National Parks logo sketch by Aubrey Neesham depicting a suggested National Parks logo that was later used for the basis of the current National Parks arrowhead logo.
"For years there had been agitation within the Park Service for some emblem that would identify the Service as the shield did the Forest Service. A contest was held in 1949 because it was thought at that time that the only emblem used by the Service, the Sequoia cone, did not adequately symbolize the bureau. The winner of the contest, Dudley Bayliss, collected the fifty dollar prize, but his "road badge" design was never used. Conrad L. Wirth, then in the Newton B. Drury directorate, served on the review committee that made the winning selection. He thought that Bayliss' design was "good and well presented, but it was, as were most of the submissions, a formal modern type." They had expected something that would have symbolized what the parks were all about. [28]
Shortly after the contest was over, Aubrey V. Neasham, a historian in the Region IV (now Western Region) Engineering Division in San Francisco, in a letter to Director Drury, suggested that the Service should have an emblem depicting its primary function "like an arrowhead, or a tree or a buffalo." [29] With the letter Neasham submitted a rough sketch of a design incorporating an elongated arrowhead and a pine tree. Drury thought the design had "the important merit of simplicity" and was "adequate so far as the symbolism is concerned." [30]
When Wirth became director in 1951, he turned Neasham's design over to Herbert Maier, then assistant director of Region IV. Maier's staff, including Sanford "Red" Hill, Cecil J. Doty, and Walter Rivers, were all involved in the design process and ultimately came up with the arrowhead design in use today. [31]"
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/workman1b/volf.htm
