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High schoolers preserved a Japanese internment camp for decades. Now, it’s a national park.

via Wikimedia Commons and Wikimedia Commons

The Amache Internment Camp near Granada, Colorado.

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, a wave of fear ran through the country that led America to violate the civil liberties of tens of thousands of its own citizens. In 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans and people of Japanese ancestry in ten camps throughout the country.

Two-thirds of those interned were U.S. citizens.

The smallest of the camps, Amache in southeast Colorado, housed around 10,000 internees from 1942 to 1945, with a peak of 7,318 in 1943.

At the camp, internees lived in military-style barracks. Some worked producing agricultural products and others labored in the silkscreen shop or at the cooperative store. The camp also had a barbershop, schools for children and a hospital. Amache also had the largest number of internees volunteer or be drafted into service during World War II of any internment camp.

After the war, in 1947, most of Amache’s original building stock was sold through the War Assets Administration.

Registering the first arrivals at the Amache Internment Camp.

via Wikimedia Commons.

The Japanese internment was one of America’s most shameful acts of cowardice and bigotry. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan formally apologized for the atrocity calling it a “grave wrong” and used the moment to reaffirm “our commitment as a nation to equal justice under the law.”

John Hopper was a new social studies teacher at Granada High School in Colorado when he first visited the plot of land where the Amache Internment Camp once stood. “It just looked like a sagebrush cactus hill with cattle on it,” he told the Christian Science Monitor.

Three years later, some of Hopper’s “really bright and willing students” wanted to interview a camp survivor, which led him to create a nonprofit, the Amache Preservation Society (APS). The extracurricular activities surrounding Amache and its history soon evolved into a class at Granada.

Over the years, students enrolled in the class have worked on the preservation of the site by tending to the cemetery or other landmarks. They have helped to work at the Amache Museum as docents or on the site as tour guides.

“The first time I ever saw John’s kids give a presentation, ... I thought, OK, this is what this is all about,” Bonnie Clark, an anthropology professor at the University of Denver and leader of the DU Amache Project, told Christian Science Monitor. “They are super engaged.”

Over the years, thanks in part to work done by the students, Amache has been a place for camp survivors and their descendants to visit and pay homage to loved ones while keeping the memory of the tragedy alive.

View of Granada War Relocation Center from the interpretive signs at the entrance.

via Wikimedia Commons

For the students, caring for Amache and its history has been a lesson in compassion.

“It’s taught me a lot about empathy,” Bailey Hernandez, a junior, said. “You start to think, well, how would I have reacted if my family was forced into one of these camps?”

For Hopper, now the dean of students at Granada School District RE-1, it’s an opportunity to teach students about individual rights in a very real way.

“It is a heavy, heavy topic, especially when you talk about civil liberties,” he said. “But that’s part of my job I enjoy talking about–needs to be talked about.”

In 2006, Amache was designated as a national historic landmark, and last month, President Joe Biden made it part of the National Park Service. But in a way, it was already being treated that way by the students of Granada and Hopper.

The Japanese internment during World War II was a catastrophic lapse in judgment by the American people and its leaders that should never happen again. The best way to ensure that is by remembering our past and never forgetting its lessons. Hopper and his students’ incredible work has kept those priceless memories alive for future generations, thus helping to protect all of us from injustice.

From Your Site Articles

National Park Ranger Betty Reid Soskin just retired at age 100. That's right, 100.

Ranger Betty became a park ranger at age 85.

National Park Service/Facebook

Ranger Betty has been a park ranger since she was 85 and is just now retiring at 100.

Many of us hope to make it to our 85th birthday in good enough health to be active. Betty Reid Soskin did far more than that when she became a park ranger for the National Park Service the year she turned 85. And for the past 15 years, she has served as a ranger at Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, sharing forgotten histories of the homefront war effort.

On March 31, the National Park Service announced that Soskin was retiring—at age 100.

Go ahead and say it with me: Wow.

However, Soskin indicated years ago that such longevity shouldn't surprise us. Her mother lived until 101, her great-grandmother lived until 102 and her great-aunt lived to 107—and they all stayed busy until their passing.

In 2020, at age 98, Soskin told KTVU "I can't believe I've reached this age. Inside is 19-year-old Betty." At that point, she had cut back from giving interpretive talks from five days to one day a week after suffering a stroke five months before, but still she kept going in her service as a park ranger. She said there was something she was still meant to do.

