a panel of outside experts, the landscape engineer, and other interested parties put forward a plan to close the old facility and build an entirely new sewage treatment works further down the Merced River valley. This process reveals a most deliberate effort to take landscape matters into consideration. Hommon pointed out three requirements for the new facility: (1) sterile effluent, (2) no odor, and (3) concealment from the highway [emphasis added] (Hommon 1929a, 3). In a subsequent publication, Hommon elaborated that:

the landscape engineers of the National Park Service required that the plant be so designed and located that it could not be seen from the two highways that paralleled Merced river on the floor of the valley or from the two highways that pass out of the valley along the north and south walls (Hommon 1931, 55).

Visits to prospective sites by Hommon and John Wosky, the park's landscape engineer, led to the selection of a relatively flat floodplain tract near Bridalveil Falls. According to Hommon, "at this location the plant will be about 300 feet from the two highways that parallel the river and it will be fairly well hidden from view by trees" (Hommon 1929a, 6). Indicating the importance of landscape in construction decisions, Hommon's letter accompanying his draft plans stated that "since this is a preliminary plan, it does not seem necessary to have it approved by the Director and the Landscape Division. If the appropriation is made available for the plan, detailed plans will be prepared and these will be submitted for approval in the usual manner" (Hommon 1929b, 1).

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Fig. 4. Sludge drying beds of 1931 Sewage Treatment Plant. Trees surround the sludge drying beds attesting to the desire to hide this feature from public view. Yosemite National Park Library Photo Collection, June 1940, RL-8047.

During construction, the Park Service went to considerable lengths to preserve the landscape and situated the new facility amid trees (Fig. 4). When laying the sewer lines, crews sometimes had to tunnel beneath roots in order to preserve trees (Yosemite National Park March 1931). In addition, workers were requested to promptly backfill trenches so that construction work would not be visible from roadways (Kittredge 1931). Following an inspection by O.C. Hopkins of the Public Health Service the park superintendent remarked that "landscape minded engineering is showing very gratifying results in the general appearance of the sewer system construction work now engaging the work of a large crew of men" (Yosemite National Park August 1930, n.p.). The park superintendent praised the efforts of the construction team in his November 1930 monthly report: "Special mention should be made of the exceptional landscaping and eradication of construction marks being effected on this project. Even though it has been necessary to lay this line across one of the most beautiful meadows not a scar will remain when this work is finally completed" (Yosemite National Park November 1930, n.p.).

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Fig. 5. Recently planted trees around comfort stations. Plantings of young pines became a common approach to screen infrastructure from public view. From John Wosky, Report of the Chief Landscape Architect, May 1930, Yosemite National Park, Landscape Files, Yosemite National Park Library.

Removal, or eradication using the park's terms, of the old plant followed completion of the new facilities in 1931. During the spring and summer of 1932, the Imhoff tanks were demolished and the old sewer farm (settling tanks) was torn down (Fig. 3). By June the Park Service had removed all the old concrete structures and landscaping was underway to erase any trace of the old facilities (Yosemite National Park September 1931 and April, June, August 1932).

Consideration of landscape intrusions continued through the formal articulation of a Park Service policy in 1935. John Wosky, Yosemite's resident landscape architect in the early 1930s, noted the continuing influence of the famous landscape architecture family, "As you know, Mr. Olmsted is very interested in screening the campers from the views of the main road" (Wosky 1930,3).2 Screening often required planting trees to hide many "unnatural" features. The Park Service graded and planted trees to obscure the view of a borrow pit near the Yosemite Lodge (Davidson 1930). More planting accompanied the construction of comfort stations in Yosemite Valley (Fig. 5) (Wosky 1930). Sometimes "concealing" paint colors were used, as with the new water storage facility installed in 1930 (Yosemite National Park September 1930). Nearly ubiquitous use of

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the National Park Service b rown helped obscure many structures, signs, and other landscape features.

