the newly finished Lake Mead led Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes to direct for negotiation of a memorandum of agreement that gave the NPS responsibility for the reserved lands and surface of the lake, but not Boulder Dam itself, maintaining mining and grazing so long as they did not disrupt recreation. Ickes signed it on October 13, 1936, establishing the Boulder Dam Recreation Area, and the NPS quickly built significant infrastructure for sightseeing visitors and contracted with concessionaires. This was a major compromise and precedent that expanded the Park Service's mission beyond the strict conservation of national parks and monuments to include broader outdoor recreation that coexists with other land uses. Further development The Park, Parkway, and Recreation Area Study Act of 1936 had the NPS analyze the needs for outdoor recreation and collaborate with state and local governments, officially expanding its mission beyond national parks. With skepticism remaining among agency veterans, planning at the area still emphasized scenery and preservation. The Act's mandates and provision for interagency cooporation however resulted in more versatile land acquisition as the NPS defined its mission. In the 1940s, under the leadership of associate director Conrad L. Wirth, the NPS prepared a National Recreation Plan and conducted a number of studies with the USBR and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) assessing the natural impact, recreational opportunities, and significance of proposed reservoirs. In 1947 the Boulder Dam Recreation Area was renamed Lake Mead National Recreation Area and expanded to include Lake Mohave above the USBR's new Davis Dam. This interagency partnership was successful in creating many recreation areas at reservoirs: nine more were created by agreement with USBR and two more with other dam agencies in the next two decades under the leadership of Wirth as director. However, it contributed to the controversial proposals of Echo Park Dam and Bridge Canyon Dam in existing NPS areas that were canceled after considerable opposition from environmentalists. These new sites were mainly designated as just "recreation areas" since they did not necessarily have national significance. Several would be transferred to the United States Forest Service and other agencies, being more efficient for management. USFS took over Shasta Lake Recreation Area in Shasta National Forest in 1948 as its first. The Forest Service had traditionally focused on forestry for timber and custodial management, and the 1950s saw debate among the agencies, extraction interests, and conservationists as