It was not predetermined that Mount Rainier would become a national park. A growing interest in timber led to the formation of the Pacific Forest Reserve in 1893, a rough square, thirty-five miles on a side, with Mount Rainier’s summit on the western edge. Then in 1897, the area was renamed the Mount Rainier Forest Reserve and the boundaries were greatly enlarged to the west and south. Several mining claims were made in the area and some of the early explorers, like Bailey Willis, were geologists surveying the area for minerals.
However, scientists, mountaineers, conservation groups, local businesses, and large railroad companies all saw some possible benefit from a national park around Mount Rainier. They combined their often-disparate interests into a lobbying campaign starting in 1893. It stressed the potential for tourism from the nearby cities of Seattle and Tacoma, the unsuitability of land for other commercial purposes like agriculture and grazing, and a need to preserve the unique glacial landscape for further study. After hesitant congressmen received assurances that the park would not come as an added expense to the government, the bill passed in 1899. Mount Rainier became the nation’s fifth national park.
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