Landscape consideration was given to infrastructure siting outs ide the main valley as well. Landscape architect John Wosky accompanied H.B. H o m m o n to select a sewage disposal site for the "Big Trees" and they agreed that it could be sequestered below a rock bluff and would not present "a landscape problem" (Wosky 1931, n.p.). When selecting a site for a sewage treatment facility at Wawona, south of Yosemite Valley, H.B. H o m m o n acknowledged that one potential site was abandoned because it was near the h ighway and "the scars on the surface of the ground which would be caused by the presence of a large tank and large subsurface trenches" (Hommon 1933,4). Civilian Conservation Corps crews assisted with screening and planted many trees to hide campgrounds as well (McKown 1936, 2). Such efforts were carried out with the intent to "bring the entire valley back to as natural a condition as possible" (Yosemite National Park December 1930). Such consistency in practice minimized the visual impact of the public works landscape.

A N IDEA AS NATIONAL POLICY

Although not articulated until some years after the Park Service's creation, a 1935 publication on structures clearly echoes Olmsted 's 1865 report and effectively elevated a common practice into national policy. Arno Cammerer, the service's director, asserted in his foreword that:

In any area in which the preservation of the beauty of Nature is a primary purpose, every modification of the natural landscape, whether it be by construction of a road or erection of a shelter, is an intrusion. A basic objective of those who are entrusted with the development of such areas for the human uses for which they are established, is, it seems to me, to hold these intrusions to a minimum and so to design them that, besides being attractive to look upon, they appear to belong to and be a part of their setting (USDI 1935, 1).

The authors pointed out that structures did not add to a park 's beauty, but to its use. Thus they acknowledged that the Park Service viewed its constructions as intrusions and that such "trespasses" should be executed with as much "grace" as possible.

While roads and lodgings were necessary and the steps taken to blend them into the local landscape have received extensive discussion (McClelland 1998 and Carr 1998), the most intrusive

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artifacts to accompany park development were the so called utilities—in particular the above-ground water, sewerage, and garbage facilities. In urban settings, sewers and water lines, out of convenience rather than due to concern with preserving scenery, ran underground, largely out of view. Municipalities seldom concealed the auxiliary fixtures—reservoirs, water towers, and sewage treatment works. Too large to hide, reservoirs sometimes became park-like settings in their own right. Water towers stood as emblems of Progressive-Era public works projects, while sewage treatment works often occupied somewhat secluded sites at a location downstream from the city. Seclusion served engineering and also nuisance concerns more than scenic ones. Relying on gravity both to deliver water and transport sewage, cities situated water storage facilities up gradient and treatment works down stream and often some distance from the city center (Melosi 2000). Garbage dumps, owing to their potential nuisances, typically occupied locations near the city limits (Colten 1994). In the early twentieth century, other utilities such as electrical and phone lines were highly visible additions to the urban landscape.

Park planners, designers, and sanitary engineers shared some of the same considerations as urban public works directors, but had to install their utilities under very different circumstances. Water storage facilities function best when placed on high ground above the service territory. Unlike in cities where a silver tower standing high above the city represented tax dollars well spent, parks wanted their tanks to disappear into the surrounding landscape. Of course, a reservoir collecting water from a mountain stream would have to be built far enough upstream to allow for adequate head and also to be removed from contamination sources. Park personnel painted storage tanks to make them blend in with the natural scenery (USDI 1935) or disguised their observation towers (USDI 1935). A fundamental tenet of Park Service design was that structures should be subordinated to their environment in order that the public would fully appreciate the setting (USDI 1935).

Sewage treatment plants, like their urban counterparts, had to occupy downstream locations. In some mountainous parks, this meant alongside the road leading into the park from more populated lowlands—hardly an auspicious greeting to the public. H.B. Hommon, the U.S. Public Health Service engineer who assisted with the design of sanitation facilities in western parks stated that park policy called for adequate sewage treatment to avoid downstream problems, and that his staff also had to "conform to the high

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s tandards of the Park Service in relation to architecture and preservation of the natural scenery in the pa rks" (Hommon 1935,143). To achieve this objective, designers employed vegetative screening or use of tributary basins to sequester potentially offensive facilities (USDI 1930). Garbage d u m p s or incinerators had to be set apart as well. The 1935 report on park structures offered the following guidance on garbage facilities:

Incinerators should be located conveniently near to the intensively used areas, yet must be decently retired so that their nuisance quality is minimized . . . Tree growth and other natural screening from view are only advantageous if they do not also become obstructions to draft (USDI 1935, 240).

