In the late 1920’s Badlands visitors who arrived from the east via Kadoka or Cottonwood probably used Cedar Pass. The narrow and precipitous route through Cedar Pass was aptly described by one of those early visitors:
The passes become more crooked and the grades more steep. The road is bordered by profuse scrub cedar trees. There is a thrill in that drive! At first it looks dangerous, but the danger seems to minimize as we approach each more steep and more crooked and more narrow section. By taking it slowly the risk is small.[86]
The route passed the new Cedar Pass Camp (now Cedar Pass Lodge) and took visitors to the railroad town of Interior where they may have spent some time at Palmer’s Curio shop and at Henry Thompson’s souvenir stand which he called “The Wonderland.” From Interior visitors traveled west over the Washington Highway to the railroad town of Scenic. In the late 1920’s the Museum Filling Station in Scenic was widely known for its collection of Badlands fossils and Indian artifacts. They also provided guide services to visitors desiring to see Badlands features located off the road. Rapid City was reached by traveling northwest over 45 miles of good dirt road—except during rains.[87]
Support for the park proposal grew in the late 1920’s. In October 1927 the Wonderland Hiway Association, in a letter to Senator Norbeck, wrote:
At a meeting of the Wonderland Hiway Association, an orgization [sic] comprising the business men and local residenters [sic] of the Towns through the Bad Lands, It was resolved; That the Association would ask and petition the State Hiway Commission ... for a State Hiway, Starting from Kadoka, West over Cedar Pass to Interior, S. Dak. West through The Bad Lands to Scenic over Hiway #40 and from Scenic to Hermosa, S. Dak., Providing a sutable [sic] location can be found.[88]
The State Highway Commission gave the proposal its wholehearted support.[89]
The National Park Service, however, continued to oppose the area as a national park on two grounds. For one thing much of the land was in private ownership. Senator Norbeck explained in a 1927 letter:
The Park program is not as easy as it seems on account of so much of the land having gone into Private ownership. The Federal Government will not purchase land for park purposes. They never have. The State must and that will come slow.[90]
In the second place, the National Park Service believed that the area was more suitable as a national monument. The Senator continued in the same letter:
The Park Service is opposed to making it a National Park as they try to limit the Parks to the areas that are principally recreational. They would favor a plan to make the Bad Lands a “National Monument.”[91]