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Show 57 Lake City newspapcrs. 145 The increasing numbers of tourists and the need for more employees prompted a Salt Lake Tribune editorial. Although the editorial did not mention Zion, it salivated over the revenue that national parks and tourism could generate for the states where they are located. After detailing the increases in national park visitation from 1918 to 1919, the editorial speculated at the money involved in the tourism business: It would be interesting to know how much money was required to transport the three-quarters of a million park visitors and to sustain them in the parks and en route. While every hazard at the per capita cost of these vacation jaunts would be the wildest kind of conjecture, it seems fairly certain that an estimate of$300 per person would be conservative probably too low. Accepting that sum at a venture, however, it will be seen that park tourists spent S225,000,000 in 1919 to see the natural wonders of America.146 It would have been clear to any newspaper reader that national parks held potential for an economic boon to surrounding communities. This enthusiasm for the financial promjsc of national parks did not mean, however, that everyone in the state embraced federal control of lands, a requisite for park status. While stories of tourist droves set the context for Utah's national park aspirations, so too did news about the struggle between federal and state governments for control of public lands. In the weeks before Zion National Park legislation appeared in the local newspapers, the governors often states met in Salt Lake City and formed the League of Public Land States. Led by Governor Octaviano Larrazolo of New Mexico and Utah Governor Simon Bamberger as vice chair, the league debated a resolution that the federal 14s Deseret Evening News, "Travel Reported llcavy, Parks Are Overcrowded," July 24, 1919, sec. 2, I 1"' Salt l ake Tribune, ··National Park Travel," October 30, 1919, 6. |
