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Show 100 because of Senator Smoot's position as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and his seat on the Senate Appropriations Corrunittcc - appointments that ensured generous funding for federal projects on Utah's public lands. But despite healing political wounds, progress to complete the requirements for the park's establishment stagnated. National Park Service Director Mather, who wanted to sec the canyon become a national park and transferred to the Interior Department, saw withholding federal funding for roads in Zion National Park as a bargaining tool to accelerate the land transfers. A major initiative of the National Park Service was road construction - a means to bring more visitors who would build public support for parks. The largest national park road construction project in Utah history would connect Zion National Park with the Grand Canyon road (U .S. Highway 89) at Mt. Carmel. The road would cut more than a mile of tunnel through the sandstone cliffs of the national park, the longest tunnel in the country when it was completed in 1930. The new road would drastically cut travel time between Zion, Bryce, and the Grand Canyon. Because it would likely increase tourist travel to Bryce, Mather announced in June 1927 that he would not promote the road construction until the state and Union Pacific relinquished their claims that prevented the canyon from becoming a national park. 297 Meanwhile, in December 1927, Senator Smoot introduced a bill that would change Utah National Park to Bryce Canyon National Park. 298 The bill also addressed national park concerns about grazing on adjacent forest service property - it would 297 Ale xander, ''Red Rock and Gray Stone," 24. 298 Senate Bill 1312 was introduced December 9, 1927. |
