George Walbridge Perkins - Palisades Interstate Park Commission

Palisades Interstate Park Commission

In 1900, New York governor Theodore Roosevelt appointed Perkins president of the newly formed Palisades Interstate Park Commission. It had been formed with the aim of stopping the destruction of the Palisades, a line of steep cliffs along the west side of the lower Hudson River in northeast New Jersey and southern New York. Although the Palisades and the Hudson Highlands were admired for their beauty and were featured in paintings of the Hudson River School, they were also viewed as a rich source of traprock (basalt) by quarrymen seeking to provide building material for the growth of nearby Manhattan Island. By the early 1900s development along the lower Hudson River had begun to destroy much of the area's natural beauty. The Commission was authorized to acquire land between Fort Lee and Piermont, New York; its jurisdiction was extended to Stony Point in 1906.

The Commission was expected to raise the funds needed for the acquisition of land from private sources. Needing at least $125,000, Perkins turned first to J. P. Morgan. Morgan offered to put up the entire sum on the condition that Perkins would become a Morgan partner. Perkins agreed, with the immediate result that quarrying along the Palisades was stopped on December 24, 1900.

Then, in 1908 the State of New York announced plans to relocate Sing Sing Prison to Bear Mountain. Work was begun and in January 1909, the state purchased the 740 acre (3.0 km²) Bear Mountain tract. Conservationists, inspired by the earlier work of the Park Commission lobbied successfully for the creation of the Highlands of the Hudson Forest Preserve. However, the prison project was continued.

Perkins, working with Union Pacific Railroad president Edward Henry Harriman, and, after his death, with his widow, Mary Averell Harriman, arranged a gift to the state of ten thousand acres (40 km²) and one million dollars from the Harrimans toward the creation of a state park and another $1.5 million from a dozen wealthy contributors including John D. Rockefeller and Morgan. New York state appropriated a matching $2.5 million. Bear Mountain-Harriman State Park became a reality in 1910 when the prison was demolished. Perkins hired Major William A. Welch as Chief Engineer, whose work for the park would achieve national influence as state and national park systems grew. The Perkins Memorial Tower at Bear Mountain State Park commemorates his work for the park; the view from the tower takes in four states and the Hudson River valley, including New York City.

He died on June 18, 1920.