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NATIONAL HISTORY DAY 2016
Canyon de Chelly National Monument, 1932
National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection/George A. Grant
Increasing public interest in ancient Native American culture
T
National Park in 1906. Those areas preserved unique cliff
in national park areas, were less interested in preserving
The next two decades of the nineteenth century saw
the creation of more national parks in western lands for
preservation of wilderness and natural beauty. Among those
are Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Crater Lake and Glacier national
parks. The state of California also returned the Yosemite
Valley back to the Department of Interior during that period,
to become a national park.
led to additional areas being established by Congress as
national parks. The first of these was Arizona’s Casa Grande
Ruin, created in 1889, followed by Colorado’s Mesa Verde
dwellings, ruins or other artifacts. Along with the creation
of Mesa Verde National Park, Congress would, in 1906, pass
the Antiquities Act, which authorized the establish