This page is public.
Why is it a national park here, a national monument there and a national historic site somewhere else? A ranger at James A. Garfield National Historic Site in Ohio explains the National Park Service (NPS) naming system and how a park is run, in an article from August 2015.
A guided tour of the Garfield home is a must at James A. Garfield National Historic Site. Garfield campaigned for president from the home and its grounds in 1880. NPS photo.
The Service and its parts
The NPS is an agency of the federal government, in the Department of the Interior. Its parks are grouped in 7 regions: Alaska, Intermountain, Midwest, National Capital, Northeast, Pacific West and Southeast. Ohio is in the Midwest Region, which has parks in or near cities, such as Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Jefferson National Expansion Memorial; varied landscapes, such as Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve; and historic places, such as the Garfield site. At the time, the Service had 408 units across the United States plus the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Every state has at least one. The last state to join the list was Delaware, with First State National Historical Park (which includes the First State National Monument) in March 2013.
Regional offices report to the Washington, D.C. offices, the top level of the organization. Regional offices handle what parks cannot handle themselves, and Washington handles matters at the nationwide level.
Who works in a park
Work in a park is usually split among six divisions, each with a chief and other managers. Names and functions vary slightly from park to park.
| Division | What it does |
|---|---|
| Superintendent's Office | The superintendent and staff oversee every division and activity, and may work with surrounding communities and organizations |
| Administrative | Human resources and payroll, budget planning, information technology, property management and acquisition, purchasing and contracting |
| Interpretation, Education, and Visitor Services | The rangers visitors meet most: in visitor centers, leading tours and hikes, teaching students, supervising volunteers, organizing events, and behind the scenes planning programs, writing brochures and keeping the website and social media current |
| Maintenance | Upkeep of the park and its buildings and grounds, building and maintaining trails, clearing snow, and specialized work such as automotive repair |
| Visitor and Resource Protection | The law enforcement division, trained in first aid and incident response, which also runs radio traffic, weather and employee contact information and watches the park's security systems |
| Resource Management | Each park's own resources, such as historic buildings, artifacts, documents and natural features: ecosystem work like invasive species and water quality, and protection of cultural resources such as museum collections and archaeological artifacts |
The divisions must cooperate for a park to work well. Staff come from many fields, including natural resource management, biology, fisheries and wildlife, history, anthropology, park and recreation management, law enforcement, museum studies, business and public administration. Many start as seasonal staff or interns, and others come from teaching, the military, outdoor recreation or park volunteering.
Ohio's eight units
Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument (Wilberforce); Cuyahoga Valley National Park (Cleveland-Akron); Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park (Dayton); First Ladies National Historic Site (Canton); Hopewell Culture National Historical Park (Chillicothe); James A. Garfield National Historic Site (Mentor); Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial (Put-in-Bay); and William Howard Taft National Historic Site (Cincinnati). Ohio is the birthplace or home of eight U.S. presidents.
William Howard Taft National Historic Site in Cincinnati. NPS photo.
What the names mean
| Designation (example) | What it is |
|---|---|
| National Park (Acadia) | 59 units, generally large natural places with a wide variety of features and often historic or cultural elements. Hunting, mining and collecting fossils or plants are not authorized |
| National Monument (Fort Sumter) | Something built (a statue, a fort) or natural (a geologic feature). Devils Tower in Wyoming, established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, was first; the Antiquities Act, earlier that year, let presidents declare landmarks and objects of historic or scientific interest |
| National Preserve (Big Cypress) | Like a national park but allowing more activities, such as hunting, trapping and oil extraction |
| National Historic Site (Clara Barton) | Usually a single historic feature tied directly to its subject. After the Historic Sites Act of 1935 a number were set up by Secretaries of the Interior, but most have been authorized by Congress |
| National Historical Park (Cane River Creole) | Like a historic site, but extending into the surrounding area and its structures and places |
| National Memorial (Mount Rushmore) | Commemorates a person or episode, but need not stand on a site linked to its subject |
| National Battlefield (Antietam) | An umbrella for national battlefield, battlefield park, battlefield site and military park |
| National Cemetery (Poplar Grove) | 14 in the system, each run with an associated park unit and not counted separately |
| National Recreation Area (Santa Monica Mountains) | Usually on a large body of water, possibly an artificial lake such as Lake Mead, for swimming, kayaking and fishing, and/or near a very urban area |
| National Seashore (Cape Cod), Lakeshore (Apostle Islands), River (Mississippi) | Ten seashores on the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts, some developed, some primitive, and many allow hunting. Lakeshores, all on the Great Lakes, are very similar. National rivers have subcategories, and the first, Ozark National Scenic Riverways in Missouri, was authorized in 1964, with others after the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968 |
| National Parkway (Blue Ridge) | A roadway and its adjacent parkland for scenic driving, often linking cultural sites |
| National Trail (Ice Age National Scenic Trail) | Linear parklands, over 3,600 miles in all, authorized under the National Trails System Act of 1968; they often cross several states |
Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota's Black Hills is among the best known and most visited national memorials. NPS photo.
Gettysburg National Cemetery is part of Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. President Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address at its dedication on November 19, 1863. NPS photo.
Some units carry unique designations, such as President's Park (the White House), Prince William Forest Park and City of Rocks National Reserve. Denali combines two designations (National Park and Preserve), and Cuyahoga Valley changed from National Recreation Area to National Park.
The Service also helps manage affiliated sites that may or may not fit in the official count. National Historic Landmarks, nationally significant places designated by the Secretary of the Interior, number over 2,500, and the Garfield home is one of them. The National Register of Historic Places is the most inclusive list, with over 85,000 sites, from parks and town halls to submarines and mills, and can be federally, privately or locally owned. All National Historic Sites and National Historical Parks are on it.
The arrowhead is the official logo of the National Park Service. NPS.
Sources
- Katelin McArdle, Park Ranger, James A. Garfield National Historic Site, “Four Hundred and Eight Strong,” written August 2015 for the Garfield Observer, National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/four-hundred-and-eight-strong.htm); rewritten in hubnx's own words. A photograph credited to a commercial site and an unrelated vehicle photograph are left out.
In these publicationsJames A Garfield National Historic Site
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
Comments
