Transcripts For CSPAN3 C-SPAN Cities Tour Visits National Pa

CSPAN3 C-SPAN Cities Tour Visits National Parks July 12, 2024

Week and every weekend on cspan three. There are more than 400 National Parks across america, covering over 85 million acres of land, with locations in every state. More than 325 Million People visited the state sites last year. Over the next 90 minutes, we will feature a mixture of Natural Beauty and history at eight different parks around the country. We begin just outside cleveland, situated along the cayuga river, we will learn how the canal system here plays a major role in our nations westward expansion in the 18 thirties and forties. The ohio and eerie canal is part of a two canal system that was put in place in the early years of america. Built between 1825 and 1832. Its basically a water transportation route that connected lake erie with the ohio river. It was part of a larger idea, a National Water transportation route. In the early days of america, we had 13 colonies all situated right along the atlantic seaboard. Our leaders at that time saw a problem. That problem was we needed that country to expand westward. However, there was a big obstacle, the appalachian mountains. So our first president , George Washington, a canal engineer, had an idea. That idea was to create this trans continental water transportation route using to canals, the eerie canal through new york state and the ohio near the state of ohio. They would ultimately connect new york city, hudson river, erie canal, lake erie, ohio river, mississippi, all the way down to the gulf of mexico. In the early days of america, we did not have a big federal government. So in terms of actually funding and implementing the ohio and airy canal depended on the states. Fortunately, the state of new york had a champion there. I fell up by the name of Dewitt Clinton. He then rose to become the governor of the state of new york. Ohio, facing a similar challenge in terms of funding, etc. You find it is on the verge of bankruptcy. The canal project is worth more than all the value of the land in ohio. So how do you fund this thing . Believe it or not, the state of new york backed the bonds. It was Dewitt Clinton who came to the ohio. Why . Guess what . It made a lot of beneficial difference to the state of new york, including the fact that new york city became the only port that could export and import goods, making it the Financial Capital of america. In ohio, we had a fellow by the name of alfred kelly who became the canal commissioner and took it on as his lifelong legacy to make sure that canal got built, on time and under budget. The ohio canal is 309 miles in length. It goes from cleveland to portsmouth, ohio on the ohio river. The actual construction of the canal began in 1825. By 1827, july 4th, the first vote from akron to cleveland got through the canal port in cleveland. By 1832, the entire system was complete from cleveland all the way to the ohio river. It made a tremendous difference. For the nation, it allowed us to start to rationalize our economy. It allowed us to have internal trade. Prior to that, all those seaboard states depended on exporting in order to make money and deliver goods and services. So this actually helped america expand westward. By doing so, i mentioned that new york city became the Financial Capital of the country. Ohio rises from a wilderness to be the third most populous and the third richest state in the union by the 1860s. Canal life was a slow paced life. In canals, boats generally went four or five miles an hour. We are standing next to a lock right now. There would have been numerous locks to allow those boats to basically navigate the terrain and topography. So these be came kind of water elevators. They raised and lowered the votes as they made their journey. Cramped staff quarters. Often time, you would find cattle and people sleeping in the same boat. Some people were traveling, summer goods being delivered. It was a hectic life, but at a low slow pace. Predominantly, the goods moved on the canal, especially from ohio eastward, were grains. Things that were farmed here. We became the bread basket of america for a reason, it was a good place to grow things. New england in the early days of the industrial revolution, that became a good place to make things. So basically, we had this barter trade system that was part of our national economy. On one hand, it had food and on the other hand, it had services, goods, machines, etc. The canal in ohio paid for itself. What is significant is that in cleveland, we had our way lock. That is how you made money with a canal. You had a boat that would get weighed and the difference between its original weight and where it docked in the port of cleveland is where you would make your money. In 1874, when they bought the mile of canal land in cleveland to put a railroad track, we took that way canal and moved it. We still use the weigh canal in 1874. That being said, we were still making money on that canal. Railroads arrived in cleveland in 1851. Ironically, the guys who helped spring the railroads and cleveland is the same guy who championed the canal. The railroads pretty much had an Immediate Impact on the canal. However, the canal did stay in use all the way up until 1913. It just had a different use. It started to become a place where people would go leisurely on a weekend. They would have a boat and travel up and down the canals. Many times, the canals when they were put in place would have little General Stores or taverns. People would, i guess in their day, go pub crawling if you will using a canal boat on a sunday afternoon. One permanent legacy of the canal was the fact that in cleveland especially, the river valley became the center of storage. It became a port. It became a Manufacturing Center of the city itself. That is where the wealth of cleveland group. It was all based on the fact that you had that can now as clevelands first port there. As time went on and manufacturing obviously rose in the city of cleveland. It grew and we became the fifth largest city in the country. We had major steel mills and oil refineries. There is a consequence environmentally to those uses. Prior to the Environmental Protection agency and regulations for water and what you can put in water and rivers, etc. There were no regulations. So in cleveland, you had situations where, for instance, standard oil and John Rockefeller basically refined oil on the banks of the river. When they did so, there were certain byproducts that