"I haven't any idea what it is," she said. "I have no idea, except that it's there. It's something that I am to accomplish and I haven't done it yet."

Soskin has taken her work as a ranger seriously, and countless people have enjoyed hearing her unique perspective. She became a park ranger at Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park because she was driven to broaden people's understanding of the context of the war effort, including the backdrop of racism and segregation in the U.S., according to NPR.

Soskin herself was a young woman during World War II and worked as a shipyard clerk for an all-Black auxiliary lodge of the Boilermakers union. (As a Black American, she was not allowed to join as a regular member.) Her great-grandmother had been born into slavery and was still alive at that time.

"Being a primary source in the sharing of that history – my history – and giving shape to a new national park has been exciting and fulfilling,” said Soskin. “It has proven to bring meaning to my final years.”

Soskin has been honored multiple times over the years, earning the title of Woman of the Year in 1995 from the California Legislature and being given the honor of introducing President Obama at a tree-lighting ceremony. She has a California middle school named after her, and she is well aware of the importance of her role in sharing stories that history has too often overlooked.

"What gets remembered is a function of who's in the room doing the remembering," Soskin has said, according to NPR.

Soskin—or "Ranger Betty," as she's been known for the past decade and a half—spent her final day as a ranger providing an interpretive program to the public and visiting with friends. The National Park Service shared a message announcing her retirement and wishing her well.

“The National Park Service is grateful to Ranger Betty for sharing her thoughts and first-person accounts in ways that span across generations,” said Naomi Torres, acting superintendent of Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park. “She has used stories of her life on the Home Front, drawing meaning from those experiences in ways that make that history truly impactful for those of us living today.”

If you want to enjoy one of Soskin's talks, here you go. She is, in a word, riveting. May we all live as long and as well as Ranger Betty.

From Your Site Articles

When wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone, some unexpected species benefitted.

True

On a quiet hike in Yellowstone National Park, some lucky visitors might get to hear an amazing sound: the howl of a gray wolf.

A wolf howling in the Lower Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park. Image by Jim Peaco/YellowstoneNPS.

They might even get to spot one of these beautiful animals darting across the landscape. In fact, today, the chances of seeing a wolf in some parts of this park — such as Lamar Valley — are so good that some people come just to wolf-watch.

A female wolf standing in a road near the Lamar River Bridge in Yellowstone National Park. Image by Jim Peaco/YellowstoneNPS.

But for most of the 20th century, it was impossible to view these animals at all inside the park.

In fact, it was hard to see a gray wolf anywhere in the lower 48 states. That is because ever since settlers moved west, they feared the great gray wolf. The fact that wolves started killing livestock didn’t help either.

So, starting in the late 1800s up until the 1920s, wolves were hunted and poisoned by ranchers and predator control programs in order to protect people, livestock, and other “more desirable” wildlife species. In the end, not a single breeding pair of wolves remained in Yellowstone National Park.

Soda Butte Creek in Yellowstone National Park in October 1993. Image by Jim Peaco/YellowstoneNPS.

When Yellowstone lost its wolves, it caused some big problems for the whole ecosystem.

Wolves are apex predators, which means they are at the top of the food web. When wolves were eliminated, it caused what scientists call a top-down trophic cascade. In other words, the whole ecosystem became unbalanced.

“Most ecosystems are best when they’re balanced,” Doug Smith, project leader for the Wolf Restoration Project in Yellowstone, said in a National Park Service Q&A. “Having a lot of different kinds of things at moderate numbers is better than having a lot of any one thing.”

Without wolves, there was a lot of one thing: elk. And biodiversity across the entire park declined as a result.

Two bull elk at Blacktail Deer Plateau. Image by Neal Herbert/YellowstoneNPS.

Why? Because without one of their major natural predators, fewer elk were dying. Their numbers grew so much that they ended up overgrazing large areas of land, leaving them vulnerable to erosion and defoliation.

This hurt plants and other animal species. Willow and aspen trees started dying off — and that hurt the species that relied on these trees for their survival, such as the birds that use them as nesting grounds and the beavers that use the wood to build dams and survive the winter.

The numbers of rabbits and mice species fell, too, because of all the overgrazing. They simply had fewer places to hide from predators.

Everything started to change after scientists reintroduced 41 wolves into Yellowstone National Park.

