Specifically relating to Arches National Park in Utah, this stamp is part of the group of stamps honoring the National Park Service Centennial.
In 1929, President Herbert C. Hoover set aside Arches as a National Monument. Arches remained a National Monument until September 1969, when President Richard M. Nixon signed a bill making it a National Park.
In the early 1920’s Alexander Ringhoffer, a prospector in southeastern Utah, traveled through the Klondike Bluffs on the Western edge of Salt Valley. He thought such wonders should be seen by many and suggested that representatives of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad visit the area. The railroad men, particularly Frank Wadleigh, the D&RGW’s passenger traffic manager, were so impressed that they contacted Stephen T. Mather, the first director of the National Park Service. Mather was intrigued and pushed for the creation of a national monument. Finally in 1929, President Herbert C. Hoover set aside Arches as a National Monument. Through the years the monument’s size was modified by succeeding presidents: enlarged by Franklin Roosevelt, diminished a bit by Dwight Eisenhower, then doubled by Lyndon Johnson. At last, President Richard Nixon signed into law in 1971, an act establishing Arches as a national park.
Arches contains one of the largest concentrations of natural sandstone arches in the world. The arches and numerous other extraordinary geologic features, such as spires, pinnacles, pedestals and balanced rocks, are highlighted in striking foreground and background views created by contrasting colors, landforms and textures. With the addition of the Lost Spring Canyon area, the park is 76,519 acres in size.
Arches National Park is open year round. The majority of park visitors come March through October, with lowest visitation in December and January. You can enjoy sightseeing by personal car, hiking, biking (established roads only), picnicking (3 designated picnic areas in park), and camping.
Native Americans utilized the area for thousands of years. Archaic people, and later ancestral Puebloan, Fremont and Utes searched the arid desert for game animals, wild plant foods and stone for tools and weapons. They also left evidence of their passing on a few pictograph and petroglyph panels. The first white explorers came looking for wealth in the form of minerals. Ranchers found wealth in the grasses for their cattle and sheep. John Wesley Wolfe, a disabled Civil War veteran, and his son, Fred, settled here in the late 1800s. A weathered log cabin, root cellar and a corral remain as evidence of the primitive ranch they operated for more than 20 years. A visit to Wolfe Ranch is a walk into the past.
Paleo-Indians lived in the lush canyons leading to the Green and Colorado rivers from about 10,000 to 7,800 BC and might have been the earliest people to see Arches. Although there is no evidence of Paleo-Indian use in the park, their spear points and camps have been found nearby.
By 9,000 years ago, the climate here became too warm and dry for many large mammals. They and some of their Paleo-Indian hunters moved to higher habitats. Those who stayed in the canyon country depended more on gathering and traveling. This lifestyle, called Archaic, meant that the people had to live in small groups and travel extensively. Archaeologists have found a few spear points, occasional campsites, and quarries for stone needed to make tools. Barrier Canyon style rock art panels, once attributed to the more recent Fremont culture, are the best evidence of the Archaic hunter-gathers in Arches.
