1.
Four Corners Monument
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The Four Corners Monument marks the quadripoint in the Southwestern United States where the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet. It is the point in the United States shared by four states. When the early territories were formed, their boundaries were designated along meridian, beginning in the 1860s, these lines were surveyed and marked. These early surveys included some errors, but even so, the markers placed became the legal boundaries, superseding the written descriptions of geographical meridians and this includes the Four Corners Monument, which has been legally established as the corner of the four states. The monument where visitors can simultaneously straddle the territory of four states is maintained as a tourist attraction by the Navajo Nation Parks, circling the point, starting from north, the disk reads with two words in each state Here meet in freedom under God four states. Around the monument, local Navajo and Ute artisans sell souvenirs, an admission fee is required to view and photograph the monument. The monument is a popular tourist attraction despite its remote and isolated location, the monument is located on the Colorado Plateau west of U. S. Highway 160, approximately 40 miles southwest of Cortez, Colorado. The monument is centered at 36°59′56. 31″N 109°02′42. 62″W, the nearby community of Teec Nos Pos receives 8.46 inches of rain and 2 inches of snow annually. The area now called Four Corners was initially American Indian land, the first boundary which would become part of the monument was set as part of the Compromise of 1850, which created the New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory. The border between the two territories was defined as the 37th parallel north by the 31st United States Congress. In 1861, the 36th United States Congress transferred land previously allocated to the Utah Territory, the Colorado Territorys southern border would remain as the 37th parallel north, but a new border—between the Colorado and Utah Territories—was declared to be the 32nd meridian west from Washington. This line was derived from the used at the time. The group declared secession from the United States and announced their intent to join the Confederate States of America under the name of the Arizona Territory, the U. S. Congress responded in 1863 by creating another Arizona Territory with different, but partially overlapping boundaries. The Confederate boundaries split New Mexico along an east–west line, the 34th parallel north and this would give the Confederacy access to California and the Pacific coast. The Union definition split New Mexico along a line, the 32nd meridian west from Washington. The Union plan eventually became reality, and this created the quadripoint at the modern Four Corners, after the split, New Mexico resembled its modern form, with only slight differences. After the Civil War, efforts began to survey and mark the actual borders, in 1868, the General Land Office had Ehud N. Darling survey and set markers along the border between the Colorado and New Mexico Territories, this border has become known as the Darling Line. In 1875, another GLO surveyor, Chandler Robbins, surveyed and marked the border between the Arizona and New Mexico Territories, Robbins began near the Mexico–United States border, and worked his way north marking the border every so often
2.
False color
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False color refers to a group of color rendering methods used to display images in color which were recorded in the visible or non-visible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. A false-color image is an image that depicts an object in colors that differ from those a photograph would show, to understand false color, a look at the concept behind true color is helpful. An image is called an image when it offers a natural color rendition. When applied to images, true-color means that the perceived lightness of a subject is preserved in its depiction. There are three sources of color error, Different spectral sensitivities of the human eye and of an image capture device. Different spectral emissions / reflections of the object and of the image render process, differences in spectral irradiance in the case of reflective images or reflective objects – see color rendering index for details. Color management can be used to mitigate this problem within the physical constraints, while a false-color image can be created using solely the visual spectrum, typically some or all data used is from electromagnetic radiation outside the visual spectrum. The choice of bands is governed by the physical properties of the object under investigation. As the human eye uses three spectral bands, three bands are commonly combined into a false-color image. In contrast, an image made from one spectral band. For true color, the RGB channels from the camera are mapped to the corresponding RGB channels of the image, for false color this relationship is changed. The simplest false-color encoding is to take an RGB image in the visible spectrum, for traditional false-color satellite images of Earth a NRG→RGB mapping is used, with N being the near-infrared spectral band – this yields the typical vegetation in red false-color images. False color is used for satellite and space images, Examples are remote sensing satellites, some spacecraft, with rovers being the most prominent examples, have the ability to capture approximate true-color images as well. Weather satellites produce, in contrast the spacecrafts mentioned previously, grayscale images from the visible or infrared spectrum, a pseudocolor image is derived from a grayscale image by mapping each intensity value to a color according to a table or function. Pseudo color is used when a single channel of data is available. A typical example for the use of color is thermography. Pseudocoloring can make some more visible, as the perceived difference in color space is bigger than between successive gray levels alone. A further application of pseudocoloring is to store the results of image elaboration, density slicing, a variation of pseudo color, divides an image into a few colored bands and is used in the analysis of remote sensing images
3.