A newly arrived wolf is released from its cage into a pen in 1996. Image by Jim Peaco/YellowstoneNPS.

From 1995 to 1997, wolves were captured in Canada and northwest Montana and transported to Yellowstone. Once there, each was radio-collared and temporarily penned so biologists could make sure they were healthy.

Then they were released into the wilderness of the park.

Park rangers prepare to release a wolf into the park in 1996. image by Jim Peaco/YellowstoneNPS.

The wolves thrived in their new home.

The newly formed packs spread out and established their territories, and the large populations of elk and deer provided them with ample prey. And because they were inside the national park, the animals were protected from hunters. So their numbers grew.

The Gibbon wolf pack in Yellowstone National Park. Image via Yellowstone/NPS.

Before long, the wolves started changing Yellowstone’s ecosystem all over again, but this time for the better.

The first thing that happened was the number of large prey dropped. In 1995, Yellowstone was home to about 18,000 elk, but by 2015, that number had dropped to 4,500, helping restore the ecosystem's natural balance.

Elk on Mount Everts in Yellowstone National Park in 2014. Image by Neal Herbert/YellowstoneNPS.

Scientists think this happened, at least in part, because wolves started to change their prey’s behavior. Deer and elk started avoiding areas where they could be easily hunted, such as open valleys and gorges, which caused those areas to regenerate. Plants started growing on the riverbanks and erosion decreased, causing rivers and streams to actually change course.

Meanwhile, birds, beavers, mice, and bears started returning to those once-barren areas.

A western meadowlark in Lamar Valley in the spring of 2015. Image by Neal Herbert/YellowstoneNPS.

The landscape of the whole park transformed, and the ecosystem as a whole became healthier.

A grizzly bear and her cub. Image by Jim Peaco/YellowstoneNPS.

Because they are carnivores, wolves often get a bad rap — but the Yellowstone story shows just how important they are to our planet.

The ecosystem in Yellowstone is complex and always changing, but recent history has shown scientists and ecologists how important wolves are to keeping the natural balance. It is true that wolves hunt large animals, but they are not just killers — they also help other species thrive.

A wolf from the Canyon pack in Yellowstone. Image by Diane Renkin/NPS.

We all know the story about the “the big bad wolf.” But today, Yellowstone National Park is helping us learn a different story about wolves, and this is one is a lot happier.

We can't let the government gag our scientists.

In defiance of President Donald Trump's gag order preventing Environmental Protection Agency organizations from tweeting about climate change, the Badlands National Park Twitter account began doing just that.

Within hours of the bold move, those tweets disappeared. For the rest of the day, the account was eerily silent, leaving people to wonder what befell the courageous social media manager in charge of the park's account.

Thankfully, Twitter users anticipated that the tweets might not survive for long. As soon as the tweets disappeared, a slew of accounts began posting them as screengrabs, proof that they had once existed.

With the @BadlandsNPS account quiet, other Twitter accounts picked up where it left off, tweeting out other facts about climate change along with actionable ways to support government-run climate research.

One particularly noteworthy account that has doggedly continued tweeting climate facts is @AltNatParkSer.

There are a few theories as to who is behind the account: It seems most likely to be the same staff who ran the NPS Badlands account, but another common theory is it's run by a few active and/or former employees of the entire National Parks Service. Based on their tweets, they're vehemently against government censorship of a prevalent and important issue — climate change.

Or, as their bio states, they are "the Unofficial 'Resistance' team of U.S. National Park Service. Not taxpayer subsidised! Come for rugged scenery, fossil beds, 89 million acres of landscape."

Just one day after the account started tweeting, it accumulated over 450,000 followers. On the second day, it had reached 985,000. Obviously the mission to keep science facts alive is significant to the world, at least on Twitter.

Freedom of speech is part of the First Amendment of our Constitution. Even though that is currently being threatened by the government, thanks to the power of the social media and groups like this, the gag rule will not stand.

Here are 14 tweets showing how it all went down:

1. First, @AltNatParkSer replicated the tweets that had been removed from the official Badlands National Park account.

2. Then it got honest about what likely happened to Badland's social media manager.

3. Next, it quoted a president who actually understood the threat climate change poses to humanity.

4. Then, knowing the power of a strong visual, it posted a scary photo.

5. Then it tried sending out a not-so-subtle theory as to why the Trump administration — and Trump in particular — doesn't want government organizations tweeting about climate change.

