Category: National Parks

… was established by President Herbert Hoover on this date in 1933.

At the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert lies a mountain ringed valley called the Tularosa Basin. Rising from the heart of this basin is one of the world’s great natural wonders – the glistening white sands of New Mexico.

Here, great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert and have created the world’s largest gypsum dune field. The brilliant white dunes are ever changing: growing, cresting, then slumping, but always advancing. Slowly but relentlessly the sand, driven by strong southwest winds, covers everything in its path.

White Sands National Monument

… was established on this date 107 years ago. It is the 7th oldest national park.

One of the world’s longest and most complex caves and 28,295 acres of mixed-grass prairie, ponderosa pine forest, and associated wildlife are the main features of the park.

The cave is well known for its outstanding display of boxwork, an unusual cave formation composed of thin calcite fins resembling honeycombs.

The park’s mixed-grass prairie is one of the few remaining and is home to native wildlife such as bison, elk, pronghorn, mule deer, coyotes, and prairie dogs.

Source: Wind Cave National Park

… was proclaimed such by President Theodore Roosevelt on this date 102 years ago.

Until the 1800’s, many northern California coastal valleys were covered with coast redwood trees similar to those now found in Muir Woods National Monument. The forest along Redwood Creek in today’s Muir Woods was spared from logging because it was hard to get to. Noting that Redwood Creek contained one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s last uncut stands of old-growth redwood, Congressman William Kent and his wife, Elizabeth Thacher Kent, bought 295 acres here for $45,000 in 1905. To protect the redwoods the Kents donated the land to the United States Federal Government and, in 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt declared it a national monument. Roosevelt suggested naming the area after Kent, but Kent wanted it named for conservationist John Muir.

Source: Muir Woods National Monument

… was established by President Theodore Roosevelt under the Antiquities Act 103 years ago today.

Paso por aqui . . . A reliable waterhole hidden at the base of a massive sandstone bluff made El Morro (the bluff) a popular campsite. Ancestral Puebloans settled on the mesa top over 700 years ago. Spanish and American travelers rested, drank from the pool and carved their signatures, dates and messages for hundreds of years. Today, El Morro National Monument protects over 2,000 inscriptions and petroglyphs, as well as Ancestral Puebloan ruins.

El Morro National Monument

… was established by President Theodore Roosevelt under the Antiquities Act 103 years ago today.

This five-level, 20 room cliff dwelling nestled into a limestone recess high above Beaver Creek served as a “high-rise apartment building” for prehistoric Sinagua Indians over 600 years ago. It is one of the best preserved cliff dwellings in North America.

Erroneously named for the 16th century Aztec ruler, the site is a classic example of the last phase of southern Sinagua occupation of the Verde Valley.

Montezuma Castle National Monument

… was first proclaimed a national monument by President Theodore Roosevelt under the Antiquities Act 103 years ago today. It became a national park in 1962.

With one of the world’s largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood, multi-hued badlands of the Painted Desert, historic structures, archeological sites, and displays of 225 million year old fossils, this is a surprising land of scenic wonders and fascinating science.

Petrified Forest National Park

… was re-disignated on this date in 2000, pending land acquisition. It had been a national monument since 1932.

The land was acquired and Great Sand Dunes became America’s 58th national park in 2004.

In this high mountain valley are the tallest dunes in North America, flanked by some of the highest peaks in the Rocky Mountains. The park and preserve protects much of the Great Sand Dunes’ natural system, including alpine tundra and lakes, forests, streams, dunes, grasslands, and wetlands.

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

National Parks Traveler tells us that Great Sand Dunes is one of the quietest places in the U.S.

The Kansas City Star editorial board suggests a million acre national park in northwestern Kansas.

 Kansas is vastly under-represented in national parkland, and can accurately be considered parkland poor today.

 The prairie is the greatest long-term carbon sequestration landscape available, as the grasses take carbon from the atmosphere and bury it deep in the ground, where it stays to nurture plant growth.

 A new national park would attract tourists. Europeans, in love with the romance of the American West, would be drawn to it, as would other international visitors and Americans. Parks of similar size and remoteness in Texas and North Dakota attract at least 300,000 visitors a year. With the central location of Kansas, it has the potential to attract more.

 Tourism could grow into a lifeline for surrounding counties, all of which are struggling to find ways to keep native sons and daughters at home, but have largely failed to build enough industry or create enough jobs.

 Grasslands are the world’s most endangered eco-system, and re-establishing a large patch is important to America’s natural and cultural heritage.

Buffalo Commons is an idea whose time has come.

Read the details.

Link via National Parks Traveler

… was authorized on this date in 1998.

On the morning of September 23, 1957, nine African-American high school students faced an angry mob of over 1,000 whites protesting integration in front of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. As the students were escorted inside by the Little Rock police, violence escalated and they were removed from the school. The next day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered 1,200 members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell to escort the nine students into the school. As one of the nine students remembered, “After three full days inside Central [High School], I know that integration is a much bigger word than I thought.”

