Shenandoah National Park

Lesson 1

Stonehenge is a monument in England that was built between 3000 BC and 2000 BC.

The Parthenon was a temple in Greece. Construction began in 447 BC and was completed in 432 BC.

The Colosseum was completed in AD 80 in Rome Italy. It was an amphitheater used for gladiator contests and other public performances and spectacles. It could hold 80,000 people.

The Eastern Woodlands tribes that lived along the Atlantic Coast were the first native Americans that had contact with Europeans. Friendships were made, alliances forged, land deals struck, and treaties were signed. But as settlers in increasing numbers encroached on tribal lands, conflicts arose. In the 1800s many Eastern Woodlands tribes were forced off their native lands.

This map, created in 1608 by Captain John Smith shortly after his arrival in the New World, is the earliest published map of the Jamestown colony.

This painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris is a fictional depiction of the first Thanksgiving which was actually a Harvest Feast in 1621. Documentation shows that about 50 colonists and 90 Native Americans attended the meal prepared by the four adult Pilgrim women, their daughters and servants.

This map shows the ownership of land in the New World before and after the French and Indian War.

This map shows the claims of ownership of land after the American Revolution when the United States of America was established.

In establishing the new nation, leaders wrote our Constitution (ratified in 1788), and then in 1791, they ratified the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment allows the government to take land from citizens under certain conditions, but requires that the landowner receive "just compensation."

In 1803 the Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States. By 1840, almost 7 million Americans has moved west in hopes of securing land.

James Madison was the fourth President of the United States and inherited a sketchy relationship with the British who, despite Madison's attempts at diplomacy, repeatedly seized American ships and took their sailors prisoner. He was the first president to ask Congress for a Declaration of War--the War of 1812.

Abraham Lincoln saw the U.S. through one of its darkest periods--the Civil War. But, out of that came the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments: the 13th banned slavery, the 14th defined citizenship to include African Americans, and the 15th gave African Americans the right to vote.

Yellowstone was the first national park established in the U.S., setting a precedent for preserving certain national treasures for the enjoyment of future generations rather than allowing private industry to extract resources and alter its beauty.

Theodore Roosevelt explored Yosemite National Park in 1903 with naturalist John Muir. Muir so inspired Roosevelt that during his presidency (1901-1909) he signed into existence five national parks, 18 national monuments, 55 national bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, and 150 national forests.

Woodrow Wilson was the President who signed the Organic Act that created the National Park Service. He also signed the Antiquities Act and under that, designated ten national monuments. During his travels, he visited all 39 parks and monuments prior to signing the Act.

President Hoover and his wife spent many weekends during his presidency at their retreat, Rapidan Camp. When he left office he donated the camp and its 164 acres for inclusion in Shenandoah National Park.

The porch of the Hoover's cabin, called the Brown House was host to many pleasant evenings in earshot of the Rapidan River. That same porch remains as part of Rapidan Camp in Shenandoah National Park.

President Hoover used drought-relief funds to hire local laborers and contractors to begin construction of the Skyline Drive that was to be the centerpiece of the new Shenandoah National Park.

Roosevelt took over as President, but continued Hoover's commitment to national parks and conservation efforts.

Roosevelt immediately began implementing a plan to end the Great Depression and put people back to work. Many found work in national parks and on other public lands through the Civilian Conservation Corps program.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated Shenandoah at Big Meadows on July 3, 1936, declaring, "We seek to pass on to our children a richer land--a stronger Nation. And so, my friends, I now take great pleasure in dedicating Shenandoah National Park, dedicating it to this and succeeding generations of Americans for the recreation and for the re-creation which they shall find here."

To help people displaced by Shenandoah's establishment, the federal government, through the Resettlement Administration, created seven relocation communities outside the new Park boundary. Former residents were offered new homesteads - small houses and plots of land - in the Shenandoah Valley to the west of the new Park or in the Virginia Piedmont to the east. One hundred and seventy-five families took the government up on its offer to relocate them.

While some former resident families were relocated outside the Park - or chose to relocate on their own or were physically evicted - 42 former residents in 16 families were given lifetime tenancy in the new Park. These designated "heads-of-household" were thus allowed to live out their remaining years within the Park. When they died, the land on which they had lived became the property of Shenandoah National Park.

Lewis Mountain - the coffee shop, cabins, campground, and picnic grounds - was set aside "for the exclusive use of negroes," and became Shenandoah's first and only area "for colored visitors." Eventually, Shenandoah would integrate facilities in the Park - in 1950, five years before desegregation became law.

World War II began, and the boys of the CCC were needed, either at war or at home. For this and other reasons, the CCC program was put on hold. It was never reinstituted.

When Franklin Roosevelt died in April 1945, Harry Truman took the helm as 33rd president of the United States.

Truman was still president when World War II ended later in 1945. The war had taken attention and work away from the young Shenandoah National Park, but with that war over, work on the Park's infrastructure was begun anew.

Shenandoah was officially desegregated. African American visitors were no longer restricted to the picnic grounds and campground at Lewis Mountain, which had been established in 1938 "for the exclusive use of negroes." All areas of the Park were now open to all citizens, regardless of race.

As the 1960s got underway, John F. Kennedy became the nation's 35th president.

The 1960s were a decade of political unrest and activism. As connections were made between technology and the health of our planet, citizens - individually, but mostly en masse - called for changes in environmental policy to protect people, the land, water, air, and wildlife from the perils of an increasingly polluted world.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act into law on September 3, 1964. Twelve years later, Shenandoah would receive its own Wilderness designation under the Eastern Wilderness Act.

Richard M. Nixon was elected the 37th president of the U.S. in 1969. He served until his resignation from office in 1974.

A growing anti-war counterculture movement called for an end to the Vietnam War. The United States ended its involvement in Vietnam in late summer 1973.

Essentially an extension of the 1964 Wilderness Act, the Eastern Wilderness Act of 1975 allowed nearly 80,000 acres of Shenandoah to be designated as Wilderness IN 1976. The new designation changed the way Shenandoah's resources are managed and brought greater protection to 40% of the Park's area.

Denali (formerly known as Mt. McKinley) in Denali National Park received greater protection as part of ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act). It is the highest peak in North America at 20,310 feet.

Delicate Arch is a famous geologic feature and one of 2,000 stone arches in Arches National Park in Utah.

El Capitan is a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park in California. It a favorite challenge of climbers.

Old Faithful is a geyser in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, so named because it is one of the most predictable geothermal features on earth, erupting every 44 to 125 minutes.

Mount Rushmore is a massive stone sculpture in South Dakota that depicts George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Mount Rushmore National Memorial was established in 1925. The sculpture was completed in 1941.

Fort McHenry is a star-shaped fort on the eastern coast of the U.S. near Baltimore, Maryland. It was built in 1798 and was used through WWII. After a bombardment during the War of 1812, a larger American flag was raised to signal victory. The sight of that flag was the inspiration for our national anthem.

The World Trade Center was destroyed in a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, killing 2,606 people there and an additional 390 elsewhere.