New River Gorge National River Administrative History

Good, Gregory; Stasick, Lynn; Department of History, West Virginia University

This report describes how past administrators have resolved management issues and how policy and administration have come to their present state. Chapter 1 briefly describes the pre-history and history of the park area, including industrial development and population growth in the gorge. Chapter 2 focuses on those involved in the early movement to protect the gorge, including local businesspeople, local and state politicians, past park managers, archeologists, scientists, and others. Chapter 3 considers the early years of NERI, during which the National Park Service effectively conducted an experiment at the New River. NPS attempted to manage NERI as a new kind of National Park, in which the vast majority of land remained in private ownership and most of the usual NPS mandate for protection of the resource was to be accomplished by local zoning and conservation easements. This experiment was tried as well at Cape Cod National Seashore and other units which joined the National Park System in the 1960s through 1980s. Chapter 3 narrates NPS relations with local communities and governments, especially concerning the location of the park headquarters, land acquisition policies, and effects of residential development on the park. Chapter 4 concentrates on the aftermath of this experiment, from 1988 on, when NERI and regional NPS staff adjusted to the failure of the trial of minimal ownership. During this phase, which continues as this report is completed in 2007, Park Service managers have accepted and adapted to increasingly rapid land acquisition, driven strongly by the involvement of the West Virginia Congressional delegation. This essential change in the nature of the park has required a much larger park staff and more intensive management. Chapter 4 concludes with a historical discussion of issues associated with the management of so extensive a park system, especially after the addition of BLUE and GARI to NERI’s administrative charge: operations, communication, law enforcement, emergency services, and fire fighting. River management and other natural resource management issues regarding water quality and flow rates are addressed in chapter 5; these issues have concerned businesses (especially the whitewater rafting industry), anglers, and local residents. Chapter 6 discusses the management of cultural resources such as the Kaymoor mine and the town of Thurmond. Chapter 7 addresses the history of recreation management issues, and chapter 8 discusses how policies and activities related to working with park visitors have adjusted to the fundamental change in the nature of the park since 1988: mass public facilities, visitor centers, and overlooks, as well as the management of major events. Hence, the first two chapters elaborate the historical narrative up to the establishment of NERI in 1978, Chapters 3 and 4 on the two fundamentally different approaches to NERI (small presence/major presence), and the remaining four chapters focus their narratives on specific management areas and how those have evolved over the decades since 1978.

New River Gorge National River Administrative History

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