Who Designed the National Park Service Arrowhead?

Most histories of the National Park Service arrowhead repeat one story, largely the Park Service's own. Research in the NPS History Collection, for its 50 Nifty Finds series, challenges it and finds two early designs earlier histories missed.

A contest winner nobody loved

In 1949 the Park Service held an employee contest for an emblem to represent the bureau. Dudley C. Bayliss, chief of planning for parkways, won first place and the $50 prize with a road sign in which the letters "NPS" form the mountains and the tail of the S becomes a road.

Bayliss's winning 1949 design. NPS History Collection (HFCA-01249).

Bayliss, an architect from Minnesota, joined the Park Service in 1933 and worked on the Blue Ridge Parkway for 30 years, as chief of parkways until he retired in 1966.

Dudley Bayliss. NPS History Collection (HFCA 1607).

His design never caught on. Conrad L. Wirth, on the selection committee, said it "was good and well presented, but it was, as were most of the submissions, a formal modern type. We expected something that told what the parks were about."

"The germ of an idea"

Regional architect Cecil J. Doty of Region IV in San Francisco recalled in 1989 that he, Sanford Hill, Dr. Neasham and others suggested replacements, and that he did not remember who proposed the arrowhead — "Being the historian, I suppose it was Dr. Neasham."

He was right. Regional historian Dr. V. Aubrey Neasham wrote directly to Director Newton B. Drury, his former boss, on December 12, 1949:

This may be the germ of an idea for an NPS emblem. The arrowhead represents history and archeology, and the tree the scenic [views] and the natural [resources]. A good artist may do something with it.

His rough sketch showed a pine tree inside an elongated arrowhead. Drury found it had "the important merit of simplicity."

Neasham's 1949 sketch. NPS History Collection (HFCA-01249).

Neasham, a Berkeley PhD in history, had worked with Drury on California's historical landmarks before joining the Park Service in 1938. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and left the Park Service at the end of 1952 to become California's state historian.

Dr. V. Aubrey Neasham. NPS History Collection (HFCA 1607).

Separating fact from fiction

The usual account says that when Wirth became director in 1951, he handed Neasham's idea to Herbert Maier, who worked it into the first arrowhead with Doty, Hill and Walter G. Rivers. Wirth himself disputed this in a 1985 letter: at a meeting at Yosemite in Drury's last year, "somebody had placed the big arrowhead at the entrance. Everybody liked it very much better than the one approved as a result of the competition. Either Drury or Demaray made the change. When I became director, I put it to its full use."

The dates bear him out. Drury was director until March 31, 1951; under his successor Arthur E. Demaray, Secretary of the Interior Oscar L. Chapman authorized the arrowhead on July 20, 1951; Wirth became director only on December 9, 1951.

The meeting was the National Park Service Conference at Yosemite, October 16–21, 1950. The big sign is lost, but a drawing of it in the conference program was recently found in the History Collection — believed to be the earliest published arrowhead. The words "Region Four" across its top show it was only a welcome symbol for the conference. No record shows Drury ordering a servicewide emblem; more likely Neasham, encouraged by Drury, worked with the regional architects on it before the conference.

The first arrowhead, from the 1950 conference program, attributed to Cecil J. Doty. NPS History Collection (HFCA 1645).

As for Maier, Wirth wrote: "I think it was Herb Maier. Everybody has given him credit for it." There is no direct evidence of that, and much against it. Doty, who worked for Maier, never mentioned him, and wrote instead: "Being the regional architect and having been born in Indian Territory [Oklahoma] I claim to have made the first drawing of the arrow[head]" — almost certainly the 1950 conference emblem. Neither the oral histories of Neasham, Maier and Doty nor Neasham's papers mention designing it.

Cecil J. Doty in the 1930s. NPS History Collection photo by Glenn Peart (HFCA 1607).

Doty was sure who drew everything that followed: "almost all of the drawings were done by Mr. Walter Rivers."

Walter G. Rivers

Rivers, a San Francisco native with a Berkeley degree in anthropology, was drafted in 1942 and discharged that December for a pre-existing health condition. He joined the Park Service as a ranger-naturalist at Crater Lake, and by December 1948 was a museum curator for western parks, paid by the architecture program — which tied him to Doty and Hill.

