America’s Best Idea Fall Film Series Continues During Saturday Evening Programs at Rocky Mountain National Park

Date: November 29, 2010
Contact: Kyle Patterson, 970-586-1363

Rocky Mountain National Park and PBS's Education Series is proud to present The National Parks: America's Best Idea Series each Saturday evening at 7:00 p.m. at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center. Nearly a decade in the making, The National Parks: America's Best Idea, a documentary series from acclaimed filmmakers Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, is a breathtaking journey through the nation's most spectacular landscapes and a celebration of the people, famous and unknown, who fought to save them for future generations to treasure.  

Saturday, December 4, 7:00 p.m. - The Empire of Grandeur: Horace Albright
Stephen Mather and his right-hand-man Horace Albright launch a campaign to publicize the parks as a unified system and to persuade Congress to create a single agency to oversee it. The National Park Service was established in 1916. After a bitter fight, the Grand Canyon is designated a national park in 1919. 

Saturday, December 11, 7:00 p.m. - Going Home: Attracting Americans
As the nation enters the 1920s, Stephen Mather and Horace Albright ally themselves with the automobile to "democratize" the national parks and attract more Americans to them. Nebraskans Margaret and Edward Gehrke begin visiting or "collecting" different national parks each summer, while Glenn and Bessie Hyde spend their honeymoon in a homemade boat on the raging Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.  

There will be no programs on Dec 18, Dec 25, and Jan 1. These evening programs are held at the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center in Rocky Mountain National Park at 7:00 p.m. They are free and open to the public. For more information about Rocky Mountain National Park, please call the park's Information Office at [phone].