WEBVTT - Behold, National Parks! 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.200 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.200 and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. So the trio put together, 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:21.000 uh makes the stuff you should not. That's right. And 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:22.800 there are people working near my house. So if you 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:28.560 hear my dogs today or construction sounds, I'm sorry. Well, 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:30.720 you know what, Chuck, if we do hear that, we 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:35.120 will assume that they are the Olympia Marmot making some noise, 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:38.800 or maybe a gray wolf in yellow Stone after all 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.320 these years, and we're just gonna pretend. Okay, Okay, Yeah, 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:48.280 that's gray wolves living upstairs, reintroduced into your house, into 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:52.440 my home successfully. Yeah, yeah, sure, they've definitely got the 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:55.600 local wildlife on guard. Yeah, we needed a new apex 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.560 predator because Emily was getting tired of it. I'll bet she, Well, 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.560 she's a is the business person. I can imagine she 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:04.640 doesn't have time to be an apex predator around the 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:10.000 house too. So, Chuck, we are talking today about national parks, 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:13.200 and it's really appropriate that we're talking about them today, 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:15.240 although it would have been even more appropriate if we 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:19.039 had been talking about them two days ago. But let's 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:21.600 just skip that little part. As a matter of fact, 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:23.160 we may even edit it out. I don't want to 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.200 be a downer this early in the episode. You know 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:28.760 was two days ago. Two days ago was the one 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:33.839 hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of yellow Stone 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:36.560 as a National park. Not just the first national park 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:42.720 in America, the first national park in the entire world. Wow. Wow, Wow, 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.640 isn't that cool? That is cool? And it did date 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.760 didn't strike me when I was looking over that stuff. Hmm. 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:53.360 Thanks for the reminder. March first, eight seventy two. Um, 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:55.760 and the reason why I point out that it was 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:57.920 the first one in the world is because, um, there's 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:01.440 this uh, this writer named all A. Stagner, who's known 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.360 as the Dean of Western writers. But he said this. 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:07.680 He said that national parks are the best idea we've 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:11.680 ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic. They reflect us at 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:15.960 our best rather than our worst, which is his His 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.200 quote has been kind of picked up. You'll often see 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:22.960 like articles about the National park system as America's best idea. Yeah, 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:25.480 he did well. His hair told him too. It's not 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.520 entirely his old hair cut, which he lost and now 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.120 looks weird without and he said, shut up, I'll not 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:36.440 call it something else. Stay in line, don't make me 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.880 make you set another fire. Can I'll grow over your face. 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.680 So um. It's frequently called America's best idea, not just 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.000 because it was a good idea, and it was America's idea, 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:48.120 but because it was very quickly picked up, as we'll 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:50.959 see by countries around the world. And now it's a thing. 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:54.240 It's a genuine thing to take land and set it 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:57.280 aside and say nope, nobody can come do anything with 0:02:57.320 --> 0:02:59.079 this land. You can't cut the trees down, you can't 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.320 hunt the poor beavers off of it, you can't um, 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.720 you can't like steal the fish. You can't do anything 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.040 except come and enjoy it, and please use the garbage 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.320 cans when you do. Come and enjoy it. And that's 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.960 the point. That's what national parks are all about. That's right, 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:20.040 and thank goodness, because this is the United States, a 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:21.840 great country in many ways. But if we had not 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:26.360 done this, that would assuredly be a w hotel sitting 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.840 in the middle of Sequoya National Forest or on the 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.520 rim of the Grand Canyon. The Hilton Garden in at 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.800 the rim of the Grand Canyon, right, or quizzically a 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:41.360 holiday in express that's nowhere near an airport. You said quizzically, 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:42.880 I thought you're about to say a quiz no. Sounds 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:48.800 like yeah, that too, I'd be okay with the quiz nos. Uh. 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:51.160 So I know that you're not much of an outdoorsman, 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.520 but you you do like to look at it. I 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:56.320 like to be out doors. I'm just not like I 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:00.320 sit outside. I know about, you know, extracting what I 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:04.640 can from nature from my own personal gain on the 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:06.360 room of the Grand Canyons that are pretty nice to you. 