Wednesday, October 15, 1924. Airship and a proclamation.

Proclamation, October 15, 1924

Purpose: To declare historic landmarks on military reservations as national monuments

Date: October 15, 1924

WHEREAS, there are various military reservations under the control of the Secretary of War which comprise areas of historic and scientific interest;

AND WHEREAS, by section 2 of the Act of Congress approved June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225) the President is authorized “in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and may reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected”;

NOW THEREFORE, I, as Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States of America, under authority of the said Act of Congress do hereby declare and proclaim the hereinafter designated areas with the historic structures and objects thereto appertaining, and any other object or objects specifically designated, within the following military reservations to be national monuments:

FORT WOOD, NEW YORK

The site of the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, the foundations of which are built in the form of an eleven-pointed star and clearly define the area comprising about two and one-half acres.

CASTLE PINCKNEY, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.

The entire reservation, comprising three and one-half acres situated on Shutes Folly Island at the mouth of Cooper River opposite the southern extremity of the city of Charleston and about one mile distant therefrom.

FORT PULASKI, GEORGIA

The entire area comprising the site of the old fortifications which are clearly defined by ditches and embankments, which inclose about twenty acres.

FORT MARION, FLORIDA

The entire area comprising 18.09 acres situated in the city of Saint Augustine, Florida.

FORT MATANZAS, FLORIDA

An area of one acre comprising within it the site of the old fortification which is situated on a marsh island south of the present main channel of the Matanzas River in the southeast quarter of section 14, Township 9 South, Range 30 East, about 15 miles from the city of Saint Augustine, and about one mile from Matanzas Inlet.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this fifteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-ninth.

Calvin Coolidge.

The German built dirigible USS Los Angeles arrived at Lakehurst Naval Station.  It took 81 hours for the airship to travel there from Germany.

The Prince of Wales traveled from Detroit to Toronto and participated in a fox hunt.

Toronto was a very English town at the time.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 14, 1924. The 1924 Wyoming Special Election takes sides.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1924 Wyoming Special Election, Nellie Tayloe Ross, Tajikistan, USSR, William B. Ross, Wyoming

National Park Service Day.

 

Commorating the creation of the National Park Service in 1916, whereby the NPS relieved the United States Army, which was pretty busy with other things, of the duty of patrolling the parks (the Park Service campaign hat recalls the Army's M1911 campaign hat.

The Park Service and the parks themselves are one of the great things about the United States.  If you have nothing on the plate today, and have a park nearby, go check it out if you can, unless of course you live in Utah, in which case you can sit in side your hovel and imagine a future in your state in which all the lands have been sold to big money.

Related thread:

Today In Wyoming's History: August 25, 1916. National Park Service formed.

Labels: 1910s, 1916, Army, cavalry, Clothing, National Park Service, nature, Public Land, The Punitive Expedition, Yellowstone National Park

Thursday, October 25, 1923. Carlsbad Caverns.

President Coolidge proclaimed Carlsbad Caverns a National Monument.  It is now a National Park.  The proclamation stated:

WHEREAS, there is located in section thirty-one, township twenty-four south, range twenty-five east, and section thirty-six, township twenty-four south, range twenty-four east of the New Mexico Principal Meridian, in southeastern New Mexico, near the town of Carlsbad, a limestone cavern known as the Carlsbad Cave, of extraordinary proportions and of unusual beauty and variety of natural decoration; and

WHEREAS, beyond the spacious chambers that have been explored, other vast chambers of unknown character and dimensions exist; and

WHEREAS, the several chambers contain stalactites, stalagmites, and other formations in such unusual number, size, beauty of form, and variety of figure as to make this a cavern equal, if not superior, in both scientific and popular interest to the better known caves; and

WHEREAS, it appears that the public interest would be promoted by reserving this natural wonder as a National Monument, together with as much land as may be needed for the protection, not only of the known entrance, but such other entrances as may be found.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States of America, by authority of the power in me vested by section two of the act of Congress entitled, “An Act for the preservation of American antiquities,” approved June eighth, nineteen hundred and six (34 Stat., 225) do proclaim that there is hereby reserved from all forms of appropriation under the public land laws, subject to all valid existing claims, and set apart as a National Monument to be known as the Carlsbad Cave National Monument all that piece or parcel of land in the County of Eddy, State of New Mexico, shown upon the diagram hereto annexed and made a part hereof, and more particularly described as follows: lots one and two, section thirty-one, township twenty-four south, range twenty-five east, and section thirty-six, township twenty-four south, range twenty-four east of the New Mexico Principal Meridian.

