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Treatment

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 6 months ago

 

Paving the Way

Treatment

 

 

 

Begin Part I

 

Prolog. At the 1917 National Parks Conference—a gathering of Parks officials and concerned citizens—Yellowstone Highway Association founder Gus Holm’s speaks on the necessity of good roads to encourage travel to the National Parks. His speech introduces the National Park-to-Park Highway (“We can offer in the United States, and particularly on the Park-to-Park Highway, mountain scenery that cannot be beat in any place in the world”).

 

1. PAVING THE WAY opens with a general history of the U.S. in 1920, and narrows to a discussion of what led Americans to travel within their own country. The film will focus on specific events like World War I and its immediate aftermath and the effects of the 1919 flu epidemic. This historical discussion will lead to descriptions of the dawning of the Baseball, Jazz and the Automobile Age, with special emphasis on the mass production of the Ford Model T that brought motoring to the masses.

 

2. The film segues from automotive history to a specific background on The National Park-to-Park Highway Association and other Good Roads Clubs like A.A.A. the Lincoln Highway, and the Yellowstone Highway Association. What did these clubs do, what did they seek to accomplish, who joined them and where did they come from?  The film will then move to coverage of the “See America First” campaign promoting automotive and railroad travel within the country.

 

3. On August 26, 1920 the National Park-to-Park Highway Association’s Inaugural Tour left Denver, and the film recreates this event. The film segues to an early biography of Anton ‘A.L.’ Westgard (future pathfinder for A.A.A.), concluding with his 1911 transcontinental journey in a truck—the first trip of its kind. The film then segues to an early biography of Stephen Mather (future director of the National Parks Service), concluding with his 1914 tour of Yosemite and subsequent letter he wrote to the Secretary of the Interior about the park’s shortcomings.

 

4. The tour arrives in Rocky Mountain National Park. The film references some general history on American trails and roads beginning with Lewis and Clark, moving on to the various interstate trails (e.g. the Oregon Trail, the Santa Fe Trail), the Lincoln Highway, the Jefferson Highway, and so on.

 

5. This discussion of old roads segues to the man who first set out to map what would become the U.S. roads system and who did the pathfinding of the tour’s route, A.A.A.’s Anton ‘A.L.’ Westgard. Where was he from? What was his background? How did he become involved in pathfinding roads? The film will also tell the story of how he drove the tour route himself in the months before the inaugural tour.

 

6. The tour arrives in Yellowstone, America’s first National Park. The film then tells the story of the National Parks Service including a discussion of Teddy Roosevelt and his influence, the early conservationists, the process of building awareness of the parks and their services, and the individuals leading the charge to develop an administrative body for the parks.

 

7. The National Parks Service history segues to the next part of Stephen Mather’s biography: his early career in the Department of the Interior and his first days in National Parks administration. This chapter will conclude with the institution of the National Parks Service—a federal administrative body for all National Parks—and Mather’s installation as the first director.

 

8. The tour arrives in Glacier National Park. Here the film briefly introduces the other individuals making the trip besides Westgard. People like Gus Holm’s whom we met previously, journalist Herbert Corey, and photographer A.G. Lucier. Mr. And Mrs. C.S. Sands, who represented the American Automobile Association, were there, as well as Edward Pershing (cousin of W.W.I. hero Gen. John Pershing) and his wife. (There were several others, with different backgrounds and from different states, and the film will introduce them.)

 

9. The story of Edward Pershing and his wife joining the trip to find land to homestead segues to a broader discussion of the American notion of “Out West” and how it has shaped American history, culture, music, and literature. Here the film will cover such topics as exploring, pioneering and homesteading.

 

10. As the tour pulls into Mt. Rainier, the film reflects on the legacy—for better and for worse—of the American concept of Manifest Destiny. The film will touch on the ultimate consequences and benefits of this expansionist policy.

As Part I concludes, Westgard is hospitalized in Oregon with an infection that will eventually kill him making this his last great trip in an automobile.

