A park of the people: the demotion of Platt National Park, Oklahoma

Abstract

Platt National Park, Oklahoma, was the smallest national park in the United States until it was combined with an adjacent, reservoir-centered recreation site in 1976 to form Chickasaw National Recreation Area. Set aside as Sulphur Springs Reservation by agreement with the Chickasaw Indians in 1902 and designated a national park in 1906, Platt is the only American national park to be demoted since World War II. The story of Platt's creation and demotion reflects the changing mission of the National Park Service (NPS), shifting images of nature and recreation among the American public, and broader social forces that frame park purposes. What started as local boosterism of hydrotherapy in cold mineral springs grew into one of America's most visited national parks by the 1920s. Despite its popularity, Platt lacked both scenic grandeur and political influence; it did not fit prevailing images of wild nature among NPS bureaucrats and the urban elite who formed the core of the environmental movement; it was too small, too humanized, and too ordinary. As images of people embedded in nature have gained wider acceptance in recent decades, would this small, geographically distinctive, and culturally rich “park of the people” have met a similar fate today?

Keywords:

• Platt National Park
• Chickasaw National Recreation Area
• National Park Service
• environmental history
• public lands policy

Acknowledgements

I thank Carolyn Hanneman of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center, University of Oklahoma, for providing access to extensive archival materials. I thank Hilda Kurtz, Kathy Parker, Tom Vale, and Bill Wyckoff for thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.

Notes

1. Throughout the text, “Platt National Park” (or simply “Platt”) is used to refer to the historical park unit. “Platt/Chickasaw” is used to refer to the park unit and its surrounding landscape today.

2. Carl Albert served as an Oklahoma congressman from 1947–1977, and wielded considerable political influence as a conservative southern Democrat during the 1960s and 1970s. He was Speaker of the House for the final six years of this congressional tenure, including the period during which legislation demoting Platt National Park was enacted.

3. At the time, other congressional representatives from Oklahoma and the governor wrote letters supporting creation of Chickasaw NRA, but these read like letters of endorsement. Carl Albert's office and NPS appear to be the key figures in promoting this legislation. Local hearings and press releases from Carl Albert's office and NPS were covered in local newspapers (Sulphur, Ada, Ardmore). There are occasional expressions of concern for loss of national park status, mainly from locals who did not support any change to the status quo. Otherwise, newspapers were generally supportive of the expansion and redesignation effort. The publisher of the Sulphur Times-Democrat represented the local chamber of commerce at the final congressional hearings in Washington.

4. Total recreational visitation to all NPS units has fluctuated between 255.6 and 287.2 million people per year since 1985, with little consistent directional change. Although visitation peaked in 1987, it reached a secondary peak again in 1997 (287.1 million). Between 2004 and 2008, visitation figures have been remarkably consistent, ranging from 272.6 to 276.9 million. Although there is scholarly debate about declining public use of NPS units (Pergams and Zaradic 2008), the magnitude of any system-wide decline in visitation in the last two decades is small (<5%) compared to the decline at Chickasaw NRA (30–40%).

5. Chickasaw NRA averaged 1.402 million recreational visitors per year for the 10-year period from 1999 to 2008 (National Park Service 2009). For this same time period, visitation figures for western “crown jewel” parks and other selected national parks demonstrate that Chickasaw NRA remains quite popular. Among western crown jewels, it is well below Grand Canyon (4.311 million), Yosemite (3.377 million), and Yellowstone (2.951 million), but similar to Glacier (1.848 million) and Mount Rainier (1.223 million). Chickasaw NRA virtually matches visitation numbers at Hot Springs (1.359 million), and remains the most popular park created during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (Wind Cave: 0.674 million, Mesa Verde: 0.504 million, Crater Lake: 0.441 million).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Albert J. Parker

A.J. Parker is Professor in the Department of Geography, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA