Our nation will celebrate its 227th birthday on October 19, 2008, in Yorktown, Virginia—and you're invited to the party! "Whoa, not so fast," some of you may be thinking; what happened to the Fourth of July?
Imagine Yosemite National Park without Yosemite Fall. Or Glacier National Park without glaciers. Or Old Faithful becoming less faithful. Across the National Park System, the effects of climate change could be quite dramatic.
First Ladies National Historic site, which was established on October 11, 2000, has a prime location. Nevertheless, the Canton, Ohio, park attracts scarcely more than 10,000 visitors a year. Why is that, and does it really matter?
There arguably is no national park that better showcases geology than Yosemite National Park. Sure, Arches National Park offers more arches in one place than anywhere else on the planet, and Grand Canyon National Park has that incredible gouge. But stand before Half Dome or El Capitan and you can't help but marvel.
On October 11, 1974, Congress grafted a new and controversial branch onto the National Park System family tree by creating the first two National Preserves – Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas and Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida. Big Thicket, like its Florida cousin, is now a nicely maturing “thirtysomething” park with a lot of visitor appeal.
The establishment of Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site on October 10, 1980, did more than just preserve the martyred civil rights leader’s birth home and church. It provided further impetus for the preservation of historic Sweet Auburn, one of the most important black neighborhoods in America.
In a move that could be interpreted as a thumb in the eye of congressional oversight, the Bush administration is moving to revoke Congress's authority to direct the Interior secretary to withdraw public lands from mining under certain situations, according to U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva.
The new Henry M. Jackson Memorial Visitor Center opening October 10 at Mount Rainer National Park completes a 9-year project to improve visitor services in the park’s renowned Paradise area. The many green features of the new facility include a snowfield-chilled cooling system and a roof that holds heat and shucks snow.