Olympic National Park Review Committee (Wash.)

In the period after the creation of Olympic National Park in 1938, the National Park Service failed to adopt adequate management procedures for the citizens of the North Shore of the Quinault valley. The original intent was to buy out the inholders on a willing seller basis and to restore the area, but the National Park Service year after year proved short on funds. So, following an initial period of euphoria, most of the inholders soured on their condition. Growing more and more contentious, the inholders continually used what political clout they had to endeavor to remove themselves from the park by a change of boundaries. Numerous attempts at this deletion have been made. In 1953 Governor Arthur Langlie's Olympic National Park Review Committee was appointed with the expectation that it would recommend the elimination of all of the west side forested valleys from the park. But public testimony overwhelmingly favored protecting the forests, and the Committee majority was thwarted. The Committee's minority report advocated retention of all the forested valleys, including Lake Quinault's North Shore