The effort to protect the Sawtooths began more than 100 years ago, according to author Luther Linkhart. In the book, Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Linkhart credits the wife of a Sawtooth City lawyer and mining executive with suggesting preservation of the Sawtooths. According to Linkhart, Mrs. W.H. Broadhead "extolled the beauties of Lake Tahoma" (Redfish Lake) in the Salt Lake City Tribune in 1883.

In 1911, Idaho Women's Clubs took up the preservation issue, urging Congress to create a national park. "Few realize that there is such grand scenery in Idaho as that in the Sawtooths; here are found mountains that compare with the Alps," wrote Jean Conly Smith in the Idaho Club Woman. Several bills were introduced in Congress, but no action was taken.

In 1935, Congress considered another bill to create a national park in the Sawtooths. Again, no action was taken.

A quarter of a century passed before the issue was before Congress again, this time at the urging of the late Senator Frank Church.

Bethine Church says her husband decided to act during a drive over Galena Summit. "We looked over this wonderful valley," Bethine Church says, "and it was beginning to be wall to wall subdivisions with tiny A-frames and hot dog stands. And he said, there ought to be something we could do to save this area."

In 1960, Senator Church introduced a bill to create a national park in the Sawtooths. "A national park," Church said, "would preserve unspoiled for future generations the natural beauty and wildlife of this lofty wilderness."

The national park idea, however, was not popular with other members of the Idaho Congressional delegation. "A national park would have cut out all the hunting opportunities in the area," says former Representative Jim McClure.

Eventually, Church dropped the national park idea in favor of a national recreation area, which would allow hunting, ranching and other traditional uses to continue.

At the time, Church's decision upset supporters, including long-time friend Ernie Day, who advocated creating a national park. Today, however, Day says Church made the right decision. "If it had been made a national park, we would have hot dog stands and a jillion roads back up in there," Day says. "Sometimes you're lucky to be saved from yourself, and that was one time I was," he adds.

In the late 1960's, efforts to protect the area took on a new sense of urgency. Asarco announced plans for molybdenum mine at Castle Peak in the White Clouds mountains. The proposed open pit mine would have removed the top portion of the 11,815 Castle Peak.

"That would have been murder," says Day, who helped lead efforts to stop the mine. Day traveled extensively, showing slides of the White Clouds and urging protection of the area. "We just had to get so much white heat of publicity that it was not politically astute (to build the mine)" Day says.

The strategy worked. Congress intervened by extending the boundaries of the proposed recreation area to include Castle Peak and part of the White Clouds. There was little else Congress could do, Church said at the time. Former Representative James McClure agrees. "The law is very clear that a patented mining claim is private property," McClure says, "to say you can't mine would have been a confiscation of private property."

Still, it was enough. The mine was never built. Finally, in 1972, Congress voted to create the Sawtooth National Recreation Area.

The Sawtooth National Recreation Area is one of the largest and most magnificent National Recreation Areas in the United States. The 756,000 acre SNRA contains four mountain ranges with 40 peaks over 10,000 feet high. There are more than 1,000 high mountain lakes, as well as the headwaters of four of Idaho's major rivers, including the world famous "River of No Return" - the Salmon River.