1 Fact About All 63 National Parks

a dead tree has been floating upright in Crater Lake for over a hundred years dubbed the old man of the lake by its many admirers the deceased Hemlock fell into the lake sometime before 1896 when a scientist Came Upon it he published his observation in 1902 the same year that Crater Lake National Park was established in southern Oregon the bleached and gnarly stump floats about 3T above the surface and 27 ft below it most trees that float in Lakes eventually sink but not the old man and people aren't sure why even today the weather beaten wood makes its rounds propelled by winds or waves from one quadrant of the Clear Blue Lake to another there is no talk of removing him in fact when scientists tied him down to the Shoreline in 1988 the skies allegedly turned dark and swirling winds suddenly kicked up the scientists unleashed the old man the skies cleared and all was right again hi I'm Aaron McCarthy editorinchief of Mental Floss and this is the list show crater lak's old man is just the first of many fascinating facts about America's 63 national parks we'll be covering today let's get started before we dive in let's do everyone's favorite thing terminology clarification national parks aren't just areas of the national park system there are specific classification that according to the National Park Service contains a variety of resources and encompasses large land or water areas to help provide adequate protection of the resources there are other classifications within the national park system like National preserves monuments Lake Shores National Historical Parks which is kind of confusing a national park for the Performing Arts shout out to Wolf Trap in Virginia and loads more that aren't national parks that we will not be covering in this video and with that let's head to Maine aadia National Park on Maine's Coast is home to the highest peak on the Eastern Seaboard Cadillac Mountain Rises about 1,530 ft from the shore of Frenchman Bay but you can drive or take the Park shuttle to the Top If your hiking skills aren't up to the incline from October 7th to March 6th Cadillac mountain is the first spot in the US to be bathed in the sun's Rays making Sunrise an especially popular time to visit the summit 2600 Mi Southwest of Hawaii and 18800 Mi Northwest of New Zealand lies the national park of American Samoa the South Pacific archipelagos Park preserves infrastructure from World War II along with tropical rainforests volcanic ridges and coral reefs but even though the territory has American in its name US citizens will still need a passport to visit the park US citizenship and Immigration Services has no jurisdiction in American Samoa and visitors must comply with the regulations of the American Samoa government which requires travelers to have a valid passport sufficient money for their stay and a ticket out as you are gazing in awe at the rock formations in Arch's National Park in Utah remember to look down once in a while the ground at your feet is literally alive much of the park land is covered in a nobbly black substance called biological soil crust made of Lykens algae fungi and cyano bacteria one of the oldest kinds of life on Earth these living mats of nutrients prevents soil erosion and give desert plants enough of a foothold to survive in the arid climate but they're still pretty fragile so watch where you step Monument Valley Navajo tribal Park in Arizona has provided the backdrop for countless westerns but the otherworldly scenery of Badlands National Park in South Dakota has start in a few flicks too it's the setting of a wagon ride scene in 1990s Dances with Wolves and the landscape stood in for a planet full of alien bugs in the 1997 sci-fi movie Starship Troopers and who could forget the surface of the asteroid that Bruce Will and Ben Affleck need to blow up in 1998's Armageddon yep also the Badlands fortunately this beautiful Park is still intact visitors to Texas's vast Big Ben National Park which hugs a big curve of the Rio Grande might Glimpse black bears and bobcats rattlesnakes and Ravens and other iconic native Wildlife they might also see a lot of odd ulet that are a long way from home the park is home to a large population of invasive barbery sheep which originated in North Africa people brought them to Texas in the mid 20th century and now hundreds of the animals are out competing in dangered desert big horn sheep for water food and territory in the Park biscan National Park located along the Atlantic just south of Miami is 95% water and one of the coolest ways to explore it is on its Maritime Heritage Trail a string of six actual shipwrecks and one Lighthouse accessible to snorkelers and scuba divers the sunken wrecks include cargo Steamers a wooden sailing vessel and Schooners all of which met their end on the coast reefs between the late 19th century and mid 20th century even among non- geologists the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park should elicit awe this Colorado Canyon's incredibly