You don’t see bison flake because of a little snow. During a winter storm, bison face the cold and take the winter elements head on, conserving energy as they hunker down and wait for snowstorms to pass. Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming is the only place where bison have lived continuously through American history, and they have a good handle on surviving tough winters. Photo by Jacob W. Frank, National Park Service.
Take a walk through a winter wonderland at Yellowstone National Park. While it looks a light coating of snow at Tangled Creek, the landscape is covered in hoar frost, which forms when water vapor freezes quickly creating delicate, feather-like crystals. Photo by Jacob W. Frank, National Park Service.
For the last century, the National Park Service has protected America’s Best Idea, ensuring current and future generations can experience the country’s natural, cultural and historic treasures. Established 44 years before the National Park Service, Yellowstone was the world’s first national park and sparked a worldwide movement to protect special places.
Watch out for bison jams at Yellowstone National Park. As nice as wildlife like bison look, they’re wild and unpredictable. Remember to never approach wildlife. The safest – and often best – view of wildlife is from inside a car. Always stay at least 100 yards away from bears and wolves, and at least 25 yards away from all other animals, including bison and elk. Be sure to stay in your vehicle if you encounter a wildlife jam, and do not feed wildlife. Animals that become dependent on human food may become aggressive toward people and have to be killed. Take the #YellowstonePledge to protect the landscape, wildlife and yourself at our nation’s first park. Photo by National Park Service.
We hope your summer plans included visiting one or more of the 411 national parks, monuments, battlefields, military parks, historical parks, historic sites, lakeshores, seashores, recreation areas, scenic rivers and trails in the National Park System. If you can’t make it to one of the locations found in every state, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands – join the National Archives online to celebrate the records of the National Park Service on their 100th anniversary tomorrow, August 25.
#TagYourPark!
Tagging is a fun and easy way for you to help make National Archives records more discoverable online. By adding keywords, terms, and labels to a record, you can do your part to help the next person discover that record. Take a look at these photographs from the National Parks and add keywords that describe what you see.
Trail of the Ancients – Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park. National Archives Identifier 7722478
New to Tagging? Learn how to get started.
Are you ready to tag? Select the National Parks Tagging Mission and get tagging!
Transcribe!
Letter from Frederick Harvey, owner of Fred Harvey Company to M. R. Tillotson, Superintendent of the Grand Canyon National Park. National Archives Identifier 27753707
Transcribing the digitized records in the National Archives Catalog is an important way to improve search results and increase accessibility to these historical records.
New to Transcription? Learn how to get started.
Are you ready to transcribe? Jump right in and select the National Parks Transcription Mission.
Watch!
In the 1930s the Department of Interior made a series of films on the nation’s growing park system, from trails blazed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in Yosemite, California, all the way up to Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes. Now you can see what your local parks looked like during the Great Depression, a time when many old parks were upgraded and many new parks were created.
View highlights from the National Archives’ collection of films from the National Park Service.
Now go and #FindYourPark!
via National Park Service Turns 100 | NARAtions
(Photos of Yellowstone, Grand Teton, King’s Canyon, and Glacier National Parks all come from the series: Ansel Adams Photographs of National Parks and Monuments, 1941 - 1942, from the Records of the National Park Service. )
Happy 100th Birthday!
The National Park Service is 100 years old today! I found this publication from the same year of NPS’s birth, 1916. It’s Glimpses of our National Parks, by Robert Sterling Yards, and was published by the Government Printing Office for the Department of the Interior.
The first section is a hoot - a chronological list of National Parks by order of creation, with some distinctive characteristics listed.
Learn more at the National Park Service’s page about the centennial. All National Parks are free through the 28th to celebrate, so now’s as good a time as any to visit!
Tomorrow is the 100th birthday of National Park Service! We were honored to have their park rangers visit us this week.
Lindsay Brandt (Rock Creek Park) and Suzy Traut and Heath Mitchell (National Mall and Memorial Parks) answered questioned about the Organic Act of 1916, which is currently on display.
The Organic Act created the National Park Service as we know it today. (Learn more here: http://1.usa.gov/29hOr2N). The rangers also shared the history and current initiatives of the National Park Service with our visitors.
Visitors can also explore the national parks in our ReSource room with fun activities like a scavenger hunt.
Come #FindYourPark at the National Archives!
One of the best things about working for the National Archives is that we get exposure to a variety of Federal agencies and their work.
On August 25, 1916, the National Park Service was founded. But, of course, the establishment of an agency or park and the management of it are two very different things! Today we wanted to focus on the exceptional work done by our colleagues at the National Park Service and other Federal agencies that have made travel and enjoyment in the National Parks a reality over the past 101 years!
From our holdings of the National Park Service (Record Group 79), who built campgrounds, worked with concessionaires like the Fred Harvey Company and who made sure that there were “facilities” available to the every growing public; the U.S. Forest Service who preserved and managed lands before the birth of the Park Service (Record Group 95) and the Bureau of Public Roads (Record Group 30) who made it possible to leave the mule carts behind, we bring you the Grand Canyon National Park!
This weekend, we lost a member of the Department of the Interior family. Brian Hughes, captain of the Arrowhead Interagency Hot Shots crew out of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, lost his life while battling the Ferguson Fire just outside Yosemite National Park. We extend our condolences to the family, friends, and fellow National Park Service coworkers who loved and knew him. We honor his service and sacrifice.
A new analysis by the National Institute on Retirement Security shows that #WomensRetirement income lags behind men’s. Our #EleanorsHope initiative is dedicated to helping close the gap between women & men when it comes to retirement savings and benefits. https://www.ncpssm.org/eleanors-hope/
