Category: Places & Travel

… was first designated a national monument on this date in 1907.

Lassen Volcanic National Park is located in Northeastern California at the southern terminus of the Cascade Mountains, approximately 50 miles east of Redding, California.

Beneath Lassen Volcanic’s peaceful forests and gem-like lakes lies evidence of a turbulent and fiery past. 600,000 years ago, the collision and warping of continental plates led to violent eruptions and the formation of lofty Mt. Tehama (also called Brokeoff Volcano.) After 200,000 years of volcanic activity, vents and smaller volcanoes on Tehama’s flanks-including Lassen Peak-drew magma away from the main cone. Hydrothermal areas ate away at the great mountain’s bulk. Beneath the onslaught of Ice Age glaciers, Mt. Tehama crumbled and finally ceased to exist. But the volcanic landscape lived on: in 1914, Lassen Peak awoke. The Peak had its most significant activity in 1915 and minor activity through 1921. Lassen Volcanic became a national park in 1916 because of its significance as an active volcanic landscape.

All four types of volcanoes in the world are found in the park. Over 150 miles of trails and a culturally significant scenic highway provide access to volcanic wonders including steam vents, mudpots, boiling pools, volcanic peaks, and painted dunes.

Lassen Volcanic National Park

… was dedicated on this date in 1997.

Located along the famous Cherry Tree Walk on the Western edge of the Tidal Basin near the National Mall, this is a memorial not only to FDR, but also to the era he represents. The memorial traces twelve years of American History through a sequence of four outdoor rooms-each one devoted to one of FDR’s terms of office. Sculptures inspired by photographs depict the 32nd President: A 10-foot statue shows him in a wheeled chair; a bas-relief depicts him riding in a car during his first inaugural. At the very beginning of the memorial in a prologue room there is a statue with FDR seated in a wheelchair much like the one he actually used.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

Franklin Roosevelt was paralyzed as a result of polio at age 39 in 1921. He could not walk by himself. The public knew he had polio, but not the extent of his incapacity. He avoided being photographed in a wheelchair.

Is the depiction of FDR in a wheelchair at the memorial justified, or simply an attempt at political correctness?

… was proclaimed by President Calvin Coolidge on this date in 1924.

A sea of lava flows with scattered islands of cinder cones and sagebrush characterizes this “weird and scenic landscape” known as Craters of the Moon. Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve contains three young lava fields covering almost half a million acres. These remarkably well preserved volcanic features resulted from geologic events that appear to have happened yesterday and will likely continue tomorrow…

In 1924 the National Park Service began the job of protecting the park and welcoming people to experience this area. In 2000 the Monument was expanded to include most of the Great Rift, the source of the lava flows that created this unique landscape. Today’s more than 750,000 acre National Monument and Preserve is co-managed by the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve

… was authorized on this date in 1962.

Hamilton Grange National Memorial, located at 287 Convent Avenue, preserves the home of founding father Alexander Hamilton. Born and raised in the West Indies, Hamilton came to New York in 1772 at age 17 to study finance at King’s College (now Columbia University).

Hamilton became a supporter of the cause of the American patriots during the political turmoil of the 1770s. Commissioned as a Captain of Artillery at the beginning of the American Revolution, he soon became an aide-de-camp to George Washington.

After the war, as a member of Congress, Hamilton was instrumental in creating the new Constitution. As co-author of the Federalist Papers he was indispensable in the effort to get the Constitution adopted. As the first Secretary of the Treasury (1789-1795) he devised plans for funding the national debt, securing federal credit, encouraging expansion of manufacturing and organizing the federal bank.

Hamilton commissioned architect John McComb Jr. to design a Federal style country home on a sprawling 32 acre estate in upper Manhattan. This house was completed in 1802 and named “The Grange” after the Hamilton family’s ancestral home in Scotland, but served as his home for only two years. On July 11, 1804, Hamilton was fatally wounded in a duel with his political rival Aaron Burr.

Hamilton Grange National Memorial

… first became Channel Islands National Monument on this date in 1938.

Comprised of five in a chain of eight southern California islands near Los Angeles, Channel Islands National Park is home to a wide variety of nationally and internationally significant natural and cultural resources. Over 2,000 species of plants and animals can be found within the park. However only four mammals are endemic to the islands. One hundred and forty-five of these species are unique to the islands and found nowhere else in the world. Marine life ranges from microscopic plankton to the endangered blue whale, the largest animal to live on earth. Archeological and cultural resources span a period of more than 10,000 years. The park consists of 249,354 acres, half of which are under the ocean, and include the islands of San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa, and Santa Barbara. Even though the islands seem tantalizingly close to the densely populated, southern California coast, their isolation has left them relatively undeveloped, making them an exciting place for visitors to explore.