Navajo
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The Navajo are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. After the Cherokee, they are the second-largest federally recognized tribe in the United States, the Navajo language is spoken throughout the region, with most Navajos speaking English, as well. The states with the largest Navajo populations are Arizona and New Mexico, over three-quarters of the Navajo population reside in these two states. The Navajos are speakers of a Na-Dené Southern Athabaskan language known within the language as Diné bizaad, the language comprises two geographic, mutually intelligible dialects. It is closely related to the Apache language, as the Navajos and Apaches are believed to have migrated from northwestern Canada and eastern Alaska, speakers of various other Athabaskan languages located in Canada may still comprehend the Navajo language despite the geographic and linguistic deviation of the languages. Additionally, some Navajos speak Navajo Sign Language, which is either a dialect or daughter of Plains Sign Talk, archaeological and historical evidence suggests the Athabaskan ancestors of the Navajos and Apaches entered the Southwest around 1400 CE. The Navajo oral tradition is said to retain references of this migration, until contact with Pueblos and the Spanish, the Navajos were largely hunters and gatherers. The tribe adopted crop-farming techniques from the Pueblo peoples, growing corn, beans. When the Spanish arrived, the Navajos began herding sheep and goats as a source of trade and food. Sheep also became a form of currency and status symbols among the Navajos based on the quantity of herds a family maintained. In addition, the practice of spinning and weaving wool into blankets and clothing became common, in the 18th century, the Spanish reported the Navajos maintaining large herds of livestock and cultivating large crop areas. Navahu comes from the Tewa, meaning area of cultivated lands. By the 1640s, the Spanish began using the term Navajo to refer to the Diné, during the 1670s, the Spanish wrote that the Diné lived in a region known as Dinétah, about 60 miles west of the Rio Chama valley region. In the 1780s, the Spanish sent military expeditions against the Navajos in the Mount Taylor, the Navajos came into contact with the United States Army in 1846, when General Stephen W. Kearny invaded Santa Fe with 1,600 men during the Mexican–American War. The treaty was not honored by many young Navajo raiders, who continued to steal livestock from New Mexican villages, New Mexicans, on their part, together with Utes, continued to raid Navajo country, stealing livestock and taking women and children for sale as slaves. In 1849, the governor of New Mexico, Colonel John MacRae Washington—accompanied by John S. The treaty acknowledged the jurisdiction of the United States and allowed forts, the United States, on its part, promised such donations such other liberal and humane measures, as may deem meet and proper. While en route to this treaty signing, Narbona, a prominent Navajo peace leader, was killed, during the next 10 years, the U. S. established forts on traditional Navajo territory
4.
Monument Valley
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Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching 1,000 ft above the valley floor. It is located on the Arizona–Utah border, near the Four Corners area, the valley lies within the range of the Navajo Nation Reservation and is accessible from U. S. Highway 163. Monument Valley has been featured in many forms of media since the 1930s, the area is part of the Colorado Plateau. The elevation of the valley ranges from 5,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level. The floor is largely siltstone of the Cutler Group, or sand derived from it, the valleys vivid red color comes from iron oxide exposed in the weathered siltstone. The darker, blue-gray rocks in the valley get their color from manganese oxide, the buttes are clearly stratified, with three principal layers. The lowest layer is the Organ Rock Shale, the middle is de Chelly Sandstone, the valley includes large stone structures including the famed Eye of the Sun. Monument Valley is officially a large area includes much of the area surrounding Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. Oljato, for example, is also within the designated as Monument Valley. Visitors may pay a fee and drive through the park on a 17-mile dirt road. Parts of Monument Valley, such as Mystery Valley and Hunts Mesa, are only by guided tour. Monument Valley experiences a climate with cold winters and hot summers. While the summers may be hot, the heat is tempered by the high altitude. Although the valley experiences an average of 54 days above 90 °F annually, summer nights are comfortably cool, and temperatures drop quickly after sunset. Winters are cold, but daytime highs are usually above freezing, even in the winter, temperatures below 0 °F are uncommon, though possible. Monument Valley receives a light snowfall in the winter, however. Monument Valley has been featured in computer games, films. Valley of the Gods Thomas J
5.