 

End Part I

Begin Part II

 

 

 

11. Part II begins with the tour pulling into Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon. The story starts with a discussion of the state of our nation’s roads in 1920. This section will discuss the lack of a national body regulating roads and how this led to the varied condition of roads from state to state (there are images the production crew have found showing the road ending in Oregon and beginning in California; the difference in quality between the two is startling).

 

12. The discussion of roads and their varied conditions segues to a brief history of road building technology from ancient times to the modern day—including old Roman roads up to the Interstate Highways of today. This section will conclude with an in-depth look at what technologies were available in 1920

 

13. The discussion of the primitive, but developing, state of roads and road building technologies in 1920 segues to a look at the need for roads to the National Parks. This section includes Mather’s $100,000,000 (in 1920 dollars!) proposal before Congress to build the Park-to-Park Highway, and how Mather sent out the Park-to-Park Tour to publicize his proposal. The film will show the political battles that grew out of this proposed legislation, how it polarized the debate over conservationism, and the political battles Mather faced in his tenure as Undersecretary of the Interior and Parks Service Director.

 

14. As the tour pulls into Yosemite, the film segues from Mather’s political battles to the day-to-day experience of the men and women on the Park-to-Park Tour. What it was like for them to go from forcing a 1920’s automobile down what passed for roads to the press circuses and spectacles of arriving in major cities the next day. The transitions were abrupt, exciting and undoubtedly strange for the tour members.

 

15. The discussion of press coverage following the tour leads the film to the evolving concept of the Great American Road Trip. The film harkens back to the seeds planted by the journeys of Lewis and Clark, the first cross-country drive in 1903, the great trails and early highways, and on to the modern Interstate Highways. This leads to the realization that the road trip was not yet a commonplace part of American life in 1920, and that the Park-to-Park Tour was one of the events that changed that.

 

16. The General Grant and Sequoia National Parks are the next stops. The film transitions to a discussion of the Interstate Highways, and how the concept of them was still unknown in 1920. Also, there is more on the ‘See America First’ idea growing out of WWI and the 1919 Flu Epidemic’s aftermath. Other ideas will come out of this as we continue production and learn more, but here is where we begin to discuss the seeds of social change the Park-to-Park Tour helped to plant.

 

17. The tour turns east and heads for Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks. On the way, the route follows roads that will become Route 66 and travels through Las Vegas. This fact brings the film to a further discussion of the roads and cities that would become iconic in the 20th century.

 

18. The tour pulls through Zion and Grand Canyon. The film’s story is moving faster now as we see the legacy of the Park-to-Park Tour playing out across the 20th century, but as the tour passes the Grand Canyon everything slows down for a moment, we take a breath, and stare in awe at the stunning landscape of the canyon and its surroundings.

 

19. Things are beginning to wrap up. Certain members of the tour are dropping out; some are shipping their vehicles ahead by train. They encounter weather in northern New Mexico, but some still make it to Mesa Verde, where we look back at ancient American peoples like the Anasazi. Where did they go when they abandoned their cliff dwellings? Why did they leave? The idea is to show that wanderlust and nomadiscism are an important part of human nature throughout history and then connect this idea to modern road trips.

 

20. The film’s recreated tour leaves Mesa Verde National Park.  The path of the film’s story leads to its conclusion in the legacy of the National Park-to-Park Highways Association and 1920 Tour: the Interstate Highways, the National Parks, See America First and the importance of the road trip in American life. For visuals, the film is passing through the countryside of southern and central Colorado.

 

21. South of Denver, the tour encounters a blizzard in Littleton, Colorado on November 8th, 1920. This is the final hardship before the Park-to-Park Tour concludes in Denver. This leads the film’s narrative to the slightly melancholy notion that the Opening of the West, which events like the Park-to-Park Tour helped bring about, was also the Closing of the Frontier and an almost mythological chapter in American history.

 

Conclusion. Interviews with the historians, rangers and authors the production crew met concerning not just the roads and their history, but what it means to be able to travel those roads today.  This will include how the parks became a destination for generations of Americans, and—perhaps more importantly—what it means that so many of us now feel the freedom to jump in our cars and drive wherever we want to on a modern Interstate Highway System, a highway system that has its origins in projects like the Park-to-Park Highway.

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