Transcripts For CSPAN3 Cities Tour At National Parks 20161125

Thats facing all of the Museum Managers and people that are responsible for generating, producing, and collecting objects that would likely go into a museum sitting such as this is how much do we need to keep . How many things do we need to have to tell the american story and its the great conundrum of our protection. There are those who believe that maybe the time has come to start reducing the amounts of things we collect and be more judicious in how we collect them and what we collect. Is it inappropriate to use representative samples, say at an archaeological site, where things are left at the Vietnam Veterans memorial. Do we need to keep everything . And there are those in the professional field that think we need to keep everything and theres others who think sampling is the more judicious and longterm strategy. Because there is a point of diminishing return. It costs money. There is an inherent cost to storing all of these objects. In many cases the costs can be prohibitive and im aware of cases where managers will not accept certain types of collections because they can no longer afford to store them. What about the future of this particular facility . Do you see a day when it will just be so full it couldnt take any more objects, or is that way off . Obviously, as youve gone through this building, can you see that were pretty crowded. Clearly with some slight changes in storage strategies, we can reduce the amount of Storage Space in here and provide more storage room for this particular facility. It would be great if we had more space, but at the same time, i think its its incumbent upon us as collections managers and those responsible for this property, this peoples property, to understand how much we need to keep and whether its its in the best interest of the American Public to keep everything that we have. 100 years ago in august of 1916, president Woodrow Wilson signed legislation to create the National Park service. This is American History tv, only on cspan3. We are in the l. Tom perry special collection which is part of the harold b. Lee library on Brigham Young university campus. We collect utah history, we collect different parts of western americana in idaho, nevada. And thats why we collect yellowstone. The first item i wanted to show was the fact of the matter is how the park came to be. A man by the name of hayden prevailed on the government to appropriate money to go into this part of the country. So in 1871 he took a government expedition in. He came in with an artist, thomas maran, and he came in with a photographer, William Henry jackson. And these men were able to put on paper and film what they saw. And so between his paintings and jacksons photographs, which was one of the driving forces that enabled the legislation in 1872 to pass and grant signed the authorization in march of 1872 for the first National Park which was yellowstone. Here is a rendition of marans watercolor of the canyon of the yellowstone. Heres one of mammoth hot springs. Then we have we have jacksons photograph of the lower falls. This is the 1871 print of his one of his pictures, his albumin pictures on glass plates. You should keep in mind that they had a glass plate. They couldnt enlarge it. The plate was as large as the picture. They took the picture, they had to coat it and then expose it and then fix it and then keep track of this glass plate. They were on mules and horses. The very essence is the miracle we have any of them. We have to understand that lot of the park, it was driven by how could i make money. We understand we know for a fact that part of it was that railroads were making their move west, and in order to fund and to make a business out of it, they had to have places they wanted to go. And so the Northern Pacific railroad, which was going to be on through montana which would have been through what is now bozeman, livingston and on out to the pacific coast, they wanted to advertise and capitalize on the yellowstone park. So it was to their best interest to make it as alluring as possible. And so they began to fund either blatantly or behind the scenes these hotels that were being built. They were funding these different corporations who were building these things to entice the public to have somewhere to go and stay while they traveled through the park. Well, along this time, there was a man named f. J. Hanes working for the railroad as their photographer and he began to see the ability of the park, its scenic value both as scenery and as a business. And in 83, he wrote to the department of the interior and had himself made the official park photographer. And he started to coming in each summer to take photographs of the park and then sell them as part of his business. But in 87, f. J. Hanes was one of the first people to go into the park in the wintertime. And he took 42 glass plate pictures. But the photographs that he brought out were amazing. These were this is a picture of the group as it was going by obsidion cliffs. Heres a picture of the lower geyser basin, the winter of 1887. And whats interesting is that this shows this is the upper geyser basin, this shows people on skis moving through the snow. One of the best pictures i like is here, this is the lower falls. If you look real close, you can see the ice dome that builds in front of the falls as the spray begins to freeze. Along with hanes as he was given the photographic concession, he made a guidebook and he sold his first guidebook, came out in 1896. This is his 1896 guide look. We can see where he used his photographs, lot of written words and different images that hed shown. He had a map that was in the back here and it had some advertisement in the back which was the way that they did things. They had the advertisement in the back of books. He had an 1896 guidebook. This is 97, this is 1907, 1916, 1924. This is 1935. This is 1936. You can see where they made a different they made a change in the cover. And this was their last, 1966. Now, as you look through this one, you can see how the maps changed, there was more there was more maps. There was more concise pictures. He had flowers, he had birds. It was a complete guidebook. These were meant to be kept. We have a complete set from 1896 to 1966. The company was sold by his daughterinlaw isabella in 1969. Along with the guidebooks that hanes was putting out, the park was also used by the different Railroad Companies. There was the Northern Pacific, there was the Union Pacific, there was the burlington northern. These railroads came up to the edges of the park at different times. The first one was the Northern Pacific. And they started using the images of the park to advertise coming on their railroad to come to the park, be picked up by coaches and taken to the hotels. And then from the hotels, youd take a stagecoach ride around the park. These were five to sevenday tours. And they cost a whopping 55. The first ones that came out were these. This was one of the earlier ones. This is 1913. The ones that were really early were very generic. They didnt have a lot of photographic or visual appeal. It was just a brochure that said their timetables. This is the gardner station, the northern entrance. This shows how the Northern Pacific would view. It would give you some idea of what you were going to see. Theres fishing cone. Theres theres isa lake up at the divide going towards west thumb. And they would give you what their itinerary was, what you would see in the park. You can tell that they had very artistic renderings. Heres old faithful, as you can almost see this very its brush strokes are very apparent. Now, this is the burlington route, also the Northern Pacific. And it had standard tours. It was a usual how to see the park, what you were going to see, the lodges and some of the ideas of to sort of perk your interest into want to do this. And this is one here, even for children. This is a Union Pacific Childrens Book of yellowstone bears. They took this theme, they had coloring books, they were looking at all parts of the family. One of the interesting things about these travel posters is that we see during this same time, it was the rise of the middle class. It was the rise of disposable income. It was the rise of vacations. In 1910, president taft puts an article in the New York Times that says everybody should have two to three weeks off to regenerate themselves for the coming fall and winter. And so we see the idea of some of this stuff has broader meaning, sociological why this is going on. Why we do this is it helps us to understand who we are. American history tv is featuring natural and Historic Sites across the country as recorded by cspans city tour staff. The history of the National Parks all day today here on cspan3. Padre Island National seashore is 70 miles of a Barrier Island with both beach, bay, coastal prairie. Were located just about 25 minutes from the city of Corpus Christi texas. This island traditionally started out being used by different native american tribes seasonally. They would come here during nice weather. There was a bounty of fish in the area. There was lots of sea plants they would use on the island, and then they would leave when the weather was bad in the winter. What happened next was that when the spanish area was happening, there was a man born up the Rio Grande River who became actually a priest. They called him padre bali and the island is named after him. What happened is he got a spanish land grant and he got padre island, he split it with his nephew. What they started doing over 200 years ago was cattle ranching. Thats how it started out with his name. And it actually did very well for him and his nephew. Once he passed away, the land that was his was split between his other relatives. So his nephew and other relatives would have most of the island to ranch on and eventually they would sell it bit by bit by bit. And over time, the island went through many, many hands. It stayed mostly a cattle ranch. Here i am in a huge prairie. Here i am in a huge prairie. You wouldnt know it by looking at it, but over the dunes there is the gulf of mexico. Weve got all these great grasslands here. Eventually the land ended up mostly in the hands of a man named patrick dunn. This was in the 1870s when that really got started. The story of patrick dunn is a Pretty Amazing one. He was born in Corpus Christi in 1858. In his teenage years, he started being a cowboy. He was working for different cattle ranches and he absolutely loved it. He knew it was his way of life. There was something invented in the 1870s that revolutionized cattle ranching in the western United States. That was barbed wire. What you used to have is the open cattle ranches. You would actually have somebody who could get cattle, have them wandering all over the place, and eventually take them to market. With barbed wire, all the people who actually had land claims would put fences around their land. That that almost was the end of the open cattle range. But theres a few people who really, really loved cattle ranching and who didnt want to let them stop them and they didnt have the huge ranches that like we see in southern texas. What they did is they came out to padre island. What made it ideal for cattle ranches, even if you didnt have the barbed wire, was that you didnt need a fence for most of it. You had water on most sides of the island. Patrick dunn came out here, and he was so successful, he ended up owning most of the northern part of padre island. He would have his cattle out here. He would have cows or vaqueros as theyre called in spanish. You think about how do you get those cattle to market. In the 1900s and into the teens and 20s, he would have these three stations, and theyre called line camps. What they would do, certain times of year they would bring the cattle, starting in the south, bring them to those