Hidden History (Mythbusting)

There are any number of good reasons to study history, not the least of which is the ability to identify significant patterns that might otherwise elude detection. There are patterns in government that are revealed only through a close examination of the historical record. But where the historical record is incomplete – or worse – where the record has been manipulated to conceal important historical events, those patterns may not be revealed or detected. That can have grave consequences, including the acceptance of tactics and even policies that, while appearing successful in the short-term or at the local level, may lead to long-term harm. The lengths to which a government agency will go to conceal that record and to promote those kinds of tactics and policies can, in and of itself, reveal a lot about the culture of that agency.

I became intrigued with this phenomenon in the early 1980s, while researching the history of law enforcement in the National Park Service. Contrary to my own observations and experiences, the NPS maintained that law enforcement did not become a significant problem in parks until the 1970s and 1980s. According to official accounts, rangers did not historically carry or even need firearms and other defensive equipment until then, and had not previously engaged in serious law enforcement activities. As late as 1989, the agency's chief ranger and other officials in Washington, D.C., even claimed that three separate officer-involved shootings that year were "believed to be the first by rangers in the Park Service's seventy-three year history," adding, "it's surprising rangers haven't used deadly force before." Surprising, indeed, because none of it was true.

My own research and that of a colleague, ranger Jeff Ohlfs, supported by dozens of interviews with old-timers as well as hundreds of old newspaper accounts, photographs, and even long-buried reports and agency memorandums, flatly refuted those official accounts. The files in my collection contain documentation on literally dozens of incidents prior to 1989, involving the use of deadly force by – as well as against – park rangers. The numbers beyond that date reveal a continuing pattern of violent crime in parks, including assaults against rangers.

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Yellowstone's first superintendent under the NPS (1919 - 1929), Horace Albright, had proclaimed in a form letter to ranger-applicants that "The Ranger is primarily a policeman," and "The ranger force is the park police force, and is on-duty night and day in the protection of the park."

In 1926, while attending the Park Service's first chief rangers' conference (when the agency was only ten years old), Yellowstone chief ranger Sam Woodring declared "We are the police force of the national parks and are charged with the enforcement of law ..."

Notably, Woodring was also strongly opposed to the adoption of what is today the single most iconic symbol of the NPS and its rangers; the Smokey Bear flat hat. Expressing a complaint heard to this day from rangers across the country, he bluntly proclaimed,

I think the most unsatisfactory part of the present uniform is the hat. From the practical standpoint it is the poorest type that could have been adopted. The stiff brim is an impediment to a ranger while at work as it is always in the way and is continually falling off. Working or riding through the brush it is worse than useless, and it is practically impossible to get in or out of a car without knocking it off.

Attending the same conference, Yosemite chief ranger Forest Townsley echoed Woodring's sentiments about the law enforcement duties and challenges his rangers faced, observing that "The greatest problem in Yosemite relates to traffic and police work." Reinforcing this point with surprising candor, while simultaneously foretelling future conditions in the national parks, Townsley explained

The increase in travel will also complicate an already difficult police problem ...

It will bring in many people of a class which is not favorable from a park standpoint, being mostly people who are out to have a good time, and are not in the least interested in the scenic features of the park ...

The above are the class of people who are found in any cheap beach resort, and I expect them to cause considerable trouble in the future in Yosemite. The crowded conditions in the valley will no doubt attract criminals ...

In addition to statements like these, I discovered a long and continuing pattern of crime in parks going back more than a century, and an equally long record of rangers, both armed and unarmed, attempting to combat that crime, often without the meaningful support of park managers.

The popular media has long been a willing participant in the perpetuation of the ranger image and the various myths portraying an historical absence of serious crime in parks. My personal video library now contains dozens of recordings of TV documentary and news accounts going back decades – as far back as the 1970s and all the way up to the present – each successively claiming to expose newfound revelations about "crime coming to the parks." Many of these pieces feature the two very parks, Yellowstone and Yosemite, about which chief rangers Woodring and Townsley had spoken in their own 1926 discussions about crime that had already come to these same areas, where at least they understood that "the ranger force is the park police force." Yet, almost all of these television pieces – year after year and decade after decade – contain misleading statements offered by NPS officials claiming that such trends are a new phenomenon, for the first time (each time!) forcing the agency to arm its rangers and train them to assume an increasingly heavy law enforcement role in the parks.

While the NPS still attempts to downplay the levels of crime and violence that occur in parks and the historic law enforcement role that park rangers have performed, there has been some progress, in many instances the direct result of my own and ranger Ohlfs'...