Visitors returned in force to national parks after the 1918 flu pandemic, and they exacted environmental damage on some, such as on Stoneman Meadow at Yosemite National Park by camping on it/LOC
Editor's note: Terence Young, professor emeritus of geography at California Polytechnic, was curious to see if visitation to national parks during the coronavirus pandemic resembled visitation to the parks during the 1918 flu pandemic. What he discovered is outlined below.
America’s national parks are struggling to manage their facilities during this coronavirus summer. Hungry bears are stealing the few visitors’ food in Lassen, Yosemite has stopped taking campground reservations until November, and Grand Canyon is requiring a pre-paid digital pass in order to enter the park.
Unsurprisingly, the overall number of outdoor recreationists enjoying the country’s national parks and other public lands has decreased. Visits to America’s national parks (our single best source of current and historic outdoor recreation statistics) are down nearly 19 percent year to date and are unlikely to increase in the immediate future.
But what might happen next year or beyond as the coronavirus comes under control? What guideposts might we follow? To gain a glimpse into the future of our nation’s wild lands we need only look to our recent past because, as Mark Twain allegedly quipped, “history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
In spring 1918, an H1N1 virus, the so-called “Spanish Influenza” struck the US. In the first six months of that year, approximately 75,000 flu-related deaths were recorded for the country, but since the total was not much greater than the “normal” and expected amount of about 63,000, the national reaction was restrained. While local outbreaks tended to make the news, public behavior changed little.
However, when a second wave began to sweep the country in August, it was more lethal. Approximately 300,000 deaths occurred between September and December when something closer to 26,000 were expected. The response this time was considerable, with newspapers filled by daily reports of rising infections and deaths, personal tragedies, the imposition of public-health regulations, and the like.
The 1920s saw a boom in car camping in the national parks, such as at Rocky Mountain National Park/NPS file
Predictably, visits to America’s national parks decreased even though they had been climbing in recent years. Visitation in 1916 had expanded 6 percent over 1915 and was followed in 1917 by a dramatic 37percent increase. In 1918, however, it turned in the opposite direction, recording a 7 percent decrease from 1917.
Historians have rightly noted that national park visitation in 1918 dwindled as a consequence of World War I. Millions of men and women entered the military and national resources were re-directed toward winning the war, but this explanation is only partial. Influenza played a part too.
Before the 1918 pandemic, many national park visitors had arrived aboard trains, but once it struck, they, like airplanes today, were viewed with fear and suspicion as the disease spread along rail lines. In California, for instance, public health authorities pointed to trains as a major vector transmitting the virus throughout the state. Train travel came to be so suspect that passengers were required to wear masks even during periods when the requirement was relaxed in other settings.
As the head of Zion National Monument reported to the director of the national parks, train travel was “practically suspended” by the epidemic during the second half of 1918. Train visitation at Zion and most other national parks plummeted. Yellowstone, for example, had welcomed just over 13,000 rail visitors in 1917, but ridership collapsed to only 3,000 during 1918.
Automobiles, however, were a different story. The number of visitors driving their own cars to a national park remained relatively steady at about 201,000 during both 1917 and 1918. At the same time, the geographic distribution shifted between the two years. The more isolated parks like Yellowstone saw decreases in 1918, while the parks nearer large population centers, for instance Mount Rainier, experienced increases. Much like today, taking your own automobile to a relatively nearby park to “autocamp” with your tent, was seen as a safe and easy way to visit and play in the national parks of 1918.
Auto travel to national parks grew rapidly during and after the 1918 flu pandemic. Stickers issued by the Park Service during those years were proudly displayed on windshields/NPS files
In 1919, another, milder wave of influenza struck the United States, but by July had faded to the point where it was no longer seen as a public-health threat. Coming on the heels of the war’s conclusion in November 1918, this fading of the pandemic led to a nation-wide explosion of camping, hiking and other outdoor recreational activities.
Yellowstone’s rail arrivals skyrocketed to more than 21,000 and visitors in cars more than doubled to nearly 41,000. For the National Park System as a whole, the number of visitors during 1919 rose a remarkable 67 percent over 1918 for a total of over 750,000. In addition, the number of automobiles entering the parks rose by an even greater 81 percent as more Americans embraced autocamping.
We can never know exactly why so many more Americans took to car camping in 1919, but it seems reasonable to presume that some portion of these enthusiasts had been novice campers in 1918 and had enjoyed the experience. And, despite a final but limited influenza outbreak during spring 1920, national park visitation rose again. At Yellowstone, visitors arriving by rail rose 42 percent over 1919 to over 30,000, and automobile visitation climbed 21 percent to almost 50,000. For the entire system, visitation expanded 22 percent to nearly 920,000, but the number arriving in cars rose by an even faster 31 percent.
The 1918-1920 pandemic restrained Americans’ love of camping and other forms of outdoor recreation, but it did not end them. People returned quickly and enthusiastically once the virus no longer posed a threat. We will never know how many Americans first took up car camping because they feared train travel to the parks, but the pandemic likely encouraged at least a few.
This upward trend in visitation continued through the decade. Unfortunately, Congress did not fund the system sufficiently during the 1920s. Visitation increased over 200 percent between 1921 and 1929, and congressional appropriations rose over 400 percent, but even these sizable increases left America’s national parks and other public lands to suffer extensive environmental damage. In Yosemite Valley, for instance, autocampers were permitted in Stoneman Meadow, which resulted in extensive vegetation loss, soil compaction and water pollution.
Will funding through the Great American Outdoors Act help restore badly trodden campgrounds?/G. Ward
When the current pandemic recedes, it seems likely that Americans will again flood across our public lands to camp, hike, and generally enjoy themselves outdoors. Interestingly, our current pandemic is again stimulating a national experiment into how campers can enjoy our public lands. This time, however, Americans are turning to RV camping instead of autocamping. Demand for motor homes and trailers is up sharply because the public sees them as safe and easy to enjoy.
But in contrast to a century ago, we can step up to properly fund our protected areas as the floodwaters rise. The president recently signed the Great American Outdoors Act, which will provide $9.5 billion to address deferred maintenance in our national parks, forests, and other federally protected areas. Buildings that needed re-roofing and roadways that should have been re-surfaced a decade ago are its targets. While this support is important and welcome, it would be unnecessary if America’s public lands funding had been more timely and less parsimonious in recent years.
According to the Congressional Research Service, appropriations for the National Park Service have increased only 4.4 percent (inflation-adjusted) over the last decade. In contrast, visitation climbed 16 percent during the same period.
Given the environmental damage that occurred during the 1920s when budgets grew faster than visitation, it is reasonable to assume that the national parks have extensive environmental damage to address as well as deferred maintenance. Since an exceptionally sharp surge in outdoor recreationists is on the horizon, one that seems likely to continue for several years, it is time to push our elected representatives to provide America’s public lands with the substantial and continuing support they will need.
Our national parks, forests and other wild lands should not have to again suffer the deterioration they endured a century ago.
Traveler postscript: Listen to Traveler's interview with Professor Young on Episode 80 of Traveler's podcast series. If history of America's embrace of camping intrigues you, consider Professor Young's book, Heading Out: A History Of American Camping.
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