line camps and the cattle could be, if you went from sunup to sundown, you could get those cattle to go about 15 miles. So there are three line camps and theyre all about 15 miles apart. How were these line camps built . If you look around me, youll see theres no trees. Theres almost no trees on this island. Its amazing. Theres one forest. Its the size of about a car and the trees are about this tall. Without any wood, to build a line camp, to build fences, a bunk house, a place where you could get shelter for the cooking and eating. What they did is they used driftwood. So these line camps were made out of whatever materials they could find on the beach. They came in from ship wrecks, actually driftwood. Of the three line camps, one still exists today. Thats the one behind me. Its called novio line camp. Its located at the north end of the park. So what originally happened was the cowboys would take the cattle from one line camp to another and then eventually theyd take them up to the north end of the island where theres now a causeway and the water is so shallow, they would actually drive the cows through the water. Eventually, things would change so much, actually after patrick dunn passed away and his son took over, he would actually get the cowboys to bring the cows to the line camps and then they would load the cows into trucks into old army vehicles, and they would actually go to the north end of the island and theyd take a ferry across the water. So things had changed a lot. We had two years of great history of cattle ranching. After that 200 years, the land had kind of it was tired. Eventually in early 1960s, the park service bought this land and it became a National Seashore. Things really got rolling here in the early 1970s. Thats when the last of the contracts for cattle ranching ended on the island and that was the last open cattle ranch in america right here on this island. Were at the north end of padre Island National seashore. Speaking of National Seashore, which is a type of National Park unit, the idea of National Parks, you know, preservation and providing for the enjoyment of the people. When the National Parks were first created, its the big ones, like the first one, yellowstone. Yeah, lets set this aside, we can all enjoy it and preserve it. But as time went on, theres different types of National Park units that were added for different reasons. If we think about the idea of the National Seashore, what happened is on the east coast as cities start to expand, the population got bigger, people started looking forward in the 1930s and said, hey, were going to need places out here we can recreate, where we can go to decompress, that we can be with nature. Starting in the 50s that idea really took off of near some population areas to have National Seashores where we can conserve the wildlife, scenery, we can protect things and provide for the enjoyment of the people. So Corpus Christi is a city of 300,000 today. What they did is back in the early 60s, they said lets take this area where the cattle ranching on the island was coming to a close, the park service bought the land and created another National Seashore unit so there would be a place where everybody could come out fishing, go swimming, where we could also have a great place for birds, a place for badgers, raccoons, coyotes. So that idea of preserving and protecting the natural landscape and a great place to recreate. Whatever you do, flying a kite, swimming, surfing, all those things you can do in a place like a National Seashore. Thats why were on the beach right now. Why is a National Seashore important as any other National Park unit say like some of the big famous ones, zion, grand canyon, is that in the National Park service theres so many different types of ecosystems in the United States of america. And a Barrier Island and a prairie Barrier Island is a very unique place. Think about all the Barrier Islands along the coastal bend along texas here. A lot of them have been developed. But to preserve an ecosystem intact is what were trying to do. So what id have to say is since the 60s, the place has blossomed again. 00 years of anything will have an impact on the land, and id have to say that being a National Seashore, the land has been able to take a break, to relax and restore itself. And so now its this great natural place. 100 years ago this past august president Woodrow Wilson signed legislation creating the National Park service. Today were featuring national and Historic Sites throughout the country. This is American History tv, only on cspan3. So were here at Promontory Summit, utah, golden spike National Historic site. Walking you over to where the Transcontinental Railroad was completed. Leland stanfords name and the big four marked there. Another thing you can see at the site is a connection with the resources that would have been available to the two companies building the railroad. Weve mocked up everything to try to make it as authentic as possible. If you look on the west side, youre going to see precut ties. The Central Pacific had plenty of wood in the sierra nevadas and because of that, they had saw mills and they would cut their ties, brought them down from the mountains. Whereas the Union Pacific coming from the east had to hand cut their ties wherever they could find wood. Not a lot available in many of the areas so they would split them. You can see how they would cut them and bring them out when they could. The Transcontinental Railroad was happening at the end of the victorian age, as you were going into the industrial age. And it was a perfect time for the United States because when that Transcontinental Railroad was completed, it made a major impact in the Industrial Development of this nation. The complete construction took just over it was about six and a half years. So from 1862 to 1869. The time period before they started building the railroad would have been when a lot of people were coming out after the gold rush, silver rush was really taking off. We were also in the middle of the civil war when the act was signed to start this project. Abraham lincoln really wanted to have access to all the materials that were available in the sierra nevadas including the gold and silver and connect the new states that had just been made to the United States. So he chose that time to complete the act and finish, Start Building the Transcontinental Railroad. Obviously, in the middle of the war, defense of the country was a big kind of major factor that was making the decision, they wanted to be able to get troops across the country in a quicker period of time. They also wanted to cut the time of shipping goods. The raw goods made in the factories back east and the finished goods to go to the new states in the west. So four to six months around the horn, slipping all the way down around south america, was hopefully going to be cut to about two weeks. That was actually abraham lincolns goal, to get troops across the country in two weeks. It ended up that it was seven to ten days they were able to get things across the country once it was completed. The two companies that started building the Transcontinental Railroad were the Central Pacific Railroad Company and the Union Pacific Railroad Company that started in omaha, nebraska. There were already extensive Railroad Systems back further east. One of the problems the whole time was the companies were building before they got paid. They were almost always in debt, also worried about money. The other problem was resources. I mean, huge problem with resources. If you ever traveled across wyoming and nebraska, theres not a lot of wood. If you look underneath the rails, wooden ties had to be placed all along the route just for the railroad. You also would have to build buildings for water towers or just for the infrastructure of operating the railroad all across the country. Another huge problem because of the civil war, they were in the civil war, was actually finding manpower to build the railroad. And the end of the civil war actually was a huge help for the Railroad Companies because you had all these veterans from the war looking for a way to provide for their lives and their livelihood and there was a ready employer in the Railroad Companies. Now, for the Central Pacific, this was even a bigger concern because a lot of times, especially early on in the building of the railroad, a lot of their workers would just come on long enough to obtain money to go and mine in the gold or the silver fields or mines. So thats actually why the chinese were eventually brought on as an experiment. They just brought on 50 Chinese Workers initially to test them out. There was a lot of doubts because of the stature, they didnt think they would be able to withstand the 10 to 12hour days six days a week. There was also a lot of criticism and i guess you could say racism against the chinese. Eventually, they overcame all those doubts and did a fantastic job. So well, in fact, over 11,000 chinese were employed by the end of the Transcontinental Railroad between the two companies. Both companies as they approached each other were being paid land grants and government bonds to build, and they didnt want to give up ground to each other. So instead of coming together and giving up and finding out where they would meet, they continued to build past one another and until the government stepped in and said were not going to pay you anymore until you figure out where youre going to meet. Thats where were standing right beside, and it gave both companies 30 miles of tract they had to finish in the last month. So youre looking down over some of the wetlands of the Great Salt Lake. Two major factors influenced the path across the whole route. One was finding fresh water available every 15 to 30 miles to refill the tanks that would supply the water for the boilers on the steam locomotives. Another thing is they needed to stay under the 2 grade, which is only 100 feet in elevation change every mile. As they were trying to find their way through utah, one of the challenges they faced is there was a large saltwater lake. Wouldnt allow any fresh water, but they had to find a path around it. And they were thinking about going right through the wetland area, but one of the engineers brought up what if the lake level rises. And so they decided to come up on the foothills north of the lake, even though that would present more challenges with the grading, but to stay away from the lake and prevent flooding and damaging of the actual railroad. Another thing you can see from this site is if you look down just below us, you can see the other grade. So i mentioned earlier that the two companies building across the country passed each other through utah with grade work because they didnt want to give up money that the federal government was providing. Down below is us the old Union Pacific grade which would have been abandoned earlier, just less than a year after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad when they sold their rights to the Central Pacific Railroad Company. Because the Central Pacific had worked through utah a lot longer, they had a much Higher Quality grade and so when they bought the rights from the Union Pacific, they switched over onto their grade. Thats where were standing, is on the original Central Pacific grade. Were coming up to the last cut that was made by the Union Pacific in their approach to Promontory Summit valley. In just a minute, well be able to look down and you can actually see in order to get through different elevation changes, they would cut through the rock. And blast with black powder, making these channels that they could actually build the railroad through. Now, the work youre actually seeing these berms or hills up on the far side of this cut is from the 1860s. This is actually rock that was stacked up, and you can actually see they even kind of put some bigger