Grand Canyon National Park Established

On February 26, 1919, after years of battling for the Grand Canyon to be protected, President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law as the 17th National Park in the United States. Before signing it into law though, there were several steps that needed to be taken and these steps took years, through fights and oppositions from many sides, mainly from mining, logging, and hunting organizations. At the end of it all though, we are left with an amazing park visited by over 5 million people per year, showing just how incredible this park truly is.

The process started when President Theodore Roosevelt, an avid outdoorsman and nature lover, visited the park in 1903. After visiting the park, Roosevelt established the Grand Canyon Game Preserve on November 28, 1906, meaning that livestock grazing was reduced and predators were eradicated from the area. This was the first step in the lengthy process that took place over several years,  but it was worth it in the end.

After establishing the Grand Canyon Game Preserve on November 28, 1906, Roosevelt and the members of his conservation group, the Boone and Crockett Club helped form the National Parks Association, later changed to the National Parks Conservation Association, an organization intended to be like a citizen based watch group, which is essentially just a larger scale version of the “neighborhood watch” groups in local communities. The organization’s mission listed on their site is “To protect and enhance America’s National Park System for present and future generations.”. The National Parks Conservation Association was also formed in 1919, adding even more value to the historical information of 1919. The association’s goal was to resist and fight against logging, mining, and hunting in National Parks and protected areas like the Grand Canyon.

The NPCA later went on to lobby for the Antiquities Act of 1906 which gave President Roosevelt the power to create national monuments. The act was signed into law by President Roosevelt on June 8th 1906, and has been used over a hundred times since it has passed. Once the Antiquities Act was passed, President Roosevelt immediately created adjacent national forest lands and redesignated the Grand Canyon Game Preserve a U.S. National Monument on January 11th 1908, further protecting it. There was a lot of opposition to this though, specifically with mining organizations that wanted access to the land. They blocked any effort to reclassify the monument as a National Park for 11 years, until President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law as the 17th National Park on February 26th 1919.

Making the Grand Canyon a National Park was important for so many reasons, not just for the indescribable beauty and history that the park holds. First and foremost, protecting the park from mining, hunting, and logging was crucial to protect the natural beauty and resources that the park holds. There are also countless animals and plants that needed to be protected and are allowed to thrive today because the area was listed as a National Park. And as previously discussed, the Canyon is deeply rich in history.

Along the lines of mining though, there has been a long history of miners either successfully mining in the park or attempting to do so, which is why the creation and protection of the park was and still is so important. To this day, there have been over 2,000 mining claims requested next to the canyon, which is problematic for several reasons. Critics of mining are concerned that mining will cause the uranium to leak into the Colorado River and contaminate the water supply for 18 million people, as well as affecting the Grand Canyon, according to an article written by the Guardian (1). Since 2009 though, mining has been suspended within and near Grand Canyon Park, pending the assessment of the environmental impact of mining.

At the Grand Canyon, 75 species of mammals, 50 species of reptiles and amphibians, 25 species of fish, and over 300 species of birds exist as of the most recent study, according to a website dedicated to the Grand Canyon. (2) It is important that these lands be protected for all these species that are specific to the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is their home and where they are meant to be living, if hunting was allowed on the land there would be a massive decrease in animals like bears, bison, mule deer, and much more. A number of endangered species can be found in the park as well, including the bald eagle. As well as the endangered species, there are a number of endangered plants in the Canyon. The amount of endangered species and plants proves once more, how crucial it is for the area to be protected by becoming a National Park.

Finally, it is so important that the Grand Canyon became a National Park because of the deeply rich history that it holds. Known human interaction with the Canyon goes back 10,500 years, but the Canyon is believed to have been formed by the Colorado River over the past 6 million years, and there are rocks that have been found in the Canyon that are over 2 billion years old, and the Native Americans have inhabited the land for at least 4,000 of those years. Many ancestral tribes lived in what is now a National Park today back before it was protected land, until a drought in the 13th century caused them to move on. The fact that so many important tribes lived in this park shows how beautiful and resourceful it truly is, if they were able to live off of its land for so long.

 

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/feb/17/uranium-demand-grand-canyon-biodiversity

(2) https://grandcanyon.com/planning/grand-canyon-flora-and-fauna/

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