The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [291]
When Roosevelt became president, the effort to learn more about Wind Cave was put on a fast track. Homesteading was banned anywhere surrounding the cave’s entrance. On April 4, 1902, the GLO commissioned a surveyor in Rapid City to map as many rooms and passageways as he could. Many locals, however, considered this a fool’s errand. The U.S. government was also keenly interested in determining the precise amount of minerals available for possible mining. Lawsuits over who owned Wind Cave were put aside as the U.S. government tried to inventory and map the labyrinthine caverns.
As the GLO went about its work, Senator Robert J. Gamble of South Dakota—a Republican—introduced a congressional bill declaring Wind Cave America’s “second wonder” (after Yellowstone National Park).32 Worried that vandals and thieves were stealing crystals and rocks, Gamble claimed that the U.S. Geological Survey and Theodore Roosevelt were on his side in creating the new national park. The New York Times aided the cause by publishing remarks by an unidentified U.S. government employee who said that Wind Cave was a “wonderful evolution of nature” exuding “grandeur, grotesqueness and beauty.” The Times itself said that giving Crater Lake the status of a national park was a wise move and recommended the same for Wind Cave. “There are something like 3,000 chambers and 100 miles of passages,” the Times enthused, “containing many curious features and formations.”33
Once again Congressman Lacey came into the act, like a bird going after split grain or thistle seed, backing Senator Gamble’s action. Lacey’s friends worried that he was fatigued by the legislative struggle; he would arrive at his congressional office at six AM and not leave until nine PM. When he sponsored the bill in Congress in June 1902, fresh from his success with Crater Lake, Lacey argued that Wind Cave had to be a national park in order to stop vandals from destroying it. Reportedly, he said, boxwork thieves were out of control. The same grim fate was befalling the Petrified Forest of Arizona and the Anasazi cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado. And there was another component to Gamble and Lacey’s argument. For meteorological reasons alone, they said, Wind Cave needed to be saved and maybe someday bottled up to furnish electrical power. (More than 1 million cubic feet of air was emitted or taken in every hour at the blowhole entrance.)
When both the House and the Senate approved bills to establish America’s seventh national park, Roosevelt was gleeful. On January 9, 1903, without ceremony, he reserved 10,522 acres in western South Dakota to become Wind Cave National Park (eventually it would be enlarged to 28,295 acres). Although it is doubtful that Roosevelt realized this at the time, in addition to the boxwork formations he saved a fine example of mixed-grass prairie, one to which, in coming years, the Bronx Zoo bison would be reintroduced. Wind Cave National Park also became a prime bird-watching location, especially for enthusiasts seeking for the uninhibited song of western tanagers and lazuli buntings. Hunting and fishing were prohibited in the park, and no ponderosa pines could be chopped down for firewood. Rule Number 1 of the General Regulations for Wind Cave was that removal of formations was forbidden and nobody could ever again enter the cave without the approval of the U.S. government. The posted notices read: “All Persons Are Liable to Prosecution.”
Wind Cave has proved to be the “wonder” Senator Gamble called