Warning is hereby expressly given to all unauthorized persons not to appropriate, injure, destroy or remove any feature of this Monument and not to locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.

The Director of the National Park Service, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, shall have the supervision, management, and control of this Monument as provided in the act of Congress entitled, “An Act to establish a National Park Service and for other purposes,” approved August twenty-fifth, nineteen hundred and sixteen (39 Stat., 535) and Acts additional thereto or amendatory thereof.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done in the City of Washington this 25th day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-eighth.

The Bulgarian air force's only aircraft, the limit of the size of that force under the Treaty of Neuilly, crashed.

In the US, aviation was going better.

25 October 1923: First Lieutenant Lowell Herbert Smith and First Lieutenant John P. Richter, Air Service, United States Army, flew a DH-4B from Sumas, Washington, to Tijuana, Mexico, non-stop.

This Day In Aviation.

A major medical advance was recognized:

October 25, 1923: Banting and Best Win the Nobel Prize For the Discovery of Insulin

Poster Saturday. Bears are dangerous.

 

Monday, March 15, 1943 A Wyoming Federal Reservation, Germans retake Kharkiv

Today In Wyoming's History: March 15: 1943  Franklin Roosevelt used executive authority to proclaim 221,000 acres as the Jackson Hole National Monument, the predecessor to today's Grand Teton National Park.  Governor Hunt threatened to use the Highway Patrol to prevent Federal authority on its grounds.  Congress, for its part, refused to appropriate money for the monument. 

Demonstrating how Wyoming really hasn't changed much, the move was hugely unpopular in Wyoming, or at least was politically unpopular.  

The history of the reservation dated back to 1924 when John D. Rockefeller, Jr. purchased a collection of ranches and amassed 37, 117 acres in the valley. The area was always spectacularly beautiful, but ranching conditions were generally poor.  Rockefeller's intended purpose from the onset was to donate the land to the Federal Government, something which of course appealed to him but much less to locals who were scraping by in industries derived from the region's natural resources.  In 1929 Rockefeller's initial donation of land went forward on a reduced basis, with only the Grand Teton National Park coming into existence.  The donation was smaller as Wyoming's Congressional representation opposed the larger donation, leaving Rockefeller with 32,000 acres and an annual tax bill of $13,000.

In 1942 Rockefeller informed Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes that if the project did not go forwad, he would sell the land.  This resulted in President Roosevelt's Federal reservation.

On March 19, Wyoming's Congressman Frank A. Barret introduced a bill to return the land to National Forest status.  In Congress, he based his argument on preserving the grazing permits in the former Federal domain that was part of the reservation.  Teton County Commissioner Clifford Hansen, who would later become Governor, and whose Mead family contributed a later Governor and other significant state politicians, also spoke against, although he was directly impacted, holding grazing permits in the area.

The bill passed both houses of Congress, but Roosevelt issued a pocket veto that contained a memorandum stating:

The effect of this bill would be to deprive the people of the United States of the benefits of an area of national significance from the standpoint of naturalistic, historic, scientific, and recreational values,

Campaigning by conservationist deterred any further legal effort to abolish the reservation, and its being opened to grazing in 1945 due to wartime conditions somewhat allayed local fears.  In 1950 the controversy was resolved through S. 3409 which merged the monument and neighboring national park, but also provided: no further extension or establishment of national parks or monuments in Wyoming may be undertaken except by express authorization of the Congress."  This did not prevent later wilderness designations, which have continued to be opposed in ways that can be argued to be short-sighted.

The Third Battle of Kharkiv resulted in a German victory.

By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J22454 / Zschäckel, Friedrich / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5434453

The heavily photographed German victory saw German troops reenter and take the city, including a spearhead featuring the SS.

