Frank
Alvah KittredgeFrank
Alvah KittredgeFrank Alvah Kittredge (1883-1954)
received the Pugsley Silver Medal “for outstanding contributions to
the development and protection of park resources.”
He was born in Glydon, Minnesota. His interest in engineering emanated
from hero worship of an uncle who was a widely acclaimed engineer.
From 1905 to 1907, he worked as the engineer in charge of the location
and construction of the Alaska Central Railroad.
He was then retained by the Washington State Highway Commission as a
division engineer where he remained until 1911.
He then pioneered the development of Oregon’s state road system as
senior highway engineer for the Oregon State Highway Commission from 1913 to
1915.
During his tenure with the Washington and Oregon highway
commissions, Kittredge received a formal engineering education at the University
of Washington, where he was awarded a BS degree in 1912 and a MS degree in 1915.
In 1917, he joined the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads as a highway engineer. His responsibilities included surveying and constructing
several major highways, including the trunk highways from Barstow, California,
to Las Vegas, Nevada; and from Barstow to Kingman, Arizona. This involved weeks of travel across the desert by
automobile, horse and foot depending on the nature of the terrain.
Kittredge joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in World
War I. As a captain, he served 13 months with the Road and Bridge Engineers in
charge of maintenance and construction of the highways in France.
He also oversaw a logging operation that furnished materials for the
troops at the front.
After the war, Kittredge resumed his work with the Bureau
of Public Roads. In 1924, Stephen
Mather, director of the National Park Service, approached the bureau concerning
the difficulties of building a transmountain road across Glacier National Park
in Montana. As the bureau’s
senior highway engineer, Kittredge was assigned the difficult task of surveying
and designing what was to become the famous “Going-to-the-Sun Highway.”
Mather was anxious to begin construction early in 1925, forcing Kittredge
to begin his survey under harsh conditions in September 1924.
His perseverance enabled him to complete the survey within seven weeks.
The highway he designed became one of the world’s most scenic mountain
roads. A wide two-lane surfaced
road, which was literally carved out of the precipitous rock mountain sides for
12 miles of its 50-mile length, the Going-to-the-Sun Highway crosses the
Continental Divide through Logan Pass at an elevation of 6,664 feet.
The last nine miles rise 3,000 feet
in elevation.
The Going-to-the-Sun Highway was Kittredge’s most
noteworthy project. As the bureau’s first major highway through mountainous
terrain, it set a precedent for the location and construction of park roads.
It also established an interagency relationship between the NPS and the
Bureau of Public Roads, in which the bureau was made responsible for
constructing and maintaining park roads.
Mather was delighted with Kittredge’s work in Glacier
National Park and requested that he prepare an overall program for main road
construction in the national parks. The
NPS policy was one of limiting each park to one well-built, low-speed scenic
road. Kittredge was in full
agreement with this policy. Believing
that every effort should be taken to preserve the national state of the park
lands, he opposed building unnecessary roads.
Where roads were necessary, he thought that they should not detract from
the scenic qualities of the park and should be constructed under high standards
to ensure their permanence.
In 1927, the National Park Service established an
engineering division field office in San Francisco. At Mather’s request, Kittredge was transferred from the
Bureau of Public Roads to be chief engineer in charge of this new office with
his old associates in the Bureau of Public Roads, and he also coordinated other
field activities in the branches of landscape architecture, forestry, wildlife
and interpretation which were established in San Francisco and Berkeley.
This was a particularly active period in engineering in the NPS for
during his ten years in this position many of the public utility systems had to
be redesigned and rebuilt to accommodate the increased visitation. The
CCC activities also made this period one of particular importance in the
planning and construction of engineering projects.
In this capacity, he surveyed major park roads, including the highway in
Zion National Park. He also
designed and built trails and sanitation systems throughout the parks.
The ten years in which Kittredge served as chief engineer marked a period
of modernization in the public utilities, roads, and trails in the national
parks.
When regionalization of the NPS occurred in 1937, Kittredge
was appointed director of Region Four based at San Francisco which encompassed
eight parks in the West. Hawaii and Alaska.
As regional director, he was successful in leading negotiations that
resulted in adding two new parks to the system: Kings Canyon National Park in California and Olympic National
Park in Washington. These
acquisitions constituted one of his greatest contributions to the NPS and earned
him the reputation of being one of the nation’s outstanding conservationists.
From 1940 to 1941, Kittredge was superintendent of Grand
Canyon National Park and from 1941 to 1947 he served as superintendent of
Yosemite National Park. While at
Yosemite, he fought to eliminate Camp Curry’s carnival amusements on the
valley floor. Arguing that such
commercial attractions as jazz bands, bear shows, and mechanical rides were not
appropriate within national parks, he advocated the use of lectures, slides, and
movies that encouraged an appreciation of the natural surroundings.
In a presentation given on the 25th anniversary of the NPS in
1941, Kittredge said, “This bureau was formed for the prime purpose of
guarding and using these areas for inspiration and recreation, instead of
commercial use.”
A few months after he arrived at Yosemite in 1941, World
War II began. Administration was
complicated by a barebones budget and lack of manpower, since many rangers
enlisted in the armed forces. Pseudo-patriotic
interests, increased poaching and trespassing, and the fear of sabotage at Hetch
Hetchy were everyday problems. In
addition, the Navy took over the Ahwahnee Hotel, and military units trained in
the park. All this created
potential injury to the Yosemite environment.
Kittredge was widely repected in the NPS for his protective diplomacy.
Kittredge’s respect for the engineering profession was
only matched by his love of wilderness areas.
On several occasions, he opposed the construction of additional roads
within national parks, arguing that the impact of roadbuilding would needlessly
compromise the integrity of wilderness areas.
In 1948, he strongly opposed building the proposed Glacier View Dam by
the Corps of Engineers on the Flathead River in Glacier National Park.
He asserted that “to build the Glacier View Dam would be most
unfortunate and almost a disaster to Park Service objectives and to the public
in loss of national park values.”
Kittredge left Yosemite National Park in 1947 to assume
once more the position of chief engineer of the NPS, this time with headquarters
in Washington where he remained until his retirement, directing the civil
engineering program of the NPS- -maintenance of roads, trails, building and
utilities and doing his part in the planning of programs for future park
improvements.
He retired in 1952 at the age of 69.
Throughout his professional career, Kittredge allied himself with
conservation organizations to further the preservation of American wilderness.
After his retirement, he continued to work in the conservation field as
an elected director of the Sierra Club until his death on December 10, 1954.