rocks to act as a wall retaining wall to keep that from collapsing down into the cut. And so pretty neat, you can see work that has lasted almost 150 years now. As they approached the actual ceremony and figured out the spot here at Promontory Summit, a lot of people were interested in knowing when they would complete and they actually had a lot of reporters from all over the country that came out with the dignitaries from the two companies. A lot of individuals from other Railroad Companies that would connect to that main line and be able to benefit with their businesses from that. And the day that was set for the completion, when the federal government made these companies kind of set when they would finish and where, was may 8th. We hold our anniversary every year on may 10th. Thats because there was a delay in the Union Pacific getting out here. And so they were not able to hold the ceremony until that day. When they actually held the ceremony, one of the neat parts of the story, they did have the ceremonial spikes which one of those gives us our name, golden spike National Historic site. They actually had four ceremonial spikes, including two gold, a solid silver, and a a silver and gold spike. Because they were precious metal, they couldnt drive the strikes. They would have to predrill holes and place the precious metal spikes into these holes. We often get asked where the golden spike was. We dont know which position the gold spike would have held. They would have placed those in as part of the ceremony. The dignitaries placed them in and tapped them as part of the ceremony. They tapped those as part of the ceremony and then removed all that. There was a last spike that was driven. So when you hear the driving of the last spike, it wasnt the gold spike. It was a regular iron spike that was linked up to the telegraph. They tied the telegraph wires around the spike and the hammer and it sent a broadcast, live coverage across the country and actually started celebrations all throughout the nation. During the ceremony, one of the famous pictures that you often see is the champagne photo. For that photo, there were two locomotives on site. We have replicas of those engines that operate on a daily basis throughout the summer season. Those locomotives have become probably two of the most famous locomotives in american railroading. Being able to run those, let people see 1860s replicas on a daily basis is a cool way to commemorate that. After the ceremony, a lot of pictures were taken and the operation of the railroad became huge throughout the country. Because they were trying to increase time and efficiency within these companies themselves, eventually, the line that was passing through this area was bypassed. They built a trestle bridge and causesway straight across the Great Salt Lake from the nevada utah border at the town of luscin, straight across the point of the Promontory Mountains that are just behind us straight into ogden. That cut about 80 miles of extra travel, time, money, all of that off the operation of that transcontinental line. Ogden became a huge hub for transferring troops and materials and supplies all across the country, and would just have trains every hour coming in just unloading huge amounts of supplies or people, and it became a major city. A major thoroughfare for moving across the country. To mark the centennial of the National Park service American History tv is featuring Historic Sites and National Parks from cspans cities tour. For more information about our travels check out our website cspan. Org citiestour. Youre watching American History tv, all weekend and on holidays, too, only on cspan3. This year marks the centennial of the National Park service and we asked members of congress which National Park service site in your state has the most significance to you. The great Smoky Mountain National Park, because i grew up there. Because i lived there. And because i really love it. I mean, its the most visited National Park in the country. Most people dont know that. It has nearly 10 million visitors a year compared to the western parks that sometimes have 2, 3, 4 million. Has more trees. Different kinds of trees than all of europe put together. All sorts of wildlife. 80 years ago when it was formed, there were about 100 black bears. Now theres 1,600. 315 wild turkey, i see two dozen in my front yard. I like the fact that i can walk out of my house, walk about two miles to conservation property, and walk into the great smoky park, which includes the highest mountains in the eastern United States. I like the stories about the people who live there because unlike the western parks which were built out of land that the country already owned, great smokies were created in 1934 from land that North Carolina and tennessee gave to the country. And people were moved out of the park. And the park bought their land, so those of us who live around there feel like we own it because it used to be ours. So theres a sense of ownership about the smokies even though people come to the park from all over the country. More than any other park. Theres a special sense of ownership about the park there. Why is it important to preserve sites like this . Well, one is the wildlife. To be able to see two dozen turkeys walk through your front yard, to go from having like 20 wild whitetailed deer, which was the way it was 80 years ago to countless numbers today, thats one. To allow these great trees to grow back. Theyre mostly all logged in the 1930s, but now after 80 years, its such a lush area, so much rainfall, that theyre growing back. And then the family stories. The people who lived there. I remember in the 80s when i was governor, i took a walk through the park on the 50th birthday or 60th birthday, and i stopped to see lem owenby, a man who was then 95 years old. He had been blind for 20 years. He still was allowed to live in the park although it was created in the 1930s. And he was the last man who was allowed to live in the park. When he died, no other people lived in the park. He was very reclusive. A couple Supreme Court justices tried to see him, and he wouldnt see them. He allowed me to come in and i said Something Like, well, we havent had many governors from this part of the state. He said, well, we havent had many who didnt steal, either. Then he said that i hear nothing on you yet. One of the highlights for me was at the 50th anniversary of the park. Then at the 75th anniversary in 2009. They rolled a piano into caves cove, this beautiful area surrounded by 6,000foot mountains, and the knoxville tennessee symphony came. On a sunday afternoon, i played the piano. The symphony played and we played Amazing Grace and the fiddles sounded like the old bagpipes that the scottish people used to bring into the mountains 200 years ago. So being able to do that on the 50th and the 75th anniversary in the park with thousands of people there listening was a big thrill for me. All day today American History tv is marking the National Park Service Centennial and we talk with members of congress about the National Parks and Historic Sites in their states. This is American History tv, only on cspan3. To mark the centennial of the National Park service American History tv is featuring natural and Historic Sites across the country as recorded by cspans cities tour staff. The history of the National Parks, all day today here on cspan3. I think everybody is just amazed its not a widely publicized presence here. The st the park service doesnt advertise, so people find out about this because they read magazine articles or they see features like youre preparing, but its not our typical colorado scenery. Its not what most people think of when they think of colorado. So it comes as a pleasant surprise to folks to find it here. John otto was a kind of a vagabond, not in the sense that he was a neer do well, but he didnt have any permanent roots. He was attracted to this area around 1907 by the promise of employment on a water line project. And i guess this was just the type of country that was really appealing to him. So he began to agitate for the creation of a National Park here. The first thing he did was he wrote a lot of letters to prominent people and so on trying to get this established as a National Park. And he also constructed a lot of trails to afford access into the canyons and onto the rims of the monument. Im sure the local people came out on sunday afternoon, they would hitch up the wagon and come out for a picnic and so on. One of the other things he did is in 1926, he started collecting buffalo nickels from the kids in town and used that money to transport a couple bison here. He wanted to establish a herd of bison in the monument. The elks club conspired to bring in a couple of elk. John got some money from the chamber of commerce to build some fences to contain these animals. And for many years, we had a bison herd. Now, the elk kind of took one look around and said were out of here. They went on south into the high country. But oddly enough, theyre coming back into the monument now. We see more and more elk sightings. The bison we removed in 1983 because they were confined to a really small area, and they had a really adverse impact on the resource. But that was the kind of thing he did. He was constantly interested in boosting the area and promoting it and so on. But there was no concerted effort until john otto came here to set this aside as a National Park or a National Monument. A couple of distinctions between National Parks and National Monuments. One is legal, relating to the method in which its established. And the other is more based on its resource qualities. Otto agitated for the creation of a National Park here. But the creation of a National Park required an act of congress, and so its much more difficult to do. A National Monument can be established by a president ial proclamation. So although john otto wanted a National Park, it was much easier to establish a National Monument, and thats what happened when president taft proclaimed the area in 1911. The other distinction is resourcebased. Generally, a National Monument is set aside in recognition of one spectacular feature. In this case, the erosional qualities of the monument. A National Park is like multiple National Monuments all thrown together. So for example, yellowstone, which was the first National Park, has its wildlife values, a mountain rage running through it, a huge high elevation lake. Its got all of the thermal features and so on. And thats what generally sets parks apart from monuments. There are, you know, its a fuzzy boundary between them, so there are areas that are National Parks that probably more rightfully should be monuments and vice versa. Ottos early attempts to make the monument accessible included building trails in some of the canyons and 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 access for ranchers living south of the monument, access to their land and so on. So at some point, otto envisioned that serpents trail would be the starting point for a road he called the union road, which would continue all the way from Grand Junction area to southern california. And he was a big schemer. He was always dreaming of these huge projects and so on. And thats one of the reasons he eventually left the monument, that other forces thought they would like to have that same road, but not running over the monument, running through the grand valley along the basically along the route of the railroad. And basically along the route of interstate 70 today. So otto ended up on the short end of that argument, and that was one of the things because he was so vociferous, that was one of the things that helped ease him out the door. Beyond the serpents trail, though, the park service thought there would be some value in having a road, and otto also did, that would run around the rim rocks. So that people would have these spectacular vistas when they drove across or entered the monument. So in 1929, the park service had already established drawings for what is todays rim rock drive. And some work actually started on it with money from the chamber of commerce and other sources. But the Road Construction didnt start in earnest until after the start of the great depression. 