By JonCatalán(Talk) - Own work (Original text: I created this work entirely by myself.), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6646109

The Red Army lost 45,219 men as killed, or missing, in action and another 41,250 were wounded.  The Germans lost 4,500 killed or missing from the SS Panzer Corps, and 7,000 wounded.  The Soviets could afford to lose more, of course, but the battle demonstrated that even at this mid-point in the war, the Germans could afflict outsized casualties upon the Soviets and still make significant advances.

Bundesarchiv, Bild 101III-Zschaeckel-189-13 / Zschäckel, Friedrich / CC-BY-SA

The German victory set the stage for the Battle of Kursk, which exhaustion precluded them from advancing on at this time.

The 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment, which was sometimes attached to the 82nd Airborne and the 11th Airborne, but which was often an independent combat team, was formed.  The unit fought in Italy, southern France, and Belgium during the war, and was slated to be deployed against Japan when the war ended.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 15: 1943  The French Line ship Wyoming sunk by the U-524.

The submarine USS Triton was sunk by the Japanese off of Kairiru,

Yellowstone. A really radical idea.

A really radical idea that won't happen, but maybe should.

There have been really horrific floods, as we all know, in Yellowstone National Park. Roads in the northern part of the park may be closed for the rest of the summer.  Here's a National Park Service item on it:

Updates

• Aerial assessments conducted Monday, June 13, by Yellowstone National Park show major damage to multiple sections of road between the North Entrance (Gardiner, Montana), Mammoth Hot Springs, Lamar Valley and Cooke City, Montana, near the Northeast Entrance.
• Many sections of road in these areas are completely gone and will require substantial time and effort to reconstruct.
• The National Park Service will make every effort to repair these roads as soon as possible; however, it is probable that road sections in northern Yellowstone will not reopen this season due to the time required for repairs.
• To prevent visitors from being stranded in the park if conditions worsen, the park in coordination with Yellowstone National Park Lodges made the decision to have all visitors move out of overnight accommodations (lodging and campgrounds) and exit the park.
• All entrances to Yellowstone National Park remain temporarily CLOSED while the park waits for flood waters to recede and can conduct evaluations on roads, bridges and wastewater treatment facilities to ensure visitor and employee safety.
• There will be no inbound visitor traffic at any of the five entrances into the park, including visitors with lodging and camping reservations, until conditions improve and park infrastructure is evaluated.
• The park’s southern loop appears to be less impacted than the northern roads and teams will assess damage to determine when opening of the southern loop is feasible. This closure will extend minimally through next weekend (June 19).
• Due to the northern loop being unavailable for visitors, the park is analyzing how many visitors can safely visit the southern loop once it’s safe to reopen. This will likely mean implementation of some type of temporary reservation system to prevent gridlock and reduce impacts on park infrastructure.
• At this time, there are no known injuries nor deaths to have occurred in the park as a result of the unprecedented flooding. 
• Effective immediately, Yellowstone’s backcountry is temporarily closed while crews assist campers (five known groups in the northern range) and assess damage to backcountry campsites, trails and bridges.
• The National Park Service, surrounding counties and states of Montana and Wyoming are working with the park’s gateway communities to evaluate flooding impacts and provide immediate support to residents and visitors.
• Water levels are expected to recede today in the afternoon; however, additional flood events are possible through this weekend.

Here's an idea.

Don't rebuild the roads.

For years, there have been complaints about how overcrowded Yellowstone National Park has become.  A combination of a tourist economy and high mobility, and frankly the American inability to grasp that the country has become overpopulated, had contributed to that.  For years there have been suggestions that something needed to be done about that.

Maybe what is needed is. .. nothing.

Well, nothing now, so to speak.

Yellowstone was the nation's first National Park.  It was created at a time when park concepts, quite frankly, were different from they are now.   Created in 1872, its establishment was in fact visionary, and it did grasp in part that the nation's frontier was closing, even though the creation of the park came a fully four years prior to the Battle of Little Big Horn.  There was, at the time of its creation, a sort of lamentation that the end of the Frontier was in sight, and the nation was going to become one of farms and cities.

