10 Awesome Facts about our Parks!

Mar 23

Our Parks Worth Fighting For pt. 2 (with bonus facts)

Did you know that the first National Park was Yellowstone, and it was established in 1872? Even though the National Park Service wasn’t established until 1920? How about this? The second National Park ever established no longer exists. Instead, Mackinac National Park is now a state park next to an airport.

Can you believe that the first Park Ranger wasn’t hired until 1880,* in Yellowstone? His name was Harry Yont. Some of the earliest park rangers were members of the U.S. Army, including Buffalo Soldiers, who were tasked with patrolling Yosemite, Sequoia, and other parks. The first women working as park rangers were hired in 1917 - Esther Bazzell (in Wind Cave National Park) and 1918? – Clair Marie Hodges (In Yellowstone) They started out as wardens and guides, but now there are park ranger jobs for almost anyone, from park police to park biologists, from programmers to search and rescue experts, from writers and artists to accountants

Or how about the fact that, although there are only 63 Parks designated as National Parks, the National Park System Manages 433 different units?

All of these are interesting and true facts about the parks, but not the 10 facts I promised. Because I could go on forever about national parks. Which is why I will be breaking this up into 2 separate blogs. The first will be the facts above and 10 of the most awesome facts I could find. The second will be even more facts, and a little more about what they all mean! in depth breakdown of why these facts are both interesting, and important.

So, with no more windup, here are the

10 of the most awesome facts

(explainers at the end)

#1. The Largest National Park is 13.2 million acres. The smallest is 0.02 acres.

#2. Crater Lake National Park holds the deepest lake in the United States. It is 1949 feet deep, (594 meters)

#3. The tallest tree in the world, Hyperion, lives inside Redwood National Park. It’s 380.8 feet tall! (116.7 meters)

#4. The newest National Parks are Chuckwalla National Monument and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument. Both established in January of 2025. *(Although they won’t be managed by the park service.)

#5. Fossils have been found at least 286 park properties, and dinosaur fossils in at least 21!

#6. The oldest fossil human footprints have been discovered at White Sands National Park! They are between 21,000 and 23,000 years old.

#7. With more than 200 recorded sites, Dry Tortugas National Park has the most shipwrecks of any National Park. Followed closely by Biscayne National Park. I wonder how many of them were pirate ships.

#8. The Junior Rangers Program began as the Junior Nature Explorers program in the 1930s in Yellowstone National Park, but the modern Junior Rangers Program was started in the 1980s.

#9. The furthest distance between two National Parks is 3,900 miles.

#10. The nearest national park is closer than you think!

With 433 units managed by the National Park Service, and an additional 128 National Monuments managed by other agencies within the Department of the Interior, there is, more than likely, a National Park Near you! And since 422 of them have Junior Ranges Programs, why don’t you visit the National Park nearest you and learn more about it but get a Junior Rangers Badge for yourself, or your kids! Maybe some of these facts will help.

Bonus fact

#11. For many National Parks, you do not have to visit to complete the Junior Rangers Program in person. Many Junior Rangers booklets can be downloaded from their parks website and completed online or by mail! This Wikipedia article has some, but not all, so visit the national park website of your favorite park to see if they have a Junior Rangers Investigative Club book!

Ok. Blog over, but if you want more information about any of the facts above, here’s a bit of Exposition!

1. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in stretches across the wilds of Alaska, covering more land than any other National Park. While Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial preserves the Revolutionary-era home of a Polish freedom fighter who designed forts for the revolutionary army.

2. Crater Lake is inside of a caldera formed after the eruption of a super-volcano known as Mount Mazama 7,700 years ago. And the last eruption took place inside the caldera forming the cinder cone known as Wizard Island. (you can take a boat out to hike it!)

3. Hyperion is easily the tallest tree. It’s also estimated to be between 7-800 years old. However, two runners up also grown nearby. They are all more than 35 stories tall! (that’s 13 stories taller than the Statue of Liberty. Although you could fit nearly 6 of them standing on top of each other inside Crater Lake)

4. I will go into this in more depth next blog, but while Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument were signed into being by President Joe Biden, it took years of collaboration between local communities, environmental agencies, state and federal politicians and indigenous tribes to get to put together the proposal for both parks, and to get that proposal onto the desk of the president. Consider this bonus fact #12. Every National Park, and National Monument, is the product of dedicated effort by countless people who want to see important places preserved, protected, and shared with the public. (And as another sneak peek for next week’s blog. Not all National Parks are managed by the National Park Service.)

5. Some of the most surprising parks with fossils are Mammoth Cave - which has fossils of sharks and other marine animals from the time before dinosaurs in the walls. Biscayne National Park, where living coral grow on fossils of their ancient ancestors. And, of course, Dinosaur National Monument with a wall of dinosaur fossils collected from a floodplain. But perhaps the most remarkable is.

6. This is about 5,000 years earlier than the previous estimate for Humans in the US. These humans shared the plains around a small lake bed with Giant Ground Sloth’s, dire wolves, mastodons, and wooly mammoths!

7. Some of the most interesting shipwrecks in the Dry Tortugas are the Brick Wreck and the Windjammer. In both the Dry Tortugas and Biscayne, there are shipwreck trails you can follow to snorkel or dive the wrecks.

8. The modern version of the Junior Rangers Program was started in the Forest Service, (instead of the Park Service) and was inspired by Smokey the Bear. But some of the earlier Junior Nature History programs had similar tasks to the modern program. Such as: Naming the 4 common minerals in Granite, and identifying 10 types of trees.

9. Acadia National Park, (the U.S.’s easternmost park) and National Park of American Samoa, (the U.S.’s westernmost and southernmost national park) are the two furthest separated national parks. Although American Samoa is at least 1,000 miles away from the rest.

10. 433 National Parks managed by the National Park Service, but I’d add the other 128 National Monuments too. We have more that 550 National Parks! That means, almost certainly, there’s one close to you.

So, again, I hope you enjoyed the 20 or so park facts! And I hope that you will use them in