1933, after president roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated, in his first 100 days, he did all kinds of things to stimulate the economy. One of them was the creation of the civilian conservation corps. There were several camps of enrollees in the monument, and basically those men along with some local folks built the rim rock drive. Its a road that could not be built today. For environmental reasons and cost reasons and so on, no one would even 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 hand work, using mules and picks and shovels and so on, but they did have some mechanized equipment and did a lot of blasting and so on as well. It wasnt just the ccc. I want to the Works Progress administration had a presence here. The emergency Recovery Administration and so on. There were a lot of these socalled alphabetical relief agencies that worked here during the depression years. They built a bunch of really fabulous sandstone structures, but most of that work was done by local stone masons. Local experienced men, they called them. And they endure to this day, and theyre all on the National Register of historic places. Really gorgeous buildings. John otto said this place was like the heart of a world to him. I think thats the feeling a lot of us have who have been privileged to work here. Its a terrific place, and so 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 a threshold experience with a short hike or commit to a longer stay. Theres a lot here to see and do. 100 years ago in august of 1916, president Woodrow Wilson signed legislation creating the National Park service. To mark the centennial, American History tv is featuring National Park Service Sites throughout the country and we continue now another stop on the cspan cities tour. This is American History tv, on cspan3. The ohio and erie canal is part of a twocanal system put in place in the early years of america, built between 1825 and 1832. And basically, its a water transportation route that connected lake erie with the ohio river, which was part of a larger idea, however. A National Water transportation route. In the early days of america, we had 13 colonies all situated right along the atlantic seaboard. And our leaders at that time saw a problem. That problem was we needed that country to expand westward. However, there was a big obstacle, the appalachian mountains. So our first president , George Washington, happened to be a canal engineer, had an idea. That idea was to create this transcontinental water transportation route using two canals, the erie canal through new york state, the ohio and erie through the state of ohio, that would ultimately connect new york city, hudson river, erie canal, lake erie, ohio and erie canal, ohio river, mississippi, all the way to the gulf of mexico. In the early days of america, we didnt have a big federal government, so in terms of actually funding and implementing the ohio and erie canal depends on the states. Fortunately, the state of new york had a champion there, fellow by the name of dewood clinton who became their canal commissioner and got the job done through the state of new york. Then he rose to become the governor of the state of new york. Ohio, facing a similar challenge in terms of funding, et cetera, on the verge of bankruptcy, the canal project was worth more than all the lands in ohio. How do you fund this thing . Believe it or not, the state of new york backed the bonds. It was Dewitt Clinton who came to ohio for the Ground Breaking in the state of ohio. Why . Guess what. It made a lot of beneficial difference to the state of new york including the fact that new york city became the only port that could export and import goods making it the Financial Capital of america. In ohio, we have a fellow by the name of alfred kelly who became the canal commissioner and really took it on as his lifelong legacy, if you will, to make sure that canal got built, built kind of on time and under budget. Ohio and erie canal is 309 miles in length. It goes from cleveland to portsmouth, ohio, on the ohio river. The actual construction of the canal began in 1825. By 1827, july 4th, the first boat from akron to cleveland got through the canal port in cleveland. By 1832, the entire system was complete from cleveland all the way to the ohio river. It made a tremendous difference. For the nation, it allowed us to start to rationalize our economy. It allowed us to have internal trade. Prior to that, all the seaboard states depended on exporting in terms of making money and delivering goods and services. So this actually helped america expand westward. By doing so, i mentioned new york city became the Financial Capital of the country. Ohio rises from a wilderness to be the third most populous and third richest state in the union by the 1860s. Canal life was a slow paced life. Canals, boats generally went about 4, 5 miles an hour. Were standing next to a rock right now, and there were numerous locks to allow the boats to basically navigate the terrain and the topography. These became water elevators that lifted or lowered the boats as they made their journey. Cramped quarters. Oftentimes, you would find cattle and people sleeping in the same boat. Some were travelers, some were goods being delivered. So it was pretty hectic little life, but at a slow pace. Predominantly, the goods that were moved along the canal, especially from ohio eastward, were grain, wheat, things of this nature. Things that were farmed there. You know, we became the bread basket of america for a reason. This was a good place to grow things. And new england became the early days of the Industrial Revolution, that became a good place to make things. So basically, we had this barter trade system that was part of our National Economy growing that had one hand food and on the other hand services, goods, machines, et cetera. The canal in ohio paid for itself. Whats significant is in cleveland, we had a way lock. The way lock is how you made money with the canal. You had a canal boat and the difference between its original weight and what was docked in at the port of cleveland, thats where you got your taxes, where you made your money. In 1874 when the railroads bought the mile of canal land in the city of cleveland, basically for the railroad track, we took the weigh canal and moved it. We still use the weigh canal in 1874. That said, we were still making money on that canal. Railroads arrived in cleveland in 1851. Ironically, the guy who helps bring the railroad to cleveland is the same guy who champions the canal, alfred kelley. The railroads had an Immediate Impact on the canal. However, the canal did stay in use until 1913. It just had a different use. It started to become a place where people would go leisurely on a weekend. They would have a boat, they would travel up and down the canals. Many times, the canals when they were put in place, or they would have General Stores or taverns, and people would, i guess in their day, go pub crawling, if you will. Using a canal boat on a sunday afternoon. One permanent legacy of the canal was the fact in cleveland, especially, the river valley became the center of storage. It became a port. It became a Manufacturing Center of the city itself. So thats where the wealth of cleveland grew. It was all based on the fact you had that canal as clevelands first port there. As time went on and manufacturing obviously rose, i mean, city of cleveland grew. We became the fifth largest city in the country, we had major, major steel mills and Oil Refineries thanks to John Rockefeller, and there was a consequence environmentally to those uses. Prior to the Environmental Protection agency and regulations for water and what you can put in water and rivers, et cetera, there were no regulations. And so, you know, in cleveland, you had situations where, for instance, standard oil and John Rockefeller basically refined oil along the banks of the river. When they did so, there were certain byproducts he could not find a use for, therefore they ended up in the river. It was told and reported that at one time, we had a fire in 1957, and they actually went and measured the gunk on the top of the river. It was more than eight inches deep of oil and other byproducts that were flammable. But the story itself, although its bad, it really has tremendously positive outcomes. It inspires earth day. It helps pass legislation that creates the United States epa. It helps pass the clean water bill, the clean air bill. If you look at all the consequences of that particular river fire, the positive far outweighs the negative of that. Cleveland, due to that river fire, and due to the exposure it got, we pretty much are the selma of the environmental movement. And then in 1974, Congress Passed legislation that created the cuyahoga National Park. That canal and the tow Path Associated with it became the central feature of that National Park. We are still whats called an area of concern. There is still some work to be done in terms of completing the job of cleaning up the river. But the needle has gone dramatically to the positive end. Were just about through the area of concern, and in fact, in 2000, thenpresident bill clinton introduced a program called the American Heritage rivers program. He basically put the invitation out to anyone who thought their river was significant enough to the story of america to compete for this new designation. We did. We competed for the Cuyahoga River as part of that, and the story was told to us as they went through the deliberation process to choose what was going to be the first ten rivers to be nominated for American Heritage river status, that they got to bill clinton, gave him the list of the rivers. He read through it and said where is the cuyahoga. Didnt they apply. The answer was, no, they did apply. However, they didnt make the cut. He goes, this program is all about the Cuyahoga River. The reason he said that is its the comeback of the Cuyahoga River thats the story today. This area that were in right now became Cuyahoga Valley National Recreational Area in december of 1974. It became cuyahoga National Park in the year 2000. With that comes a new idea for bringing National Parks to people. Most of us arent going to get to the gates of the Arctic National wildlife refuge, but if we had parks nearby, we could get to those. They started making National Parks in urban areas. We have a backbone thats a braided backbone with the ohio and erie canal. Braided backbone with the cuyahoga City Railroad and the Cuyahoga River. This National Park was created out of land that had been used in some instances abused, left in ruin because it was a wasteland in some places that people didnt see any potential for. And yet we cleaned it up. We let nature do what nature does. And now were the 11th most visited National Park. Theres a huge story here. A story of can i say redemption . A story where if we allow nature to do what it does best, if we give it the chance to do what it does best and not interfere, or help it, then the land can recover with environmental legislation and laws and with things that we have in place, now we have a river that is coming back to life. The environment has recovered. Yes, it was degraded because of man, but it was also helped by man. And it has allowed us with that help, it has recovered. To create this great green area we have now. 100 years ago this past august, president Woodrow Wilson signed legislation creating the National Park service. Today were featuring national Historic Sites throughout the country visited by our cities tour staff. This is American History tv, only on cspan3. I think most people just like i was when i first saw it. When you see it from a distance, you think, oh, thats kind of interesting, kind of cool. Then the closer you get to it, you realize how really massive it is. And getting up to the base of it and actually touching it, looking up 630 feet to the top, it really is very, very impressive. I think the closer you get to it, the more impressed you become. Right now were standing close to the famous gateway arch in st. Louis. 