Navajo Nation
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This is the largest land area retained by a U. S. tribe, with a total population of 173,667. The original territory has expanded several times since the 1800s. In 2016 under the Tribal Nations Buy-Back Program, some 149,524 acres of land were returned by the Department of Interior to the Navajo Nation for tribal communal use, the program is intended to help restore the land bases of reservations. The executive system manages a large law enforcement and social services apparatus, health services, Diné College, the population continues to disproportionately struggle with health problems, unemployment, and the effects of past uranium mining accidents. In English, the name for the area was Navajo Indian Reservation. On April 15,1969, the changed its official name to the Navajo Nation. This was a period of Native American activism and assertion of sovereignty, in 1994, the Tribal Council rejected a proposal to change the official designation from Navajo to Diné. It was remarked that the name Diné represented the time of suffering before the Long Walk, in Navajo, the geographic entity with its legally defined borders is known as Naabeehó Bináhásdzo. This contrasts with Diné Bikéyah and Naabeehó Bikéyah for the idea of Navajoland. Neither of these terms should be confused with Dinétah, the used for the traditional homeland of the Navajo. It is situated in the area among the four sacred Navajo mountains of Dookʼoʼoosłííd, Dibé Ntsaa, Sisnaajiní, the Navajo peoples tradition of governance is rooted in their clans and oral history. The clan system of the Diné is integral to their society, singer argues in 2007s Government Reform Project. In the mid-19th century, the Navajo were forced from their lands by the US Army following defeat, after they were allowed to return, the Navajo Indian Reservation was established according to the Treaty of 1868 with the United States. Though the treaty had provided for one hundred miles in the New Mexico Territory. This initial piece of land is represented in the design of the Navajo Nations flag by a dark-brown rectangle, as no physical boundaries or signposts were set in place, many Navajo ignored these formal boundaries and returned to where they had been living prior to captivity. A significant population of Navajo still resided along the Little Colorado and Colorado rivers and they had never lived in the Hwéeldi near. The first expansion of the territory occurred on October 28,1878, further additions followed throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. The eastern border was shaped primarily as a result of allotments of land to individual households under the Dawes Act of 1887, the government determined that land left over after all members had received allotments was to be considered surplus and available for sale to non-Native Americans
6.
Arizona
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Arizona is a state in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the Western United States and the Mountain West states and it is the sixth largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix, Arizona is one of the Four Corners states. It has borders with New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, California, and Mexico, Arizonas border with Mexico is 389 miles long, on the northern border of the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California. Arizona is the 48th state and last of the states to be admitted to the Union. Historically part of the territory of Alta California in New Spain, after being defeated in the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded much of this territory to the United States in 1848. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase, Southern Arizona is known for its desert climate, with very hot summers and mild winters. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff, Alpine, in addition to the Grand Canyon National Park, there are several national forests, national parks, and national monuments. To the European settlers, their pronunciation sounded like Arissona, the area is still known as alĭ ṣonak in the Oodham language. Another possible origin is the Basque phrase haritz ona, as there were numerous Basque sheepherders in the area, There is a misconception that the states name originated from the Spanish term Árida Zona. See also lists of counties, islands, rivers, lakes, state parks, national parks, Arizona is in the Southwestern United States as one of the Four Corners states. Arizona is the sixth largest state by area, ranked after New Mexico, of the states 113,998 square miles, approximately 15% is privately owned. The remaining area is public forest and park land, state trust land, Arizona is well known for its desert Basin and Range region in the states southern portions, which is rich in a landscape of xerophyte plants such as the cactus. This regions topography was shaped by volcanism, followed by the cooling-off. Its climate has hot summers and mild winters. The state is well known for its pine-covered north-central portion of the high country of the Colorado Plateau. Like other states of the Southwest United States, Arizona has an abundance of mountains, despite the states aridity, 27% of Arizona is forest, a percentage comparable to modern-day France or Germany. The worlds largest stand of pine trees is in Arizona
7.
