National Park to Park Highway facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
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| Slogan: You Sing "America", Why Not See It? | |
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| Route information | |
| Length | 5,600 mi (9,000 km)
Based on 1920 dedication tour
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| Existed | 1916 / 1920–present |
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| States: | California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah |
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| Auto Trails
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The National Park to Park Highway was a special road trip route in the United States during the 1910s and 1920s. It was like a giant loop connecting many of America's amazing National Parks in the West. This highway helped people explore the country by car when cars were still quite new! It was planned by a person named A. L. Westgard.
The highway connected twelve National Parks:
- Rocky Mountain National Park
- Yellowstone National Park
- Glacier National Park
- Mount Rainier National Park
- Crater Lake National Park
- Lassen Volcanic National Park
- Yosemite National Park
- General Grant National Park (now part of Kings Canyon)
- Sequoia National Park
- Zion National Park
- Grand Canyon National Park
- Mesa Verde National Park
You can learn more about this highway from a 2009 PBS documentary: Paving the Way.
Contents
How the National Park Highway Began
Planning Roads to America's Parks
In 1914, Franklin Lane, who was the Secretary of the Interior, made a deal. He worked with the Office of Public Roads to build roads. These roads would help people get to Glacier, Sequoia, and Yosemite National Parks.
When Stephen Mather started working with the National Parks, he invited an engineer named T. Warren Allen to speak. This was at a conference in 1915. Mather was worried about letting the Office of Public Roads build highways inside the parks. But Allen's involvement showed that people were very interested in driving to these beautiful places.
Creating the Park-to-Park Route
The next year, Stephen Mather joined the effort for the Park to Park Highway. The National Park-to-Park Highway Association was created in 1916. This group started to promote better roads in the western states, especially near the Rocky Mountains.
Other groups were also suggesting routes to link the National Parks. For example, in 1915, a group of drivers from Denver took a 500-mile (800 km) trip. They drove from Rocky Mountain National Park to Yellowstone. Another group, the Wonderland Trail Association, was already promoting a route. This route went from Yellowstone to Glacier and then to Mount Rainier.
Expanding the Highway Network
By 1917, the Parks Highway Association began marking the route. It stretched from Glacier to Mount Rainier. They also added a southern part that went to Crater Lake. By 1919, supporters of the National Park to Park Highway held yearly meetings.
That same year, Charles Goodwin became the Superintendent at Glacier National Park. He started planning possible routes through the park. Stephen Mather wanted a road that went from east to west across the park. This road would connect with the Park-to-Park Highway. This new route later became the famous Going-to-the-Sun Road.
By 1920, eleven states were part of the Park-to-Park Highway program. The planned route would cover about 6,000 miles (9,700 km) of roads. It also included many smaller roads that led to and from the different National Parks. This made it easier for people to visit America's natural wonders by car.
