Under this law, the Secretary of the Interior was authorized to adjust and redefine at his discretion the exterior boundary of the national monument by appropriate reductions or additions. The law specified, among other things, that the adjusted area could not exceed the existing 154,119 acres.[206] (An official figure of 150,103.41 acres was used as the total acreage of the area at the time it was proclaimed as a national monument in 1939. A revised figure, listing 154,119.46 acres for the same area, was used as the total acreage from about 1943 until October 1952.[207])
Immediately after the bill became law, proposed boundary changes received considerable attention. Some believed that the area of the national monument should be reduced. A strong supporter of this view was the South Dakota Stock Growers Association. It was the organization’s belief that the size could be reduced by about one-half without destroying any of its scenic value. They estimated that 3,000 head of cattle would be without grass if the NPS carried through its plan to fence the area and eliminate grazing from the national monument. One of the biggest problems was the large acreage of private lands located within its boundary. Many ranchers believed that these lands ought to be eliminated “from the Badlands National Monument wherever a reasonable boundary adjustment can be made.”[208] Others contended “that all of the grassland west of Pinnacles [Sage Creek Basin] could be removed from the Park and that such removal would in no way destroy the attraction to the tourist.”[209]
A 1953 memorandum from the Regional Director to NPS Director Conrad L. Wirth explained how Sage Creek Basin had become largely government-owned:
Sage Creek Basin was a submarginal waste in the 1930’s due to prolonged and severe drought conditions and considerable acreages of private lands were acquired by the Resettlement Administration in connection with its submarginal land program.... Other private parcels became tax delinquent and were ultimately sold to private owners by Pennington County in the 1940’s. Because of favorable climatic conditions of the past several years, the basin has recovered from its condition of the 1930’s; it now contains a considerable acreage of good grasslands.... We venture the opinion that had vegetative conditions of the basin in the 1930’s resembled those of today, a submarginal land program would not have been undertaken so far as the basin is concerned.[210]