Archives West Finding Aid

The Sawtooth Society was founded to protect the Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA). Its website (2007) defines its mission as threefold: serving as an advocate for the SNRA, preserving open space in the SNRA, and enhancing recreation facilities and services in the SNRA, an area of 756,000 acres of public and private land in the rugged Sawtooth Mountains of Central Idaho.

Congress designated this area a national recreation area in 1972 after decades of debate over the future of the region. Many in Idaho advocated the creation of a national park in the Sawtooth Mountains, but the park proposal met opposition from numerous landowners, recreationists, and ranchers in the region. National recreation area status was viewed as a compromise. Since then the area has been managed and regulated by the U.S. Forest Service.

The approaching 25th anniversary of the SNRA in 1997 brought a great deal of attention to the area. Many of the private lands within its bounds and adjacent were being developed in ways that were considered by some to be unsightly and contrary to the purposes of the SNRA. Congress had not authorized funds for the purchase of scenic easements since the 1980s and facilities within the SNRA were not being improved. The Sawtooth Society was founded in 1997 to remedy these problems, and these records reflect that mission. Much of the collection consists of records pertaining to fundraising through Congress and the public for funds to purchase easements, preserve open space, and to enhance facilities. Many of the founding members of the Sawtooth Society were major proponents for the creation of the SNRA in 1972.

Bethine Church of Boise is the widow of U.S. Senator Frank Church. Born in 1923 into a politically active family (her father was later Governor of Idaho), she spent much of her childhood at the family ranch at Robinson Bar, Idaho, now at the edge of the SNRA. She married Frank Church at the ranch in 1947. In order to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, she and Senator Church sold the ranch when he was sponsoring legislation to create the SNRA. Bethine Church was joined in founding the society by former Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus (D), former U.S. Senator Jim McClure (R), and former Representative Orval Hansen (R), reflecting the bipartisan nature of the organization.