steep sides reveal more than a billion years of Earth's history layers of metamorphic rocks pegmatite Rock faces stre with pink feldspar and the fossil Rich Morrison formation date from the Precambrian to the present day the Gunnison River at the very bottom of the canyon continues to wear away rock at a rate of about 1 in per Century speaking of rock Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah is known for its unusual geology of a totally different kind the park contains the world's largest concentration of hudo which are rock spires carved by wind and water about 50 million years ago a vast Lake deposited sediments in the present day park creating a whole bunch of different sedimentary rocks that would over the years all erode at slightly different rates the movement of earth's tectonic plates then lifted the lake bed up to a higher elevation exposing it to rain and ice over thousands of years these forces carve the rock into the oddly shaped columns we see today not too far from Bryce Canyon Canyon LS National Park is home to dazzling desert scenery as well as Legends of Old West Outlaws who traveled among its vast networks of canyons just west of the parks maze District train and bank robber Butch Cassidy and his gang made their Hideout at the robbers Roost along the dirty devil River if you lack the hiking and canyoning skills to visit the remote readout you can get a feel for Canyon land's rugged terrain in the Needles District which offers more developed trails and roads for four-wheel drive vehicles though it's still not easy the National Park Service warns that inexperienced drivers should not attempt these roads there is a highrisk of vehicle damage and towing costs usually exceed $1,500 even worse a camping site on one of the roads requires you to byot bring your own toilet parts of Southern Utah's capital Reef National Park which is best known for its Rocky Vistas caused by a geological Wrinkle in Earth's surface actually started out as an agricultural enterprise Mormon settlers founded the town of fruta in 1880 with the idea of planting fruit orchards and vegetable gardens and selling the produce visitors can explore the fruta historic district today and even pick their own apples plums apricots and other fruits at various times of the year from the historic trees now owned and managed by the National Park Service in New Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert carlbad Caverns National Park provides a rich habitat for 17 species of bats including the hundreds of thousands of Brazilian freetail bats that fly out from carlbad Cavern at dusk each night from April through October in December 1941 a dentist inventor saw this incredible site and in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor came up with an idea aidea to use the bats to carry bombs much of their work on the project was done at the nearby carlbad Army Airfield the idea was that the sleeping bats could be collected during the day and fitted with tiny explosives then set free at night over Japan to roost in the country's traditional wood and paper buildings a 1943 test run at the air base proved successful for the military not for the bats but the project was ultimately cancelled the Channel Island foxes are conservation success stories the diminutive canines are endemic to channel Island's National park off the coast of Southern California in the 1990s their populations plummeted due to disease and especially being prayed upon by invasive golden eagles conservation groups were alarmed and took action to restore a more Natural Balance to the Island's fragile ecosystems such as removing feral livestock and replanting native vegetation three of the four island fox subspecies recovered so quickly that they were removed from the endangered species list in 2016 Conger national park in Central South Carolina is one of the least visited east of the Mississippi it encompasses the flood plane of the Conger River and Acres of old growth forest barely touched by human hands difficult ter rein that from the colonial period on provided a refuge for black people who had escaped enslavement and lived in free settlements thereafter they were known as Maroons and they formed at least one village within the present day park that was largely hidden from the racist society around it though living in the wilderness was challenging the residents chose the path of resistance the kyoga river winding through Northeastern Ohio to Cleveland and Lake Erie was once one of America's most polluted waterways it even caught fire multiple times thanks to the huge amount of oil-based industrial crud in it and after news of a 1969 Blaze made it into a widely seen issue of Time Magazine the neglected River became the symbol of how bad America's environmental problems were but in the decade since thanks to environmental activism and regulation it now represents progress since 2000 kyoga Valley National Park has protected a stretch of the river and its recovering biodiversity historic sites and