Rivers drew the arrowhead and folded in elements others suggested; his son David recalls that his father found the final design "somewhat busy." No record says who chose which element. David notes that the family often camped at Manzanita Lake in Lassen Volcanic National Park, and calls his father's drawings of Mount Lassen across the lake "a dead ringer for the lake and mountain in the logo."

Rivers left the Park Service around 1955, and in the 1960s campaigned for Redwood National and State Parks. He died in 1999.

The overlooked 1951 arrowhead

No approved drawing of the first servicewide emblem has been found, and a 1952 drawing has often been presented as the first. But the 1951 design was "hiding in plain sight" in dozens of reports and brochures: different peaks, edges and lettering, a bison with a long tail, and an open lake. It first appeared in Demaray's annual report for the year ending June 30, 1951, in gray on black.

The black arrowhead of the 1951 annual report and many 1952 brochures, designed by Walter G. Rivers. NPS History Collection (HFCA 1645).

Many 1952 park brochures carried it too. The 1952 Oregon Caves brochure, with a white arrowhead, is usually called the first to use it, but the black ones were probably earlier.

In print, on uniforms, on plaques

Once director, Wirth did "put it to full use," but inconsistently, in colors that changed to match each brochure.

Arrowheads from park reports and brochures, 1952–1968. NPS History Collection photo.

The shoulder patch was added to the uniform on July 29, 1952: a white bison, mountains, lake and letters, with green trees, on a brown arrowhead. The white bison was probably not chosen for its sacred meaning to some Native American Tribes, but to continue the contrasting white of earlier sleeve insignia; there is no evidence that any Tribe was consulted. The patch has been part of the uniform for over 70 years.

Early patches, about 1952–1954; differences are largely due to different makers. NPS History Collection (HFCA 260, HFCA 261).

NPS model maker Rudolph W. Bauss carved the first two wooden arrowhead plaques in 1952; one is in the History Collection. The long-tailed bison did not translate well to wood, and a new drawing, approved by Wirth on October 22, 1952 and likely by Rivers, fixed it. That 1952 design is the one usually called the first — and why Wirth got the credit.

Bauss's 1952 plaque. NPS History Collection (HFCA 217).

Left to right: the original 1951, modified 1951, 1952 and 1954 arrowheads, all attributed to Walter G. Rivers. NPS History Collection photo.

Later plaques on entrance signs, buildings and podiums varied widely — the bison outlined in green, solid green or white — which makes old arrowheads hard to date.

Ranger Charles Lamb at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, 1957, with the 1952 patch on his sleeve and a 1954 plaque. NPS History Collection (HFCA 1607).

Official symbol, and today

The Interior Department made the arrowhead the Park Service's official symbol in 1962. The National Park Courier explained it to employees: the arrowhead shape stands for the nation's history and prehistory, the tree for forests and wilderness, the lake for water's role in scenery and recreation, the snow-capped mountain for open space and the majesty of nature, and the bison for wildlife conservation. It was published in the Federal Register in 1962 and registered with the U.S. Patent Office on February 9, 1965.

In 1968 Director George B. Hartzog, Jr. replaced it with a modern symbol, which employees disliked, and he reversed course before the patch was changed. Park brochures left it off from 1970 into the 1990s; it returned in 1999 on the black band of the Unigrid brochures. The Dennis Konetzka Design Group redrew it in 2001 — brown, with dark green trees, a white lake and letters, and a white bison in a green field — and Harpers Ferry Center produced matching artwork in 2004.

Bonnie Koploy at Katmai National Monument, 1969. NPS History Collection (HFCA 1607).

Sources

Based on "50 Nifty Finds #38: A Germ of an Idea," NPS History Collection, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The source's full list of archival sources is on the original page. A photograph of Walter G. Rivers courtesy of the Rivers family is not reproduced. The source spells the plaque maker's name both "Rudolph W. Bauss" and "Rudolf Bauss"; this page uses the first.