In the year 1952, after Brower was elected to be the first executive director, Sierra Club began to pick up with some of the larger and more professional conservation organizations such as the National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation etc. It was only after the battle against the Echo Park Dam in Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, then Sierra Club began to gain a national reputation. If this project were to be approved, there would be huge flooding in the Green and Yampa river valleys in the area of the Dinosaur National Monument. To many conversationalists, it was like the repeat of the Hetch Hetchy controversy, and they were all fiercely opposing its approval.

Their “opponents” were influential members of Congress, and they were all devoted to the Echo Park Dam project, for the sole reason of wanting to obtain “water rights” such as the low costs of hydroelectric power and erecting reservoirs as a place for sightseeing.

Fortunately, Sierra Club gained success in the eradication of the project on Echo Park Dam, with Congress establishing a compromise. The Colorado River Storage Project Act was passed on April 11, 1956, stating that “no dam or reservoir constructed under the authorization of the Act shall be within any National Park or Monument”. With that,  Sierra Club saw an exponential increase in their membership numbers, to almost 15,000 by the year 1930.

After their win against the Echo Park Dam controversy, Sierra Club was finally gaining the recognition of a national conservation organization, with the club’s Biennial Wilderness Conferences being launched in the year 1949, along with the Wilderness Society. These became an essential force in the campaign that captured passage of the Wilderness Act.