After serving more than six years as the Acting Superintendent, Major John Pitcher was replaced by Lieutenant General Samuel B.M. Young (U.S. Army retired) in June 1907. Young was appointed by the Secretary of the Interior, James Rudolph Garfield as full superintendent of the park. Although Young was a senior officer, command of the troops at Fort Yellowstone was given to Major H. T. Allen. Young's lasting contribution to Fort Yellowstone's history was his proposal to replace the army with a force of "Civilian Guards". Young, who had served as Acting Superintendent as a Captain in 1897 recognized the dysfunctional and complicated relationships between the War Department, Corps of Engineers and Interior Department which Congress knew was adversely impacting the successful administration of the park. Young's proposal was not acted upon, but it did set the stage for a decade of change that ultimately saw the creation of the National Park Service in 1916 as well as a Park Ranger force to protect the national parks.