Preservation

Green Springs National Historic Landmark District

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I don’t expect every site to be Yellowstone, but this one is very disappointing.

In 1935 the NPS acquired development rights to the land from property owners in this historic area of Piedmont in Virginia, making this an affiliate site. Green Springs is known for a healthy mineral spring, for some horses bred 200 years ago, and 3 dozen historic farms and other buildings dating from 1735 to 1920. The oldest is Boswell’s Tavern, frequented by Jefferson, Madison and Patrick Henry. Lt Col Banastre Tarleton raided the county with his cavalry in 1781 during the Revolution.

However, the historic properties are all owned privately and are not open to tourists. So there’s nothing for visitors to see now. Boswell’s Tavern now looks like an unremarkable, updated private residence with an old chimney. There’s no museum or guide, and many of the houses, like the one above, are behind fences, hedges and hills, to be invisible from the public roads. Someday, perhaps, this will be a worthwhile place to visit, but for now, there’s no point.

All Teddy Roosevelt Sites

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The park service commemorates six parks for Teddy Roosevelt, from his childhood home in NYC, to the ranch in North Dakota where he mourned, to his family home on Oyster Bay, to the room where he was sworn in after an assassination, to the DC island that celebrates his legacy and to the monument that rightly places him among our greatest presidents. The carbon crisis threatens to end the environment Teddy Roosevelt saved for us, so he would want us to switch to electric vehicles to enjoy all his parks, as I did.

At least a dozen current National Parks began with Teddy Roosevelt protecting their land, besides his namesake park above. His friendship with John Muir inspired our entire national park system. We owe a debt that we can only repay by continuing his legacy of preservation for the future.

As President, Teddy Roosevelt protected 230 million acres for us in 20+ states, including national forests, rivers, preserves and more, such as around the beautiful San Luis Valley. He’s directly responsible for all the units listed below, plus others, as well as for signing the Antiquities Act by which presidents still designate national monuments.

“The civilized people of today look back with horror at their medieval ancestors who wantonly destroyed great works of art, or sat by slothfully by while they were destroyed.
We have passed that age, but we are, as a whole, still in that low state of civilization where we do not understand that it is also vandalism wantonly to destroy or to permit the destruction of what is beautiful in nature – whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird.
Here in the United States we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping-grounds.
We pollute the air, we destroy forests and exterminate fishes, birds and mammals – not to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements.
But at last it looks as if our people were awakening.
Above all we should realize that the effort toward this end is essentially a democratic movement!
Now there is a considerable body of opinion in favor of our keeping for our children’s children, as a priceless heritage, all the delicate beauty and all the burly majesty of the mightier forms of wildlife.
Surely our people do not understand, even yet, the rich heritage that is theirs!”

Teddy Roosevelt, 1913

South Park and Cache la Poudre National Heritage Areas

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South Park City, an old western summertime tourist trap in Fairplay Colorado, is only an hour and a half drive southwest from Denver, and yes, the cartoon is based on this tiny town surrounded by mountains. The mining and ranching town is at ~10,000 feet, and there’s an old railway roundhouse nearby. Some of the ranches organize riding tours, and there are plenty of scenic mountains, canyons, creeks and old mining sites to explore. The trout fishing is renowned. The South Park National Heritage Area is building a good track record of saving old buildings, protecting natural areas and boosting tourism.

About an hour drive north of Denver in Fort Collins is the Cache la Poudre River (French for Gunpowder Stash). Below is the Poudre River Whitewater Park, perhaps the best example of a how planning can turn an urban river into a recreational star. Due to a long-term cooperative water district that balances various stakeholder interests, the river is surprisingly well managed. The wild and scenic section up in the mountains preserves nature, protects wildlife and is enjoyed by whitewater rafters and kayakers. But I saw a kayaker preparing to raft the short stretch of whitewater in town, after changing out of work clothes. The Cache la Poudre River National Heritage Area also includes museums, historic sites and open natural areas in and around Fort Collins.

Muir Woods National Monument

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The redwoods here are coastal, Sequoia Sempervirens, and are not the shorter, but more massive giant sequoias up in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Both types of redwoods, and a relative, the dawn redwood found in China, once lived all around the northern hemisphere, but now their numbers are drastically reduced. The coastal redwoods are the tallest living beings on earth, each one living for centuries. Dinosaurs walked through these coastal redwood groves.

This old growth forest was donated in 1908, made a national monument by Teddy Roosevelt, named for his friend the naturalist John Muir, and was the site of a UN founding meeting held in 1945 in memory of FDR. Despite the many visitors (parking or shuttle reservations required), it is still possible to find a quiet moment among these silent sentinels and connect to the ancient world.