Transcripts For CSPAN3 Colorado National Monument 20160820

Nevada las vegas october 13. Live coverage of the debates on cspan. Listen live on the free radio app or watch anytime ondemand at cspan. Org. Wilson signedrow legislation creating the National Park service on august 25, 1916. 1916 we are featuring National Park Service Sites throughout the country. We continued with another stop on the cspan cities tour. I think everybody is just amazed it is not a widely publicized presence here. The park service doesnt advertise, so people find out about this because they read magazine articles or they see features like you are preparing. But it is not our typical colorado scenery. It is not what most people think of when they think of colorado. So it comes as a pleasant surprise to find it here. John auto was kind of a vagabond, not in the sense that he was a never do well, but he did not have any permanent roots. He was attracted to the area in 1907 by the promise of employment on a waterline project. I guess this was just the type of country that was really appealing to him. He began to agitate for the creation of National Park here. A National Park park here. The first thing he did was wrote a lot of letters to prominent people trying to get it established as a National Parkm , and he also constructed a lot trails to afford axis access into the canyons. I am sure local people came out for a picnic and so on. One of the other things he did was in 1926, he started collecting buffalo nickels from the kids in town and used the at money to transport a couple of bison in here. He wanted to establish a herd of bison in the monument. The oaks club conspired to bring a couple of elk. John got some money from the chamber of commerce to build some fences to contain these and metals, and for to contain these animals. And for many years we had bison here. They said, theyre out of here and went on south into the high , country. Oddly enough, theyre are coming back into the monument now. The bison, we removed in 1983 because they were confined to a small area, and they had a really adverse impact on the resource. That was the kind of thing he did. He was constantly interested in boosting the area and promoting it and so on. There was no concerted effort until john otto came here to set this aside as a National Park or National Monument. There are a couple of distinctions between National Parks and National Monuments. One of the distinctions is legal, relating to the method in which it is established, and the other is more based on its resource quality. Auto agitated for the creation of a natural part National Park here. The creation of a National Park requires an act of congress and is much more difficult to do. A National Monument can be established by a president ial proclamation. And so although john otto wanted a National Park, it was easier to establish a National Monument and that is what happened when , president taft proclaimed the area in 1911. The other distinction is, the resource base. Generally, a National Monument is set aside in wreck mission of recognition of one spectacular feature. In this case, the erosional qualities of the monument. For a National Park is like multiple National Monuments all thrown together. So for example, yellowstone, which was the first National Park, wildlife values in the mountain range, running through a high huge elevation lake, all the thermal features and so on. That is what sets parks apart from monuments. There are, you know, it is a fuzzy boundary between them. There are areas that are natural parks that probably more rightly should be National Monuments and vice versa. Early attempts to make the monument accessible included building trails into some of the canyons and also pioneering a road up the east side of the monument called the serpents trail. The serpents trail served not only to afford access to the monument, but it also afforded axis access for renters living south of the monument, access to their land and so on. At some point, otto envisioned the serpents trail would be the starting point for the union road which would continue all , the way from the Grand Junction area. He was a big schemer. He was always dreaming these huge projects and so on. That is one of the reasons he eventually left the monument. Other forces thought they would like to have that same road, but not running over the monument running through the grand valley , basically along the route of the railroad. Basically along the route of interstate 70 today. So otto ended up on the short end of the argument and that was one of those things because he was so vociferous. It was one of the things that helped ease him out the door. Beyond the serpents trail, the park service that there would be some value in having a road, so that people would have these spectacular this does when they drove through the monument. Spectacular vistas when they drove through the monument. They had established drawings for what is todays rimrock drive. Some work was started on it with money from the chamber of commerce and other sources. The construction did not start until after the start of the great depression. In 1933, after president roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated, in his first days, he did all kinds of things 100 to stimulate the economy, and one of them was the creation of the civilian conservation corps. There were several camps and basically, those men along with local folks built the rimrock drive. It is a road that could not be built today. I mean for environmental reasons and cost reasons and so on, no one would even to attempt such a project. I think at the peak of the project, there were as many as 600 people working on it. A lot of the work was handwork, using mules and picks and shovels. They did not have a lot of mechanized equipment, and they did a lot of blasting as well. The Works Progress of ministration had a presence here. The emergency Recovery Administration and so on. There were a lot of these socalled alphabetical relief agencies that work here during the depression years. They built a lot of fabulous sandstone structures. Most of that work was done by local stonemasons, local experienced men they call them. They endured to this day and are on the national register. Really gorgeous buildings. John otto said this place was like the heart of the world for him. I think that is the feeling a lot of us had who have been privileged to work here. It is a terrific place, and i would urge anyone who has the opportunity or is coming this way to take the time to pay us a visit. You can spend two hours driving across the road, or you can get out and enjoy all the threshold experience with a short hike, or you can commit to a longer stay. There is a lot here to see and do. To mark the centennial of the National Park service, we are featuring National Parks from the cspan cities tour. For more information, check out the website cspan. Org cities tour. You are watching American History next on American History tv, the impact of president Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger on the National Security council. Inboden. Om william the lecture was part of oregon state universitys rethinking grand strategy conference and its about 30 minutes. William imboden very brief on my background only in so far its relevant for my comments today. I was honored today to be part of the nativity of the Study Program since i was in the first class when they first developed it there. It was a new concept for me at the time. Its a year, continuing a great tradition. I continue to look back on my time there with much fondness. After