Big Bend National Park is an American national park located in West Texas, bordering Mexico. The park has national significance as the largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert topography and ecology in the United States, and was named after a large bend in the Rio Grande/Río Bravo. The park protects more than 1,200 species of plants, more than 450 species of birds, 56 species of reptiles, and 75 species of mammals. Additional park activities include scenic drives, programs led by Big Bend park rangers, and stargazing.
Petit Jean State Park is a 3,471-acre (1,405 ha) park in Conway County, Arkansas managed by the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. It is located atop Petit Jean Mountain adjacent to the Arkansas River in the area between the Ouachita Mountains and Ozark Plateaus.
Guadalupe Mountains National Park is an American national park in the Guadalupe Mountains, east of El Paso, Texas. The mountain range includes Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas at 8,751 feet (2,667 m), and El Capitan used as a landmark by travelers on the route later followed by the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach line. The ruins of a stagecoach station stand near the Pine Springs visitor center. The restored Frijole Ranch contains a small museum of local history and is the trailhead for Smith Spring. The park covers 86,367 acres in the same mountain range as Carlsbad Caverns National Park, about 25 miles (40 km) to the north in New Mexico. The Guadalupe Peak Trail winds through pinyon pine and Douglas-fir forests as it ascends over 3,000 feet (910 m) to the summit of Guadalupe Peak, with views of El Capitan and the Chihuahuan Desert.
Wallace Everette Pratt (1885–1981) was a pioneer American petroleum geologist. He is also notable for helping establish Guadalupe Mountains National Park through his donation of McKittrick Canyon. He is also notable for his marriage to Iris Calderhead, prominent advocate for sex equality and his classmate from the University of Kansas, in 1931.
The Guadalupe Mountains are a mountain range located in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The range includes the highest summit in Texas, Guadalupe Peak, 8,751 ft (2,667 m), and the "signature peak" of West Texas, El Capitan, both of which are located within Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The Guadalupe Mountains are bordered by the Pecos River valley and Llano Estacado to the east and north, Delaware Mountains to the south, and Sacramento Mountains to the west. One of the clearest exposures of a prehistoric reef is preserved in the mountain range's bedrock geology. Bedrock contains fossils of reef-dwelling organisms from the Permian period, and the geology is widely studied, mostly by stratigraphers, paleontologists, and Paleoecologists.
Mineral King is a subalpine glacial valley located in the southern part of Sequoia National Park, in the U.S. state of California. The valley lies at the headwaters of the East Fork of the Kaweah River, which rises at the eastern part of the valley and flows northwest. Accessed by a long and narrow winding road, the valley is mostly popular with backpackers and hikers.
Lincoln National Forest is a unit of the U.S. Forest Service located in southern New Mexico. The Lincoln National Forest covers an extensive 1.1 million acres in southeastern New Mexico. Established by Presidential Proclamation in 1902 as the Lincoln Forest Reserve, the 1,103,897 acres (4,467.31 km2) forest begins near the Texas border and contains lands in parts of Chaves, Eddy, Lincoln, and Otero counties. The Lincoln National Forest is home to three major mountain ranges: Sacramento, Guadalupe and Capitan. The three Ranger Districts within the forest contain all or part of a total of four mountain ranges, and include a variety of different environmental areas, from desert to heavily forested mountains and sub-alpine grasslands. Clean air, water, and soil are necessary elements that the National Forests contribute to the environment. Established to balance conservation, resource management, and recreation, the lands of the Lincoln National Forest include important local timber resources, protected wilderness areas, and popular recreation and winter sports areas. The forest headquarters is located in Alamogordo, N.M. with local offices in Carlsbad, Cloudcroft, and Ruidoso.
America's 11 Most Endangered Places or America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places is a list of places in the United States that the National Trust for Historic Preservation considers the most endangered. It aims to inspire Americans to preserve examples of architectural and cultural heritage that could be "relegated to the dustbins of history" without intervention.
Painted Desert Inn is a historic complex in Petrified Forest National Park, in Apache County, eastern Arizona. It is located off Interstate 40 and near the original alignment of historic U.S. Route 66, overlooking the Painted Desert.
