22 April 2006
National Park System Brings U.S. History Alive
Triumphs and tragedies of the American experience commemorated in U.S. parks
Washington -- Natural wonders like Alaska’s Glacier Bay and Nevada’s Death Valley are among the dozens of unique geologic and ecologic resources preserved within the U.S. National Park System, but American parks, large and small, also share the history of the United States with thousands of visitors every year.
The stories told by the individual parks, monuments and historic sites maintained by the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) paint a vivid picture of the United States, from its prehistory through its colonial period, fight for independence, Civil War and westward expansion to the political, social and technological developments of the 20th century.
At the Jamestown National Historical Site in Virginia, site of the first permanent English colony in North America, 600 hectares (1,500 acres) are preserved for visitors and researchers on Jamestown Island, including the original site of the 1607 fort and the statehouse site from the late 17th century. In 1893, the owners of the island donated these sites to the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities; in 1934, Jamestown Island was acquired by the National Park Service as part of the Colonial Historical Park.
Visitors can walk in the footsteps of Revolutionary War leader (and later first president) George Washington in Pennsylvania’s Valley Forge National Historical Park. It commemorates the sacrifices and dedication of the soldiers in the American War for Independence and honors the cooperation of everyday Americans during extraordinary times. At Valley Forge, Washington’s winter camp, one in 10 soldiers died, nearly all from disease. Despite the hardships, Washington and his generals built a unified army that ultimately triumphed over the British. Those who visit the park will find not only the story of those early patriots but also the efforts – sometimes of dubious historical accuracy or questionable taste – of successive generations of Americans to pay homage to a defining moment in history.
At Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, another chapter of American history can be relived. The defense of the star-shaped fort at the entrance of one of the young country’s most important seaports inspired Francis Scott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Following the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812, the fort never again came under attack but it remained an active military post for the next 100 years. It became an area administered by the National Park Service in 1933, two years after Key's poem became the country's national anthem. Fort McHenry is the only site within the National Park System to be designated a national monument and historic shrine.
The tragedy of what Abraham Lincoln termed “a house divided against itself” is commemorated at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, site of a battle that proved the critical turning point in the American Civil War. The battlefield where the Union Army collided with the Army of the Confederacy first was preserved by a small group of patriotic citizens and later by the country as a whole. Since 1933, the National Park Service has cared for Gettysburg National Military Park as a symbol of America's struggle to survive as a nation, and as a lasting memorial to those who served on both side of that great conflict.
Hawaii has no shortage of awe-inspiring views, including the Haleakala volcano protected by the National Park Service, but a special stillness descends on visitors to another site preserved by the NPS -- the submerged remains of the battleship USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor, left just as it settled on December 7, 1941. The ship, one of many casualties from the deadly attack on a quiet Sunday that President Franklin Roosevelt called "a date which will live in infamy," symbolized the start of a war that claimed thousands of American lives. More than a million people visit the USS Arizona Memorial each year, filing quietly through a building above the site and tossing flower wreaths into the water where random oil slicks from ruptured bunkers occasionally break the water’s surface.
THE NATIONAL MALL AND THE “NATION’S ATTIC”
Within the city of Washington, the NPS manages more than 405 hectares, a collection of monuments and open spaces that serves as a kind of national front yard and provides visitors with opportunities to commemorate presidential legacies, honor war veterans, celebrate the United States’ commitment to freedom and democratic ideals and enjoy symbolic architecture and historic vistas.
Officially established in 1965, the “National Mall and Memorial Parks” enclave contains some of the oldest protected parklands administered by the NPS. Located in the heart of the nation’s capital city, the designation encompasses the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. Stretching between the Potomac River and the Capital Reflecting Pool, this area is home to 156 commemorative reservations, circles, fountains and other open spaces, as well as Ford’s Theatre (the site of Lincoln’s assassination) and the house where Lincoln died.
The National Mall itself, girded on the north and south by broad avenues named Constitution and Independence with eastern and western boundaries marked by the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, offers a vast expanse of tree-shaded green bordered by the buildings of the Smithsonian Institution.
Originally established through a 1826 bequest from British scientist James Smithson, this collection of museums seeks to carry out his wish that his estate should go “to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.”
Supplemented by both public funding and private donations, the Smithsonian now serves as the “Nation’s Attic,” housing collections dedicated to natural history, technology, aerospace science, the American Indian, and the art of Europe, Asia, Africa and America, in buildings that are themselves outstanding examples of Gothic, Beaux Arts, neoclassic and modern architecture.
Additional information about visiting U.S. parks is available on the U.S. National Park Service Web site. Information on traveling to the United States is available on the State Department's Destination USA Web site.
More information about the Smithsonian Institution is available on its Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