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.960 I bet I met more like my own prawn on 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:12.200 my own energy to recharging the old batteries kind of thing. Like, 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:14.120 I get it. I get it. I just don't spend 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.760 as much time outdoors as you, right. Uh. And you know, 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.120 I've done quite a bit of traveling through national parks 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:24.839 in my life, and especially one summer um post college, 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:26.440 my best friend and I took a big two months 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:30.479 jaunt around the country, visiting places like Bryce Canyon and 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:34.640 Zion and Arches in Yosemite and the Grand Canyon and 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.000 White Sands, and it's just all as far and wide 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.400 as we could go. Basically never hit the Pacific Northwest, 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:44.480 but we we traveled many a mile and uh. One 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:47.680 of the great things about national parks is that you 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.440 can camp wherever you want to. Uh. They do have 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:54.119 their like designated camp grounds and things like that where 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.120 it's pretty competitive to get spots. But the great thing 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.200 is you can just hike in or drive around and 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.320 find a place to camp. It's called dispersed camping. And 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.800 unless there are some specific rule prohibiting that, which there 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:08.599 may be, as long as you follow the rules like 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.960 no fireworks, no firearms, uh and sometimes no fire's period. 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:16.520 Definitely don't shoot at a pile of fireworks with your firearm. 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.920 They really frown. Oh, don't do that. But but it's 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.479 great and it's kind of like one of the great 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:25.680 things about national parks is you can explore and and 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:29.039 find your own place if you don't like to sort 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:31.040 of do because they can get very touristy if you 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.919 like to go off the beaten path quite literally exactly 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.640 dispersed camping. Of course, there's some bureaucratic term for that. 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:44.279 Well let's talk history a yeah, let's because um, we 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:48.320 covered some of this in our Fantastic John Mirror episode, 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.279 which is fantastic and worth listening to if you haven't 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.680 heard it. Um. But even before John Murr came along 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.960 in about the eighteen fifties, So this is super old timing, 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.640 um you send it seems to have been and this 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.680 is taking out Lewis and Clark's um stuff. They apparently 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.800 passed just north of Yosemite and missed it, um, but 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:12.080 they had all sorts of like reports and discoveries and 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:13.880 all that stuff. We did an episode on that too, 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.440 also fantastic. That kind of got the country jazz back 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.320 east about what was out west. But apparently, if you're 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.560 talking about national parks, the real inspiration for them was 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.800 when a group called the Mariposa Battalion uh stumbled into 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.760 the Yosemite Valley in eighteen fifty one. That's right, uh, 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.480 And Yosemite is one of the most beautiful places on earth, 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.719 and that's where they were. Uh. You know. The job 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:40.520 of the mari Posts of Battalion, there's really no their 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:44.440 way to say, it was to disperse and ransack Native 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.800 American villages and and kill them if they wanted to, 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.720 and just basically uh lay waste to whatever they saw 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.120 and say this is now ours. And they were doing this, 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:59.640 and then they stopped one day and went, holy cow, uh, 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.320 look it where we are. Look at this impossibly tall waterfall. 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.560 Look at these granite cliffs, Look at these three thousand 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:09.960 year old giant Sequoia trees. You know, can we at 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.680 least appreciate this for a moment? And they did. And 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.400 there was a doctor, a young doctor named Lafayette Bunel 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.200 in the battalion and said, you know what, this place 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.120 is so amazing. Maybe we should take a break from 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:25.280 ransacking Native American villages and we should name it. Yes, 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:30.640 And they really wanted to punctuate their misunderstanding of Native 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:34.600 Americans in the various Native American cultures they encounter, so 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.440 they said, well, let's name it. What Apparently, this tribe 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:39.800 that we're in the midst of removing from this land 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:43.200 is called the Yosemite. And it turns out that tribe 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.200 was not at all called the Yosemite. They were the 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:48.640 Awa Nichi, and the Awa Niche called that place that 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:53.040 they ended up calling Yosemite Awani, meaning gaping mouth like place. 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:57.240 Yosemite means something totally different, doesn't it. It means they 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.640 are killers. It makes me wonder if like as they 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:04.400 were approaching. They were just going Yosemite, Yosemite, and they 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:06.120 were like, oh, well, that must be who they are, 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.080 when in fact they were just calling out, like you 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:11.720 guys are killers coming for us? Exactly. It was like, 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:14.880 I mean, that's how to read that, right, That's that's 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:19.160 how I took it. Yes, boy, So that's that's where 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:23.040 the name Yosemite came from. UM. And it's really I mean, 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.200 it's definitely worth saying. You can. We could actually do 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:29.320 an entire episode just on how national parks were um 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.800 part and parcel with Indian reservations UM in the in 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.679 the early nineteenth century or sorry, mid late nineteenth century. Um. 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.040 They were. They were both developed at about the same time, 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:40.600 and they were both kind of developed on the same 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:45.640 premise that this is now white settler's land, um, and 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.240 you needed to move and you should move over here 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:52.720 because now we want this beautiful land for ourselves to enjoy. UM. 