National Park Service
The National Park Service is an agency of the United States federal government that manages all national parks, many national monuments, other conservation and historical properties with various title designations. It was created on August 25, 1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act and is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior; the NPS is charged with a dual role of preserving the ecological and historical integrity of the places entrusted to its management, while making them available and accessible for public use and enjoyment. As of 2018, the NPS employs 27,000 employees who oversee 419 units, of which 61 are designated national parks. National parks and national monuments in the United States were individually managed under the auspices of the Department of the Interior; the movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded by business magnate and conservationist Stephen Mather, as well as J. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for the Department of the Interior.
They wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic and historic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational and recreational benefits. This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service. On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill that mandated the agency "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS. On March 3, 1933, President Herbert Hoover signed the Reorganization Act of 1933; the act would allow the President to reorganize the executive branch of the United States government. It wasn't until that summer when the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, made use of this power. Deputy Director Horace M. Albright had suggested to President Roosevelt that the historic sites from the American Civil War should be managed by the National Park Service, rather than the War Department.
President Roosevelt issued two Executive orders to make it happen. These two executive orders not only transferred to the National Park Service all the War Department historic sites, but the national monuments managed by the Department of Agriculture and the parks in and around the capital, run by an independent office. In 1951, Conrad Wirth became director of the National Park Service and went to work on bringing park facilities up to the standards that the public expected; the demand for parks after the end of the World War II had left the parks overburdened with demands that could not be met. In 1952, with the support of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he began Mission 66, a ten-year effort to upgrade and expand park facilities for the 50th anniversary of the Park Service. New parks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities were upgraded and expanded. In 1966, as the Park Service turned 50 years old, emphasis began to turn from just saving great and wonderful scenery and unique natural features to making parks accessible to the public.
Director George Hartzog began the process with the creation of the National Lakeshores and National Recreation Areas. Since its inception in 1916, the National Park Service has managed each of the United States' national parks, which have grown in number over the years to 60. Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States. In 1872, there was no state government to manage it, so the federal government assumed direct control. Yosemite National Park began as a state park. Yosemite was returned to federal ownership. At first, each national park was managed independently, with varying degrees of success. In Yellowstone, the civilian staff was replaced by the U. S. Army in 1886. Due to the irregularities in managing these national treasures, Stephen Mather petitioned the federal government to improve the situation. In response, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane challenged him to lobby for creating a new agency, the National Park Service, to manage all national parks and some national monuments.
Mather was successful with the ratification of the National Park Service Organic Act in 1916. The agency was given authority over other protected areas, many with varying designations as Congress created them; the National Park System includes. The title or designation of a unit need not include the term park; the System as a whole is considered to be a national treasure of the United States, some of the more famous national parks and monuments are sometimes referred to metaphorically as "crown jewels". The system encompasses 84.4 million acres, of which more than 4.3 million acres remain in private ownership. The largest unit is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. At 13,200,000 acres, it is over 16 percent of the entire system; the smallest unit in the system is Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial, Pennsylvania, at 0.02 acre. In addition to administering its units and other properties, the National Park Service provides technical and financial assistance to several "affiliated areas" authorized by Congress.
The largest affiliated area is New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve at 1,164,025 acres. The smallest is Benjamin Franklin National Memorial at less than 0.01 acres. Although all units of the Nat
National Register of Historic Places listings in Hawaii
This is a list of properties and historic districts in Hawaii listed on the National Register of Historic Places. More than 340 listings appear on all but one of Hawaii's main islands and the Northwestern Islands, in all of its five counties. Included are houses, archeological sites, ships and various other types of listings; these properties and districts are listed beginning at the northwestern end of the chain. This National Park Service list is complete through NPS recent listings posted April 12, 2019; the following are approximate tallies of current listings by county. These counts are based on entries in the National Register Information Database as of April 24, 2008 and new weekly listings posted since on the National Register of Historic Places web site, all of which list properties by county. There are frequent additions to the listings and occasional delistings, the counts here are approximate and not official. New entries are added to the official Register on a weekly basis; the counts in this table exclude boundary increase and decrease listings which modify the area covered by an existing property or district and which carry a separate National Register reference number.
