ABSTRACT
The post-World War II vision for the United States included provisions for a considerable public investment in providing access to opportunities for active outdoor recreation, a mandate that greatly shaped the future of both land conservation and historic preservation. To meet this need, a new federal agency, the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, was established to provide federal oversight to the Land Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which has provided substantial funding to local communities and federal agencies for the purchase of properties suitable and feasible for recreational uses. With limited success, preservationists within the National Park Service and in the private sector tried to manipulate the operation of the LWCF to acknowledge the opportunities for productive recreational pursuits found at historic sites across the country. The LWCF provided a mechanism by which recreational lands within communities were enumerated and protected with the option of conversion as time passed if replaced by substantially similar conserved parcels. Originally supported through a mosaic of funding streams that proved insufficient as land values escalated through the 1960, the LWCF came to be supported by lease payments from extractive industries along the continental shelf.