630foot tall stainless steel structure that was designed back in 1947 but now built until the mid1960s, and completed in 1965. Each year, we get about 2. 5 million visitors who come to see the memorial and see the arch. So its a very busy place, especially during the summer months. The arch was designed by a man named eero saarinen. He was born in finland and came here to america when he was 10 years old with his father who was a very famous architect. He mainly had worked just with his father up to the point in time when an architectural competition was announced for what became the arch that you see behind me. The competition was for Jefferson National expansion memorial. Which was a National Park service site founded by a president ial proclamation in 1935 to commemorate st. Louis role in the westward expansion of the United States. So 12 years after the founding of the park, an architectural competition was held to decide what the memorial itself would look like. And basically, they had about 90 acres of land to work with. 40 city blocks had been torn down, completely razed of all their original buildings to make way for the memorial of the st. Louis riverfront. Each architect who submitted a design proposal could really do whatever he or she wanted. It could be a huge sculpture, it could be a series of museum buildings. They did want one central feature to be in each of these designs. Some people put an obelisk in. Some people put a big kind of monolithic rectangular block or something. Saaranen decided to go with the idea of an arch. It was only after he kind of designed the arch that he realized, it forms a gateway. So its really appropriate for the idea of a memorial to st. Louis role in westward expansion. St. Louis role as a gateway to have a gigantic gateway right there on the river front. The arch is made out of stainless steel, onequarterinch stainless steel on the outside. On the inside, its made of threequarterinch carbon steel. So basically, you have a sandwich. In the lower portions of the sandwich, its filled in with concrete. In the upper portions, there are tie rods that reenforce steel reenforcing rods that keep the sections apart. Its kind of a unique structure because it doesnt have any superstructure on the inside. Theres no gerders or things like that that form the shape of the arch. Its not just clad with stainless steel on the top. Sometimes visitors are surprised because they havent read about the arch to learn that they can actually go to the top of it. They think maybe its just like a big piece of Outdoor Sculpture and you can just look at it. Theres little barrel shaped capsules that fit five persons in each one, and on each leg of the arch, theres eight of those capsules that form a train that run on a track. When people get into the capsule, its hanging from the track. As they go to the top, by the time they get to the top, its on top of the track. So in order to accommodate that and make sure people arent going to be flipped upside down, it actually shifts and turns to keep the car level. It isnt a thrill ride. It doesnt go really fast like something at a county fair or at six flags or something, but its a unique experience. A lot of people really prize the experience of riding in these strange little capsules up to the top and getting the nice view that they get from the top of the arch from that Observation Deck at the top. Right now, were in the midst of a multimillion dollar project funded by many different entities that are partners with the National Park service to kind of revitalize the park itself and to make it more accessible to people. For many years, we have been kind of an island surrounded by highspeed roads. And what is going to happen is kind of a lid is going to be placed over the highways so you can walk directly from the city where you probably would park your vehicle directly to the arch without having to cross any major streets. Its really just this iconographic symbol of st. Louis. Sort of like the space needle is to seattle or the Empire State Building or the statue of liberty is to new york. Theres certain symbols that immediately identify a place on the map to people, and the arch is the one, the one for st. Louis. To mark the centennial of the National Park service American History tv is featuring natural and Historic Sites across the country as recorded by cspans cities tour staff. The history of the National Parks all day today here on cspan3. The natives have engraved on the face of this rock the figures of animals, near which i marked my name and the day of the month and year. This morning, were going to walk up Pompeys Pillar National Monument. Why is this so important to the history not only of the United States but also to the history of yellowstone county, montana, as well as the west in general . So as we ascend the pillar, what i tell folks who come hire, i want people to think about what it was like 200 years ago. Think about this. Clark and his party are heading down the yellowstone river, hoping and planning to meet up with lewis. And as they are coming down the river, theyre having to stop at various intervals. And you might ask, what are they stopping for . To hunt, to gather food. Theyre stopping because of the immense herds of Buffalo Crossing the river. When i talk immense, i am talking about herds so large, there could be times they would have to stop for four, even six hours to wait for the buffalo to cross the river before they could continue on. Another reason they would stop is simply, i think, partly curiosity and the natural intent of an explorer, to look at the land and see the land. As we think about all those things, and as we tell the story today, clark is coming down the yellowstone, and that morning, they had gotten up, they had hunted. They had seen immense herds of buffalo. He decides to get off the river and walk for a while and see this. This large sandstone outcrop here. I think its just naturally part of Human Interest to want to come to something large, climb up on top of it, and look around. Thats exactly what he did. As part of an explorer, as somebody who was looking to traverse the west, to create maps, to learn about things that are the landscape, the natural history, et cetera, he comes and he ascends the pillar, goes up on top, looks around. Triangulates his position, comes back, and on his way down, he leaves his mark. Right over here, his signature. Thus leaving behind the only remaining onsite evidence of the entire lewis and clark expedition. This signature represents not just the visit of clark, but i think of it as signifying the start of something. But a legacy that had actually in some ways been here before him. Clarks signature on july 25th, 1806 and subsequently written about and chronicled in his journals led a lot of folks who then traveled across the west to come to this rock, mark their names as well as drawings, inscriptions, all kinds of things all over the rock. As you look at his signature directly to the left, you can see all of these different signatures and marks and names, and they cover the entire rock. So throughout Pompeys Pillar, there are signatures. Starting off with explorers and fur trappers, not long after clark visited, and then going into the time of the homesteaders and wagon trains traveling up to the modern era, folk whose tilled the land for agriculture after the turn of the century, and im sure if we looked hard enough, we would probably find some local High School Class name on here from the 60s and 70s. Pompeys pillar tells a story, and that story starts some ways with clark, but it continues on today with this legacy of all these people who have passed by. Each time a visitor comes here, given they can no longer scrawl their names or write on the rock, they leave that legacy, too. But as i mentioned before, that legacy kind of started before clark. If you look over here at the rock, you can see where there are some markings on the rock, and sort of a reddish hue. Those are actually native american pictographs and petroglyphs. This was culturally significant to the native americans of the area. When we get on top, ill explain a little bit about why there was such a significance to the site both culturally as well as given the great and immense hunting that was available to the native americans that lived and used the area. This rock i ascended, and from its top, i had a most extensive view in every direction. After satisfying myself sufficiently in this delightful prospect of the extensive country around and the immense herds of buffalo and elk, i descended and proceeded on. We are standing on the top of Pompeys Pillar National Monument. What is so remarkable and amazing about this site is were able to tell a story that is over 200 years by standing in one spot. What is also remarkable is being able to stand here and see these landmarks and the landscape for what it was 200 years ago but also for what it is today. The first thing is the animals. When clark was here 200 years ago, this landscape was covered with buffalo, elk, antelope, all kinds of different species would have been here. With them, the same predators we read about many times, coyotes, mountain lions and the wolf. You would ask why were all those animals here theyre certainly not here today. As you look at the rims and the cliff formation, you see this natural break. This was a funnel. These ran all the way to billings and quite a distance to the east. Here we have a natural break where the herds of buffalo, elk, and other animals would have been able to funnel down to the river, cross, and feed in this area. When we talk back about the native americans and their use of the site, they had this large platform to stand upon and use both for cultural ceremonies and also for hunting is immense. You think about the number of animals that would have been in this area on a regular basis. As we think about this and think about the changes because for us, the buffalo herds are not really here anymore, there are still some elk seen. The big horns, sheep that were seen by clark on the cliffs are no longer here. We still have a few mountain lions hanging out in the area, and of course, coyotes Wander Around every once in a while. But the landmarks are still here. And from those landmarks start a story. And that story is of the west. So Pompeys Pillar is one of those rare places you can come and tell an entire story of our countrys west from one place. To mark the centennial of the National Park service American History tv is featuring Historic Sites and National Parks from cspans cities tour. For more information about our travels check out our website cspan. Org citiestour. Youre watching American History tv all weekend and holidays, too, only on cspan3. This past august American History tv marked the centennial of the National Park service and we asked members of congress which National Park service site in your state has special meaning to you and why. The patterson great falls has a very, very special significance, since ive lived all my life in patterson, new jersey. As part of my district, my congressional district. I didnt live too far from the falls, so i have a lot of great, fond memories. This is where Alexander Hamilton brought George Washington and developed really the First Industrial city in the United States. With the technology that was brought from europe. So