Yosemite National Park is a national park in California. It is bordered on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers 759,620 acres in four counties – centered in Tuolumne and Mariposa, extending north and east to Mono and south to Madera. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, giant sequoia groves, lakes, mountains, meadows, glaciers, and biological diversity. Almost 95 percent of the park is designated wilderness. Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada.
Mount Rainier National Park is an American national park located in southeast Pierce County and northeast Lewis County in Washington state. The park was established on March 2, 1899, as the fourth national park in the United States, preserving 236,381 acres including all of Mount Rainier, a 14,410-foot (4,390 m) stratovolcano. The mountain rises abruptly from the surrounding land with elevations in the park ranging from 1,600 feet to over 14,000 feet (490–4,300 m). The highest point in the Cascade Range, Mount Rainier is surrounded by valleys, waterfalls, subalpine meadows, and 91,000 acres of old-growth forest. More than 25 glaciers descend the flanks of the volcano, which is often shrouded in clouds that dump enormous amounts of rain and snow.
Tuolumne Meadows is a gentle, dome-studded, sub-alpine meadow area along the Tuolumne River in the eastern section of Yosemite National Park in the United States. Its approximate location is 37°52.5′N119°21′W. Its approximate elevation is 8,619 feet (2,627 m). The term Tuolumne Meadows is also often used to describe a large portion of the Yosemite high country around the meadows, especially in context of rock climbing.
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.
Muir Woods National Monument is a United States National Monument managed by the National Park Service, named after naturalist John Muir. It is located on Mount Tamalpais near the Pacific coast, in southwestern Marin County, California. It is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and is 12 miles (19 km) north of San Francisco. It protects 554 acres (224 ha), of which 240 acres (97 ha) are old growth coast redwood forests, one of a few such stands remaining in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Human habitation in the Sierra Nevada region of California reaches back 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. Historically attested Native American populations, such as the Sierra Miwok, Mono and Paiute, belong to the Uto-Aztecan and Utian phyla. In the mid-19th century, a band of Native Americans called the Ahwahnechee lived in Yosemite Valley. The California Gold Rush greatly increased the number of non-indigenous people in the region. Tensions between Native Americans and white settlers escalated into the Mariposa War. As part of this conflict, settler James Savage led the Mariposa Battalion into Yosemite Valley in 1851, in pursuit of Ahwaneechees led by Chief Tenaya. The California state military forces burned the tribe's villages, destroyed their food stores, killed the chief's sons, and forced the tribe out of Yosemite. Accounts from the Mariposa Battalion, especially from Dr. Lafayette Bunnell, popularized Yosemite Valley as a scenic wonder.
The John Muir National Historic Site is located in the San Francisco Bay Area, in Martinez, Contra Costa County, California. It preserves the 14-room Italianate Victorian mansion where the naturalist and writer John Muir lived, as well as a nearby 325-acre tract of native oak woodlands and grasslands historically owned by the Muir family. The main site is on the edge of town, in the shadow of State Route 4, also known as the "John Muir Parkway."
Scenic State Park is a Minnesota state park near Bigfork in Itasca County. It encompasses 3,936 acres (1,593 ha) of virgin pine forests that surround Sandwick Lake and Coon Lake. It also includes portions of Lake of the Isles, Tell Lake, Cedar Lake, and Pine Lake. Established in 1921, the Ojibwe tribe had previously used the area for hunting. The park has places for camping, hiking, swimming, fishing, and canoeing.
National Park Service rustic – sometimes colloquially called Parkitecture – is a style of architecture that developed in the early and middle 20th century in the United States National Park Service (NPS) through its efforts to create buildings that harmonized with the natural environment. Since its founding in 1916, the NPS sought to design and build visitor facilities without visually interrupting the natural or historic surroundings. The early results were characterized by intensive use of hand labor and a rejection of the regularity and symmetry of the industrial world, reflecting connections with the Arts and Crafts movement and American Picturesque architecture.
Thomas Chalmers Vint was a landscape architect credited for directing and shaping landscape planning and development during the early years of the United States National Park System. His work at Yosemite National Park and the development of the Mission 66 program are among his better known projects, although his influence can be seen in parks across America. Vint's true talents lay in his design elements. These can best be described as rustic, relating to how he was able to harmonize structures with their natural surroundings. Vint was awarded the Distinguished Service Award, the highest honor conferred for meritorious service to the U.S. government. He was made a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and American Institute of Architects.
Lucy Parker Telles was a Mono Lake Paiute - Kucadikadi and Southern Sierra Miwok Native American basket weaver.
Herbert Maier was an American architect and public administrator, most notable as an architect for his work at Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Parks. Maier, as a consultant to the National Park Service, designed four trailside museums in Yellowstone, three of which survive as National Historic Landmarks. Maier played a significant role in the Park Service's use of the National Park Service Rustic style of architecture in western national parks.
The Norris, Madison, and Fishing Bridge Museums are three "trailside museums" within Yellowstone National Park in the western United States. Built in 1929 to designs by Herbert Maier, they are preeminent early examples of the National Park Service Rustic style of architecture, and served as models for the construction of park buildings elsewhere in the park system in the 1930s. They were collectively designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
The Moraine Park Museum and Amphitheater, also known as the Moraine Park Lodge and the Moraine Park Visitor Center, are located in Moraine Park, a glaciated meadow between two moraines in Rocky Mountain National Park.
The Henness Ridge Fire Lookout in Yosemite National Park was built in 1934 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) which was a public work relief program for unemployed men age 18-24. The CCC provided unskilled manual labor related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural areas of the United States.
The Caverns Historic District comprises the central developed area of Carlsbad Caverns National Park. The complex was built between the early 1920s and 1942, initially in Pueblo Revival style, and later in New Mexico Territorial Revival style in the area around the natural entrance to Carlsbad Caverns. The earlier structures are built of local limestone, the later buildings in adobe. Thirteen buildings in the district are considered contributing structures. Buildings built between 1940 and 1942 were constructed with labor provided by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
The Yosemite Village Historic District encompasses the primary built-up section of the Yosemite Valley as it was developed by the National Park Service for Yosemite National Park. The district includes visitor services areas, park personnel residences and administrative facilities. It is located to the north of the Merced River. The district includes the National Historic Landmark Rangers' Club.
Christian August Jorgensen was a Norwegian-born American landscape painter. Jorgensen is best known for his paintings of Yosemite Valley and the California Missions.
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.
John Bernard Wosky was an American architect and landscape architect and park superintendent. He worked for the National Park Service from the 1920s through the 1950s and designed a number of works that have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. He was assigned to Yosemite National Park from 1928 to 1952, initially as the parks's resident architect, and later as its assistant superintendent. He later served as the superintendent at Crater Lake National Park and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