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:54.719 So it's it's you just can't get around it. It's 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.000 just part of the history of national parks. Fortunately. UM, 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:00.280 it's really come a long way and in some cases 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.400 full circle to where now there's a much greater effort 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.840 among the Park Service to be like, hey, um, you 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.079 know how you used to live here. Well, we're actually 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.400 having a lot of trouble managing this lane. Could you 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:13.800 come and advise us on this and hopefully get a 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.640 job doing that kind of thing. So there's definitely a 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.679 much greater turning towards whereas before it was not just 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.880 a turning away from it was turning out. It makes 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.439 me wonder if there was has ever been a push 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:30.360 to rename Yosemite Alwani National Park or even Awa Nichi, 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.520 maybe Alwani since that's what they called it, Like, I 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.079 think that would I think the a that sounds awesome, 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.920 Alwani National Park. I imagine it would meet the usual 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:44.720 resistance when anytime something like that comes up these days. 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:46.960 But well, yeah, it's gonna run smack dab into the 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.719 argument of what about yo Samiti Sam? What are you 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.000 gonna do with him? Let's call him? I want to Sam. 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:57.360 I guess So beautiful park though, Uh this was you know, 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:00.240 word got around that there's this beautiful place that people 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.439 can visit, uh, and people started taking people there. A 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.000 guide started, you know, people that want to go see it. 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:09.120 They would wagon train them up on on horseback and 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.160 get them out there, uh, and then smacked up in 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.679 the middle of the Civil War. And you know, there 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:16.480 are a bunch of people along the way that really 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.160 like John Murror certainly one of them, and Teddy Roosevelt, 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.960 who will cover uh kind of briefly again, But there 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:23.679 are a lot of people along the way. He did 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.960 some kind of remarkable made some remarkable moves that led 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.480 to ultimately the creation of national parks. And one of 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.000 them was a senator in California named Uh. I don't know, 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.079 it's pronounced cons or conness. It's C O N and E. S. S. 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.680 And he introduced a bill that said, hey, Yosemite is great, 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.520 why don't we set aside about a little more than 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:48.280 sixties square miles of this valley for public use? And 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.880 they said that's a great idea. So it became the 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:52.800 first Uh, well, I don't know about the first, but 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:57.200 it was a state park, uh, signed enshrined by Abraham Lincoln, 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.720 not a national park at this point. But the deal 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:03.080 was you can never make this uh, you can never 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:05.920 like sell off part of it to private interests. Yeah, 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.600 there's a lot of um, a lot of argument push 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.080 back on the idea that Yosemite was the first. Everybody 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.960 knows Yellowstone was actually the first, but some people say no, 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.800 it wasn't. It wasn't Yosemite or Yellowstone. It was actually 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:21.680 Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas was the first land 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.839 set aside by the federal government for protection, all the 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:28.760 way back in eighteen thirty two. The difference is is 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.800 um it wasn't actually designated as a national park until one. 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:38.920 So that's why Hot Springs get short shrift. I just 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.280 wanted to add a little pedantry to this whole gym. 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.720 So Yellowstone all right, At this point Yosemite is still 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:50.160 state park. Yellowstone. That was about the Yellowstone comes along 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:54.360 as if you know someone someone built it uh in September. 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.720 In fact, September eighteen seventy, that was an expedition traveling 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.480 UH through Montana in what is now Yellowstone National Park. 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.200 And they were like, hey, guys, how can we like 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:10.080 divide up this land, like we can make a ton 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:13.719 of money of logging and mining and tourism. And there 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.880 was one person that stood up, It was an attorney 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:20.000 named Cornelius Hedges and said, gentleman, I have a different idea. 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:23.440 How about we do what they did in Yosemite, and 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:27.440 we make this a state park or or set aside 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.880 this land for public use, and somehow did not get 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.760 murdered in his sleep, and it would have become a 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:36.800 state park probably had it not been for the fact 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.440 that Yosemite borders what is now three different states at 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:44.280 the time, three different territories, Wyoming and Montana and Idaho. 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:51.319 So who steps in at this point the FEDS, specifically 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.640 a president, right, yeah, Ulysses S. Grant. He signed a 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.760 Yellowstone Park Protection Act, a little on the nose and 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:01.840 not even an acronym, but it were um and this 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.400 is where the first national park was established. He said 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:08.800 that the headwaters of the Yellowstone River is hereby reserved 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:13.000 and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale, and dedicated and 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.960 set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.640 the benefit right for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:24.840 And so that was March one, eighteen seventy two, when 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:28.679 he signed that into law, and Yellowstone became America and 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:33.040 the world's first national park on record. I think that's 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:37.240 a good first stopping point. I agree, alright, So we're 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:39.640 gonna go figure out what pleasuring ground meant to grant 0:13:40.520 --> 0:14:09.760 and we'll be right back right after this shock. So 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.920 what's your vote? Pleasure and Ground. Uh that Lake of 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.320 Whiskey in the Big Rock Candy Mountain song, That's what 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:19.640 I think is Pleasure in Ground. Oh what a great song. 