Statement by the President Upon Issuing Proclamation Enlarging the Olympic National Park.

UNDER AUTHORITY given me by the act of Congress creating the Olympic National Park, I have issued a proclamation today adding to the park 47,753 acres of land now owned by the Federal Government. This action brings the area of the park to but 1,692 acres below the 898,292 acres authorized by the Congress in 1938.

The present additions bring to completion a great conservation undertaking sponsored by two former Presidents and authorized by the Congress. Theodore Roosevelt first gave it form on March 2, 1909, when he issued a proclamation establishing the Mt. Olympus National Monument. The National Monument thus established included some 600,000 acres and was created primarily for protection of the Olympic elk. In 1938, the Congress made the Monument a National Park and enlarged it and provided for its completion, for the purpose of preserving the gigantic virgin timber--trees up to 300 feet tall--which was so rapidly disappearing from the American Northwest. Franklin D. Roosevelt twice enlarged the park by proclamations, issued in 1940 and 1943, which increased its area to 848,845 acres.

At all stages of the park's development, careful attention has been given to the needs of Olympic Peninsula timber industries.

The present additions include an ocean strip of 41,969 acres acquired as part of the 1939 Public Works program. This portion embraces 50 miles of Pacific Ocean front connected with the Olympic Mountains by a narrow corridor of scenic forest along the Queets River. At its northern extremity, the ocean strip widens slightly to include the western shore of beautiful Lake Ozelle.

In 1940, when President Roosevelt exercised the major portion of the power given by Congress to enlarge the park, the boundaries were drawn to exclude an area 1 mile wide and 9 miles long, extending straight into the park along the Bogachiel River. This area, privately owned, was left out in order that it might be acquired for future inclusion through an exchange for it of national forest timber. The Forest Service, after long and careful negotiation, has brought 5,642 acres into public ownership, and I am incorporating this into the park. This insures the preservation of the 250-foot Sitka spruces of the Bogachiel Valley.

The Olympic National Park, established for the benefit and enjoyment of the American people, now becomes the only park in the world to extend from snowcapped mountains to ocean beaches.