this site, this national site, which has been a National Park for the last seven years, just is a new park. And usually, a park service was not into urban parks, but this is right smack in the middle of urban america, industrial urban america. With some problems, of course, industrialization, its changed. Even though theres still manufacturing going on, this combines the aesthetics of the great falls which is the second greatest falls in the east, with the great historic happenings of the great falls. The Industrial Revolution, first submarine, first cars, trains. We had tremendous engines build in paterson, new jersey. More engines come out of in an place in america. It was the silk city of the world, patterson, new jersey. And when people say youve got to be kidding me. Well, we couldnt grow the mulberry bush, we tried to do that a long time ago, but we still developed the silk industry. The silk road from asia to patterson new jersey, great, great, great history. Hamilton knew exactly what he was doing. He had a mind for finances and economics and he saw this city in new jersey as a place to begin this great industrialization. So im very proud of that and were proud to have a National Park in our city. Im proud of that. We have some growing pains, obviously. When youre growing up, you have pains. We just completed a park on one side of the falls. Mary ellen cramer was the wife of one of the mayors of patterson, new jersey, who is still living. She is not still living. She was a great person. She got me interested in the falls. She got me interested in preservation. Preservation doesnt mean putting ropes around a place so people cant see it or touch it. No, this is a very part of our community. Its a lifeline. We try to make it a destination, this National Park so that people will come here and from all over the world as they do but we want more to come. So were proud of our National Park. And im proud of the park service. They do a fantastic job day in and day out. Most of their time we take it for granted. We dont do that in patterson. Theyve made a very, very severe move to make sure the community is involved day in and day out at the patterson great falls. Weve grown, the park has grown in just a very short period of time. A lot of visitors are coming in here all over the world. Now we have the stadium we had legislation for. We had it passed thanks to the help of the resource committee. And the stadium is a very historic stadium. This is where the negro leagues played. This is where larry doby, the first africanamerican to play in the american league, played for the Cleveland Indians for over 12 years. He grew up in patterson, new jersey. I knew larry very well. Ive just introduced a gold medal award for him in the congress we hope we can get that done by the end of the year. So the stadium is now an addition. So were growing but not growing beyond what we can handle. What we can make tim kaine and sustain. And were getting young people involved and older people involved in preservation. Preservation is important because we know history but we dont know culture. And culture is more important than history. The facts, the situations we face day in and day out, what are your values, what do you value . The Industrial Revolution was a value point for america this is what america is about, hard work, getting your hands dirty once in a while. Building america. Building america. Of course weve lost a lot of manufacturing production but were trying to maintain what we have because thats important for middleclass people in this country. All day today American History tv is marking the National Park Service Centennial. And we talk with members of congress about the National Parks and Historic Sites in their states. This is American History tv only on cspan 3. 100 years ago in august of 1969, president Woodrow Wilson signed legislation creating the nation pal park servi National Park service. To mark the centennial, American History tv is featuringites throughout the country. We continue with another stop. This is American History tv on cspan 3. This monument was authorized back in 1934 basically to preserve these prehistoric mounds. Thats all they thought was here when the park was first organized. In 1930 when they were trying to get these parks established, the locals realized this might be an ideal location for a new deal works project. So they managed to get this designated as a wpa work site. And working with the smithsonian, they sent down two smithsonian archaeologists and those two men oversaw a works for of 800 men so pretty difficult for two archaeologists to oversee that large of a work force but they ran trenches at various locations on this site, did trenches on top of the great temple mound and they found here that huge continuum. We ended up with over two and a half million items that this dig found in this location. We had a time period that goes back to the ice age mammoth hunters and this was then used ever since that first arrival of humans here in the southeast. So its ocmulgee National Monument is referred to as the indian mounds but the park is so much more than mounds. It is the whole prehistory of the southeast. The mounds were built by a group that archaeologists called the mississippien people. Mississippien culture is a very widespread culture. Its actually hub is near st. Louis. Its a place, that philosophy, that mound building religion or whatever it was spread throughout the eastern half of the United States, ocmulgee is considered the hub of the mississippian culture here in the southeast. Kind of like maybe a subcapital through the main capital there attica hoke ya. This society, the mississippians existed for over 300 years. For some reason they left this sight. We have no idea why, what happened, if it was a change in climate, change in religious beliefs or what, maybe it might have been warfare, who knows, but this site was abandoned and then about 100 years later the park service has a site just about a mile and a half south of here along the Ocmulgee River called lamar. A different culture, still a mound building culture. That culture is the one who desoto came in contact with in 1540. Then unfortunately with the arrival of desoto that greatly affected the prehistoric people. Archaeologists talk about 70 to 80 loss of life. After that great loss of life that according to the muskogee creek oral tradition, those groups touched by desoto came together here at ocmulgee and sat down together and created a new confederacy of tribes and they call themselves muskogee and thats who now later on the europeans called the creeks and so now they call themselves the muskogee creek people. This area once again not only has the huge prehistoric history, but sacred to the historic tribes and has a very long historical period also. This site has seven mounds on it. The one in back of me is referred to as the great temple mount. Its the largest mound we have. 55 feet high on the front side. That is where we believe the chief of the society, the tribe, lived. There are archaeologists did find evidence of three structures on top of there and so thats why we believe there was a ramp going up the front of it and we believe that the chief basically ran a society from on top of there. And just down from that youll see a smaller mound called the lesser temple mound, there was a structure up on top of that also and unfortunately were not sure how big that mound was. The railroad in 1830s came through and took off the entire side of that mound. Height wise it may be close to original height but as far as width we have no idea because the railroad took off a whole side of it and of course they didnt care to photograph it or mention it so we have no idea how much they removed. Also up here just away from the great temple mound, another one of our famous mounds is referred to as the funeral mound. The funeral mound is here, it was placed for the burial but only apparently of the highranking people. The number of burials found in the funeral mound definitely would not account for all the deaths in this size of a society. So it was very evident also with the artifacts that were found with the burials that the funeral mound was reserved for certain highranking individuals. Where the other people were buried, were not sure. Were always very careful about any ground disturbing we do here and i work with the tribes on that because we never know when there might be a chance that we might while digging a post hole for a sign might hit a burial so we are very conscious of that because somewhere around here there probably are literally thousands of burials. We are standing on the top of what we call the great temple mound. We believe this is where the chief lived. There were three structures in evidence up here and were guessing theres probably a limited only certain folks were allowed to come up on top of this mound for meets with if chief or various religious meetings or activities so not everybody was probably allowed to come up here so this society probably covered 20 or more miles up and down the river. So they would have controlled a very large area. The main reason we feel this area has been used for the millennia that it has been is because it is right its evidence of two ecological areas combined. This is the edge was called the fall line which is the area between the coastal plain and the piedmont plateau. In fact, this mount is literally on the edge of the fall line. The piedmont plateau drops off at the base of this mound and from here on out becomes the coastal plain. So with these two meeting areas you have both the plants and the animals from that those ecosystems all both here so you had a Great Variety of animals to choose from, plants to eat from and, of course, the river was right there with all of its foodstuffs and so you really had the ideal for this place for these people to be over these thousands of years because of the meeting of the two ecosystems in this location. We are inside our earth lodge and were looking at the original 1,000yearold earth lodge floor. This is a very interesting structure. There are 50 seats in this room. From the entrance to the door it comes around in the circle. Each seat is slightly higher and wider than the preceding seat and 47 seats come up and then on this birdshaped effigy are the three main seats. The measurements they used to build this are extremely accurate, it is within a few inches of being a perfect circle. Its the four pillars that held up the ceiling are also within a few inches of being a perfect square. The fire pit is directly there the exact center of the structure so they indeed did have ways of making some very accurate measurements and building these structures. The only archaeological items that were found was a conch shell which we assumed was used for scooping and then and a pot so what else initially may have been in here, who knows. It ended up being burned. We have no idea if it was a ceremonial cleansing or a closing or if, indeed, it may have been an accident, a fire got away but it ended up fire was in here, the ceiling and everything collapsed and then that ended up preserving the floor, the roof and soim and so forth came down and preserved the site as we see it. Its very important to interpret this story to visitors so they can not only understand this great prehistory and that, indeed, well before decades or millennia before the arrival of columbus and the europeans they had very wellestablished, very successful societies here on the north american continent. So it was not an empty place. And so it was important to show people that these were very organized societies of artists, crafts people, leaders, organized societies and then we want to show once again the affect of the arrival of europeans and the establishment of the country on these people but then also show that, yeah, they were not all wiped out. The creeks out in oklahoma are still very vibrant, have a Great Society out there. Very well organized government and, you know, with a great story to tell of their culture and their history. Its important for people to understand that part of United States history and also understanding that part of native american culture. 