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.480 Oh it's a great song. I love it. The Bulldogs 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:27.480 I'll have rubber teeth. So Yellowstone is now the first 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.840 national park in the United States, and kind of from 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.320 the beginning, you know, it's funny like when you look 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:38.880 at sort of the the loggerheads that environmentalists and uh, 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.360 certain political parties in this country and then certain political 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.280 idealists in this country all kind of running up against 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.280 one another. Like it was doing that from the beginning 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:54.280 as far as privatization, federalization, uh, preserving land or not 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:56.840 mining and logging and things like, like they've always been 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.880 arguing about this stuff. Yeah, And I mean, to be fair, 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.520 we're like entering a time of like deep American prosperity, 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:09.280 like right at the at the precipice of the Gilded Age, um, 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.440 where like there was this idea that however, you could 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:14.960 make money, go make money and make as much as 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.320 you can because there are such things as rags to 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.000 riches stories all over the place. People would buy books 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.160 about rags of riches story so there were and when 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.400 you couple like that whole impulse that was just kind 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:30.000 of socially acceptable with the idea that there was actually 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.520 nobody in charge of the national parks at this time. 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:38.200 There's no coherent federal agency charged with overseeing the national parks. Um. Yeah, 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:40.400 all of a sudden you had tons of hucksters showing 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.200 up and guides who like were locals and they're like, well, 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:45.040 I guess I'm gonna go be a guy at Yellowstone 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.520 now and charging whatever they wanted. Um. And it started 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.440 to get like I guess there was a lesson with 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:55.280 Niagara Falls, where by the middle of the nineteenth century, 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:59.200 Niagara Falls was a straight up tourist trap that was 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:03.200 very in this is very important too, being naturally ruined 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.560 also by a bunch of energy companies that were using 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:10.680 it for hydroelectric power to without any regulation whatsoever. And 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.840 Niagara Falls um had to be rescued from the brink 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:17.760 of destruction. Uh and and and put under federal control 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.640 and regulated at least state control. I'm not sure, um. 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.440 But it served as like a cautionary tale for places 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:27.880 like Yellowstone happily, I guess in a weird way. Yeah, 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.680 And so at the time it was not you know, ultimately, 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:34.360 as we'll learn, all of this ended up under the 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:37.760 purview of the Department of Interior, but not at this point. 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:42.600 The government did try the privatization route at first and said, 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:44.720 all right, there's a firm called the Yellowstone or they 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:49.120 name themselves this, uh, the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company, and 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.960 we're gonna they're gonna get the contract. They're gonna run 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.240 this place. They can manage the tourist spots, they can 0:16:55.280 --> 0:17:00.320 harvest and hunt as they see fit. And uh, you know, 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:02.200 like you said, everyone was really worried that was going 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.879 to get out of control. And another gentleman steps in 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:09.280 at this point, a General Philip Sheridan, who was a 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:13.119 Civil War general for the Union Army and he was 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.119 fighting in the Indian Wars on the Great Plains but 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.560 loved Yellowstone and said, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:22.040 gonna send the army in and I'm gonna dispatch them 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:25.080 and they're gonna take over management. Uh, And they did so. 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:30.400 From eighteen eighties six to nineteen sixteen, they were basically 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:37.080 in charge of like protecting the park from illegal loggers, miners, poachers. Uh. 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.120 And that's actually I read why the Park Service their 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.960 official ranger uniforms bear resemblance to old timey cavalry uniforms, 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.680 including the campaign hat, because it's a an omager, a 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:50.879 nod to the cavalry units that that protected the parks initially. 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:55.240 Oh did you see where they got that sickly colored green. No? 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.879 I didn't. It's a really distinct I mean, I just 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.880 call it National for a Service green. It's really it's distinct. 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:06.200 You know. What it might be. They might have surveyed 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.280 every single shade of green in every DAN park in 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:12.119 America and then blended it all together and that's what 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:15.080 came out. Well, what's funny is like I've done all 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.119 this camping all my life, and I've always seen like 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.840 those for a Service trucks and then the park rangers 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.680 and things everywhere. And when you see them and as 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.280 well as we'll see later, you know, they also look 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.040 after things like national monuments. Now, so you can be 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:30.760 like in the middle of downtown Atlanta near the King 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.159 Center and you can see like a park ranger and 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.199 green park truck riding around like, are you lost, sir? 