Colorado Mountain Playgrounds in 1941

The cover of this booklet, shown below, has two beautiful color photos taken in Rocky Mountain National Park. This is actually the back cover; the rest of the booklet, including the front cover, has only black-and-white photos, though printed on glossy paper.

Click image to download a 17.5-MB PDF of this 36-page booklet.

Page 2 has “a message from the late Arno B. Cammerer while director, National Park Service.” Cammerer died in April, 1941, while this booklet is dated July, 1941. The message argues that “there is no more restful way to go [to national parks] than by train, and the railroads are offering more for less money this year than ever.”

We might imagine that Union Pacific solicited this message from Cammerer and then hastily added the “late” part before going to press. In fact, this message also appeared in Union Pacific’s 1939 Colorado tour booklet. Even if Cammerer had still been alive when this booklet was issued, he had stepped down as Park Service director in 1940, which is why the statement was headlined “while director.”


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