natural landmarks death Val National Park in California and a bit in Nevada is notorious for being hot like practically surface of the Sun hot an area now appropriately named Furnace Creek recorded the world's hottest known temperature 134° F on July 10th 1913 a few factors in the park come together to cause thermometers to soar for instance the narrow Valley is surrounded by tall mountain ranges and its floor is a couple hundred feet below sea level which creates a bucket to trap hot air despite cooler Temps at night the hot air can't fully rise out of the valley it just sinks back down to toast Taurus for another day Rising 20310 ft in the Alaska range Majestic Denali is North America's tallest mountain whether bathed in alpen glow or frosted with fresh snow the peak's beauty and thralled visitors long before Denali National Park was established in 1917 it's also covered in poop Park researchers said in 2019 that thanks to climate change once permanent ice May soon be melting down Denali sides and with it approximately 66 tons of human excrement left behind by Decades of climbers and explorers fortunately today's Mountaineers have adopted a climate friendly policy of packing out their Pooh the small Sandy islands that make up dry Tortuga's National Park lie 70 Mi west of Key West Florida its isolation in the Gulf of Mexico made it a perfect place for a prison initially The ring-shaped Fortress on garden key known as Fort Jefferson was designed to protect American interests in the Gulf of Mexico which came in handy during the Civil War during and after the conflict Fort Jefferson was turned into a military prison its most famous inmate was Dr Samuel mud who was convicted of conspiring with John wils Booth and others to assassinate Abraham Lincoln mud who claimed innocence was pardoned after saving many lives during a yellow fever outbreak at the prison when Spanish and American colonizers invaded present day Southern Florida the kaloa and seol used the Everglades Wilderness to their advantage they knew how to survive amid the thick vegetation and Maze of waterways giving them an upper hand against the unprepared white occupiers those lands in and around everg glazes National Park still represent the largest designated Wilderness in the Eastern us maybe there should be a sign at the entrance to Gates of the Arctic National Park and preserve that says visit at your own risk this immense Wilderness in northern Alaska has no roads no Trails no campgrounds no services and no one nearby to call for help even if the park did have Wi-Fi which it doesn't but what you will get at Gates of the Arctic is 7.5 million Acres of breathtaking mountains valleys clothed in Arctic Flora herds of caribou and musx and a closer connection to Nature without a crowd of tourists jostling for a picture the park receives about 10,000 visitors per year compared to say Yellowstone's 3 million plus visitors a year Aeros sarin's iconic steel Arch on the banks of the Mississippi River in St Louis Missouri marks America's Gateway to the West and the nation's complicated Legacy of Westward Expansion ironically it's also the smallest national park at a mere 91 Acres substantially less than 1 square mile that includes the arch and Visitor Center Gardens Riverfront trails and a historic Courthouse were dread in Harriet Scott and enslaved couples sued for their freedom in the 1840s fun fact you can go all the way to the top of the arch via a one-of-a-kind tram designed in a mere two weeks by a guy named dick Bowser who had dropped out of engineering school to join the Navy and never got his degree the glaciers that occupy with is now Montana's Glacier National Park have been melting away since the end of the little Ice Age nearly 175 years ago in 1850 the area was home to roughly 80 glaciers and by 2015 only 26 named glaciers remained in recent decades the retreat has been hastened by climate change from 1966 to 2015 all of the parks named glaciers shrank by 40% on average 80% of visitors to Glacier Bay National Park in Preserve in Alaska arried by cruise ship and the Park's vibrant Blue Waters are the first thing they see glacial water has a unique turquoise Hue but it's not because that's the color of melting glaciers the Frozen masses that give Glacier Bay its name are constantly shifting and as they move they grind the Earth below them into a fine sediment this glacial flower then runs off into the bay where it stays suspended in the water and means that blue and green wavelengths hit your eyes if you're planning a trip to the Grand Canyon remember to layer up the canyon is deep enough to create distinct pockets of weather and temperatures at the highest and lowest points can vary by as much as 25° F where exactly the temperature Falls depends on the time of year a record low of -22° f was recorded in February 1985 and the record high of 120° f has been recorded multiple times in the summer the wide range in elevation also impacts humidity levels a station on the north rim is the coldest and wetest point in