| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 39.2

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the WHQ online. About 227 words from this article are provided below; about 526 words remain.

If you are a individual subscriber to the Western Historical Quarterly, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a subscriber to the Western Historical Quarterly, you can:: • subscribe here.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Western Historical Quarterly (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Western Historical Quarterly.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 39.2 | The History Cooperative

*National Park, City Playground: Mount Rainier in the Twentieth Century*. By Theodore Catton. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006. ix + 236 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $18.95, £11.99, paper.)
Rising above the skylines of Seattle and Tacoma, Mount Rainier is less a symbol of wilderness than an urban icon. Theodore Catton's deft book charts how the creation of Mount Rainier National Park was inseparable from the citizens of the two cities that laid claim to the mountain and made it their own. His book joins a growing number of studies that shift the origins of national parks away from stale debates over Romanticism and worthless lands. The result is a model of shrewd scholarship that future parks historians might emulate.	1
Located approximately fifty-odd miles southeast from Seattle, less from Tacoma, the national park, created in 1899, was the progeny of urban rivalry. At first glance, the story follows the conventional narrative of scenic nationalism, with transcontinental railways, like the Northern Pacific, joining conservation organizations, like the Sierra Club, to protect the snow-clad mountain. But Catton reveals how the campaign for the park was less about securing scenery or attracting railway tourists than appeasing recreation-hungry urbanites. From its inception, Mount Rainier, unlike its counterparts, Yellowstone or Glacier, or Yosemite, was a national park for nearby weekend visitors.	. . .

There are about 526 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.