100 years ago this past august, president Woodrow Wilson signed legislation creating the National Park service and today were featuring natural and Historic Sites throughout the country visited by our cspan cities tour staff. This is American History tv, only on cspan 3. Today were at petroglyph National Monument, were at the volcanos day use area located within kealbuquerque new mexico. The trail use area provides trails to five volcanos and it looks towards the city of albuquerque. The volcanos are important to petroglyph National Monument because they begin to tell the story, the geologic story. About 200,000 years ago a fissure formed, a crack in the earths crust and hot molten lava poured out in a series of six volcanic eruptions. Some spreading a couple of miles to the east. As these eruptions took place, they flowed out over layers of alluvial soil here in the Rio Grande Valley and as these layers hardened, they hardened into byasalt. So we have an escarpment of black basalt boulders on which weve got over 24,000 petroglyphs. So while were here at the volcanos, the story of the monument isnt about a single petroglyph or petroglyph concentrations, it includes the volcanic cones and mesa top that spreads out towards albuquerque. The pueblo people would come up to the mesa cop. We have evidence of them carrying water and warmer. Sometimes they would send their children up here to keep the rabbits away from their crops. So this becomes part of a larger spiritual landscape thats important to most pueblo people. Were here at boca negra canyon. Were going to be walking along the macaw trail. This is a volcanic escarpment that is 113 feet tall. These black boulders came from several sheet flows. Boca negra canyon is the easiest place to see petroglyphs and most of our 150,000 viz stores stop here first. This is one of the first petroglyphs that people who come to petroglyph National Monument might see. Its a carving on to the rock and pueblo people would use stone chisels and hammers to peck, abraid, incise and carve out the dark black patina exposing the light color of the rock which varies from a gray to light brown to sometimes red. Some people ask us how these petroglyphs were discovered but for the pueblo indians theyre as old as time. Theyve known about them since their creation stories. Modern day archaeologists date most of these images from about 1200 to 1650. A few are older, those which are done by early spanish sheep herders who were out of here as part of the land grant. In the 1970s, archaeologists came out to the west mesa and began to inventory these images. Later interest in these grew and eventually it became a National Monument. To the pueblo people, they believe that the petroglyphs choose when and to whom to reveal themselves. Sometimes its the shadow, sometimes its the glare or sometimes its just the attitude and the sensitivity with which we look at these petroglyph images that reveal themselves. Sometimes telling people not to touch the petroglyphs is not enough. We know that nobody should touch the petroglyphs but we do give people an opportunity to touch an artificial boulder that weve created for such purpose so they get the touching out of the way. We want people to understand that these are sacred images and they continue to be important to the pueblo people. Eventually over time a patina will form and thats whats meant to happen but until then we asked people not to touch the images. Petroglyph National Monument is one of the few National Park units owned and operated not solely by the National Park service. Petroglyph National Monument is managemented by the city of Al Albuquerque and the National Park service and we Work Together with the city to help protect and preserve these resources for the future. In the last 20 years, weve had several challenges, land acquisition, being everything for everybody, the creation of trails, vandalism, the construction of roads through the monument, the expansion of a general aviation airport but probably our biggest challenge is storm water runoff from upstream suburban development because were completely surrounded by the city of albuquerque. As you walk the trails of petroglyph National Monument looking along the escarpment you might notice large concentrations of black boulders. Thats where we often see concentrations of petroglyphs. Were in the heart of the canyon where theres a dense concentration of petroglyphs. We have documented over 24,000 petroglyphs within the monument boundary. Piedras marcatas canyon is home to a thousand of them. We see an animal over here, something that were not sure what it means. Something like a sheep brand or maybe a cross, those might have been carved by early spanish sheep herders. I see something that looks like a byrd and some unidentified animals on that rock. Here we see a concentration of boulders with many hand images of different sizes. Some of which have an additional appendage. The pueblo people believe if a child is born missing a finger or with an additional toe that thats a sign of power. With a concentration of hand images here, we have to wonder why. Is maybe its because people passed through this way. Maybe this is a type of calendar, we dont really know, only the people who carved these images know for sure. What we do know is if we followed the arroyo from the heart of the canyon we end up in the pueblo, an 1100 room adobe multiple plaza structure located on the rio grande and it was important to them because of the location to the petroglyphs, the high peaks where mother earth meets father sky and they would come up here, they would follow spirit ways, they would say prayer, they would make offerings and they would carve images into the rock. Sometimes its a form of passageway or a map, others might be a counting mechanism or clan image. But to many pueblo people, they say the spirits would leave this world and go on to the next world through these petroglyph images. The pueblo people call this place the place that people speak about. It belongs to all of us, all americans, not just today but future generations. Its a place of respect. Its a place of solitude. Its a place of wonder. To mark the centennial of the National Park service, American History tv is featuring Historic Sites and National Parks from cspans cities tour. For more information about our travels, check out our web site, cspan. Org citiestour. Youre watching American History tv all weekend and on holidays, too, only on cspan 3. This year marks the centennial of the National Park service and we asked members of congress which National Park service site in your state has the most significance to you. Oregon has so many special places, for example Haystack Rock on the oregon coast where my wife and i were married is a treasure to us and i think from the standpoint of parks i mention crater lake National Park. This is a real treasure and its enjoyed by not just people from the United States but all over the world. Its 14 years older than the park service itself. And the water is absolutely incomparable and its just surrounded by spectacular recreation and wilderness. This is a place like no other. The solitude, for example, is something that is treasured by all, in fact a couple of years ago there was an effort to fly helicopters over crater lake and i stepped in and blocked it because the citizen outcry to helicopters was so great. I also believe that as we protect our parks and celebrate this birthday we recognize that recreation and tourism is a huge economic engine for our country. It produces, for example, at crater lake, 61 million worth of revenue every single year and i just look forward to celebrating request friends and neighbors and guests from all over the world because this will be a very special time at a special special place to recognize what is best about our country. This, of course, is the big party, the hundredth anniversary and its because weve said in our country that our parks are special places. I was especially struck during the Government Shutdown when there was a debate about the services that were most important to americans and our people said just dont mess with americas special places. All day today, American History tv is marking the National Park Service Centennial and we talk with members of congress about the National Parks and Historic Sites in their states. This is American History tv, only on cspan 3. To mark the centennial of the National Park service, American History tv is featuring natural and Historic Sites across the country as recorded by cspans cities tour staff. The history of the National Parks, all day today here on cspan 3. [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking spanish ] i want to welcome you all to castillo de san marcos National Monument. The fortress behind you is the castillo. Its actually the fourth fortification to bear the name castillo de san marcos but its the first one made out of stone in st. Augustine and it was built for a very particular reason. Spain decided they had to build a stone fortification in st. Augustine to ensure their foothold on the florida territory. They were concerned about england encroaching and pushing them out of the area and they saw florida as very important in helping to defend their hold on the caribbean and central and south america. They Start Construction in 1672, complete in 1695, so 23 years worth of construction work and the biggest reason for all that time, only about 175 people working on the project at any one time, all the stone had to be quarried across the bay, barged across, no mechanical stuff, no metal barges, all man made stuff. Brute force and ignorance, as may dad used to say, when they move it around. Add to that the fact that really theyre dealing with very simple machines building this, ramps, pulleys, things like that. Spain always wanted to have stone fortifications here in st. Augustine. All the way back to the late 16th century, 1580s or so they were talking about a way to defend all their Caribbean Holdings because piracy was a big problem, the treasure fleets were being preyed on and the king of spain sent over one of his best engineers, one of his best generals to figure out a way to defend against piracy. They came up with the idea to fortify 10 of spains ports. The plan was puerto rico, havana, all of these would be court phied. Number 10 at the bottom . St. Augustine. Ignac ignacio das came up with the plan. Were at a one scale model of what was considered a frontier fortification. If you look at maps from sieges from the 16th century, 17th century, early 18th century, that ill have fortifications around the city, youll see 15 or 16 of these in some places that they built up to go ahead and conduct a three or four year siege of a city. So it was a common design. But he took that design and scaled it down to fit the land area he had to work with which is one of the reason why the inside where the doors and windows are laid out are oddball because youll wind up with a doorway in a corner that seems out of balance but the rest of the architectural details balance everything out. The original design of the fort is whats called trace italian. It has a couple innovations that come from different people. In fact off the bat theres one they stole from leonardo da vinci, the way the walls are toed out at the base, it increases the footprint of the fort so it distributes ground pressure over greater surface area so we dont sink into the marshy ground but with the wall angled, if a shot comes off the right angle, it will pop up into the air and bounce off. Once the castillo is built, over time they see they have to modify the way theyre going to defend the area because we are on a finger of land surrounded on three sides sbi water, theres only one approach to get to the city by land so you want to defend the whole thing and the best way to do that is encompass that with fortification. But this took so much effort to build, the amount of effort it would take to build a stone fortification around a whole city, st. Augustine wasnt worth it. So they built wooden fortifications. Small outlying fortifications and also ultimately walls around the city itself. 