the park and Phantom Ranch the hottest point and one of the driest is located only 8 Miles Away many remote national parks are difficult to access but that's not the case with Grand Teton it's home to the Jackson Hill airport the only commercial airport located within a US National Park originally situated just outside the official property it became part part of grand ton when the national park expanded to absorb the Jackson Hall National monument in 1950 today it's the busiest airport in Wyoming though it doesn't crack the top 100 for US airports overall national parks are ideal for stargazing and Great Basin in Nevada is especially known for its Dark Skies every September the park hosts the Great Basin astronomy festival for visitors looking to get better acquainted with the cosmos the multi-night event includes night sky photography workshops Observatory tours and Telescope viewing parties just be sure to pack a red light regular flashlights are banned to maintain the low light conditions Great Sand Dunes National Park in Preserve in Colorado is perfect for people who love snowboarding but hate the cold sandboarding sledding and skiing are permitted on any of the dunes separate from the park plant life though Great Sand Dunes doesn't provide equipment to visitors several businesses in the area rent sleds and Boards designed to glide on Sand you want to avoid hitting the dunes in the middle of a hot day though the surface of the sand can reach 150° F the Great Smoky Mountains are home to one of the only synchronous Firefly species in North America for a few weeks in May or June the male insects flash patterns in sync as part of a mating display the result is a pulsing synchronized spectacle that lights up the forest the annual phenomenon attracts viewers from around the world each spring over 20,000 people apply for vehicle passes to see the light show and fewer than a thousand are distributed through a lottery system standing 8,751 ft tall Guadalupe Peak in Guadalupe Mountains National Park is the highest point in Texas the mountain has enticed many adventurers over the years including a group of wheelchair users in the early 80s Dave Kylie Joe moss and Donnie Rogers were members of point or power polyic on Independent nature trails the goal of their trk was to boost visibility of people with disabilities in outdoor spaces while raising money for a local rehabilitation center after crawling through rocks and cacti for the last several hundred feet of the trail the three men reached their goal on July 16th 1982 though space in their bags was limited they had the foresight to pack a bottle of champagne to celebrate the accomplishment located on the the island of Maui halaka National Park is home to many species that aren't found anywhere else many of those plants and animals are also at risk of dying out as of 2018 halaka hosted 103 endangered species more than any other National Park in the country with such a small native area these organisms are especially vulnerable to threats that are easily weathered in the mainland us everything from habitat loss to feral cats has been blamed for the decline of Maui's endemic plants and Wildlife the barren lava fields in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park resemble another planet making them the perfect training grounds for NASA's astronauts the alien terrain around Mount aloa has been used to simulate missions to the moon and more recently Life on Mars in 2013 six NASA researchers spent four months living in a small Dome on the slope of the volcano during which they could only venture outside wearing space suits Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas attracts history and nature Buffs alike in addition to the Natural thermal Springs it includes the historic bath houses in the adjacent city of Hot Springs making it one of the most accessible national parks in the syst system it's also home to the only on-site National Park brewery the superior Bath House brewery opened in the former site of the superior Bath House in 2014 the beer itself features thermal spring water as the main ingredient which is something no other Brewery in the world can say encompassing part of Lake Michigan's Coastline Indiana Dunes National Park is one of the best places to enjoy a beach day in the midwest the sand looks similar to what you'd find near the ocean but if you listen closely you'll hear a major difference the sand is famous for singing as it shifts a phenomenon that's only observed in a handful of places on Earth the song is more of a whisper than a belt so avoid visiting the beach at Peak busy times if you want to hear it I Royale National Park is made up of a cluster of islands on Lake Superior only accessible by watercraft or sea plane from November 1st until April 15th it isn't accessible at all isle roale is the only National Park in the country that fully closes for the winter Lake Superior sees extreme weather in the colder months that would make flying or boating to the islands dangerous if you plan