Increase the State Parks Budget: A Modest Proposal

Now is the time to purchase new California parklands not shut-down existing ones.

The Great Depression of the 1930s did not halt the state parkland acquisition program; in fact, the economic downturn accelerated it. Major parkland acquisitions would not have come about if housing construction and commercial real estate activity had been prospering. The state was able to purchase scenic gems at bargain-basement prices.

Cuyamaca Rancho State Park was one of many state parks created during the grim economic times of the 1930s. –photo courtesy California State Parks.

The time to purchase parkland is during an economic downturn.
Forward-looking politicians, philanthropists and park supporters of the 1930s turned a budget crisis into an opportunity.

Splendid redwood groves—among them the tallest trees on earth—were purchased and added to Humboldt Redwoods, Prairie Creek Redwoods and Jedediah Smith Redwoods state parks. Many private developers were caught short in tough circumstances and the state was able to acquire miles of shoreline from San Clemente to San Luis Obispo.

The state bought Point Lobos, described by painter Francis McComas as “the greatest meeting of land and water in the world,” and opened it as a state reserve in 1933. Pfeiffer Big Sur, Morro Bay, La Purisima Mission, Cuymaca Rancho, Anza-Borrego…all of these parks and more were created during the early 1930s.

Now is the time to acquire parklands from the coast to the High Sierra foothills and at the edges of California’s great cities.

We dishonor past generations of Californians with talk of park closures. We shrink from our responsibility by failing to invest in the future. We owe the next generation the same courage and consideration previous generations gave us.