The number of NRHP listings on each island are documented by tables in each of the individual island lists, the number of listings in each county is determined by adding the totals of the islands in that county. Kalawao and Maui counties are the sole exception: Kalawao County is a peninsula on Molokai, otherwise a part of Maui County. Many small islands, all uninhabited, lie northwest of Kauai, they are included despite the vast distance between them and Oahu. Kauai is the northernmost of the major islands of Hawaii, except for Niihau, the westernmost. Together with Niihau, it forms Kauai County. Oahu is the only major island in Honolulu County; the location of the city of Honolulu, Oahu is the most populous island in the state. Molokai is the northernmost of the islands of Maui County. Unlike every other island in the state, it is divided between two counties: Kalawao County consists of the island's northern peninsula. Lanai is the smallest of the populated islands of Maui County, lying between the islands of Maui and Molokai.
Maui is the easternmost island of Maui County. Kahoolawe is the southernmost island of Maui County. Alone among the state's major islands, it is uninhabited; the government of the island of Hawaii is Hawaii County, the only county that covers one island, the largest in area in the state. There are 67 properties and districts on the island, including 10 historic districts, six National Historic Landmarks, one, a National Historic Landmark District. Historic Hawaii Foundation Inventory of Historic Properties on official Hawaii State web site
National Register of Historic Places listings in Arizona
This is a directory of properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Arizona. There are about fourteen hundred listed sites in the state, each of its fifteen counties has at least ten listings on the National Register. Forty-five of the state's sites are further designated as National Historic Landmarks; this National Park Service list is complete through NPS recent listings posted April 12, 2019. The following are approximate tallies of current listings in Arizona on the National Register of Historic Places; these counts are based on entries in the National Register Information Database as of April 24, 2008 and new weekly listings posted since on the National Register of Historic Places web site. There are frequent additions to the listings and occasional delistings, the counts here are not official; the counts in this table exclude boundary increase and decrease listings which modify the area covered by an existing property or district and which carry a separate National Register reference number.
List of National Historic Landmarks in Arizona List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Arizona
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth is a city in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 21,233, in 2017 the estimated population was 21,796. A historic seaport and popular summer tourist destination on the Piscataqua River bordering the state of Maine, Portsmouth was the home of the Strategic Air Command's Pease Air Force Base, since converted to Portsmouth International Airport at Pease. American Indians of the Abenaki and other Algonquian languages-speaking nations, their predecessors, inhabited the territory of coastal New Hampshire for thousands of years before European contact; the first known European to explore and write about the area was Martin Pring in 1603. The Piscataqua River forms a good natural harbor; the west bank of the harbor was settled by English colonists in 1630 and named Strawbery Banke, after the many wild strawberries growing there. The village was fortified by Fort Mary. Strategically located for trade between upstream industries and mercantile interests abroad, the port prospered.
Fishing and shipbuilding were principal businesses of the region. Enslaved Africans were imported as laborers as early as 1645 and were integral to building the city's prosperity. Portsmouth was part of the Triangle Trade. At the town's incorporation in 1653, it was named Portsmouth in honor of the colony's founder, John Mason, he had been captain of the port of Portsmouth, England, in the county of Hampshire, for which New Hampshire is named. When Queen Anne's War ended in 1712, Governor Joseph Dudley selected the town to host negotiations for the 1713 Treaty of Portsmouth, which temporarily ended hostilities between the Abenaki Indians and English settlements of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire. In 1774, in the lead-up to the Revolution, Paul Revere rode to Portsmouth warning that the British were coming, with warships to subdue the port. Although Fort William and Mary protected the harbor, the rebel government moved the capital inland to Exeter, safe from the Royal Navy.
The Navy bombarded Falmouth on October 18, 1775. African Americans helped defend New England during the war. In 1779, 19 slaves from Portsmouth wrote a petition to the state legislature and asked that it abolish slavery, in recognition of their war contributions and in keeping with the principles of the Revolution, their petition was not answered, but New Hampshire ended slavery. Thomas Jefferson's 1807 embargo against trade with Britain withered New England's trade with Canada, several local fortunes were lost. Others were gained by men who were privateers during the War of 1812. In 1849, Portsmouth was incorporated as a city. Once one of the nation's busiest ports and shipbuilding cities, Portsmouth expressed its wealth in fine architecture, it has significant examples of Colonial and Federal style houses, some of which are now museums. Portsmouth's heart has stately brick Federalist stores and townhouses, built all-of-a-piece after devastating early 19th-century fires; the worst was in 1813. A fire district was created that required all new buildings within its boundaries to be built of brick with slate roofs.