Utah
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Utah is a state in the western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the U. S. on January 4,1896, Utah is the 13th-largest by area, 31st-most-populous, and 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Utah has a population of more than 3 million, approximately 80% of whom live along the Wasatch Front, Utah is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast, approximately 62% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS, which greatly influences Utahn culture and daily life. The LDS Churchs world headquarters is located in Salt Lake City, Utah is the only state with a majority population belonging to a single church. The state is a center of transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, in 2013, the U. S. Census Bureau estimated that Utah had the second fastest-growing population of any state. St. George was the metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah also has the 14th highest median income and the least income inequality of any U. S. state. A2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the best state to live in based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, the name Utah is derived from the name of the Ute tribe. It means people of the mountains in the Ute language, according to other sources Utah is derived from the Apache name Yudah which means Tall. These Native American tribes are subgroups of the Ute-Aztec Native American ethnicity and were sedentary, the Ancestral Pueblo people built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century. Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century, in the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people, also settled in the region. These five groups were present when the first European explorers arrived, the southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California, the expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region, but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature, in 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California. European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada, the city of Provo, Utah was named for one, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah was named after Peter Skene Ogden, in late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the salinity of its waters, Bridger thought he had found the Pacific Ocean
8.
Ute Mountain Ute Tribe
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The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe is one of three federally recognized tribes of the Ute Nation, and are mostly descendants of the historic Weeminuche Band who moved to the Southern Ute reservation in 1897. Their reservation is headquartered at Towaoc, Colorado on the Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation in southwestern Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe are descendants of the Weeminuche band who moved to the Southern Ute reservation in 1897. The use of lands in the Four Corners area, where the Ute Mountain Ute tribe now live, though, most anthropologists agree that Utes were established in the Four Corners area by 1500 C. E. The Ute people were hunters and gatherers who moved on foot to hunting grounds, the men hunted animals, including deer, antelope, buffalo, rabbits, and other small mammals and birds. Women gathered grasses, nuts, berries, roots, and greens in woven baskets, They also processed and stored meat, Ute in the western part of their territory lived in wickiups and ramadas, Hide tipis were used in the eastern reaches of their territory. As a result of American westward expansion, the Utes now possess only a fraction of the land that they once traveled seasonally. The Ute people consist of three populations of people, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation near Fort Duchesne in northeastern Utah, the Southern Ute live on a reservation in southwestern Colorado near Ignacio. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe headquartered in Towaoc, Colorado, the subjects of this article, the Mesa Verde Region, the present day area containing the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe reservation and the Mesa Verde National Park, was the northern most edge of the colonial territory of Spain. Initial exploration of the American Southwest by the Spanish occurred in 1540 and they established their first capital near the pueblo of Ohkay Owingeh, which they renamed San Juan de los Caballeros. In 1626 an account was taken of the Utes by a Spanish scribe in New Mexico, about 1640 the Utes began trading with the Spanish for horses. Spanish traders followed trails to Ute villages and Utes traveled to New Mexican towns, the Utes brought buckskin, dried meats, furs, and slaves to exchange for horses, knives, and blankets. Spanish officials negotiate the first peace treaty with the Utes in 1670, in search of gold, Juan de Rivera made three expeditions between 1761 and 1765 from Taos through southwestern Colorado to the Gunnison River. He did not return with gold, but did trade with Utes. Beset by hunger and illness, the men turned back at Salt Lake Valley, the maps and information provided from the expedition provided useful information for future travel and their route from Santa Fe to the Salt Lake Valley became known as the Old Spanish Trail. The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819 established a boundary line between Spanish and United States possessions in the southwest. Spanish territory included the southern plains, a part of the western Rocky Mountains. Even with the boundary, the Spanish did little to maintain their northern borders, when Mexico gained its independence from Spain, the Spanish lands became Mexican land. American fur trappers headed into the frontier in 1811 and encountered the Utes
9.