to celebrate your birthday in Joshua Tree National Park leave the balloons at home inflated balloons aren't allowed inside the California park because they're officially categorized as litter and therefore baned to protect the wildlife that might ingest them there is one way around the rule however if you successfully secure the right permit you can bring your balloons into Joshua tree with you of course you'll still be expected to use them responsibly and take them with you at the end of your visit even if you haven't been to catm National Park you may recognize its rotund residence every year in October the Alaska Park hosts fat bear week an online competition to decide which of its brown bears packed on the most pounds in preparation for winter the March manness style bracket includes pictures plus a live stream of catm bears gorging on salmon Around the Clock in 2023 the event attracted a record-breaking 1.38 million votes with a hefty mama bear named Grazer ultimately claiming the title goals keenai fjord's National Park is home to part of the Harding ice field the largest ice field located fully within the us the Frozen Mass spans 700 squ miles with the portion within Park boundaries covering around 40% of the park more than 38 glaciers flow from the icy expanse and only one of them is accessible by Road there's a 6 to8 hour hike leading to the top of the ice field but it's not recommended for beginners General Grant National Park was created in 1890 and clearly honored president and Civil War General ulyses S Grant right no it was named after and created to protect the General Grant Sequoia tree in specific and the Grove of trees around it in general the tree had been named years prior in honor of Grant in the 1920s it was declared the nation's Christmas tree and in the 1950s it was declared a National Shrine in memory of the men and women of the Armed Forces who have served and fought and died to keep this nation free at the dedication ceremony Admiral Chester W Nimitz proclaimed today this Shrine takes its place in equal stature with that other great Shrine in Arlington Cemetery the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier so why have you never heard of General Grant national park it was a tiny little thing at four square miles so when the over 700 mile Kings Canyon National Park was created in 1940 it absorbed the General Grant National Park which now survives as the General Grant Grove kobuk Valley in Alaska is one of two US National Parks north of the Arctic Circle but you wouldn't think that by looking at Key parts of it the great cook sand dunes are the largest active sand dunes in the Arctic they trace their history back tens of thousands of years when the glaciers that once covered the land pulverized the Rocks beneath them into a fine sand today the dunes are a great place to spot prints of bears wolves moose and other Wildlife that pass through the Sandy Valley in addition to the breathtaking natural beauty visitors come to Lake Clark National Park in Preserve in Alaska to admire one man's inspiring craftsmanship Richard proni lived in the national park for more than 30 years and his journals are the basis of the best-selling Memoir one man's Wilderness an Alaskan Odyssey one of his most impressive accomplishments was constructing a cabin by hand using mostly local materials the structure still stands at upper Twin Lake today and visitors can explore it in in the summer months the Earth is home to four different types of volcanoes Shield plug Dome cinder cone and composite Lon Volcanic National Park in Northern California is one of the rare places on the planet where you can find all four in addition to its diverse volcanoes the park is home to hydrothermal features like boiling mud pots and roaring fummer rolles you don't need to be a geology expert to know their best viewed from a distance Mammoth Cave National Park's most noteworthy residents are easy to Miss Kentucky cave shrimp grow about 1.25 in long and transparent shells make them nearly impossible to see in their dark cave environment the species is also close to extinction they're not found anywhere else on earth and the national park along with the US fish and wildlife service are in charge of their preservation many of them live in underwater cave Pockets that humans can't access so at least they don't have to worry about disruptive tourists Mesa National Park in monuma County Colorado isn't just a national park it's also the largest archaeological Preserve in the country home to nearly 5,000 archaeological sites around 600 of those are Cliff Dwellings the biggest by far is Cliff Palace discovered and named by a couple of ranchers in the late 19th century some 100 people once lived in its 150 rooms there are visitor tours through the palace but no you can't book it for your bachelorette trip while exploring the future Washington State in 1792 Great Britain's George Vancouver spotted a hulking mountain in the distance he named it Mount rineer after his buddy British rear Admiral