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:39.920 Or is it like is there a convention nearby? Is 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.719 this cosplay? Yeah, it's not cosplay. It's one of our 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:45.840 great park rangers. I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:47.920 going to stand up for them in front of everybody 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:50.320 on the pod. I love green, but that's one shade 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.040 of green that still can't wrap my head around because 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:55.600 it's all the shades of green, I guess. So hey, 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:57.480 can I say one thing that popped up to me 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:01.040 while we were researching this stuff? Um, just the the 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.480 whole idea of like that, that tension that push and 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:08.920 pulled between setting aside land for the good of everybody, um, 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:11.719 at the at the expense of private interests who are 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:16.680 trying to extract it for their own individual gain mostly. Um, 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.080 that's a huge that's it's still ongoing today, and it 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.920 has been ever since we first started setting aside land, 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:25.760 and it happens elsewhere in other parts of the world too. 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:29.000 And it occurred to me, Chuck that, like the people 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:33.280 who give capitalism a bad name, capitalism isn't inherently evil, 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.040 but the people who make it seam evil are like 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:40.480 the most full throated worshipful capitalists of all the ones 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:44.760 who use like capitalism as an excuse to um to 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.400 just take as much as you can, like the same 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.000 people who would like kill the golden goose to sell 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:52.240 it to a restaurant to serve for dinner. They're just 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.480 that short sighted. And it occurred to me that like 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.239 capitalism and stewardship are not necessarily mutual exclusive, that they 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.960 can go totally hand in hand. It's just we've been 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:06.320 listening to the wrong branch of capitalists all these years. 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:07.800 The people who are like, no, you take and take 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.720 and take, you make, you maximize profits at any cost. 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.800 That's the point of capitalism. That's not inherently the point 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:17.000 of capitalism. Like you can say, no, there's limits to 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.639 this um. We need to save this stuff for the future. 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.439 There's different ways to um to use these things for 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.080 the good of all people, not just the people who 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.920 can afford to take and build minds or logging operations, 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:31.400 and like, if we can get to a point where 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:33.800 we're not listening to those people anymore, we say, to 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.200 hell with those people. We're gonna go in this different way, 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.679 kind of a stewardship version of capitalism. I think we 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:43.160 could continue on indefinitely like that and make money for longer. 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:46.080 It's a long view. It's a macro view exactly. And 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.680 ladies and gentlemen, that was a genuine Josh Clark soapbox moment. 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:52.880 We need a jingle for that. And did we ever 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:55.199 get our stupid colon jingle or have we been just 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.399 saying like insert colon jingle and speining last even No, 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:00.959 because I don't know when we listen to our like 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:05.239 quality assurance listens, I mean it might come after that. 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:07.600 I haven't been hearing him. I've never noticed it either. 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:12.720 All right, Jerry, you're on notice. Yeah, all right, So 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:14.840 now we get to the part and we're gonna breeze 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:17.800 through this a little quicker because I would just encourage 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.159 you to go back to June one and listen to 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:29.160 h John Muir Cowen sound Outdoor Enthusiast because we covered 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.480 it in depth there. But uh, Murr moved to California 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.800 in eight sixty eight, about four years after Yosemite was 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:40.160 a state park. He loved it and immediately began lobbying 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.360 Congress to make it a national park, which it did, 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:45.159 but it didn't include a lot of what is now 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:49.760 Yosemite National Park, including the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite Valley 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:52.719 was still the state park, and he very famously went 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:55.720 on a little buddy buddy camping trip with Teddy Roosevelt 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:59.800 where Roosevelt was able to ditch his his uh entourage, 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:02.200 and just the two of them camped in the woods 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:06.040 for a weekend. And they came out and Roosevelt was like, 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:08.240 I'm not sure what happened in there, you guys, but 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.399 this guy works some magic on me. Alistair Crowley showed 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:16.440 up exactly and Uh, we're gonna make it a national park. 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:19.480 And so it was. I remember in the John Eure 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:22.320 episode you kind of debunking that he managed to give 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.360 the slip to his secret service agents. Is that there 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:28.199 was something about it. There was something in there. I 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:30.560 don't remember. We'll have to go back and listen. So 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:33.840 either way, he came out of the woods. That's the 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:37.640 curse of episodes, that's right. Uh, And he came out 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:41.960 and was basically national park in national monument. Crazy from 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:45.400 that point on. Yeah, he um had I think by 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:48.800 the time his presidency was over, he had designated, uh, 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:54.800 this is eighteen I saw seventeen different National monuments alone, um, 0:22:54.840 --> 0:23:00.119