Channel Islands National Park

Congress established Hot Springs Reservation on April 20, 1832 to protect hot springs flowing from the western slope of Hot Springs Mountain. This makes it the oldest area currently in the National Park System–40 years older than Yellowstone National Park. People have used the hot spring water in therapeutic baths for more than two hundred years to treat rheumatism and other ailments. The reservation eventually developed into a well-known resort nicknamed “The American Spa” because it attracted not only the wealthy but also indigent health seekers from around the world. Today the park protects eight historic bathhouses with the former luxurious Fordyce Bathhouse housing the park visitor center. The entire “Bathhouse Row” area is a National Historic Landmark District that contains the grandest collection of bathhouses of its kind in North America. By protecting the 47 hot springs and their watershed, the National Park Service continues to provide visitors with historic leisure activities such as hiking, picnicking, and scenic drives. Hot Springs Reservation became Hot Springs National Park by a Congressional name change on March 4, 1921.

Hot Springs National Park

… was proclaimed such on this date in 1924.

Twenty seven million years ago a volcanic eruption of immense proportions shook the land around Chiricahua National Monument. One thousand times greater than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, the Turkey Creek Caldera eruption eventually laid down two thousand feet of highly silicious ash and pumice. This mixture fused into a rock called rhyolitic tuff and eventually eroded into the spires and unusual rock formations of today.

The monument is a mecca for hikers and birders. At the intersection of the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts, and the southern Rocky Mountains and northern Sierra Madre in Mexico, Chiricahua plants and animals represent one of the premier areas for biological diversity in the northern hemisphere.

Chiricahua National Monument

… was proclaimed Arches National Monument on this date in 1929.

Arches National Park preserves over two thousand natural sandstone arches, including the world-famous Delicate Arch, in addition to a variety of unique geological resources and formations. In some areas, faulting has exposed millions of years of geologic history. The extraordinary features of the park, including balanced rocks, fins and pinnacles, are highlighted by a striking environment of contrasting colors, landforms and textures.

Arches National Park

An Act of Congress acquiring Ford’s Theatre by the federal government was approved on this date in 1866.

America’s transfer from civil war to peace was made more difficult on April 14, 1865, when Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed, just five days after General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House. A well-known actor, John Wilkes Booth, desperate to aid the dying Confederacy, stepped into the president’s box. Booth’s decision to pull the trigger altered the nation’s power to reconstruct after the war. Booth escaped into the night as Abraham Lincoln was carried to the Petersen boarding house across the street. It was there that President Lincoln died early the next morning, and became the first American president to be assassinated.

Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site

… was established on April 2, 1956 (just before the 100th anniversary of Washington’s birth).

On April 5, 1856, a child who later called himself Booker T. Washington, was born in slavery on this 207-acre tobacco farm. The realities of life as a slave in piedmont Virginia, the quest by African Americans for education and equality, and the post-war struggle over political participation all shaped the options and choices of Booker T. Washington. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881 and later became an important and controversial leader of his race at a time when increasing racism in the United States made it necessary for African Americans to adjust themselves to a new era of legalized oppression.

— Booker T. Washington National Monument

… was established on this date in 1941.

The first English attempts at colonization in the New World (1585-1587) are commemorated here. These efforts, sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh, ended with the disappearance of 116 men, women and children (including two that were born in the New World). The fate of this “lost colony” remains a mystery to this day. The Park was established in 1941, and enlarged in 1990 by Public Law 1001-603 to include the preservation of Native American culture, The American Civil War, the Freedman’s Colony, and the activities of radio pioneer Reginald Fessenden.

— Fort Raleigh National Historic Site

… was established on this date in 1968.

This is the site of the first integrated ironworks in North America, 1646-1668. It includes the reconstructed blast furnace, forge, rolling mill, and a restored seventeenth century house.

With the archeological site of the seventeenth-century iron-making plant, the museum collection, the seventeenth-century Iron Works House, and the reconstructed iron works complex, Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site illustrates the critical role of iron making to seventeenth-century settlement and its legacy in shaping the early history of the nation. The site’s enclave setting on the Saugus River, featuring an open-air museum with working waterwheels, evokes a unique experience for park visitors. These resources demonstrate seventeenth-century engineering and design methods, iron-making technology and operations, local and overseas trade, and life and work in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

— Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site