Birthing a Landmark

The Creation of Kings Canyon National Park

Ansel Adams is considered one of America’s most influential conservationists. But for all that Ansel’s photographs were instrumental in convincing Americans to protect its natural treasures, he did not simply allow his photographs to do all the talking. Indeed, Adams routinely lobbied personally for conservation efforts. And perhaps nowhere was he more successful than in the creation of Kings Canyon National Park.

Kings Canyon—formed by glaciers in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains—sits immediately to the north of world-famous Sequoia National Park, founded in the 1890s to protect the giant redwoods from logging interests. But in spite of its stunning natural beauty and its proximity to Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon itself remained unprotected into the 1930s. And by 1936, its future as a natural wonder was in jeopardy.

Had you been looking down at Kings Canyon in the mid-1930s, the rushing waters of the Kings River would have been a stunning reminder of nature’s awesome power. To the nearby and fast-growing city of Los Angeles, however, that same awesome power was quite literal: it was hydroelectric. Because the river plunges nearly 11,000 feet in just 80 miles, it carried enormous potential as a power source, and by the mid-1930s, powerful power and water interests had proposed a series of large dams in the canyon. In 1936, environmentalist groups and development interests had reached a stalemate—construction on the dams had been halted, but protecting the Canyon once and for all would require creating a new national park.

But convincing Congress—thousands of miles away in Washington—to protect the High Sierra would be no easy task. The Sierra Club entrusted the job to Ansel Adams, one of their most prominent members. He was not only familiar with the Canyon, he had photographed it extensively. Over the course of the fight to preserve Kings Canyon, Ansel lugged his portfolios from the Senate to the House and back, eventually meeting with over 40 members of Congress. Of course, the photographs themselves were stunning. But equally compelling were Ansel’s personal stories of hiking the John Muir trail—how his experiences in the High Sierra led him to devote his life to photographing and preserving America’s natural heritage.

Though the bill to create the park failed in 1936, Ansel’s fight was not over. In 1938, he published his Kings Canyon images as a book, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail. The book itself was impressive—17 inches tall, 13 inches wide, and nearly two inches thick. The large photoengraved images—of Kings Canyon’s soaring peaks, sunlit cliffs, and stoic sequoias—were trimmed and individually glued onto the pages. So exquisitely were they reproduced that they have, in the years since, often been mistaken for actual photographic prints. The effect was arresting.

For Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, who received a copy from the Director of the National Park Service, it was more than a book of photographs, it was an argument: Kings Canyon must be protected. So convinced was Ickes that he took a copy to the White House, and set it in front of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Finally, as the President of the United States looked at this stunning book, capturing the full grandeur of Kings Canyon, Ansel’s argument found purchase. Just two years later, in 1940, Kings Canyon National Park was founded, and today it sees over 600,000 visitors a year.

Ickes never did get his book back. Roosevelt kept it, and when the President wants something, you let him have it. Of course, as befitting a masterpiece, Ickes immediately asked Ansel for another copy.

Birthing a Landmark

The Creation of Kings Canyon National Park

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Birthing a Landmark

The Creation of Kings Canyon National Park

FOR QUESTIONS & MORE INFORMATION

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Other Interesting Articles

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CONNECT

Please contact sales@anseladams.com
or call 209-372-4413