Utah's mixed reaction to Canyonlands National Park

Canyonlands National Park turns 60 years old this week!

Yes, but: Not all Utahns were happy about its creation.

• This is Old News, our hike to Utah's past.

What drove the news: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill establishing the park on Sept. 12, 1964.

Friction point: Industrial interests wanted to keep mining and grazing legal on the 257,640-acre tract of newly-protected land.

• Mining and drilling were especially desired after a geologist in 1962 declared that no other part of the state had greater mineral protection, citing deposits of oil, uranium and other spoils.

How it worked: U.S. Sen. Frank E. Moss (D-Utah), who proposed Canyonlands in the first place, tried to revise federal rules to allow mining and grazing in national parks.

• He also drafted the bill to allow some mining in the park boundaries, which he described as "not inviolate."

The big picture: As the National Park Service expanded to more sites, conservationists ran into increasing pushback against what Moss called a "purist" approach to park management

Zoom in: The prospect of mining in the parks wasn't popular, and Moss gave up on those provisions when they put the park's passage at risk.

What they said: "This compromise is a sham," said then-Utah Gov. George D. Clyde.

The bottom line: Canyonlands was controversial — but nothing close to the fury that surrounded Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments.

• 1964 was a different time.

Previously in Old News

• The first teen fashion trend comes to Utah
• Utah's first recorded dino still whispers prehistoric secrets
• Salt Lake's 1999 tornado: Your memories
• 110 years of speed at the salt flats — plus photos
• When the church banned Black kids from Boy Scouts leadership