This event, watched by the nation and world, was the site of the first important test for the implementation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision of 1954. Arkansas became the epitome of state resistance when the governor, Orval Faubus, directly questioned the authority of the federal court system and the validity of desegregation. The crisis at Little Rock’s Central High School was the first fundamental test of the national resolve to enforce African-American civil rights in the face of massive southern defiance during the years following the Brown decision.

The National Park Service

… was authorized 21 years ago today.

“Freedom is not free.” Here, one finds the expression of American gratitude to those who restored freedom to South Korea. Nineteen stainless steel sculptures stand silently under the watchful eye of a sea of faces upon a granite wall—reminders of the human cost of defending freedom. These elements all bear witness to the patriotism, devotion to duty, and courage of Korean War veterans.

— Korean War Veterans Memorial

… was authorized on this date in 2000.

Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park, located in the wartime boomtown of Richmond, California, preserves and interprets the stories and places of our nation’s home front response to World War II.

— Rosie the Riveter / WWII Home Front National Historical Park

… was authorized on this date in 1978. It is one of four national historic sites in Kansas; there is also a national preserve in Kansas.

Promises made and broken! A town attacked at dawn! Thousands made homeless by war! Soldiers fighting settlers! Each of these stories is a link in the chain of events that encircled Fort Scott from 1842-73. All of the site’s structures, its parade ground, and its tallgrass prairie bear witness to this era when the country was forged from a young republic into a united transcontinental nation.

— Fort Scott National Historic Site

… don’t take food, don’t take children, and don’t drive a minivan.

Our observations indicate that bears entering minivans typically did so by popping open a rear side window and it seems that this was easier for minivans compared to other vehicle classes. We note that bears are strong and well equipped (long claws) to open a variety of structurally sound materials (e.g., logs and ant mounds), and we commonly saw car doors bent open, windows on all sides of the vehicle broken, and seats ripped out, all of which appeared effortless for bears.

National Parks Traveler has the details on a USDA report.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station took a photo of the Arnica Fire in Yellowstone National Park. Click the image for larger version and to learn more.

… became Saguaro National Park on this date in 1994.

This unique desert is home to the most recognizable cactus in the world, the majestic saguaro. Visitors of all ages are fascinated and enchanted by these desert giants, especially their many interesting and complex interrelationships with other desert life. Saguaro cacti provide their sweet fruits to hungry desert animals. They also provide homes to a variety of birds, such as the Harris’ hawk, Gila woodpecker and the tiny elf owl. Yet, the saguaro requires other desert plants for its very survival. During the first few years of a very long life, a young saguaro needs the shade and protection of a nurse plant such as the palo verde tree. With an average life span of 150 years, a mature saguaro may grow to a height of 50 feet and weigh over 10 tons.

National Park Service

… was established on this date in 1968.

Stand at the base of a coast redwood and even the huckleberry bushes tower over you. Watch bronze Roosevelt elk grazing in the prairies. Observe the tail of a female Chinook salmon heave skyward as she makes a nest for her eggs. Whether a morning or night person, you can hear the threatened marbled murrelets’ keer across the treetops as they fly from sea to mossy nest.

— Redwood National and State Parks

An essay from American Journeys on Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Colorado. It includes this:

Tucked in the curve where the Sangre de Cristo range meets the San Luis Valley, 30 square miles of sand pile up in dunes as high as 750 feet. On the drive toward the park along the flat expanse of the valley, the dunes materialize unexpectedly, as if someone had superimposed the Sahara onto Colorado’s lush, blue-green mountains.

Last month my husband, Jeff, and I, along with our three small children, hiked through the sand sheet, the vegetated stretch of sand surrounding the dunes. In the distance a fuzzy-antlered elk nibbled on Indian rice grass. Yucca and prickly pear cactus lined the trail, which led us to the base of the dunes. The children cooked sand cakes and lay down to make sand angels. They dug until they hit water, then jumped into the mucky pit, barefoot and giggling.

Great Sand Dunes is the newest of our 58 national parks.

… was established on this date in 1890.

Not just a great Valley…

but a shrine to human foresight, strength of granite, power of glaciers, the persistence of life, and the tranquility of the High Sierra.

Yosemite National Park, one of the first wilderness parks in the United States, is best known for its waterfalls, but within its nearly 1,200 square miles, you can find deep valleys, grand meadows, ancient giant sequoias, a vast wilderness area, and much more.

Yosemite National Park

 
 

“The purpose of the memorial is to communicate the founding, expansion, preservation, and unification of the United States with colossal statues of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.”
— Gutzon Borglum

The mountain was carved from 1927-1941, if carved is the word for dynamite. The last 3-6 inches was removed by drilling sufficient holes to crumble the granite away.

Click any of the photos for larger versions of all.

The heads are approximately 60 feet tall; the noses about 20 feet, Washington’s slightly larger.

Around 400 men and women worked on the project. The time-clock was at the top of 700 stairs.

All photos taken August 31, 2009. I’ve already written about Custer State Park and Fort Laramie, although we visited them after Mount Rushmore. This is the last of the road trip reports.