… was designated on this date in 1960. It had been a national monument since 1938.

Fort Laramie- the Crossroads of a Nation Moving West. This unique historic place preserves and interprets one of America’s most important locations in the history of westward expansion and Indian resistance.

In 1834, where the Cheyenne and Arapaho travelled, traded and hunted, a fur trading post was created. Soon to be known as Fort Laramie, it rested at a location that would quickly prove to be the path of least resistance across a continent. By the 1840s, wagon trains rested and resupplied here, bound for Oregon, California and Utah.

Fort Laramie National Historic Site

… was originally proclaimed a national monument on this date (April 26) in 1938. It became a national park in 1980.

Channel Islands National Park encompasses five remarkable islands and their ocean environment, preserving and protecting a wealth of natural and cultural resources. Isolation over thousands of years has created unique animals, plants, and archeological resources found nowhere else on Earth and helped preserve a place where visitors can experience coastal southern California as it once was.

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Channel Islands National Park was established in large part to protect the unique natural and cultural resources found both on the islands and within ocean waters, and the park has a long history of monitoring, protecting and restoring these resources. Even the shortest visit to the islands exposes visitors to the beauty and richness of park resources, whether it be leaping dolphins, undulating kelp, flowering Coreopsis, scampering mice, or soaring bald eagles.

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Channel Islands National Park lies in a remote, isolated area at the confluence of two major ocean currents, a region of persistent ocean upwelling, and the border of two tectonic plates. The powerful and dynamic forces of land and sea in this unique region have shaped the islands and their inhabitants.

The park preserves some of the finest remnants of the coastal Mediterranean type of ecosystem, a rare combination of climate and vegetation that exists in only five places in the world. A unique suite of plants and animals colonized the islands and adapted to the particular conditions of each one. Isolated for eons, many evolved into species and subspecies not found anywhere else.

Channel Islands National Park

… was established as Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park on April 25, 1947. It became a National Park in 1978.

When Theodore Roosevelt came to Dakota Territory to hunt bison in 1883, he was a skinny, young, spectacled dude from New York. He could not have imagined how his adventure in this remote and unfamiliar place would forever alter the course of the nation. The rugged landscape and strenuous life that TR experienced here would help shape a conservation policy that we still benefit from today.

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A wide diversity of animals make their home in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. An abundance of native grasses provide sustenance for grazing animals both large and small while the tapestry of different habitats attracts a great number of birds. The terrain of the badlands creates microclimates of warm, dry slopes, relatively cool and wet juniper woodlands, and riverbottoms.

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“I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me.” Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is located in the badlands of western North Dakota. The park is comprised of three areas: South Unit, North Unit and Elkhorn Ranch Unit.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

I have just one digitized photo from Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It’s of a visitor to our campsite in 1998.

… was established as Capulin Mountain National Monument in 1916 and renamed (“Volcano”) on this date in 1987.

Mammoths, giant bison, and short-faced bears were witness to the first tremblings of the earth and firework-like explosions of molten rock thousands of feet into the air. Approximately 60,000 years ago, the rain of cooling cinders and four lava flows formed Capulin Volcano, a nearly perfectly-shaped cinder cone, rising more than 1000 feet above the surrounding landscape. Although long extinct, Capulin Volcano is dramatic evidence of the volcanic processes that shaped northeastern New Mexico. Today the pine forested volcano provide habitat for mule deer, wild turkey, and black bear.

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Capulin Volcano National Monument preserves approximately 800 acres (324hectares) primarily the cinder cone volcano. More than 15 square miles (~39 km2) of associated lava flows are outside the monument boundaries. The volcano has been well-preserved with the greatest erosion being limited to where the cone is cut by a 2-mile road that spirals its way to the crater rim. The volcano rises to a height of 8182 feet (2495 m) above sea level, or 1300 feet (396 m) above the surrounding High Plains and at its base is 4 miles (6.4 km) in circumference. The crater is 415 feet (126 m) deep and 1450 feet (442 m) in diameter. The slopes of the volcano have been partially stabilized by the formation of soils, produced by the breakdown of the volcanic material by lichens and mosses. Once these soils formed, grasses, wildflowers, shrubs and trees took root. Chokecherry trees, which are common along the crater trails, inspired the name for this cinder cone volcano; Capulín is a Mexican-Spanish word for Chokecherry.

The monument lies in the Raton section of the Great Plains (or Interior Plains) physiographic province—an immense sweep of country that stretches north from Mexico to Canada, and east from the Rocky Mountains. This section of the Great Plains is characterized by volcanism. Capulin Volcano is just one out of many volcanoes in northeastern New Mexico….

Capulin Volcano National Monument