National Parks
The American Experience
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Horace M. Albright, as superintendent of Yellowstone
National Park in the 1920s, above, led the campaign to establish Grand Teton National
Park and to protect Jackson Hole. (Later, Albright became the second director of the
National Park Service.) (top) When a Reclamation Service dam at the outlet of Jackson Lake
was raised in 1916, thousands of trees were killed. Purists therefore objected to including
Jackson Lake in the park, saying it was no longer a natural lake but an artificial reservoir.
The Civilian Conservation Corps removed much of the debris along the lakeshore in the 1930s,
below.
Courtesy of the National Park Service (top), George A. Grant Collection, courtesy
of the National Park Service (bottom)
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When Redwood National Park was established in October 1968,
the slopes above the Tall Trees Grove, although outside the park, were also forested. In
this photograph, taken in June 1976, only the narrow strip of parkland fronting Redwood
Creek has not been cut. The fate of the "worm," as this section of the park came to be
known, prompted Congress in 1978 to expand Redwood National Park by 48,000 acres. Still,
only 9,000 acres is virgin forest. The remainder, much of it recently logged, will have to
be replanted.
Photograph by Dave Van de Mark, courtesy of the Save-the-Redwoods League
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Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, benefitted from a
broadening of national park standards to value distinctive flora and fauna as well as
monumental scenery.
George A. Grant Collection, courtesy of the National Park Service
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Only a few national parks, most notably Isle Royale in
Lake Superior, can be considered integral biological units. Isle Royale, because it is a
remote island, preserves not only a fine example of Great Lakes spruce-fire forest, but
also the only known pack of timber wolves within a national park outside of Alaska.
Jack E. Boucher photograph, courtesy of the National Park Service
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