The Brandywine Valley unit now covers 1,359 acres along the border of Delaware and Pennsylvania. (NPS…
Tag: National Park Service
Cavers heard wind roaring from beneath a rubble-choked pit in New Mexico; after years of digging they broke through in 1986, and more than 145 miles of Lechuguilla Cave have since been mapped
Photo: A map of Lechuguilla Cave in July 2019Photo credit: NPS For decades, Lechuguilla Cave was…
In 1972, Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson gave the Texas White House and about 600 acres to the US but kept lifetime rights; she continued living there until 2007
The property was more than a place connected to Johnson’s presidency. It was also a home…
In 1862, heirs sold Colorado’s Baca land for 30 cents an acre; 140 years later its 97,000-acre ranch sold for $31.28 million and helped create a national park nearly four times the monument’s original size
Photo: Baca Ranch House (clicked in 1920)Photo credit: Denver Public Library Collection via NPS A piece…
In 1967, Henry Pigott sold his North Carolina island home to help create Cape Lookout National Seashore; a life estate let him stay until his death as Portsmouth Village’s last male resident
When the federal government began bringing the windswept barrier islands of eastern North Carolina under protected…
In 1908, a Boston woman donated 140 acres around Maine’s Beehive and Bowl to stop future development; six years later 5,000 acres had been protected for what became Acadia
Acadia National Park was the first national park created from private lands gifted to the public…
In 2016, the Burt’s Bees co-founder gave the US 87,500 acres and backed it with $40 million; 10 years later the Maine wilderness is a national monument
Roxanne Quimby has had a life for the books. The woman who has held multiple roles…
In 1980, Miles Boekeloo sold his 365-acre Michigan wilderness retreat to the National Park Service; the deal let his family keep its cabin and 5 acres for another 25 years
Boekelodge (Image Credit: National Park Service) For decades, Miles Boekeloo and his family used a secluded…
At 20, Finnish immigrant Maggie Walz arrived in Michigan with just $7; in 1903 she claimed 160 acres on a Lake Huron island and the colony she founded grew to five settlements with around 1,000 people
Maggie Walz Photo credit: National Park Service Born Margareeta Johanna Konttra Niiranen in Tornio, Finland, in…
In 1898, 17 years after surviving the O.K. Corral gunfight, Virgil Earp claimed 160 acres in Arizona; two years later, he earned title to the land
Representative Image (AI-generated) Seventeen years after surviving the famous O.K. Corral gunfight, former Tombstone lawman Virgil…