Have you ever stopped to consider the wide variety of duties performed by employees at a national park? In honor of Labor Day, here's a peek back to a bygone era at some of the duties for the first NPS employee assigned to take care of Winsor Castle.
National Park, New Jersey is not a national park, nor is it even associated with one. This little town on the Delaware River near Philadelphia got its interesting name because its founding fathers dreamed of bigger things.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was not the only renowned African American to use the Lincoln Memorial to make a statement about racial injustice in the land of the free. On Easter Sunday 70 years ago, Marian Anderson thrilled a huge crowd with one of the most memorable concerts ever delivered on Federal property. Thank goodness a Newsreel camera crew was on hand.
The spectacular old-growth forest of the Congaree floodplain would have been lost forever had it not been for a grassroots campaign that achieved a highly implausible victory back in the 1970s. Veterans of the campaign gathered at Congaree National Park this past weekend to share memories of that long-ago struggle.
Charleston, South Carolina, was North America’s main port of entry for African slaves, and hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children were quarantined at Sullivan’s Island before being passed along to the slave markets and a life of toil. “African Passage,” an exhibit that will open on March 22 at Fort Moultrie National Monument, will tell this painful story.
Completion of the Parks Highway in 1971 quite literally paved the way to Mount McKinley National Park, tripling its visitation within two years. The park now named Denali celebrates its 92nd birthday today, and the Parks Highway remains its only automobile-friendly link to the world.
Tourists visiting Yosemite National Park in the 1920s could view mountain lions, a bear, and deer kept in cages and enclosures. Despite drawing heated criticism, this wacky zoo persisted for more than a decade before finally being abolished in 1932.
San Juan National Historic Site celebrates its 60th birthday today, February 14. This remarkable park, America's only national park in Puerto Rico, preserves some of the finest Spanish Colonial-era coastal forts left in the Caribbean. Many people believe that one of these forts is haunted.
Gettysburg National Military Park celebrates a birthday today, its 114th, but it was the battle anniversaries that interested the Civil War veterans. In 1938, the 75th anniversary of the battle, motion picture crews filmed the aged veterans at the battlefield as they gathered for their final reunion. There’s some amazing film footage on the Internet.
The National Park System’s built environment sports two iconic arches. One is the Gateway Arch at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, and the other is the Roosevelt Arch at Yellowstone. Some think that the Gateway is just eye candy, but everyone knows that the Roosevelt is history with a capital H.
Muir Woods National Monument, which celebrates its 101st anniversary today, is swarmed by visitors who admire the giant redwoods but pay little heed to the ecosystem’s lesser publicized features. A profusion of life surrounds those big trees, interacts with them, and participates with them in the intricate processes of energy flow and matter recycling that sustain the ecosystem.
Dozens of historic riverfront buildings in St. Louis were demolished in the 1940s to make room for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Boosters insisted that this was basically a matter of breaking a few eggs to make an omelet. Many preservationists think it was deplorable.
Minidoka National Historic Site, the former Minidoka Internment National Monument, has acquired vital new acreage and a satellite site that will tell the park’s story in a richer, more complete way. Preserving and interpreting a World War II concentration camp for people of Japanese ancestry helps teach important lessons about racial prejudice, injustice, and the loss of civil liberties.
Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument offers a prime example of re-imaging in NPS context. Custer’s Last Stand occurred at this place, but so did the last stand of the Plains Indians. In 1991, a landmark redesignation acknowledged that the battlefield has a duel identity. More recently, an Indian Memorial has helped to re-image the place as hallowed ground for Indians as well as whites.
Lava Beds National Monument, which celebrates its 83rd birthday November 21, is a strange looking place bursting with fascinating stories. As if the largest collection of lava tubes and caves in the coterminous states weren’t enough to make this park very special, it’s also where Captain Jack and his warrior band fought an amazing battle against an attacking force ten times its size during the Modoc War of the early 1870s.
Established on November 18, 1988, Idaho’s City of Rocks National Reserve is more than just a geologic wonder, a touchstone of our pioneer past, and a magnet for climbers. It’s also a model for interagency cooperation.
The National Parks and Recreation Act of November 10, 1978, heavily impacted the National Park System by establishing 15 new national parks, designating 1.9 million acres of parkland wilderness, and providing funds to address the land acquisition, facilities improvement, and other needs of existing parks.
One of the most shameful episodes of the Indian Wars occurred on November 29, 1864, when Colorado militia attacked a peaceful Indian village at Sand Creek and brutally murdered women, children, infants, and old men. Though long overdue, the November 7, 2000, authorization of a national park at the massacre site testified to America’s willingness to shine light into the darker corners of its past.
The ruins at Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument do more than just remind us of Spain’s shattered dreams of empire in the American Southwest. They also remind us that climate change is an old phenomenon that has powerfully influenced human well-being through the centuries.
On October 31, 1994, the California Desert Protection Act redesignated Death Valley from National Monument to National Park and added 1.3 million acres to the new National Park’s holdings. In one fell swoop, Congress had transferred bragging rights for “biggest park in the 48-state U.S.” from Yellowstone to Death Valley.
Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, the park that commemorates the first all-black American fighter squadron, is finally up and running at historic Moton Field. Unfortunately, relatively few of the Tuskeegee Airmen have lived long enough to see their story told in the national park established to honor them.
Fort Scott National Historic Site in eastern Kansas celebrates its 30th birthday today, October 19. The frontier fort this park commemorates was a crossroads of American history from 1842 to 1873, being associated with the opening of the West, the “Permanent Indian Frontier,” the Mexican-American War, Bleeding Kansas, the Civil War, and the expansion of railroads.
In an action unusual for its time, timber tycoon and early conservationist Francis Beidler put his vast holdings of South Carolina forestland in timber reserve status in the early 1900s. Six decades later, Congaree Swamp National Monument, now Congaree National Park, was created from the remnants. The park celebrates its 32nd birthday today, October 18.
The establishment of Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site on October 10, 1980, did more than just preserve the martyred civil rights leader’s birth home and church. It provided further impetus for the preservation of historic Sweet Auburn, one of the most important black neighborhoods in America.
Millions of motorists enjoy the Blue Ridge Parkway every year, but most have never heard of Stanley W. Abbott. That’s a shame. Abbott was the young landscape architect who threaded the road through the mountains and made it a scenic-recreational masterpiece.
Washington’s North Cascades National Park sits peacefully along the Canadian border. The serenity of this park, which marks its 40th birthday October 2, masks the story of a 70-year struggle to protect one of the most indomitable mountain landscapes in America.
“God, Gold, and Glory” motivated Spanish exploration and settlement of the New World. Arizona’s Tumacácori National Historical Park, which was established August 6, 1990 (superceding the Tumacácori National Monument established in 1908), does a fine job of commemorating three missions that helped shape the history of the Southwest.
Big Bend National Park celebrated its 64th birthday June 12. More than just a marvel of biodiversity, this remote and scenic park offers a wide range of recreational choices. To get the most from your visit you’ll need to do some homework, time your visit wisely, make some prior arrangements, and be prepared for changing conditions.
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