Peter reneer a except not really because of course the Native American an of the region already had their own names for the landmark but Mount rineer is stuck among settlers and it's now the namesake of Mount rineer National Park in recent years there's been a push to formally restore Mount rineer to one of its original monikers a change that plenty of white Americans a century ago fully supported it's an amazing story for another time but some felt that since rineer fought for the British during the Revolutionary War his name shouldn't get immortalized on an American Mountain on a normal day West Virginia's New River Gorge is full of Whitewater Rafters Rock climbers hikers and all manner of other nature lovers but on the third Saturday of October the adrenaline enthusiasts come out to play because that's Bridge day A Single Day Festival during which the New River Gorge Bridge is closed to traffic and open to base jumpers they parachute 876 ft from the bridge into the gorge Below in general base jumping is banned in National Parks so the founding legislation had to specifically allow permits to be created in the 1950s the North Cascades in Northern Washington played host to a few key writers from the Beat Generation Gary Snyder Philip whan and Jack kowak each spent a summer or two as fire Lookouts a job that entailed living alone at top a mountain and surveying the landscape for any fires naturally they all wrote about their experiences Snider and whan in verse and kowak in Pros kowak didn't take very well to the extreme isolation as he wrote in his semi-autobiographical novel desolation Angels desolation Adventure finds me finding at the bottom of myself abysmal nothingness worse than that no illusion even my mind's in rags yeah he didn't reapply for the gig the next summer the word rainforest might evoke Lush Greenery in a sweltering equatorial local that's a tropical rainforest but there are temperate rainforests too an Olympic National Park on Washington's Olympic Peninsula is home to one of them the forest boasts many of Roosevelt elk and plenty of massive centuries old trees sit Spruce and Western Hemlock among them not to mention that the place is crawling with vampires just kidding Twilight isn't real and even if it was the cullin family wouldn't hunt wildlife in Olympic National Park it's illegal the Petrified Forest sounds like something spit out by a Harry Potter term generator in fact it's a real place in northeastern Arizona but not a forest in the traditional sense more than 200 million years ago the Region's Fallen trees got fed off by flood waters and buried beneath tons of sediment and other mineral Rich materials in this oxygenless tomb the minerals sort of hijack the logs decaying process seeping in and blooming into colorful quarts as the National Park Service describes it each piece is like a giant crystal often sparkling in the sunlight as if covered by glitter it's really too bad I already played my Twilight joke card the California red-legged frog was once so ubiquitous in its home state that people generally agree it's the species at the center of an 1865 short story by Mark Twain the celebrated Jumping Frog of caleris County but human interference caused the Frog's population to plummet dramatically during the 20th century and conservationists have spent the last couple of decades working hard to revive it one successful attempt involved turning Pinnacles National Park be Gulch Reservoir into a breeding ground for the creatures there it's a frog's world and humans just live in it you're not allowed to swim in the water so as to not disturb the spawning Hoppers and it's against the law to harass or harm them in any way per The NPS approaching so closely that they jump is a form of harassment maybe the only place where jump scares are quite literally illegal it's no secret that the Redwood National and state parks in Northern California are full of ridiculously tall trees the the world's tallest tree is one of them and its precise location is a secret the tree named Hyperion is somewhere between 600 and 800 years old and over 380 ft tall for reference that's a full 75 ft taller than the Statue of Liberty base included hyperion's exact whereabouts are intentionally unpublicized to protect it from the compacted soil trampled understory and other damage that too much foot traffic could cause plus then the other trees might feel bad in August 1917 a 20-year-old Michigan student named Agnes low traed to Rocky Mountain National Park to spend a week in the Colorado Wilderness without anything but the clothes on her back she was barefoot dressed as a cavewoman and christened a modern Eve by The Denver Post anyway readers across the country were captivated by newspaper reports of the Escapade when low emerged after 7 Days sunburned and mosquito bitten but otherwise healthy as a wild horse she had more than 60 marriage proposals waiting for her in the mail the park superintendent Claude way soon confessed that it was all a publicity stunt The Denver Post