The US National Parks' Midcentury Overhaul to Accommodate Cars

In the years after World War II, the G.I. Bill helped launch an economic boom that sent young American families out of cities and into sprawling suburbs. Along with their new homes, they also bought cars. A lot of cars. In the first decade after the war, the number of new automobiles humming along the expanding highway system skyrocketed.

What did people do with those shiny cars, smooth new highways and paid vacation time? Road trips! Americans set off to explore the country, and many of them headed to national parks.

In the 1930s, the National Park Service (NPS) invested in parks by building roads, entrance stations and grand lodges through New Deal programs like the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps. After the Great Depression, though, those programs were diminished or completely defunded and many park projects were cancelled. Through the late 1930s and into the war years, park work was primarily limited to maintenance and patchwork upkeep.

In 1940, the national parks counted 17 million visitors. After World War II, with optimistic Americans flush with free time, new cars and good jobs, those parks became overwhelmed by crowds. By 1956, visitor numbers leapt to 49 million. The NPS projected that 80 million people would visit the parks by 1966.

The surge of eager postwar visitors arriving by car overwhelmed the services and structures inside the nation's unprepared parks. The NPS had a problem on its hands. The rustic lodges of the "Parkitecture" era—like Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Lodge and Yosemite’s Ahwahnee Hotel—couldn’t be easily expanded or practically replicated. Worse still, they had only modest parking lots, nowhere near large enough to accommodate the new influx of cars.

Additionally, the pool of unemployed single men that had made up the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression were now employed elsewhere. The 178 National Parks, memorials and other NPS units were plagued by traffic jams, aging infrastructure and the limits of government funding. Something needed to be done.

In 1954, Conrad L. Wirth, director of the National Park Service, proposed a sweeping modernization program with a deadline: the agency's 50th anniversary in 1966. To make it happen, he asked Congress for a 10-year financial commitment to fund what he named "Mission 66."

Mission 66, he promised, would address the aging infrastructure in the parks and add new park hotel accommodations, concessions and campsites. Since Congress had to approve the project's funding annually, the pressure to deliver results was high.

To accommodate more visitors arriving by car, the NPS expanded parking, widened roads and created efficient pathways. But the agency also took its role in protecting and preserving nature seriously. Plans ensured that backcountry access would remain available to travelers on foot, since the impact of automobile traffic and crowds could damage protected wild spaces. Paved roads steered clear of the backcountry.

The NPS created a style guide to standardize all the new Mission 66 construction while allowing for regional and geographic design elements. This style, called “Park Service Modern,” drew upon the contemporary Modern Movement, an architectural philosophy that emphasized clean lines, functional design and new materials. Park Service Modern buildings were low, horizontal and usually flat-roofed. Materials used were typically minimalist: concrete blocks, glass walls and stone.

Buildings that welcomed the public were a particular focus. A new park concept, the visitor center, provided a place where people could stop for orientation, maps, displays, ranger talks and interpretive programming. While most visitor centers were built as new structures at historic parks, some were created within existing buildings.

Visitor centers gave parkgoers a place to transition from their highway journey into a relaxed mood. Wide, windowed entrances brought the outdoors into view from within the building and made it easy for large crowds to pass through. Natural light was emphasized over artificial lighting. Even the furniture was built to the Park Service Modern style—functional but not overly comfortable—so that visitors would leave and explore the park.

The impressive scope of Mission 66 projects included 584 new comfort stations, 221 administrative buildings, 36 service buildings, 1,239 units for employee housing, miles of scenic parkways (ideal for sightseeing by car) and more than 100 new visitor centers. Mission 66 funding helped facilitate the construction of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Although Eero Saarinen's soaring design had won a 1948 competition to commemorate westward expansion, the monument wasn't completed until 1965. Additionally, 78 parks, sites and monuments were added to the National Park Service, expanding the system by nearly 40 percent between 1956 and 1966.

Architects who were hired for the projects included many names and firms familiar to fans of midcentury architecture, including Richard Neutra, who designed buildings at the Petrified Forest National Monument and structures at the Gettysburg National Military Park, and the firm of Mitchell/Giurgola, which designed the visitor center at Wright Brothers National Memorial.

Alas, though many of the Mission 66 structures are still in use and some have even received landmark status, not all have survived the wrecking ball. Still, the program's influence remains. Maintaining a balance between welcoming visitors and preserving natural landscapes remains central to the National Park Service's mission today.