Deseret News
The man who saved Canyonlands
As interior secretary from 1961 to 1969, Stewart Udall added dozens of parks and monuments to our national system.
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Associated Press
Shortly after he was chosen as interior secretary by President John F. Kennedy, Stewart Udall agreed to fly over southeastern Utah in a small plane with his Commissioner of Reclamation, Floyd Dominy. Dominy wanted Udall to see the Canyonlands from the air. “This is where we should build the next dam,” Dominy told his boss. But Udall saw something else. “This should be the next national park,” he replied.
Half a century after the first Earth Day, it’s time to honor the pioneers from that heady era of conservation. Udall, who grew up in a Latter-day Saint family in St. Johns, Arizona, was the most influential of all.