Nobody saw cities like they exist now, however, and nobody grasped that the day would come when agricultural land would be the province of the rich, and that homesteading would go from a sort of desperate act to something that people would cite to, in the case of their ancestors, as some sort of basis for moral superiority.  Things are much different today than they were then.

Indeed, in some ways, the way the park is viewed is a bit bipolar.  To some, particularly those willing to really rough it, Yellowstone is a sort of giant wilderness area.  To others, it's a sort of theme park. 

The appreciation of the need to preserve wilderness existed then, but what that meant wasn't really understood.  The park was very much wilderness at first, and some things associated with wilderness went on within it, and of course still do.  Early camping parties travelled there.  People fished there, and still do.  Hunting was prohibited early on, which had more to do with the 19th Century decline in wildlife due to market hunting than it did anything else.  This has preserved a sort of bipolarism in and of itself, as fishing is fish-hunting, just as bird hunting is fowling. There's no reason in fact that Yellowstone should have not been opened back up to hunting some time during the last quarter-century, but it is not as just as the park is wilderness to young adventurers from the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, and hearty back country folks of all ages, it's also a big public zoo for people from Newark or Taipei.  

Since 1872, all sorts of additional parks have been created. Some are on the Yellowstone model, such as Yosemite.  Others are historical sites such as Gettysburg or Ft. Laramie.  All, or certainly all that I've seen, are of value.

But they don't all have the same value.

Much of Yellowstone's value is in its rugged wilderness.  Some cite to the geothermal features of the park, but that's only a small portion of it.  And for that reason, much of Yellowstone today would make more sense existing as a Wilderness Area under the Wilderness Act of 1964, the act that helps preserve the west in a very real way, and which western politicians, who often live lives much different than actual westerners, love to hate.

A chance exists here to bring back Yellowstone into that mold, which it was intended in part to be fro the very onset, and which many wish it was, or imagine it to be, today.

Don't rebuilt the roads.

That would in fact mean the northern part of the park would revert to wilderness, truly.  And it means that many fewer people would go to the park in general.  And it would hurt the tourist communities in the northern areas, and even in the southern areas, as the diminished access to the park would mean that the motorized brigade of American and International tourists wouldn't go there, as they wouldn't want to be too far from their air-conditioned vehicles.

But that's exactly what should be done.

 

 

Ask a Ranger: First Thing First! How do you tie your ranger hat (...

Ask a Ranger: Fist Thing First! How do you tie your ranger hat (...: The hat band should read USNPS. You want the "N" centered in the front of the hat and the knot you will be on your left.  Wrap t...

The Campaign Hat & Forgotten History

February 26, 1919. Grand Canyon and Acadia National Parks established, Soldiers and Sailors Club finds home in Casper, Mexican Federal Troops take positions up in Juarez, Dry Frontier Days

On this day in 1919, President Wilson passed legislation creating the Grand Canyon and Lafayette National Parks.  Lafayette National Park in Maine would be renamed Acadia National Park a decade later.

A Park Service item on the act and parks:

Unlikely SiblingsAcadia National Park, Grand Canyon National Park

Lots of strife was reported on in the Casper paper, but we've added this one to note the formation of the Soldiers and Sailors Club with temporary housing in the Oil Exchange Building.

That building, renamed the Consolidated Royalty Building, is still a prominent downtown Casper office building.  It was a new building at that time, having been built in 1917.

In Cheyenne, Frontier Days was announced to be "Dry" for 1919.

Mexican Federal troops were reported to be taking up positions to guard American interests around Juarez.

And in Cheyenne Carey was signing new legislation as the Wyoming State Tribune was making fun of human nature and the occupation of Germany.

President Wilson signs act creating Mount McKinley National Park

Mount McKinley National Park was created on this day when President Wilson signed the enabling act creating it.  The park today is known as the Denali National Park and Preserve.

 Denali, or not really.  It'd tower over these lower ranges in this photo, but it's clouded out, as it typically is.

On the day we attempted to view Denali, the peaks were mostly shrouded in clouds, so we only got a glimpse of them very briefly, and never got a photo of the peaks. Spectacular none the less.   Had we been able to photograph the peaks, they would have towered above those peaks seen here.  The peak creates its own weather.

d