had led the charge with Way's help and low had actually just spent the week in a lodge wey got dragged of course but he stood by his actions by arguing that the charade did bring tons of national attention to the park for thousands of years the people of the tono oam Nation have lived in the Sonoran Desert and harvested the fruit of the saaro cactuses that grow there they even have special permission to do it in Arizona sawaro National Park where interacting with the cactuses is otherwise prohibited it's tough work harvesting season is usually in mid June when the heat is blistering and the monsoons haven't yet arrived and it's not loow hanging fruit either to reach it Harvesters use a 20ft long pole called a kipa the tools are made from the cactuses themselves as Tanisha Tucker one of the Tona oam nation's leading Harvesters told the trust for public land there's not really anything else in the desert that's tall enough to reach the top of a cactus but another Cactus though the sweet red fruit makes for a tasty raw snack it doesn't stay fresh for very long so Tucker boils much of it into a syrup which she jars for later use on everything from pancakes and T tortillas to ice cream and barbecue they even ferment it into a ceremonial wine what seoa national park lacks in cactus wine it more than makes up for in sequoia trees that make you feel like Gulliver and brag the largest is the General Sherman tree which measures 275 ft tall and boasts a base diameter of over 36 ft that means its circumference is over 113 ft you'd only have to run around it 47 times to hit a mile actually that still seems like a lot seoa National Park was formed in 189 to preserve giant seoa making it the first national park created for the express purpose of protecting a living organism the Woody Behemoth scientific name is Sequoya dendron gigantium which yeah in the 1920s and 30s Virginia officials hoping to create Shen andoa National Park collected around 3,000 tracks of privately owned land in the Blue Ridge Mountains it seems like a nice idea to buy back uninhabited land and transform it into a ferally protected environmental Haven but not all the territory was uninhabited some 500 families roughly 2,000 people lived there mostly descendants of 19th century German and British immigrants officials forced these so-called Hollow folk to leave soon torching houses in their wake and generally trying to rid the land of any evidence of human habitation ethnographic reports had painted the hollow folk out to be illiterate and primitive in their technology and societal structures one especially persuasive book from 1933 described one Community as almost completely cut off from the current of American life all this helped the government Market the forced migration as a humanitarian Endeavor a chance for uncivilized communities to assimilate into civilized society boy have we heard that one before but while there was some poverty in some of the mountain communities like there is in many communities the portrait of hollow folk as Backwoods bums centuries behind the rest of the country was patently false as the historian Audrey horny explains in a piece on the nps's website throughout the hollows the universal presence of an array of kitchen and dining wears pharmaceutical glass military it items mail order toys 78 RPM record fragments specialized agricultural tools store-bought shoes and even automobiles all suggests that mountain residents were as equally bombarded by mass consumer culture as were other early 20th century rural Americans it's only fitting that Theodore Roosevelt one of the most important conservationists in American history would have a national park of his own Theodore Roosevelt National Park stretches across the Badlands of North Dakota Roosevelt's happy place and the spark that Lit the flame of all his conservation efforts on Park grounds behind the South unit Visitor Center to be exact is the maltes cross cabin where Roosevelt lived briefly during his cattle ranching days the cabin is surprisingly well traveled for a house that should have been anchored to the ground it was displayed at the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis Missouri and then made an appearance at the lwis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland Oregon the itinerant edifice then returned to North Dakota spending time in Fargo and bismar before eventually relocating to tr's park in 1959 I I know there's at least one person who'd watch a movie called The Malt cross cabins cross country adventure and I know that because that person is me the Virgin Island's National Park which covers about 2third of St John features centuries old petroglyphs or Rock carvings that were likely made by the Island's early occupants the tyo people who lived throughout much of the Caribbean the petroglyphs which possibly date back as far as 900 CE can be seen on the Rocks around Reef Bay along the island southern coast among the images are bats which paired with ceramic evidence supports some Scholars