Harold P. Fabian: Grand Teton's Land Buyer and His Papers

Harold P. Fabian's papers, 1955–1976, are part of the NPS History Collection at Harpers Ferry Center. They fill 3 linear feet, haven't been digitized, and are open to researchers (collection HFCA 1645, Series XIII.A); Josephine Fabian donated them in 1981.

The man

• Early life: born April 1, 1885, in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Ferdinand John and Minnie Pegram Fabian. He attended the Mercersburg Academy, earned a BA from Yale (1907) and a law degree from Harvard (1910), and joined the Utah Bar that year.
• Family: he married Ruth Chapman in 1910 (they had two children and later divorced) and Josephine Cunningham on February 14, 1936.
• Law and war: a partner in Dey, Hoppaugh and Fabian (1910–1917), he served as an infantry major in World War I, then joined the firm that became Fabian and Clendenin, where he stayed for the rest of his career.
• Civic life: active in the Republican Party (1920 and 1940 conventions; national committee 1928–1932), president of the National Chamber of Commerce (1930–1931), and a member of many bar, patriotic, fraternal and civic groups.

Grand Teton

As local administrator of the Snake River Land Company, Fabian was John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s principal representative in buying land in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to protect it from commercial development. He also handled legal work for the Jackson Hole Wildlife Park and Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc. The land went to the National Park Service and became part of Grand Teton National Park in 1950.

He went on to lead the Grand Teton Lodge and Transportation Company (1946–1954) and serve Jackson Hole Preserve as executive vice president, treasurer and trustee.

The Park Service

• Advisory Board: Fabian sat on the Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings, and Monuments (today's National Park System Advisory Board) from July 1, 1958, to June 30, 1964, chairing it from 1962. The board advised the Secretary of the Interior on park matters — new designations, restoration, conservation and administration — and played a large part in Mission 66, the ten-year program to expand and improve visitor services for the Park Service's 50th anniversary in 1966.
• Planning: he served on the Yellowstone–Grand Teton planning team in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
• Utah: he also chaired the Utah Park and Recreation Committee and worked with the Utah Heritage Foundation, Nauvoo Restoration and the Utah Pony Express Commission, among others.

Fabian died on December 6, 1975.

What the papers contain

• Advisory Board minutes, program books, status reports, meeting materials, field-trip files (Hawaii, the Southwest, New England and elsewhere), correspondence and memos, 1958–1973.
• Park planning correspondence and policy documents on Canyonlands, Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Gettysburg, including Yellowstone–Grand Teton management studies.
• Correspondence with NPS directors Horace M. Albright, Conrad Wirth, George B. Hartzog Jr. and Ronald Walker.
• NPS director's staff meeting minutes, 1964–1971.

The files are arranged alphabetically by subject, then by date. Related collections include the Frank E. Masland Papers and NPS Advisory Board photographs, recordings and meeting files in the NPS History Collection, and Fabian's own papers and photographs at the University of Utah Libraries Special Collections.

Sources

Based on "Guide to the Harold P. Fabian Papers," NPS History Collection, National Park Service, a finding aid in the public domain; its folder-by-folder container list is summarized here. Cite as: Harold P. Fabian Papers, Assembled Historic Records of the NPS (HFCA 1645), NPS History Collection.