Vitally important to successful park operations, these utilities demanded both basic engineering and aesthetic treatment—which meant that the public should never see them and that they must not interfere with the natural scenery. Ironically, at Yosemite and other western parks, feeding bears garbage became such popular attractions that the Park Service had to construct bleachers to accommodate the throngs of visitors w ho wanted to view the daily entertainment. By the late 1930s, however, incinerator use for garbage disposal had largely replaced the bear-feeding spectacle.

Incinerators were among a larger g roup of maintenance structures that challenged park planners. One of the most explicit passages in the 1935 report dealt with such maintenance buildings. Obviously essential, these structures were not intended for public view. The Park Service offered these suggestions:

its location is off the track beaten by park patrons, and is an isolated and well-obscured one, where this stepchild among park structures need not suffer unfavorable comparison with necessarily more self-conscious and better groomed neighbors . . . If such a site is not available, then the service building must go in for protective coloration . . . (USDI 1935, 239).

This basic guidance applied not just to maintenance equipment sheds and garages, but to stables, p u m p houses, and power plants. When possible, the guidebook suggested that service buildings assume a "hollow square" arrangement . Plain outer walls would form a palisade around an internal courtyard where service activity could take place and the building itself became a screen. The purpose of this was to "mask" intrusions that might diminish from the "eye appea l " of the park 's scenery (USDI 1935, 239).

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Toilets and washrooms were another type of utility, but the public needed to be able to find them in order to obtain "comfort." Nevertheless, the 1935 report advised that free-standing comfort stations should be "subordinated by location"—that is, placed discreetly. When necessary, "the preferable and usually more effective alternative is to screen both building and approach by plantings and through careful choice of site" (USDI 1935, 199). In a series of appropriate designs, the Park Service showed examples of rustic stone or log structures. It describes one small privy as "so unassuming and decorous in its externalities as hardly to be an offense in any location, retired or not" (USDI 1935, 202). The structures, also, were to conceal any plumbing or other devices associated with their sanitary purposes. Because of their function, comfort stations required concealment similar to the other utilities, but at the same time demanded public access. Ultimately they acquired the appearance of other public structures, with the type of screening applied to utilities. Screening has proven so successful, another common element of Park Service landscapes is necessary to help visitors find the comfort stations. Small and unobtrusive signs occupy positions near pathways and roads to direct visitors to the essential services. A basic intent was to build in "harmony" with the natural landscape (Pavlick 1993).

CONCLUSIONS

Rooted in earlier romantic notions of urban park design, Park Service landscape architects practiced methods to preserve scenery through various forms of concealment or screening. While the sanitation infrastructure and utility buildings were not to wear facades, nature hid them from public view. Plantings of native species or concealment in narrow valleys or behind massive boulders sequestered the intrusive utilities. When Thomas Vale (1998) argues that human intrusion in Yosemite has been negligible, perhaps he testifies to the effectiveness of this strategy. In addition, the presence of the essential public works infrastructure, while largely invisible to the public, has helped the Park Service avoid serious outbreaks of disease feared by early park administrators.

In the larger context of a national landscape, the Park Service has effectively formalized an ad hoc practice of sequestering infrastructure into a systemwide policy. A set of practices worked out in places like Yosemite, became standardized throughout the "crown jewel" western parks. By the mid 1930s, the Park Service

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formalized them in two manuals (USDI1935 and Good 1938) which continue to guide park landscape designers. These practices have contributed to the "family resemblances" mentioned by Zelinsky (1990), bu t also have become a powerful influence in state parks, and national parks beyond the U.S. The landscape w e do not see is one of the most influential elements of a visit to a national park.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We want to acknowledge Julie Tuason who was a partner in our initial work on this project and a key contributor to two preliminary public presentations on the subject. Support for this work came from the National Register, History, and Education Division of the National Park Service and an LSU Council on Research, Faculty Research Grant. We are extremely grateful for the generous assistance of the staffs at the Denver Service Center, the Yosemite National Park Library, and the National Archives-Western Division, San Bruno, California. We also thank Alyson Greiner and the two anonymous reviewers whose comments greatly improved our initial effort.

NOTES

1. The term sewerage refers to the apparatus used to collect, convey, and treat sewage, the effluent of households, hotels, and comfort stations.

2. The statement refers to Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., not his father, Frederick Law Olmsted, who prepared the 1865 statement on concealing intrusive features.

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Craig E. Colten is Professor of Geography at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. Lary M. Dilsaver is Professor of Geography at the University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL 36688.

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