Colorado
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Colorado is a state in the United States encompassing most of the Southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is part of the Western United States, the Southwestern United States, Colorado is the 8th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the 50 United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Colorado was 5,540,545 on July 1,2016, the state was named for the Colorado River, which Spanish travelers named the Río Colorado for the ruddy silt the river carried from the mountains. The Territory of Colorado was organized on February 28,1861, Colorado is nicknamed the Centennial State because it became a state in the same year as the centennial of the United States Declaration of Independence. Colorado is noted for its landscape of mountains, forests, high plains, mesas, canyons, plateaus, rivers. Denver is the capital and the most populous city of Colorado, residents of the state are properly known as Coloradans, although the term Coloradoan has been used archaically and lives on in the title of Fort Collins newspaper, the Coloradoan. Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are the states which have boundaries defined solely by lines of latitude and longitude. The summit of Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet elevation in Lake County is the highest point in Colorado, Colorado is the only U. S. state that lies entirely above 1,000 meters elevation. The point where the Arikaree River flows out of Yuma County, Colorado and this point, which holds the distinction of being the highest low elevation point of any state, is higher than the high elevation points of 18 states and the District of Columbia. A little less than one half of the area of Colorado is flat, East of the Rocky Mountains are the Colorado Eastern Plains of the High Plains, the section of the Great Plains within Nebraska at elevations ranging from roughly 3,350 to 7,500 feet. The Colorado plains were mostly prairies, but they have many patches of forests, buttes. Eastern Colorado is presently covered in farmland and rangeland, along with small farming villages. Precipitation is fair, averaging from 15 to 25 inches annually, corn, wheat, hay, soybeans, and oats are all typical crops, and most of the villages and towns in this region boast both a water tower and a grain elevator. Irrigation water is available from the South Platte, the Arkansas River, and a few other streams, however, heavy use of ground water from wells for irrigation has caused underground water reserves to decline. As well as agriculture, eastern Colorado hosts considerable livestock, such as cattle ranches. Roughly 70% of Colorados population resides along the edge of the Rocky Mountains in the Front Range Urban Corridor between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Pueblo, Colorado. This region is protected from prevailing storms that blow in from the Pacific Ocean region by the high Rockies in the middle of Colorado. The Front Range includes Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Loveland, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Greeley and other townships, on the other side of the Rockies, the significant population centers in Western Colorado are the cities of Grand Junction, Durango, and Montrose
10.
New Mexico
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New Mexico is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States of America. It was admitted to the Union as the 47th state on January 6,1912 and it is usually considered one of the Mountain States. New Mexico is fifth by area, the 36th-most populous, inhabited by Native Americans for thousands of years before European exploration, New Mexico was colonized by the Spanish in 1598 Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain. Later, it was part of independent Mexico before becoming a U. S. territory and eventually a U. S. state as a result of the Mexican–American War. Among U. S. states, New Mexico has the highest percentage of Hispanics, the major Native American nations in the state are Navajo, Pueblo, and Apache peoples. The demography and culture of the state are shaped by these strong Hispanic and Native American influences and its scarlet and gold colors are taken from the royal standards of Spain, along with the ancient sun symbol of the Zia, a Pueblo-related tribe. New Mexico, or Nuevo México in Spanish, is incorrectly believed to have taken its name from the nation of Mexico. The name simply stuck, even though the area had no connection to Mexico or the Mexica Indian tribes, Mexico, formerly a part of New Spain, adopted its name centuries later in 1821, after winning independence from Spanish rule. New Mexico was a part of the independent Mexican Empire and Federal Republic of Mexico for 27 years,1821 through 1848, New Mexico and Mexico developed as neighboring Spanish-speaking communities under Spanish rule, with relatively independent histories. The states total area is 121,412 square miles, the eastern border of New Mexico lies along 103° W longitude with the state of Oklahoma, and 2.2 miles west of 103° W longitude with Texas. On the southern border, Texas makes up the eastern two-thirds, while the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora make up the western third, the western border with Arizona runs along the 109°03 W longitude. The southwestern corner of the state is known as the Bootheel, the 37° N latitude parallel forms the northern boundary with Colorado. The states New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah come together at the Four Corners in the corner of New Mexico. New Mexico, although a state, has very little water. Its surface water area is about 250 square miles, the New Mexican landscape ranges from wide, rose-colored deserts to broken mesas to high, snow-capped peaks. Despite New Mexicos arid image, heavily forested mountain wildernesses cover a significant portion of the state, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost part of the Rocky Mountains, run roughly north-south along the east side of the Rio Grande in the rugged, pastoral north. The most important of New Mexicos rivers are the Rio Grande, Pecos, Canadian, San Juan, the Rio Grande is tied for the fourth-longest river in the United States. Tourists visiting these sites bring significant money to the state, other areas of geographical and scenic interest include Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument and the Gila Wilderness in the southwest of the state
11.
