Under this law, the Secretary of the Interior was authorized to adjust and redefine at his discretion the exterior boundary of the national monument by appropriate reductions or additions. The law specified, among other things, that the adjusted area could not exceed the existing 154,119 acres.[206] (An official figure of 150,103.41 acres was used as the total acreage of the area at the time it was proclaimed as a national monument in 1939. A revised figure, listing 154,119.46 acres for the same area, was used as the total acreage from about 1943 until October 1952.[207])
Immediately after the bill became law, proposed boundary changes received considerable attention. Some believed that the area of the national monument should be reduced. A strong supporter of this view was the South Dakota Stock Growers Association. It was the organization’s belief that the size could be reduced by about one-half without destroying any of its scenic value. They estimated that 3,000 head of cattle would be without grass if the NPS carried through its plan to fence the area and eliminate grazing from the national monument. One of the biggest problems was the large acreage of private lands located within its boundary. Many ranchers believed that these lands ought to be eliminated “from the Badlands National Monument wherever a reasonable boundary adjustment can be made.”[208] Others contended “that all of the grassland west of Pinnacles [Sage Creek Basin] could be removed from the Park and that such removal would in no way destroy the attraction to the tourist.”[209]
A 1953 memorandum from the Regional Director to NPS Director Conrad L. Wirth explained how Sage Creek Basin had become largely government-owned:
Sage Creek Basin was a submarginal waste in the 1930’s due to prolonged and severe drought conditions and considerable acreages of private lands were acquired by the Resettlement Administration in connection with its submarginal land program.... Other private parcels became tax delinquent and were ultimately sold to private owners by Pennington County in the 1940’s. Because of favorable climatic conditions of the past several years, the basin has recovered from its condition of the 1930’s; it now contains a considerable acreage of good grasslands.... We venture the opinion that had vegetative conditions of the basin in the 1930’s resembled those of today, a submarginal land program would not have been undertaken so far as the basin is concerned.[210]
Owing to the great interest generated by the proposed boundary changes, the NPS issued a statement in July 1952 giving reasons why it would not be “advisable to eliminate from the Monument the grasslands west of the Pinnacles, as suggested by the South Dakota Stock Growers Association.”[211] It said in part that
These flatter lands with their cover of native grasses and wildflowers, typical of the surrounding prairie country, are valuable for park and wildlife purposes. The preservation of this relatively small exhibit of native grass is an important responsibility in itself, since no comparable section of the Great Plains has been set apart to be preserved in its natural condition.[212]
The statement also indicated that about 31,700 acres of other lands were to be eliminated from the national monument, including more than 12,000 acres of privately owned lands. It indicated that the Soil Conservation Service agreed to these revisions and that they were “the same as those which the Congress considered when it authorized boundary revisions by enacting Public Law 328.”[213]
On October 3, 1952, Assistant Secretary of the Interior Joel D. Wolfsohn issued an order revising the boundary of the national monument. The order showed that 30,802.52 acres, more or less, were “hereby transferred from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture for use, administration, and disposition in accordance with the provisions of Title III of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act....” This reduced the size of Badlands National Monument, according to the order, to 121,883.12 acres.[214]
The Order was performed to provide lands for the Soil Conservation Service to enable those persons having private land in the monument to trade for Soil Conservation Service lands outside the monument, and to make a few administrative adjustments in the monument boundary.[215]
However, discrepancies in the land records led the NPS to investigate the status of lands within the former boundary.[216] By late 1953 it was found that 31,442.52 acres were eliminated from the national monument by the October 3 order instead of 30,802.52 acres. Of these 12,916.32 acres were private lands; the remaining 18,526.20 acres were transferred to the Soil Conservation Service of the Department of Agriculture.[217]