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Show National Parks Superintendent Reveals Record Registration Figures for Zion Park New records were established at Zion National Park in July, 19r4 announced Superintendent Paul R. Franke, when S8.41S visitors vis-itors were recorded at the park j entrance stations. This compares I to 84.025 visitors the previous record month of July. l'J,"3. This unexpected record visitation also carried the 1951 accumulated visitor total to 22S.1G2, a new high for Zion when compared to 225.451 for seven months in 195.1 1 Vehicle travel records also top-1 pled when 2G.S3IJ automobiles were recorded in July, 1951; against 25. ITS autobobiles in 1953. liryce Canyon failed to register new gains. Travel figure. Mr. J Franke stated, in July to this na-' tional park show that 55.835 vis-j itors came in 16,021 automobiles, a loss of 1.422 visitors and SOI automobiles under the same month last year. For the calendar calen-dar year to date the Rryce Canyon Can-yon travel report is 131,689 visitors vis-itors in 40.271 automobiles which when compared to the 1953 figures fig-ures of 130,099 visitors in 41,916 automobiles shows a decrease of 4.410 visitors and 1,615 automobiles. automo-biles. Pleasant as these attendance figures appear, Mr. Franke gives it as his opinion that these gains at Zion National Park are entirely entire-ly due to operating park entrance en-trance stations for a full 16 hours each day. When new fees were established for Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks in June the Congress also made available a modest sum of about $7000 for the two paiks to improve the fee collecting procedure, lengthen the hours of entrance station operation and increase the interpretive inter-pretive service for public enjoyment. en-joyment. July revenues increased $6,955 at Zion and $5,828 at Bryce Canyon. Approximately $906 of the $7000 was spent "to collect the extra $12,783, or in other words the government received $13 for every dollar expended in July for park ranger and naturalist natur-alist services at Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. Superintendent Franke feels that there was no appreciable increase in tourist travel during July, 1954 and that any increases reflected by the travel figures given are due to more accurate counts and the fact that estimates esti-mates of travel for report purposes pur-poses are no longer necessary. |