6. It also directed people toward other organizations fighting the good and true science fight.

7. And it retweeted this tweet — a dark joke from the original Badlands Twitter account.

8. Those behind @AltNatParkSer also responded truthfully to people who were curious about just what the heck they were hoping the account would do.

9. It also broke the tension with a bit of humor.

10. And it clearly explained what's at stake for the national parks.

11. As such, it needs your help to preserve vital scientific information.

12. And it empathized with the overwhelming frustration over reinvigorated pipeline projects.

13. It even created fun chants for upcoming science marches.

14. And finally, it's helping its environmentalist friends who are also running rogue accounts and fearlessly keeping science facts alive.

It's scary to watch in real time as something as innocent as a handful of scientifically accurate tweets about climate change are deleted, seemingly censored by an administration that refuses to acknowledge the danger it poses to us all.

As more and more government groups find that what they can or cannot say to the public is restricted (the Sunlight Foundation is keeping track of them here), it's up to everyday concerned citizens to help keep the truth alive.

You can easily help @AltNatParkSer by following them on Twitter and doing all the things they've suggested above. Call your representative and demand the gag rule lifted and EPA grant funding unfrozen. March for science in the Scientists' March on Washington. Donate, if you can, to the science research organizations at risk of losing their federal support.

This is not a battle that's going to be won with several rogue tweets. It's going to take time, dedication, and considerable efforts on behalf of civilians. But this a fight we can't afford to lose. For the sake of the planet and everyone you know, if you believe in science, don't stay silent.

This post was updated 5/4/2017.

This trademark fight at Yosemite could mean bizarre things for our national parks.

Yosemite National Park is home to the sprawling, beautiful Ahwahnee Hotel, a historic lodging site, built in 1927 and declared a national landmark in 1987.

The Ahwahnee Hotel's interior was used as reference for Stanley Kubrick's classic film "The Shining." I'm guessing Kubrick liked how the hallways were just wide enough for two creepy twin girls, and how the doors failed to deflect axes. Photo via Joeyp3413/Wikimedia Commons.

But before you start packing your suitcase and pull up "Ahwahnee Hotel" on your travel-deal-website-of-choice to book reservations, there's something you should know:

After 90 years, the Ahwahnee Hotel has a new name — and it's disappointingly generic.

The Ahwahnee Hotel is now The Majestic Yosemite Hotel — and it's not the only Yosemite site to have recently undergone an underwhelming renaming.

Curry Village, a small lodging town in the valley near the famous Half Dome rock formation, is now known as Half Dome Village.

The Wawona Hotel, which was built in 1876, is now known as Big Trees Lodge.

Basically, the original and historic names of many locations in Yosemite have been changed to reflect the jumble of keywords you'd enter in Google if you forgot their real names.

"You know ... that lodge with the big trees. The big trees lodge?" Photo via Rennett Stowe/Wikimedia Commons.

So why all the sudden boring name changes?

If you've ever eaten at a national park (that is, eaten something besides the squished sandwich and granola bar in your backpack), you may have noticed that much of the food is provided by private companies, not the government.

Which, in theory, is pretty cool.

It allows the parks to make money by selling retail and dining space, and park visitors get to come back from their hikes to enjoy perfectly seared, bone-in rib eyes.

Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images.

Everyone wins.

Right?

Wrong. It turns out that when a company takes over selling food and providing lodging at a national park, sometimes they also get ownership of the historic names of those locations.

Until recently, concession sites at Yosemite were handled by a company called Delaware North, a multibillion-dollar organization that claims to be "one of the largest hospitality management companies serving national and state parks."

The dining hall at Ahwahnee — I mean, The Majestic Yosemite Hotel. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

Delaware North took over concessions at Yosemite in 1993, and when it did, according to company spokeswoman Lisa Cesaro, it also had to purchase "the assets of the previous concessionaire, including its intellectual property at a cost of $115 million in today’s dollars."

In plain-speak, that means that the rights to names like "Ahwahnee" and "Wawona" were part of the package Delaware North purchased.

In 2015, Delaware North lost a $2 billion bid to renew its contract with Yosemite — and this is where things got sticky for the names of Yosemite's iconic landmarks.

