Irving Newton Brant (January 17, 1885-September 18, 1976) was a biographer, journalist, and historian, was born in Walker, Iowa. He was a reporter and editorial writer for the St. Louis Star-Times from 1918 to 1923, and 1930 to 1938. He is best known for his six-volume scholarly biography of James Madison. Brant wrote about conservation of natural resources for magazines and in 1930 was a founder of the Emergency Conservation Committee. Brant advised President Franklin Roosevelt and Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, on conservation issues, including proposing recommendations for the enlargement of the Olympic National Park.
On June 29, 1938, President Roosevelt signed H.R. 10024, a bill which abolished Mount Olympus National Monument, established 634,000 acres for Olympic National Park, and authorized the future addition of more than 250,000 acres at the president's discretion. Planning for the new park was carried out in the summer of 1938 by a committee led by Harold L. Ickes (Secretary of the Interior 1933-1945). Ickes appointed journalist and conservationist Irving Brant as a consultant to the 14 western national parks. During the summer of 1938, Brant inspected Olympic National Park and submitted a report that endorsed adding ten areas comprising 226,656 acres. He included acreage around Lake Crescent, the administrative site next to Port Angeles, the high plateau area of Deer Park, Hurricane Hill, Obstruction Point, and the forested valleys of the Elwha, Bogachiel, Queets, and Quinault rivers. Brant conferred with Ickes, who recognized the sensitivity of the project and removed the Quinault area to appease timber interests. Two presidential orders, one issued in 1940 by Roosevelt and a January 6, 1953, executive order signed by Harry S. Truman, completed the establishment of the large peninsula park that its proponents envisioned. The 1940 addition included the forests of the Bogachiel, Calawah, Hoh, Queets, Quinault, and Elwha valleys. The 1953 addition included the Queets Corridor, the Ocean strip, and a seven-mile exchange area of the Bogachiel Valley.
1 album of photographs and text with map, titled "Report on the Enlargement of Olympic National Park," written by Irving Brant, consultant and photographer (1938). Includes Brant's recommendations and considerations on which lands to include in the Olympic National Park enlargement.
All photographs by Irving Brant.
Entire collection can be viewed on the Libraries' Digital Collections website. Permission of Visual Materials Curator is required to view originals. Contact Special Collections for more information.
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Processed by: Melody Smith, April 2019.
Written on page: This is the way the Douglas fir grows in the Elwha River Valley, cut off by mountains from the Pacific slope rainfall. "Small old growth" fir in the Elwha runs into millions of board feet, but is of practically no commercial value.
Written on page: Douglas fir, sixteen and two-thirds feet in diameter, in the Queets River Valley "rain forest." The park must be extended on the west side in order to preserve an adequate stand of these gigantic and irreplaceable trees.
Written on page: In the maple trees of the "rain forest," moss of tropical luxuriance hangs in festoons. To lumbermen, such trees are mere obstacles to the logging of other species. One touch of the axe, and the beauty of the forest is destroyed.
Written on page: This photograph was taken with the camera pointing straight up into the maple tree shown on the opposite page. Though it looks to be close, much of this moss is fifty feet in the air.
Written on page: One of the marvels of the "rain forest" is the rooting of living trees on fallen logs and stumps. A Sitka spruce, three feet thick, and a western hemlock (two feet), grow at an angle out of the stump of a fallen Sitka spruce on which they took root, ten feet above the ground, more than a hundred years ago. Queets River Valley.
Written on page: Twenty-three trees (21 hemlocks, a spruce and a maple) took root on a fallen log in the Queets River Valley and now form this living wall of wood. Fallen trees seem essential to the reproduction of hemlock in these wet valleys.
Written on page: Proper administration of the Olympic National Park requires that part of the "rain forest" shall be accessible to visitors who are not equipped to penetrate the wilderness. Enough roads are now built to accomplish this purpose.
Written on page: Other and larger areas should be preserved forever in their primeval state. This shows a pack train crossing the Queets River. As long as the steep mountains bordering these valleys remain forested, the rivers will retain their clear, even flow.
