US National Park Service Celebrates Centennial

Exactly 100 years ago, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson created the National Park Service. The goal was “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same.”

Today, the National Park system maintains 412 places all over the country, covering more than 34 million hectares of land. These areas include national parks, monuments, battlefields, military parks, historical parks, historic sites, lakeshores, seashores, recreation areas, scenic rivers and trails, and the White House. Over 300 million people visited national parkland last year.

The oldest national park in the country, established in 1872 (even before the NPS existed) is Yellowstone, an 800,000 hectare woodland that sits on top of an ancient caldera. It features hot water geysers, stunning pools of volcanically heated water, and a greatest hits of American wildlife. Theodore Roosevelt, known as ‘the conservation president,’ protected many other unique sites during his administration (1901-1909), parklands, forests and monuments.

The newest park, established in 2013, is the Pinnacles in California, ancient spires of rock that are the remnants of an ancient volcano.

To learn more about the National Park Service and the hundreds of sites it oversees, visit www.nps.gov. [Read More]

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Source: VOA News: Economy and Finance


 

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