Delaware North had to hand concession rights over to another company called Aramark. Delaware North also demanded to be paid back for the names it bought, asking for $51 million. The government thought that price was a "gross exaggeration" and valued the names at $3.5 million.

That conflict is still settling. But Delaware North has essentially said that while it still wants the $51 million, the National Park Service can keep the names the same ... for now.

The National Park Service then, for some reason (presumably to minimize damages), went ahead and changed all the names in Yosemite anyway.

The NPS even spent an estimated $1.7 million on temporary new signs in the process:

Photo by Rory Appleton/The Fresno Bee via AP, File.

The National Park Service may ultimately win the names back. But for now, staying at the Ahwahnee Hotel or Curry Village is a thing of the past.

To make things even more complicated, Delaware North has also made a trademark claim on the name "Yosemite National Park" itself — any time it appears on park merchandise.

In fact, T-shirts bearing the name "Yosemite National Park" have already been removed from some of the park's gift shops.

This is a huge deal! Half the reason to go to a national park is to get a hoodie with the name of the park on it. That way you can tell your awesome hiking story every time someone asks about it.

Plus ... gorgeous postcards like this one?

Photo via Bev Sykes/Flickr.

Those would be removed from stores as well. If Delaware North's trademark claim is upheld, you wouldn't even be able to mail-brag about your sweet hiking trip to your friends back home in Nebraska.

Worse yet, the National Park Service might have to start selling postcards at national park locations featuring their new, way-too-on-the-nose, generic park names — like There Are Waterfalls Here National Park or The Big One in California National Park.

In fact, if companies keep trying to hustle the National Park System out of naming rights, soon we may all be getting postcards from parks with slightly different names:

Like this one in Arizona.

Formerly known as The Grand Canyon. Image (altered) via iStock.

Or this one, from South Dakota.

Formerly known as Mount Rushmore. Image (altered) via iStock.

Or from this famous park in Wyoming.

Formerly known as Yellowstone's Old Faithful. Image (altered) via iStock.

So what's the big deal? They're just names, right?

Besides being lodged into the memories of millions of families who've passed through the park in the past 90 years, the names of Yosemite's historic sites have significant cultural value.

Yosemite Valley circa 1870. Photo by Carleton E. Watkins/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

"Ahwahnee," which means "big mouth," is the Native American name for Yosemite's central valley. "Wawona" is thought to be an onomatopoeia for the sound of the great horned owl — believed to be a guardian spirit of the area.

Changing the names of these places erases their history; those names have been around way longer than the National Park System.

Most of all, though, this is outrageous because the national parks shouldn't belong to companies. They belong to the people.

The very act that created the National Park Service stipulates that the care and conservation of the parks and wildlife therein is for the enjoyment of people and future generations.

We visit national parks with our families. We create memories there and share pictures on Instagram to get the most Likes. We pay for the upkeep and survival of the parks with our tax dollars. We make laws to protect them and protest when they're in danger. They're ours.

They should belong to all of us.

Yosemite National Park. Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images.

Filmmaker Ken Burns once called the National Park System "America's best idea," which is saying a lot ... after all, this is the country that invented the space shuttle, the cheeseburger, and christened the sacred marriage of Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin Robbins in stores across the country.

But Great Ideas™ are what America does.

It's definitely not a Great Idea™ to have the names of our historic and beautiful national parks wrapped up in a petty intellectual property battle.

That's not what our national parks are here for.

They're for loving, cherishing, and gazing up at views like this:

Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Photo by Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images.

The names of the places we visit are a key factor in the lifelong memories we create there. No company should be able to take that away.

15 national parks that'll remind you how beautiful the world really is.

Happy 100th birthday, National Park Service.

Nature is awesome, right?

Fresh air, picturesque sights, local flora and fauna — it's all pretty great, but we don't give nearly enough credit to the people who keep it that way. Pardon the pun, but nature just doesn't come, uh, naturally.

100 years ago, the U.S. National Park Service was formed and tasked with conserving "America the Beautiful." They've been doing a pretty bang-up job of it ever since.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

In honor of the agency's 100th anniversary, here's a list of 15 national parks (and a national seashore) you'll want to add to your bucket list.

1. Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park

Warm weather? Check (it's Hawaii, after all). Beaches? Check. THE AWESOMENESS THAT IS TWO ACTIVE VOLCANOES? Check.

Image by jshyun/Flickr.

