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- Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Thursday, July 7, 1955
Ray E. Bassett Is Too Busy With Recreation for It, Now (Picture included)
Ray E. Bassett has spent most of his 65 years providing recreation for others. Now he has retired, and finds he still is too busy for recreation himself. Bassett until recently was chief of the recreation and landscape section of the United States forest service for the north central region, which includes Wisconsin. His headquarters have been Milwaukee and he lives at 2508 N. Stowell av. His ?work? will be recreation to him, he explained ? consultation on recreation and forestry.
Whole Family Is Camping
Bassett is vice-president of the American Camping association, and one of his retirement jobs will be raising funds to move its headquarters from Chicago to Indiana. A native of Ann Arbor, he was graduated in forestry from the University of Michigan and was in private work 22 years before he joined the forest service.
In his years of planning camps and picnic grounds, Bassett has seen some significant changes in American recreation habits. It is a booming business now, he pointed out, with use of national forests increasing at the rate of 10% a year.
More interesting to Bassett is the trend toward more family camping. Time was when a man went camping with other men, and children, if they went at all, went with other children. Now the whole family goes together.
The teaching of outdoor education in schools also has pleased recreation men like Bassett. That has resulted in more respect for nature, he said.
Recreation is Work
?There is a better understanding and appreciation of the out of doors,? said Bassett. ?There is less vandalism. We don?t have as many bird nests being destroyed, for instance.?
Camp equipment still is wrecked but Bassett attributes that to ?misdirected enthusiasm? among youngsters. The average youngster, with sound training in conservation, feels that he is ?destroying something useful to himself.? if he damages the camp. ?Maybe that?s selfish of him, but so is everything else anyone does,? said Bassett.
A tall, dignified looking man with silver hair and a neat mustache, Bassett looks more like a retired banker than an outdoors expert. But recreation is his life?s work and he is willing to talk at length about his theories.
One of Bassett?s concerns is that, with the war and its aftermath, the nation has not kept pace with its recreational needs or maintained the facilities started in the civilian conservation corps (CCC) days. But he is confident that when public demand gets strong enough, congress will provide the funds.
The building of the bridge across the Straits of Mackinac, connecting upper and lower Michigan, will bring a flood of vacationers not only into upper Michigan bus Wisconsin, Bassett predicted. Many travelers from the eastern states have hesitated to drive to northern Wisconsin because it involved Chicago traffic, he pointed out.
Camping Season Longer
Bassett has estimated that there are 60 million persons living within 300 miles of the recreational facilities of this region. And if Wisconsin does not sell the north bound tourist recreation as well as gasoline and cheese, ?we?re just playing second fiddle to Canada,? he remarked.
Not only are camp sites in national forests, including Nicolet and Chequamegon in Wisconsin getting more intense use, but the season also has lengthened for campers, Bassett said. Fishing draws the visitors out early in spring and ?hay feverites? extend the season in the fall.
There is greater need for winter sports facilities, Bassett declared, Some people just like to come out to throw a clean snowball, he said.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1889 - Deceased