The city was noted for the production of boldly wood-veneered Federalist furniture by the master cabinet maker Langley Boardman. The Industrial Revolution spurred economic growth in New Hampshire mill towns such as Dover, Laconia, Manchester and Rochester, where rivers provided water power for the mills, it shifted growth to the new mill towns. The port of Portsmouth declined, but the city survived Victorian-era doldrums, a time described in the works of Thomas Bailey Aldrich in his 1869 novel The Story of a Bad Boy. In the 20th century, the city founded a Historic District Commission, which has worked to protect much of the city's irreplaceable architectural legacy. In 2008, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Portsmouth one of the "Dozen Distinctive Destinations"; the compact and walkable downtown on the waterfront draws tourists and artists, who each summer throng the cafes and shops around Market Square. Portsmouth annually celebrates the revitalization of its downtown with Market Square Day, a celebration dating back to 1977, produced by the non-profit Pro Portsmouth, Inc.
Portsmouth shipbuilding history has had a long symbiotic relationship with Kittery, across the Piscataqua River. In 1781–1782, the naval hero John Paul Jones lived in Portsmouth while he supervised construction of his ship Ranger, built on nearby Badger's Island in Kittery. During that time, he boarded at the Captain Gregory Purcell house, which now bears Jones' name, as it is the only surviving property in the United States associated with him. Built by the master housewright Hopestill Cheswell, an African American, it has been designated as a National Historic Landmark, it now serves as the Portsmouth Historical Society Museum. The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, established in 1800 as the first federal navy yard, is on Seavey's Island in Kittery, Maine; the base is famous for being the site of the 1905 signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth which ended the Russo-Japanese War. Though US President Theodore Roosevelt orchestrated the peace conference that brought Russian and Japanese diplomats to Portsmouth and the Shipyard, he never came to Portsmouth, relying on the Navy and people of New Hampshire as the hosts.
Roosevelt won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomacy in bringing about an end to the War. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 16.8 square miles, of
National Register of Historic Places listings in Alaska
This is a list of properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Alaska. There are 400 listed sites in Alaska; each of the state's 28 boroughs and census areas has at least two listings on the National Register, except for the Kusilvak Census Area, which has none. This National Park Service list is complete through NPS recent listings posted April 12, 2019; the following are approximate tallies of current listings in Alaska on the National Register of Historic Places. These counts are based on entries in the National Register Information Database as of April 24, 2008 and new weekly listings posted since on the National Register of Historic Places web site. There are frequent additions to the listings and occasional delistings, the counts here are not official; the counts in this table exclude boundary increase and decrease listings which modify the area covered by an existing property or district and which carry a separate National Register reference number. List of National Historic Landmarks in Alaska Aviation history in Alaska — National Register of Historic Places travel itinerary
National Register of Historic Places listings in Georgia
This is a list of the more than 2,000 properties and historic districts in the U. S. state of Georgia that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Listings are distributed across all of Georgia's 159 counties. Listings for the city of Atlanta are in Fulton County's list but spill over into DeKalb County's list; this National Park Service list is complete through NPS recent listings posted April 12, 2019. The following are tallies of current listings by county. List of National Historic Landmarks in Georgia List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Georgia
National Register of Historic Places listings in Florida
There are more than 1,700 properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Florida. They are distributed through 66 of the state's 67 counties. Of these, 42 are National Historic Landmarks; this National Park Service list is complete through NPS recent listings posted April 12, 2019. The following are approximate tallies of current listings in Florida on the National Register of Historic Places; these counts are based on entries in the National Register Information Database as of April 20, 2018 and new weekly listings posted since on the National Register of Historic Places website. There are frequent additions to the listings and occasional delistings and the counts here are not official; the counts in this table exclude boundary increase and decrease listings which modify the area covered by an existing property or district and which carry a separate National Register reference number. Florida Underwater Archaeological Preserve List of botanical gardens in Florida List of Florida state parks List of National Historic Landmarks in Florida List of operating lighthouses in Florida List of Woman's Clubhouses in Florida on the National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Submissions in Florida List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Florida National Historic Landmarks Program Florida's Shipwrecks - 300 Years of Maritime History National Register: Aboard the Underground Railroad NRHP profiles by county