Flag of the United States
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The flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag, is the national flag of the United States. S. Nicknames for the flag include The Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, the current design of the U. S. flag is its 27th, the design of the flag has been modified officially 26 times since 1777. The 48-star flag was in effect for 47 years until the 49-star version became official on July 4,1959, the 50-star flag was ordered by the then president Eisenhower on August 21,1959, and was adopted in July 1960. It is the version of the U. S. flag and has been in use for over 56 years. At the time of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, the flag contemporaneously known as the Continental Colors has historically been referred to as the first national flag. The name Grand Union was first applied to the Continental Colors by George Preble in his 1872 history of the American flag, the flag closely resembles the British East India Company flag of the era, and Sir Charles Fawcett argued in 1937 that the company flag inspired the design. Both flags could have been constructed by adding white stripes to a British Red Ensign. However, an East India Company flag could have nine to 13 stripes. In any case, both the stripes and the stars have precedents in classical heraldry, Flag Day is now observed on June 14 of each year. While scholars still argue about this, tradition holds that the new flag was first hoisted in June 1777 by the Continental Army at the Middlebrook encampment. The first official U. S. flag flown during battle was on August 3,1777, Massachusetts reinforcements brought news of the adoption by Congress of the official flag to Fort Schuyler. A voucher is extant that Capt. Swartwout of Dutchess County was paid by Congress for his coat for the flag, the 1777 resolution was most probably meant to define a naval ensign. In the late 18th century, the notion of a flag did not yet exist. The flag resolution appears between other resolutions from the Marine Committee, on May 10,1779, Secretary of the Board of War Richard Peters expressed concern it is not yet settled what is the Standard of the United States. However, the term, Standard, referred to a standard for the Army of the United States. Each regiment was to carry the standard in addition to its regimental standard. The national standard was not a reference to the national or naval flag, the appearance was up to the maker of the flag. Some flag makers arranged the stars into one big star, in a circle or in rows, one arrangement features 13 five-pointed stars arranged in a circle, with the stars arranged pointing outwards from the circle, the so-called Betsy Ross flag
12.
Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad
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The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad is a 3 ft narrow gauge heritage railroad that operates 45.2 miles of track between Durango and Silverton, in the U. S. state of Colorado. The railway is a federally designated National Historic Landmark and is designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. The route was opened in 1882 by the Denver & Rio Grande Railway to transport silver. The line was an extension of the D&RG3 ft narrow gauge line from Antonito, Colorado, the last train to operate into Durango from the east was on December 6,1968. The states of New Mexico and Colorado purchased 64 miles between Antonito and Chama, New Mexico, in 1970 and operates today as the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, trackage between Chama and Durango was removed by 1971. In March 1981, the Denver & Rio Grande Western sold the line, some rolling stock dates back to the 1880s. Trains operate from Durango to the Cascade Wye in the winter months, Durango depot was built in January 1882 and has been preserved in original form. William Jackson Palmer was a former Union General who came to Colorado after managing the construction of the Kansas Pacific Railroad into Denver in 1870, prior to the war, he had risen within the ranks of the Pennsylvania Railroad serving as secretary to the president. After arriving in Denver, he formulated a plan to build a 3 ft narrow gauge railroad southward from Denver to El Paso, in 1871, the Denver & Rio Grande Railway began to lay rails south from Denver. The original north-south plans of the D&RG eventually expanded to include extensions throughout the mining country of central. On August 5,1881 the Denver & Rio Grande Railway arrived in Durango, the new town was founded by the D&RG in 1880 chiefly through the talents and organization of General Palmers business partner Dr. William Bell. Construction to Silverton, Colorado began that fall, only 11 months later, the D&RG reached Silverton on July 10,1882. Trains hauling passengers and freight began immediately, eventually, the railroad became widely known as the Rio Grande. The Silverton branch, as it known, struggled under D&RG ownership following the Panic of 1893. Annual snowslides and several major floods on the branch would continue to challenge the railroads ability to survive. After World War II, domestic tourism began to grow across the country, bolstered by national exposure via Hollywood movies being filmed along the line in the late 1940s, the railroad began to see a gradual increase in passenger traffic on the mixed train to Silverton. In 1950, the railroad adorned a locomotive and four coaches with a paint scheme. With this effort, The Painted Train officially started a new era of tourism that continues to this day, by the 1960s, a modernized D&RGW did not see the Silverton Branch as worthy to maintain and a petition was filed with governmental agencies to abandon the route
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Four Corners travel guide from Wikivoyage