Governor Smylie Remembers – excerpts from Idaho Governor Robert E. Smylie’s memoirs concerning the donation of Harriman State Park and the establishment of the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation.

“Harriman had been impressed with the manner in which our Department of Fish and Game had cleaned up the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River and restored that fishery to its original magnificence.  He said that he did not want the Railroad Ranch, once he was gone, to be cut up into a commercial development and he would like to preserve the area in one piece as a wildlife refuge.  He inquired whether or not I thought the state would be willing to accept it as a gift for the purpose of a state park or wildlife refuge or both.  Harriman wanted to be sure that once the area was a state park, it would be under professional career management and that it would be preserved for the uses that he intended in his original gift.  I told him that I would think it necessary to secure ratification of such a proposal by the legislature because it would require ongoing expenditures, and he agreed to that suggestion.  We agreed to study the proposal further and to get back together again later in the fall in New York City.  It is now history that in 1977, the park became a part of the Parks Department of the state of Idaho and has been an adornment of that agency ever since.  The contract provided that the park had to be administered by the state pursuant to a system of professional career employees, which in essence meant a civil-service type administration, and that the contract could not be carried into effect unless and until it had been ratified by the legislature.  When the contract was presented to the legislature in 1963 they ratified it.  With that ratification, the decision was made for a professional career park management that would be used in all of the parks in the state system.  We had already set aside the property for Veterans’ State Park in the heart of downtown Boise, and that pretty much guaranteed a statewide constituency for parks and their services.  The provisions in the Harriman Park contract, which were my idea, pretty much acted as the catalyst which made it necessary for the legislature to adopt professional career management for its parks.”

“The Thirty-seventh Legislature in 1963 finally accepted the notion that we needed an independent department of Parks and Recreation that would have as its sole mission the maintenance and operation and, for that matter, the origination cam about as a result of the ratification of the contract which I had signed with the Harriman brothers, E. Roland and Averall, which promised to convey to the state at the appropriate time the Railroad Ranch.  The legislature could summon the resolution to ratify the contract, but it was not ready to go the whole road and establish the independent park system that was necessary before the Harriman gift of the Railroad Ranch could fully vest as property of the people of the state of Idaho.”

“I count it as one of the great positive, long-term achievements of my twelve-year administration.  The twenty-eight parks and recreation areas which the Department of Parks and Recreation administers are not only a very successful attempt to preserve a part of what Idaho was for what Idaho will be, it also constitutes a tremendous commercial advantage to the tourist trade of the state and is an economic asset of great value.”

“It is obvious that the Harriman contract had pushed us into the position of establishing a State Parks Agency.”