belief that the winged mammals were an important religious symbol to the tyo people and reef Bay is no stranger to bats they come out at dusk to feed on the insects that fly around the water the only formal lodging in Minnesota's voyagers National Park is Kettle Falls hotel whose tagline is this tough place to get to but well worth it once you get there maybe not the catchiest way to say that but points for accuracy you can only get there by boat or float plane the hotel opened in 1913 and was sold in 1918 to won Robert Williams the price tag $1,000 and four barrels of whiskey important question for viewers does anyone want to sell me a hotel for 1,000 bucks and four barrels of whiskey anyone The Majestic Dunes of New Mexico's White Sands National park comprise a special kind of sand gypsum if you want to see it for yourself though make sure to check road conditions well that's a good idea in general because of weather or construction White Sands UPS the ante by closing for missile testing it sits right next to Whit Sand's Missile Range which advertises itself as the largest fully instrumented open air test range in the Department of Defense and to keep everyone safe the road to the dunes is closed during said testing but don't worry it's usually only for a couple of hours and the gift shop remains open the aonomus Wind Cave of South Dakota's Wind Cave National Park is exactly what it sounds like a windy cave or more precisely around 150 Mi of explored passages in a windy winding Cave System the wind is caused by changes in barometric pressure basically the pressure in the cave is always trying to stabilize with the air pressure outside so when there's high pressure outside air rushes into the cave making it windy when there's low pressure outside air rushes out of the cave also making it windy but in the opposite direction while white settlers first stumbled upon the cave in the 1880s the Lakota people had already known about it for centuries in fact for many Lakota it's a key part of their origin story the version the National Park Service gives is that the Wind Cave was the passage to Earth's surface from a spirit Lodge where humans lived in their pre-earth days the first group of humans to make the trip through the passage were convinced to do so prematurely by a couple of trickster Spirits the Creator then punished the Party by transforming them into Earth's first bison the next group journeyed to Earth with the Creator's permission and they became the Lakota Wrangle St Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska is called the mountain Kingdom of North America because dwarves used to live there until a dragon named smog chased them off and claimed all their gold wait sorry I think I'm getting this mixed up with something else Wrangle St Elias is known as a mountain Kingdom because it's the meeting point of three mountain ranges Wrangle St Elias chugach and some even throw in the Alaska range and at 13.2

million Acres the park and preserve combined to be the largest NPS site by a landslide that's roughly the same size as four yellowston I don't know about you but to me it seems possible that a Dragon lives there and we've just never seen it Yellowstone itself located mostly in Wyoming is a great place for humans who want to go off the grid partially within its bounds is the most isolated spot in the contiguous us thorough far a cheeky named patch of land that can be 30 Mi plus From Any Road or building you're not even allowed to get there using a motor vehicle it's horseback or your own 2 feet there's no cell service either Jack kowak you'd hate it one of Yus National Park's most famous sites is horsetail fall a waterfall located on the Eastern face of the rock formation known as El Capitan when the light hits the waterfall just right it looks like a blazing bright fire is cascading down the rock face it's a dazzling optical illusion and a harmless one but Yos was once known for an actual Firefall by which I mean people straight up chucked a bonfire from the top of an Overlook called Glacier Point the owners of a hotel firsted it in 1872 and Spectators gathered to watch the fire hurdled on the cliff with some extended gaps until 1968 that's when National Park Service director George Hartzog said hey uh stop doing that in some parks you should stop and smell the flowers in Southwest Utah's Zion National Park you should stop and search for snails the Zion snail which lives in the park and nowhere else in the world can be found among the Flora that grows along wet Canyon walls you might need a magnifying glass though Zion snails are less than 1/8 of an inch long but they do boast the biggest feet of any animal in the Kingdom relative to their body size of course and that rounds out our trivia road trip of every National Park in the United States make sure to subscribe to Mental Floss for even more videos chalk full of fun fact like these thanks for coming along and we'll see you next time

2024-03-01 20:54

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