Written on page: Vigorous stand of Sitka spruce at Bogachiel Guard Station, Olympic National Forest. Some of these trees are about four feet in diameter where they leave the picture. The Sitka spruce grows to be nearly 300 feet tall.
Written on page: Steep north slope of Bogachiel River Valley, near mouth of Tumwata creek. Flood channel in foreground. These slopes could be lumbered only by destructive methods.
Written on page: Fine stand of western hemlock on north side of Bogachiel River, Olympic National Forest below Hyack Shelter. A stock phrase of park opponents is, "Why put that in the park? It's only hemlock."
Written on page: Young hemlock forest on south side of Bogachiel River, with remains of a much older Douglas fir forest, illustrating evolution of a forest. The next two photographs are of trees in the background of this picture.
Written on page: Ancient Douglas firs in young hemlock forest, on Snyder-Jackson trail leading from Bogachiel to Hoh Valley. These gigantic trees are an unnoticeable part of the background of the preceding picture.
Written on page: Douglas fir eleven feet in diameter, visible as a leaning tree in background of the second preceding picture. The last three scenes are on private holdings of the Crown-Zellerbach Corporation, which extend nine miles into the national forest along the Bogachiel River, and should be acquired by exchange for national forest timber and added to the national park.
Written on page: Sitka spruces, nine feet in diameter, in Hoh River Valley, Olympic National Park. By extending the boundaries four miles down the river, trees of equal size and other features of the "rain forest" will be preserved and made available to the motoring public.
Written on page: Typical "overhead rooting" of western hemlock in the "rain forest." This tree, in Hoh River Valley, took root on a stump seventeen feet above the ground, sending roots down through and around the stump, which has long since rotted away.
Written on page: Looking up Queets River Valley from Kloochman Rock. Present park boundary two miles up stream. A region untouched by lumbering or forest fires, densely timbered with western hemlock and amabilis of silver fir.
Written on page: This gravel bar, during past ages, has washed out of mountain slopes so loose in texture that lumbering would bring the whole mountainside down into the valley. A landslide is visible in the background.
Written on page: The western hemlock, a much under-rated tree from both lumbering and scenic standpoints, grows to large size on these steep mountains. This big one is at an elevation of 3,000 feet on the trail to Kloochman Rock, Queets River Valley.
Written on page: The fall of this big western hemlock, whose tall broken stump stands at left, knocked down a double row of trees extending 600 feet up the mountainside. Eleven trees were bowled over like tenpins, as the taller of them were struck at heights of 100 to 150 feet above the ground. The next two photographs are in the line of destruction.
Written on page: This splintered giant was the third to fall in the line of destruction beginning with the preceding picture. On the trail to Kloochman Rock, Queets River Valley, Olympic National Forest.
Written on page: Nature, knocking down twelve trees through the fall of one, did no worse than the most careful selective logger would have done. This photograph was taken from the trunk of a 200-foot amabilis fir knocked down by the tree on which the man is standing. The camera is about 500 feet from the first tree that fell.
Written on page: The western hemlock grows tall beside the Queets River. This photograph was taken with a wide angle lens from the fallen Sitka spruce shown in the next picture. The camera was 300 feet distant from the prominent hemlock below whose base (on a drift log) a man is standing.
Written on page: Photograph of the photographer, showing the spot from which the preceding picture was taken. Note the swiftness of the Queets, and the wilderness aspect of the region. Olympic National Forest, below Tshleetshy Creek.
Written on page: Forty-one-inch king salmon caught on light trout tackle in the Queets River, within the present park boundaries. The steelhead is the principal game fish in this river, especially in the area whose addition in proposed.
Written on page: Lake Quinault from north shore, looking toward hotel. Inclusion of south shore is not recommended because of extensive private land holdings.
Written on page: Large-leaved maples, heavy with moss, on East Fork of Quinault River. This maple is one of the most attractive features of the "rain forest," and its little relative, the vine maple furnishes an important browse for the elk.
