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Yellowstone Roads and Bridges
A Glimpse of the Past
Cars entering the Northeast Entrance checking station, 1936. Photograph taken by Danecki. |
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YELLOWSTONE CHRONOLOGY AND ACHIEVEMENTS | ||
| 1872 - 1883 | Congress creates Yellowstone National Park Civilian superintendents administer the Park | ||
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Idea of Grand Loop System to enable people to visit the scientific and scenic wonders. The Grand Loop -- 104 of the 140 mile system completed. | |||
| 1883 | U.S. Army Corps of Engineers | ||
Assumes the role of road and bridge construction in Park. | |||
| 1885 | Dan Kingman -- Army Corps Engineer | ||
Imparts philosophy that the improvements will leave the park "as the hand of nature left it." | |||
| 1901 - 1904 | Hiram Chittenden -- Army Corps Engineer | ||
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The route through Golden Gate Canyon, south of Mammoth Hot Springs. East Entrance Road. North Entrance Arch at Gardiner, Montana. | |||
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Great care was given in the design of the bridge over the Yellowstone River as it was in "one of the grandest sections in the entire park." Chittenden chose the Melan arch type for its combined strength and artistic design. A few years earlier, he called for the replacement of all of the wooden bridges with steel bridges and concrete abutments. Firehole River Bridge, (1911) Obsidian Creek Bridge, (1910) | |||
| 1918 | National Park Service - Dept. of the Interior | ||
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Assumes responsibility for bridges and road construction in Yellowstone, Interior Secretary Franklin Lane issues National Park Policy in which he addressed road construction specifically by calling for the harmonizing of roads, trails and bridges with the natural environment. | |||
| 1926 | Bureau of Public Roads | ||
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Assumes responsibility for survey, construction of park roads and bridges. Park Service landscape architects assist the Bureau of Public Roads in the architectural and landscape plans for the roads and bridges in the Park. Cub Creek Bridge (1928) | |||
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| 1930s | Bureau of Public Roads -- National Park Service | ||
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Collaboration between the two agencies produced a number of bridges, pullouts culverts, stone headwall stone guardrails and log guardrails which reflect the National Park Service philosophy of blending the man made features with the natural environment. | |||
| 1966 | National Park Service -- Mission 66 | ||
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A long range National Park Service plan designed to upgrade the park programs and facilities to meet the requirements of an expected 80 million visitors system wide in 1966. | |||
| 1983 | Federal Highway Administration -- National Park Service | ||
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Cooperative agreement between the two agencies is formalized to undertake a program for completely rehabilitating the 50-year-old main park road system in Yellowstone. Current 20 year program for the rehabilitation of the Yellowstone road system began in 1988. | |||
| Introduction | Acadia | Blue Ridge Parkway | Chickamauga and Chattanooga | Colonial Parkway | Generals Highway | George Washington Memorial Parkway | Great Smoky Mountains | Mount Rainier | Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway | Shenandoah's Skyline Drive | Southwest Circle Tour | Vicksburg | Yellowstone | Yosemite |