National Park Service
Hammond Cabin at the White Grass Dude Ranch, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
Credit: National Trust for Historic Preservation
For more than 20 years, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has worked to save historic places in the National Park System. From the Plum Orchard Mansion at Cumberland Island National Seashore to the majestic Many Glacier Hotel in Glacier National Park, the historic places in our National Parks showcase the breadth of American history. As with cultural resources under the care of many federal agencies, historic places in our National Parks are threatened by a lack of funding and often a lack of agency will to protect them. This is particularly true in parks where some park managers believe protecting cultural and historic sites conflicts with their mandate to protect natural resources. In fact, twenty historic sites managed by the National Park Service have appeared on the National Trust's list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places since its inception in 1988.
Current Issues
Elkmont Historic District
The Elkmont Historic District is located in the Little River Valley of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Significant for its architecture and its role in helping form the national park, Elkmont was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 and was awarded Save America's Treasures status in the late 1990s
Isle Royale National Park
At Isle Royale National Park in Michigan, a wilderness island in Lake Superior, the National Trust is working with park staff and seasonal residents to assure the preservation of dozens of cabins built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the island was home to a thriving commercial and sport fishing industry.
Minidoka Internment National Monument
Minidoka Internment National Monument is a National Park Service-administered historic site where 13,000 Japanese Americans were interned during World War II. In 2007 the National Trust included Minidoka in its list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.
National Trust Provides Information to National Parks Second Century Commission
The National Trust for Historic Preservation provided comments to the National Parks Second Century Commission, which is developing a vision for the next 100 years of national parks.
Voyageurs National Park
In Minnesota's Voyageurs National Park, the Naitonal is working on behalf of the historic Ellsworth Rock Gardens. Within that relatively new and largely wilderness park lies an unique cultural landscape created between 1944 and 1966 by a Chicago contractor during his vacation visits to Lake Kabetogama.
White Grass Dude Ranch
Homesteaded in 1913, White Grass operated as a dude ranch from 1919 until 1985, when it was acquired by the National Park Service. The White Grass Dude Ranch historic district encompasses approximately thirty acres and thirteen buildings, including the main cabin, the Hammond cabin, 10 guest cabins and the shower/laundry building.
Case Studies
McGraw Ranch
The Park Service estimates that its maintenance backlog for historic structures is $1.5 billion. This was one reason park managers in Rocky Mountain National Park proposed demolishing fifteen historic buildings at McGraw Ranch.
Plum Orchard
Cumberland Island National Seashore was established as a unit of the National Park Service in 1972, due in large part to the generosity of existing landowners who wanted to save the special character of the island from development and preserve its natural and historic qualities.
Resources
The Countryside Initiative at Cuyahoga Valley National Park
From the Summer 2002 edition of the National Trust's Forum Journal, Darwin Kelsey on the National Park Service's efforts to revitalize the rural landscape in Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
From Rustic Romanticism to Modernism, and Beyond: Architectural Resources in the National Parks
From the Summer 2002 edition of the National Trust's Forum Journal, Robert Frankeberger and James Garrison explore architectural resources on the National Park System.
Western Center for Historic Preservation
Learn about the National Trust for Historic Preservation's partnership with Grand Teton National Park to rehabilitate the historic White Grass Dude Ranch to become a center to train park staff, volunteers and contractors in the preservation and reuse of rustic structures.