Written on page: This photograph and the next were taken from the same spot on the road up the North Fork of the Quinault River. The land, though in the Olympic National Forest, is privately owned. Taken together, the two photographs form an illustration of selective cutting both through economic selection and leaving of seed strips, the approved methods.
Written on page: Logging of steep hillsides, like this one, results in the tearing out of small trees. These form a high fire hazard (there is a fire warning sign on the nearest standing tree forbidding anybody to enter this cut over tract), and serious erosion is certain to follow. A large proportion of the forest lands proposed for addition to the national park are so steep that logging would produce results like this.
Written on page: Western red cedar, thirteen feet in diameter, on East Fork of the Quinault River. This variety of cedar has remarkable tenacity of life, due to its habit of building fluted columns of new tissue over a dead trunk. There will be too few of these magnificent conifers in the park, even when extensively enlarged.
Written on page: Totally invisible behind the 13-foot thick trunk of the cedar shown on preceding page, was this Sitka spruce, seven feet in diameter. The two trunks together form almost a perfect circle, 41 feet in circumference, which is the calculable circumference of the cedar alone, on the basis of diameter.
Written on page: Lake Cushman, an artificial reservoir in the Olympic National Forest. If the northern tip of the lake is taken into the park, as recommended, this sad-looking spectacle can be cleaned up and turned into an attractive recreation spot.
Written on page: Cut over land in Olympic National Forest, shrouded in forest-fire smoke, as seen from spot where Dosewallips River road enters virgin timber. The Forest Service is engaged in valuable reforestation work below this point.
Written on page: Looking into virgin timber from spot where preceding picture was taken. The Dosewallips River Valley narrows and steepens above this point and becomes primarily important for recreation. Proposed park boundary is about a mile up the valley.
Written on page: Road-building beside the Dosewallips Waterfall, begun this year but now stopped, partially destroyed one of the most beautiful places in the area proposed for addition to the park. The road, described as an extension to reach a camping site a half mile above the falls, violates the principles of wilderness preservation.
Written on page: Landscape architects say that if the Dosewallips River Valley is included in the national park, it will be possible to remedy much of this destruction by throwing in earth, converting the road into a trail, and cleaning out the blasted rock that slopes to the cascades.
Written on page: Dosewallips River just above the waterfall, showing Jump-off Bridge for pack trains starting into the wilderness.
Written on page: This is the favorite entrance for Seattle people into the high country.
Written on page: Deer Park, elevation 6,000 feet, in center of winter sports and offers a fine view of snow-topped mountains in summer (here obscured by forest fires). Note the bareness of the ground, due to grazing by 1,600 sheep up to 1934. A nearby sign lends irony. It reads: "Pick no flowers within 500 feet on the road."
Written on page: Another spot at the same altitude where no grazing has occurred.
Written on page: This photograph and the next, taken in the Elwha River Valley, Olympic National Forest, show what Nature has provided and what man does. The Elwha is the most popular fishing stream in the Olympic mountains.
Written on page: Selective cutting on private land in the national forest. Seed trees assure regrowth, if no fire starts in the slash after seeding takes place. Cutting of this type is in accordance with approved government practices, but from a scenic standpoint the area is ruined.
Written on page: Slash left beside the Hoh River road, Olympic National Forest, on private land. The ultimate choice, in relation to The national park, is symbolized by the contrast between scenes like this, and (see next picture):.
Written on page: Scenes like this, wherein Nature disposes of a forest that becomes "overripe." Alder grove in a bygone forest of spruce, with young hemlocks growing out of a decaying spruce log. Queets River Valley, Olympic National Park.
Written on page: The Olympic National Park, to fulfill its purpose, must extend from near sea level, where The "rain forest" produces such giant trees as this western red cedar, to-.
Written on page: The snow-covered Olympic Mountains, as seen from Hurricane Hill, where an inhabitant of The region expresses, in quiet contentment, his satisfaction at The establishment of The national park.