The Death Canyon Barn is a combination barn and ranger patrol cabin in Grand Teton National Park. The barn was built in Death Canyon on the Death Canyon Trail at its junction with the Alaska Basin Trail by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935 in the National Park Service rustic style. Located with a clear view of Prospector Mountain, it shares a common style and purpose with the Cascade Canyon Barn to the north in the park, with minor differences attributable to available materials and the preferences of the work crews building the barns.
McKittrick Canyon is a scenic canyon within the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas and Eddy County, New Mexico. The steep, towering walls of McKittrick Canyon protect a rich riparian oasis in the midst of the Chihuahuan Desert.
The historical buildings and structures of Grand Teton National Park include a variety of buildings and built remains that pre-date the establishment of Grand Teton National Park, together with facilities built by the National Park Service to serve park visitors. Many of these places and structures have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The pre-Park Service structures include homestead cabins from the earliest settlement of Jackson Hole, working ranches that once covered the valley floor, and dude ranches or guest ranches that catered to the tourist trade that grew up in the 1920s and 1930s, before the park was expanded to encompass nearly all of Jackson Hole. Many of these were incorporated into the park to serve as Park Service personnel housing, or were razed to restore the landscape to a natural appearance. Others continued to function as inholdings under a life estate in which their former owners could continue to use and occupy the property until their death. Other buildings, built in the mountains after the initial establishment of the park in 1929, or in the valley after the park was expanded in 1950, were built by the Park Service to serve park visitors, frequently employing the National Park Service Rustic style of design.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
The Frijole Ranch, also known as Guadalupe Ranch, Spring Hill Ranch and the Rader-Smith Ranch, is located in Guadalupe Mountains National Park in extreme west Texas. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 21, 1978, and represents a significant period in the settlement and ranching of the Guadalupe Mountains.
Pinery Station, or The Pinery, was built as a relay station on the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach route, located at the crest of Guadalupe Pass in what is now Guadalupe Mountains National Park in the U.S. state of Texas. The station, now in ruins, was built in 1858 and was abandoned the next year. It is located close by U.S. Routes 62/160 and is accessible for tourists.
The Wallace Pratt Lodge was the summer residence of Wallace Pratt, the principal donor of the lands that would become Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Pratt was a petroleum geologist employed by the Humble Oil Company, scouting for oilfield leases in west Texas. Pratt visited the Guadalupe Mountains in 1921, and taking a liking to the place, he bought a quarter share of the McCombs Ranch. In 1929 Pratt bought out his partners, ending up owning a large portion of the canyon, which featured waterfalls flowing over travertine dams, a lush, quiet place in the high desert.
The Timberline Cabin in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA was built in 1925 to house workers on the Fall River Road. The National Park Service rustic style cabin was designed by the National Park Service's Landscape Engineering Division under the direction of Thomas Chalmers Vint. The cabin was later used as a patrol cabin and as a caretaker's residence.
The Homer Wilson Ranch, also known as the Blue Creek Ranch, was one of the largest ranches in the early twentieth century in what would become Big Bend National Park in the U.S. state of Texas. The ranch was established by Homer Wilson in 1929 at Oak Springs to the west of the Chisos Mountains. Ultimately comprising 44 sections of land, amounting to more than 28,000 acres (11,000 ha), the Oak Canyon-Blue Creek Ranch was acquired by the State of Texas in 1942 for incorporation into the new park. A large portion of the ranch comprised portions of the old G4 Ranch, established by John and Clarence Gano in the 1880s. Wilson's ranch focused on sheep and goats, the first such large operation in the Big Bend area. Wilson continued to live at the ranch until his death in 1943; his family moved from the ranch the next year. Wilson, born in Del Rio, Texas in 1892, had studied petroleum engineering at the Missouri School of Mines and was a World War I veteran. The ranch, with the headquarters at Oak Springs and its operational center at Blue Creek, was one of the largest in Texas, and the most significant ranch in Big Bend.
Architects of the National Park Service are the architects and landscape architects who were employed by the National Park Service (NPS) starting in 1918 to design buildings, structures, roads, trails and other features in the United States National Parks. Many of their works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a number have also been designated as National Historic Landmarks.
The Magnolia Hotel is a historic structure located in Seguin, Texas. It was in operation as a hotel as early as 1844. The building had been in poor repair for a number of years and was added to a list of the most endangered historic places in Texas in 2012. In 2013, the structure came under new ownership and was being restored for use as a private residence.
