Mission 66 was the program that upgraded National Park Service facilities for the agency’s 50th anniversary.
NPS Director Conrad Wirth proposed Mission 66 in the mid-1950s to modernize roads, campgrounds, visitor centers, employee housing, and other park infrastructure. The program aimed to complete its major work by 1966, the fiftieth anniversary of the National Park Service.
Postwar automobile travel caused visitation to rise sharply, while many parks still had limited roads, lodging, utilities, and interpretation facilities. Mission 66 responded with a large coordinated investment across the national park system.
The program is also associated with modernist visitor centers and a new architectural style that differed from the rustic buildings of the earlier “Parkitecture” era. Mission 66 is sometimes mistaken for a centennial program, but its target was the NPS fiftieth anniversary in 1966, not the 2016 centennial.