2. Glacier National Park

Here's one you may want to check out sooner rather than later. Why? Well, the park used to be home to somewhere around 150 glaciers! Now? There are just 25. In the future, there may be none. To paraphrase "Total Recall," get your ass to Montana.

Image by Andrew Kalat/Flickr.

3. Channel Islands National Park

This park is made up of five of the eight Channel Islands off the California coast. Why just five of eight? Well, you know how in high school, there'd be kids who were like, "You can't sit with us!" at lunch and then you'd silently cry in the bathroom and eat your lunch alone in the auditorium? (OK, those last few parts are probably just me...) It's my guess that it's something like that, but I'm probably wrong. But in addition to that, there are beautiful beaches, stunning rock formations, and warm weather.

Image by David Wan/Flickr.

4. Everglades National Park

If you're ever in the mood to see an alligator up close (but hopefully not too close), Everglades National Park is a great place to do it. The swampy Florida ecosystem is unique, and not exactly what you'd find in Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, or wherever it is you, dear reader, are from.

Image by Diana Robinson/Flickr.

5. Zion National Park

Combining forests with epic rock formations, Zion National Park is a must-see stop should you be traveling through southern Utah.

Image by Zion National Park/Flickr.

6. Cape Cod National Seashore

What makes this eastern Massachusetts seascape so special? Well, it happens to be home to Marconi Station (if you happened to read that as "macaroni station," you are not alone), the site of the first two-way transatlantic radio transmission, and that's just way cool. It's known for its bike trails along with its views of Cape Cod Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

Image by Jasperdo/Flickr.

7. North Cascades National Park

I'm going to be honest: I put this on the list simply because it's home to the Picket mountain range. What's so interesting about that, you ask? The names of the mountains within: Mount Fury, Mount Challenger, Poltergeist Pinnacle, Mount Terror, Ghost Peak, and Phantom Peak! POLTERGEIST FREAKIN' PINNACLE? That sounds like a badass roller coaster, and now I want to ride.

Image by Rachel Samanyi/Flickr.

8. Denali National Park and Preserve

Denali National Park in Alaska is home to Denali (obviously), the highest mountain in North America. It's also home to a little bit of everything else: forests, glaciers, rock formations, mountains. Plus, it's absolutely gorgeous.

Image by Denali National Park/Flickr.

9. Grand Canyon National Park

It's the Grand freakin' Canyon. NEXT!

Image by Grand Canyon National Park/Flickr.

10. Arches National Park

As its name would suggest, Arches National Park is home to a number of arch-shaped rock formations. The coolest thing, though, is probably Balanced Rock, a formation that includes an upper portion "balancing" on the lower. If you visit, please do not throw rocks at Balanced Rock in hopes of toppling it. Resist the urge!

Image by Arches National Park/Flickr (cropped).

11. Yosemite National Park

If you're a fan of giant sequoia trees, this is the park for you. In addition to some glorious rock formations, there are three groves of ancient sequoia trees in Yosemite. With its high granite cliffs, the park provides some of the most amazing views you'll see anywhere on Earth.

Image by Matt Savener/Upworthy.

12. Yellowstone National Park

This is the O.G. of national parks, going way back to 1872. It's home to some kickass geysers (what up, Old Faithful), hot springs, incredible wildlife, and so much more. You've heard of it ... now get with it and visit!

Image by Yellowstone National Park/Flickr.

13. Acadia National Park

Here's one very special reason to visit Acadia: the sunrise. Cadillac Mountain is located within the Maine park, and it's the first place in the United States where you can see the sun rise each morning. How awesome is that?

Image by TravelUSA/Flickr.

14. Pinnacles National Park

Pinnacles is a newbie to the National Park System (it was added in 2013), but it still brings the heat when it comes to dishing out that national park goodness. Mountains? Got 'em. Trees? Yep. What makes it special, though? Well, it's home to the success story of the almost-extinct but slowly recovering California condors. Victory!

Image by Stanislav Sedov/Flickr.

15. Joshua Tree National Park

This desert national park is found in Southern California. Named after the Joshua tree (no, not the U2 album), it's a pretty cool change of pace from your usual national park experience.

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images.

So happy birthday, National Park Service! You're looking good for a centenarian! Here's to your continued success!

Interested in visiting a nearby national park? Check out the list of free days at parks around the country.