The National Park System grew by 69 units via the Reorganization of 1933, which was signed August 10, 1933. However, six of the “1933T” (1933 transfer) national parks were subsequently abolished.
Among the 12 natural area parks and 57 historical parks transferred to the National Park System via the Reorganization of 1933 were various parks that, for one reason or another, did not belong in the system. It took time to sort this out. The first pruning of the 1933T parks occurred in 1944, and by 1956 five more had been delisted.
The first 1933T park to be delisted was Chattanooga National Cemetery in Tennessee. This national cemetery was originally established under the War Department by Army general order on Christmas Day, 1863. An act of Congress returned it to the War Department on December 7, 1944. See this site for additional information about Civil War national cemeteries.
Five year later, on September 7, 1949, Congress transferred the Father Millet Cross National Monument to the state of New York. Situated on the Fort Niagara Military Reservation, the Father Millet Cross unit had been established under War Department administration by presidential proclamation on September 5, 1925. The focal feature of the park was the site where Father Pierre Millet, a Jesuit priest, had erected a cross on Good Friday, 1688, to invoke God's mercy for the starving, plague-stricken garrison of historic Fort de Nonville. The original cross had long since disappeared.
On August 3, 1950, Congress pruned two more 1933T’s, both in Colorado. Wheeler National Monument, which had been originally established under the Forest Service by presidential proclamation on December 7, 1908, was returned to the Forest Service. Also returned to the Forest Service was Holy Cross National Monument, which had been originally established under the Forest Service by presidential proclamation on May 11, 1929. The Wheeler site focused on volcanic ash deposits deemed of insufficient quality for national park status. The Holy Cross site, which was very lightly visited, focused on a geologic feature deemed to have been so badly eroded that it was no longer exceptional.
Georgia’s New Echota Marker, which was originally authorized under the War Department by act of Congress on May 28, 1930, was transferred to the state of Georgia via on act of Congress on September 21, 1950. Located near Calhoun, Georgia, the marker was erected to honor Cherokees who died on the Trail of Tears. The site was deemed to be of state park caliber.
The last 1933T unit to be pruned was South Carolina's Castle Pinckney National Monument, a small island in Charleston harbor that had housed a Civil War prisoner of war camp and artillery position. Established under the War Department by presidential proclamation Oct. 15, 1924, Castle Pinckney was transferred to the state of South Carolina after an act of Congress on March 29, 1956, reclassified it as surplus property.
The 63 other 1933T parks have survived the test of time and are still in the system.
Support Essential Coverage of Essential Places
Comments
Rick,
I totally agree.
The ebb and flow of units within the NPS isn't exactly the most catastrophic event that might occur within our lifetimes, or the blackest mark attributable to the current generation "in charge". The system as a whole is modified based on situational criterion that also possess the ability to ebb and flow along the lines of generational concerns, regarding issues environmental, cultural, political, and a governmental need to "pacify" any given local or regional authority, special interest, personal interest, or "other". Second guessing is in our nature....."armchair quarterbacking" is becoming almost a right of passage on all issues great and small. I personally wouldn't lose any sleep over it.
Beamis - Yes, Platt became an NRA and is now Chickasaw NRA http://www.nps.gov/chic/
Rick,
Yes, I agree
Rick Smith & Michael Kellett,
I have to agree with Lone Hiker. Little or nothing about the United States, its citizens or anything else human, is established in perpetuity.
Certainly - absolutely - as Rick said:
Being careful and using our best judgment in these matters goes without saying ... but we should certainly apply & exercise our judgment.
However, neither I nor my grandfather nor my grandchild possess the ability or circumstances to make decisions that are beyond review or second-guessing. If anything we create or decide survives perpetuity, it won't be due to our original far-sightedness.
Again, yes, as Rick says:
Yes, of course - do our best by selections made in the past. But set the decisions of the former generations apart as inviolable and beyond review or reversal? Of course not. We can in no way afford to make our Grandparent's (or our own) judgment-calls 'untouchable'.
Rick concludes:
I am thinking about, and I think that it is essential and in every human sense inevitable that those who come after me, will & ought to second guess me, will look at what I did from another point of view and through a different tint of glasses.
To create the first Parks where there had been none before required a major reexamination of the values & perceptions and fond recollections & preferences of the generations that preceded those who conceived the possibility of Nat'l Parks.
Had the practices & conclusions of earlier generations not been questioned & reversed, Rick & Michael, our Park system would never have come into existence in the first place!
Ted,
You make very good points, and agree with you on many points, but we have to be careful what we call and define a National Park. A National Park does not have to be as grand as the Grand Canyon. The current system and definition has created both an imbalance and a misunderstanding. A National Park should represent what is important national and the best a region has which is important for everyone to have.
I agree with you, Beamis, that it is important to subject policies--feeding bears, killing wolves, etc.--to constant scrutiny. In my mind, "delisting parks" is a significantly different issue.
Rick Smith
Ted Clayton, there is a difference between the mature reflection of a nation and most of what we hear from people shaking their fist at the sky who complain about too many parks and parks that don't deserve designation. This is the context, I believe, of the Rick Smith remarks.
You may not know it but the effort to undermine wholesale the legitimacy of this category or that of national park system units has been going on since the 1970's. It is even accompanied by its own moronic literature, books like The Thinning of the Blood. You may be outside of it and do not associate your remarks with this context, but without a cultural sense that there is great reverence for a Generation's effort set aside for preservation what it considers the essence of what it Values, our cultural continuity really is in danger. Preservation decisions are not unlike supreme court precedents. They can be changed, but in the main great priority must always be given these commitments.
We are all facile enough to disparage the simple clarity of the concept of preservation, or to trivialize this or that example of government action. We can say that culture, language, taste, climate and nation-states are all forever changing, and so nothing really matters. But Rick Smith is exactly right at the core of this. It seems to me as a people in America we do seek to establish excellence in our culture and civilization. Like expanding freedom, we have to fight to retain these best elements of what is best in our civilization. We will lose the best if we cynically parce the very concept of reverence for the things that sustain the excellence of our culture.
As Rick says: "think about it."