Terra Galleria Photography

Posts Tagged ‘history of the national park service’

A Century of National Park Service Maps

On the 107th anniversary of the National Park Service (NPS) this article continues my examination of the official NPS visitor guides over the years, focussing this time on one particular element: the map. If you haven’t done so, reading the previous installments of this series will provide context. Part 3 of an on-going series: 1 […]

National Park Service Visitor Guides through the Years: Looking In

On the 106th anniversary of the National Park Service (NPS), this article continues where my previous write-up about the official NPS visitor guides stopped. As an introduction to the history of those publications over the years, we examined their front cover. In this article, we are going to open them and take a quick look […]

Yellowstone: the other Grand Canyon

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park. When President Grant signed the Act of Dedication (you can read its brief text here) on March 1, 1872, setting aside Yellowstone “for the benefit and enjoyment of the people”, the first national park in the world was established. Yellowstone National Park is internationally renowned […]

National Park Service Visitor Guides: A Brief History

A case could be made that the National Park Service (NPS), which celebrates today its 105th anniversary, would not have existed without the National Park Portfolio. In the early years, park rangers and guides were enough to provide guidance to the small number of visitors. However, as the visitation grew and visitors became more autonomous, […]

National Park Bears

In Oh Ranger!, Horace Albright, the second National Park Service (NPS) director writes: The bears are, without doubt, the greatest single attraction in the parks, at least from the visitor’s point of view. Maybe this is why a story about a woman facing charges over a bear encounter in Yellowstone National Park made it into […]

More on the National Parks Portfolio

In 2016, I described the National Parks Portfolio. If you haven’t done so, please be sure to read that article for background. This week, on the occasion of the 104th anniversary of the National Park Service, I am tracking the publication history of what is maybe the most important publication in the history of the […]

The First National Parks Photography Book

As you all know, 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. What is less known is that 1916 is also the year when the first photography book about the national parks, National Parks Portfolio, was published. It was no coincidence. As recounted in the film by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, The […]