Americas National Parks : 100 Years of Preserving Our Land and Heritage

Contents

Americas National Parks

The dawns early light chases the traces of night from the forested hillsides of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Introduction

100 Candles for Our National Parks

Celebrating the Centennial Year of the National Park Service

Spring comes to Yosemite National Park, with the nations highest waterfall, Yosemite Falls, surging in the background.

THE FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF THE National Park Service was Stephen Tyng Mather, whose long efforts to create a federal agency to preserve Americas scenic spaces, indigenous wildlife and natural resources were crowned with success on Aug. 25, 1916. On that day, President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the historic act that created the National Park Service as a branch of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

When Mather died in 1930, his longtime colleague and successor as director of the NPS, Horace Albright, ordered the creation of small brass plaques commemorating Mather and sent one to be set up in every national park. The monuments last sentence reads, There will never come an end to the good that he has done.

As we celebrate the centennial year of the National Park Service, Albrights words have never seemed more apt. When Mather died, there were 20 national parks and 32 national monuments across the land. Today the park service protects 59 national parks that range from American Samoa in the South Pacific to Denali, the soaring mountain in central Alaska, to the Dry Tortugas islands off the Florida Keysas well as hundreds of monuments, memorials, National Historical Parks and other spaces of irreplaceable value to Americans.

In 2015 the national parks welcomed the largest number of visitors in their history: 307,247,252. And with the added excitement of the agencys centennial celebrations taking place in 2016, theres little doubt that attendance will set another record this year.

When the National Park Service was born, its mission was to preserve Americas most distinctive natural spaces. But beginning in 1933, the NPS began to protect the nations heritage as well. Today the agency welcomes guests to Philadelphias Independence Hall, Abraham Lincolns birthplace, Thomas Edisons laboratory and many more treasured byways of our national life. In September 2015, a new visitor center opened its doors at the agencys most recent tribute to notable Americans, the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania. To cover the full range of the park services efforts, this book covers not only the magnificent parks under NPS protection but also the monuments, memorials and other cultural treasures the agency maintains.

The spirit that animated the lives of John Muir, Stephen Mather, Ansel Adams and many more supporters of the NPS is still to be found in the national parks. This volume is devoted to exploring some of the nations favorites among themas well as some of the most rewarding, most distant and least known of the parks. Its our hope that these pages will encourage you to celebrate the NPS centennial in the best possible way: by visiting a park near you. Youll find a trail or two to refresh your body, a friendly ranger to guide your way, natures nourishment for your spiritand the most spectacular backdrops for selfies on the planet. When you take the time to visit a national parkwell, there wont be an end to the good it will do you.

The Editors

Editor Nancy Gibbs

Creative Director D.W. Pine

Director of Photography Kira Pollack

Americas National Parks

Editor Kelly Knauer

Designer Ellen Fanning

Photo Editor Patricia Cadley

Copy Editor Bruce Christopher Carr

Research Tresa McBee

Production Rich Shaffer

Time Inc. Books

Publisher Margot Schupf

Associate Publisher Allison Devlin

Vice President, Finance Terri Lombardi

Vice President, Marketing Jeremy Biloon

Executive Director, Marketing Services Carol Pittard

Director, Brand Marketing Jean Kennedy

Finance Director Kevin Harrington

Assistant General Counse l Andrew Goldberg

Assistant Director, Production Susan Chodakiewicz

Senior Manager, Category Marketing Bryan Christian

Brand Manager Katherine Barnet

Associate Prepress Manager Alex Voznesenskiy

Project Manager Hillary Leary

Editorial Director Kostya Kennedy

Creative Director Gary Stewart

Director of Photography Christina Lieberman

Editorial Operations Director Jamie Roth Major

Senior Editor Alyssa Smith

Assistant Art Director Anne-Michelle Gallero

Copy Chief Rina Bander

Assistant Managing Editor Gina Scauzillo

Assistant Editor Courtney Mifsud

Special Thanks Brad Beatson, Nicole Fisher, Erin Hines, Kristina Jutzi, Seniqua Koger, Kate Roncinske

Copyright 2016 Time Inc. Books

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Guardian of the Nations Spirit

to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.

T EXT, THE O RGANIC A CT OF 1916

Legislation that established the National Park Service

Yellowstone National Park

There can be nothing in the world

more beautiful than the Yosemite,

the groves of the giant sequoias

and redwoods, the Canyon of the

Colorado, the Canyon of the

Yellowstone, the Three Tetons;

and our people should see to it

that they are preserved for their

children and their childrens

children forever, with their majestic

beauty all unmarred.