14 foot high earth enforced walls with gun emplacements around the three sides of the city. Turned the city into a fortification. Right where we are now is pretty much where about the last five fortifications were built. From here even with a little six pound even a fourpound gun like the one in the middle up there, a little fourpound gun can fire a fourpound iron ball about a mile. So most of that big long horseshoe course coming into the harbor is under the small guns let alone the big guns. What weve got here is one of the swedish iron cannons that were arming the castillo in 1702. 1702 is one of the major sieges that took place in st. Augustine. Prior to this fortress being build the city had been burned to the ground by invaders, privateers, pirates, whatever you want to call them, several times. So spain decided they were going to invest in building the fortification, a stone fortification that not only was it going to be a gun platform to defend the city it was going to be a safe haven, a citadel for the entire community. The plan was for castillo once the fortress was built, if the city came under attack, everybody in town could grab their values, live inside this fortress until help came from the next nearest spanish community. Only problem was, that was havana, cuba, so they would be inside the fort for up to three months. So the fort was geared toward that. The rooms on the west side were food storage rooms. North side and east side stored military goods. In 1702, the fall of that year, the english come down from charleston, carolina, and attack st. Augustine. By the second day of the attack the spanish decide to abandon the city. The guns upstairs are providing covering fire from the bastions so that the people of town can go ahead and make their way up to the fortress and this is one of the guns doing that. But this is barrel is of note because during the second day of the siege this gun exploded. Through the front end of the gun off the top of the fort and buried it with enough force that it wasnt found until the 1960s when dherp putting a new water main in so it gives an example of how much force there is involved in these cannons firing but this 18pounder served the fort for a number of years before but they forgot to keep track of how many shots had been fired. See they had to keep track of how many shots the iron guns fired because iron guns at this time period had a life span of about 1200 or 1300 shots. Beyond that too much damage had been done to the interior of the gun so that it would shatter. So this gun for me is important because in the 1702 siege there are four spanish soldiers killed in the entirety of this 51day siege. This gun here accounts for three of them. Now 1702 is also of note because its pretty much how we get the city we have today because the english, upon realizing the siege was over, help got here from havana, cuba, they didnt want to face that so they set fire to the city, burned it to the ground and marched out. The spanish go back into town the next day, smoldering ruins and declare victory. They hold st. Augustine, whats left of the it, and they still hold the fortress and florida so they won but they have to rebuild the city and thats how we get the city we have today because there are actually 30 buildings in town that can trace their heritage, either the core of the building, foundation or in some cases almost the whole Building Back to those decades right after 1702. This is one of the rooms thats associated with the artillery complex. For a while, this was living quarters for the artillerymen so if there was an alarm upstair, they could pour out of here, go up the ladder and get up on the gun deck that commanded to the view of the harbor and the city itself for the most part. Later on, though, this actually became part of the governors complex. If the city was under siege, the governor would be living inside this room over here and this was the room he went ahead and met all of his officers and they made their plans, figured out things and one of the things that helps with us that is this is also one of the rooms thats got the most original decorations because you can see here in the walls weve got the stripes that go along and then theres the little round scallop work at the top, even smaller scallops at the bottom going along there and they were all colored. Now this room here is one of the leadin rooms to the old powder magazine. Now the old powder magazine, that doorway in there about three foot high, three foot wide is probably the oldest part of the fort other than the foundation, its one of the original structural parts of the fort, the walls, six to eight feet thick to defend the powder magazine then it has an arch to it so if it took hits above, the force is translated mechanically through the structure and dissipates in the ground below, protecting the contents. But that room was also abandoned after three years of this fort being used because theres no ventilation and its florida, it was really humid and humidity is the enemy of black powder. It likes to suck the air dry, taking all the moisture it can out of the air. So that room was abandoned because no way for ventilation to get in there so it was sitting unused. When the 1702 siege hits, the spanish city comes up inside this fortress. 1500 people and one of the first things they do is figure out where are we going to put the garbage . Dont want it laying out, garbage rots and you get disease, you dont know how long youll have the entire city in here so they had to establish a garbage pit off the bat. That became the garbage pit. That old abandoned gun powder magazine. So theyre throwing their garbage in there. The interesting part of this is, remember that gun i told you about that blew up . Killed three gunmen three crew members, i should say. Not only did it kill three crew members, it wounded another one plus six more guys and when the whole thing is all said and done the doctors ended up taking the leg off one man and the arm off another. Leg and arm in those days basically garbage so they got tossed in there as well. Well, when the siege is over, the citys been burned to the ground, its more important to rebuild the city than to dig the garbage out so they sealed off the doorway and forgot about it. In the intervening years, time goes by, the ladderway, which is the next room in, about as wide as my arm span, they decide we dont need it, they seal the top and seal the doorway and for get about it. So for a very long period of time the only rooms anybody knows about are this one here and the one we were in before the governors day room and this would have been the governors living quarters during the period of time when we had the vaulted arches put in. Well, weve just got these two rooms, time goes on, time goes on, time goes on, the americans come in in 1832, theyre putting new bigger guns upstairs on top of the gun deck and what happens . They start hearing cracking from the ground below the gun. The crew backs away from it and the cannon falls through the gun deck into the rooms below. The guys figure no problem, well go down stairs and pull the cannon out and start over again and fix the floor later on. Well, they get down here and get into this room and theres no hole in the ceiling. Where did the gun go . For them this is a solid stone wall but then they start thinking old spanish fort, spain made money off the gold and silver that went by on the gulf stream, secret rooms, early retirement. So the post got gold fever and the Lieutenant Commander of the post had to take it on himself to goetz lowered on a rope with a lantern to find that gun. He got down there and he found that doorway roughly sealed in and thats when he got gold fever and he literally kicked his way through the ceiling of the old doorway, got into there and he felt that this huge black mound that he saw by lantern light was the treasure chests and bagged rotted away, he was going to dig into it and find his gold. Ultimately when the army breaks through this doorway and they dig that room out they find the head of over the bones of over 100 head of long horn cattle, god only knows how many goats, picks and chicks and the bones of the human hand and arm, human leg and foot taken by the doctors in 1702 and tossed in. There believe it or not, those human bones and other bones are the little seed of truth that all the legends about people being sealed up in the walls of the fort, there being a dungeon inside the fort, a torture chamber in the fort, it comes from that history in 1702. Theres a lot more to this fort being a military fortification because this fort was built to protect the community. Later on as you go through the history of the city this fortification is a primary target of henry flagler. He would like it gone, this is prime real estate, great place to build a hotel but the city keeps the fortification. It backs an entrenched part of the citys fabric of history the grounds around the fort are where people had their picnic, eastern celebrations were here, all sorts of other things so the two have been tide together for so long its hard to pull the two apart. 100 years ago in august of 1916, president Woodrow Wilson signed legislation creating the National Park service. To mark the centennial, American History tv is featuring National Park Service Sites throughout the country. We continue now with another stop on the cspan cities tour. This is American History tv on cspan 3. Today were in the palace of the governors and the palace of the governors is the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States. Were in the building that was the far Northern Frontier of Spanish Government in north america from established in 1609. Its interesting we call this the palace of the governors and actually it was a building that was much maligned during its history. One of the first governors to call it a palace is one of my favorite governors because of the controversy surrounding his administration and thats governor Bernardo Lopez de mentisaba and he and his wife arrived here at the palace of the governors in the summer of 1659, took one look around and said what a dump. This is where were going to live . And he is one who began a very major renovation of the building, an expansion of the building, he added Something Like 18 rooms, an orchard, very likely the governor was also the person who added the central courtyard that we think of as a beautiful architectural feature of the building. So the governor was one of the first to use the term palace and it was his intent to make it a palace. Other people writing across centuries would talk about this modest adobe building. They would talk about this ruin of a building and even in the mid19th century some of the territorial governors debated should we just tear it down and start over . There was nothing about the palace of the governors that made it appear to be what we consider a great National Historic landmark so calling it a balance was more pretense than reality for much of its history. The spanish occupied new mexico from 1598 until 1821 when mexico declared independence from spain and in that period of 1598 to 1609 the new mexico seat of government was at a pueblo in the northern part of the state. In 1609 the governors moved here, governor pedro de peralta moved to santa fe and established this as the first what was