Covers over six decades of Mott's professional life as a student of landscape architecture and as a park and recreation professional managing parks at the local, regional, state, and national levels. A comprehensive collection of his speeches form the bulk of the collection. Also included are files regarding his positions as Superintendent of the Oakland Park and Recreation Dept., General Manager of the East Bay Regional Park District, Director of the California Dept. of Parks and Recreation, Director of the United States National Park Service and other professional activities. Includes miscellaneous documents and reports about issues and projects in which he was involved and places he visited. There is little, however, of Mott's personal working papers, such as correspondence, writings, or meeting notes. Includes Mott's blueprints for Strawberry Canyon Park drawn for the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s.

William Penn Mott, Jr., (1909-1992) received his bachelors degree in Landscape Architecture at the University of Michigan and his masters from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1933 Mott went to work for the National Park Service as a landscape architect helping develop facilities for Death Valley, Sequoia, Grant (now Kings Canyon), and Crater Lake National Parks and overseeing the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps in several western parks. In 1940 he opened a landscape architecture practice and provided park planning for several Bay Area communities. The Oakland Park Department, under Mott’s supervision from 1945, gained national recognition for its city beautification program and for being the first urban park department to hire a full time naturalist. In 1950 Mott developed Oakland’s Children's Fairyland believed to be the first children's theme park in the country and an influence on the later creation of Disneyland.

Number of containers: 6 boxes, 8 cartons, 2 oversize boxes, 12 oversize folders, and 1 tube Linear feet: 15.2

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Collection is open for research.