History/Culture

Public fascination with one of the Cold War's most fearsome relics, the Minuteman Missile, could mean a new tourist stop in South Dakota.Sen. Tim Johnson introduced a bill Wednesday that would transfer 25 acres of National Forest Service land to the National Park Service for a new visitors center to accommodate the growing crowds of people who want to see the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in western South Dakota.The center would replace the vistiors center off exit 131 on Interstate 90 near Cactus Flats in Jackson County.

The United States in the first half of the 19th century was a nation divided on the issue of slavery. In the American South, slaves were the primary labor force on large plantations growing cotton, tobacco and other lucrative cash crops. But a growing chorus of voices was calling for an end to slavery. One of those voices belonged to abolitionist John Brown, who decided, in October 1859, to take matters into his own hands. His actions still stir controversy 150 years later.

-->If each year was a page, Glacier National Park's storybook would stack as high as 400,000 copies of the entire Harry Potter series. Spanning 1.6 billion years, Glacier's tale is one of tremendous pressure, bubbling lava, rifts in the earth that separated even the hardest rock and diamond-sharp icebergs carving peaks and valleys.

A great editorial from today's New York Daily News: It was 123 years ago today that Manhattan office boys first rained ticker tape down on a parade, creating what became a grand New York celebratory tradition.The occasion was the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, Oct. 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland presiding. The city, reported The World newspaper, "was one vast cheer."

Cliff Hansen is known throughout Wyoming for his achievements as governor and U.S. senator. But recently, Hansen was in the national spotlight when he was featured in Ken Burns' popular PBS documentary series on America's national parks for his opposition to - and, later, his support of - the expansion of Grand Teton National Park.

Yellowstone National Park Lodges will offer “Lodging & Learning” packages this winter in Yellowstone National Park. The park’s winter season begins Dec. 18, 2009 with the opening of the Old Faithful Snow Lodge. The Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel opens Dec. 21, 2009. The lodges provide the only wintertime accommodations within the park. Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel will close for the season March 8, 2010, and Old Faithful Snow Lodge will close March 7, 2010. 

The Truman Home in Independence closed Monday for the winter.Officials with the National Park Service, which administers the property, hope to reopen the home to visitors next spring. Until then workers will install new heating, cooling and fire suppression equipment, and also will make interior plaster repairs.

Repair work was under way Wednesday at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall as a private memorial fund took over landscaping and maintenance of 13 acres from the National Park Service.Over the next two weeks, workers are restoring the flagpole's bronze finish and its decorative base with five military branch insignias. They will also restore the bronze finish for five stands that hold directories that help people find names on famous V-shaped memorial wall, which draws millions of visitors each year.