Postwar park deterioration and surging visitation drove the NPS Mission 66 rehabilitation program

Evidence

MISSION 66 was a long-range rehabilitation program designed to catch the imagination of Americans—from the president and Congress down to the humblest lover of parks. By targeting the year 1966-theyear the NPS would be fzfty years old and a date when annual park visitation was expected to rise to unprecedented heights, an anticipated 80 million visitors—the hope was that the NPS would be, in Tilden’s words, finally “adequate to the dignity of the institution, to its high place in the Nation’s life, and to the recreational and cultural welfare of our people.” — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 816

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the crisis-and-response pattern in chapter 32 on structural imbalance causing environmental destruction requiring public understanding, not just legislation.