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Though few people seem to know or care, Michigan's long-ago abolished Mackinac National Park was America's second national park. Yellowstone got there first, but not by much.

Proclaimed in 1908, Montana's Lewis and Clark Cavern National Monument never could muster get the monetary support needed to develop and operate it as a viable national park. Congress abolished it in 1937 and it subsequently became Montana's first state park.

California's Shasta Lake Recreation Area was a National Park System property for only three years before it was transferred to the Forest Service on July 1, 1948. The Forest Service now administers the lake as a component of Shasta-Trinity National Forest and Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area.

Using authority granted by Congress on April 27, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Sullys Hill Park, a hilly tract of woods and wetlands in North Dakota that was named for a hill that was named for a general who didn’t show up. The park, which turned out to be pretty much of a no-show too, was delisted in 1931 and re-purposed as a wildlife refuge.

The National Park Service once managed a recreation area focused on Shadow Mountain Lake, a West Slope Collection System reservoir located near Grand Lake, Colorado. Transferred to Forest Service management more than 30 years ago, this property is now a component of the huge Arapaho National Recreation Area.

For the 11 years it was administered by the National Park Service, Chattanooga National Cemetery enjoyed a distinction among NPS units that we’re unlikely to ever see again. It was, at least in the historical sense, born on Christmas Day.

Old Kasaan National Monument was established on October 25, 1916 to preserve an abandoned Haida Indian village site in the Alaska panhandle. The Park Service moved historic totems to a different site, and Congress abolished the park in 1955.

Congress authorized New Echota Marker in 1930, the NPS acquired it in 1933, and Congress abolished it on September 21, 1950. It’s a pity that so few have ever heard of this historic site, now a Georgia state park, because it commemorates a place and events that should not be forgotten.

Proclaimed on January 31, 1914, Arizona’s Papago Saguaro National Monument became the first national monument to be abolished. It was transferred out of the National Park System in 1930, basically because it was being trashed.

The National Visitor Center was a bad idea that came to a bad end. When it was abolished on December 29, 1981, the NPS breathed a huge sigh of relief. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that $100 million back?

Established October 21, 1972, and abolished in 1980, the Mar-A-Lago National Historic Site is an interesting story. Marjorie Merriweather Post’s opulent Palm Beach estate first became a magnet for socialites, then a national park the NPS couldn't afford, then a Donald Trump estate, and finally the lavish Mar-a-Lago Club.

Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in Utah-Wyoming had been in the National Park System for only five years when, on October 1, 1968, Congress transferred it to the U.S. Forest Service. There was little sense of loss. Congress hadn’t mandated NPS administration and the NPS wasn’t deeply committed to reservoir recreation management.

South Dakota’s Fossil Cycad National Monument was supposed to protect a geologic treasure when it was established in 1922, but its marvelous surface deposits of fossilized plants had already been stripped from the site. A bill signed into law on August 1, 1956, abolished the park, which has served ever since as a cautionary tale. If you don’t protect park resources, they won’t be there for future generations.