Happy 100th birthday to Grand Canyon National Park!

Yavapai Point View, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA

"unique combinations of geologic color and erosional forms…that overwhelm our senses through its immense size"

On February 26, 2019, the Grand Canyon celebrates its 100th anniversary as a National Park. Yellowstone National Park was the first such park in the US (and indeed considered to be the first national park in the world), having been designated in 1872. But the US National Park Service was not created—as a unit of the Department of the Interior—until 1916. Three years after its creation, NPS designated one of the most remarkable landscapes in the country (and the world!) as a National Park citing its “unique combinations of geologic color and erosional forms…that overwhelm our senses through its immense size.” The Grand Canyon also was designated a World Heritage Site in 1979.

Of course the gorge was cut over millions of years by the Colorado River, revealing in striking colors its history of geologic events. (The photo above from the Yavapai Point View is in the public domain). Humans began occupying the region beginning about 10,000 years ago and even today descendants of the Puebloan people still consider the canyon part of their homeland. Its designation as a National Park in 1919 included legal protections from development and resource extraction, but even as the Grand Canyon today is the 2nd most visited National Park in the United States (after Great Smoky Mountains National Park), development pressures continue to put this magnificent park at risk.

Recently, a whistleblower exposed the fact that samples of radioactive uranium ore were left unprotected in a park building, possibly endangering the health of numerous visitors who tour the collections each year and NPS staff who work there. And still the current ban on mining claims close to the Grand Canyon is only temporary, leading an Arizona congressman to push for legislation to make the mining ban permanent. Such legislation would be a fitting birthday present to one of the “Wonders of the World.” Happy centennial birthday to Grand Canyon National Park!

See

Grand Canyon Centennial Events

National Park Service website

Also see

How the Grand Canyon Transformed From a ‘Valueless’ Place to a National Park

By Stephen Pyne

Smithsonian.com

February 6, 2019

Overcoming A 'Long, Bitter Relationship,' Grand Canyon And Tribes Mark Centennial

By Laurel Morales

National Public Radio

February 24, 2019