he could not find a use for. Therefore, they ended up in the river. It was told and reported that at one time, we had a fire in 19 1857, they actually went to measure the gunk that was on the top of the river. There was more than eight inches deep of oil and other buy products that were flammable. The story itself, although its bed, it really has tremendously positive outcomes. It inspires legislation that creates the United States epa. It helps pass the clean water bill and clean air bill. If you look at all of the consequences of that particular river fire, the positive far outweighs the negative of that. And cleveland, due to that fire and the exposure it got, we pretty much and a hand with the environmental movement. Congress then passed legislation to create the National Park. The canal and the toe Path Associated with it became the central feature of that National Park. We are still in what is called an area of concern. There is still some work to be done in terms of completing the job of cleaning up the river. But the needle has gone dramatically to the positive and. We are just about through the area of concern. In fact, in 2000, then president bill clinton introduced a program called the American Heritage rivers program. He basically put the invitation out to anyone who thought their river was significant enough for the story of america, to compete for this new designation. We did, we competed as part of that, and the story was told as they went through the deliberation process to choose what was going to be the first ten rivers to be nominated for American Heritage river status. They got to bill clinton and gave him the list of rivers and asked where was the cayuga . Didnt they apply . He did apply, but they didnt make the cut. He said this program is all about that river. It is the come back of the yoga river that is the story today. This area we are in became National Recreation area, part of the National Park service, in december of 1974. It became National Park in the year 2000 with that comes the idea of bringing National Parks to people. If we had National Parks nearby, we can get to those so they started making National Parks in urban areas. We have a backbone that is a braided backbone with the ohio and erie canal. A braided backbone with the cuyahoga City Railroad and river. This National Park was created out of land that had been used, in some instances abused, left in ruin, because it was a waste land that people didnt see any potential for in some places. And yet, we cleaned it up, we let nature do what nature does, and now we are the 11th most visited National Park. There is a huge story here, a story of, can i say redemption . A story where if we allow nature to do what it does best, if we give it the chance to do what it does best and not interfere, or help it, then the land can recover. With environmental legislation and laws and things that we have in place, now we have a river that is coming back to life. The environment has recovered. Yes, it was degraded because of man, but it was also helped by man. And it has allowed us, with that help, to recover. To create this great green area that we have now. From the Cuyahoga River in ohio, we now travel to the banks of the Mississippi River and gateway arch National Park in st. Louis, where a monument to americas westward expansion has become a recognizable symbol for the city that played such a vital role in it. I think most people, just like i was when i first saw it, when you see it from a distance, you think thats kind of interesting. Its kind of cool. The closer you get to it, you realize how really massive it is. Getting up to the base of it and actually touching it and looking up the 630 feet to the top, it really is very impressive. I think the closer you get to it, the more impressed you become. Right now, we are standing very close to the famous gateway arch in st. Louis. Its 630 foot tall, stainless steel structure, that was designed back in 1947. It was not built until the mid 1960s and completed in 1965. Each year we have about two and a half million visitors who come to see the memorial and see the arch. So it is a very busy place, especially during the summer months. The gateway arch was designed by a man name arrow son on in. He was born in finland and came home here to american when he was ten years old with his father. His father was a very famous architect. He mainly had worked just with his father up to the point in time where an architectural competition was announced for what became the arch that you see behind me. The competition was for Jefferson National expansion memorial. Which was a National Park service site founded by a president ial proclamation in 1935 to commit saintlauriers role in the westward expansion of the United States. 12 years after the founding of the park, and architectural competition was held to decide what the memorial itself would look like. And basically they had about 90 acres of land to work with. 40 city block acres blocks of ive been tore down to make way for the memorial in the st. Lawrence st. Louis riverfront. Each architect would simulated zion proposal could do what he or she whenever wanted to. It could be a huge sculpture, it could be a series of museum buildings. They did one want one central feature to be in each of these designs. Some people but are not alaskan, some people put a kind of monolithic rectangular roadblock or something. Sarnia and decided to go with an arch and it was only after he kind of decided the arch, that he figured out that it forms a gateway so its really appropriate for a memorial for st. Louis as role as a gateway to have a gigantic gateway right there on the riverfront. The artists arches made out of stainless deal, one quarter inch stainless deal on the outside and on the inside its made a three quarter inch carbon steel. So basically you have a sandwich in the lower portions of the sandwich its filled with concrete, in the upper portions there are tire odds, steel reinforcing rods they keep six actions apart. Its kind of unique structure because it doesnt have any superstructure on the inside. Theres no borders or things like that that form the shape of the arch, snot just clad with stainless deal on the top. Sometimes visitors are surprised because they have read about the arch and learn that they can actually go to the top of it. They think that maybe is just a big piece of Outdoor Sculpture that you can look at. Their little barrel shaped cat capsules that fit five persons in each one and each leg of the arch theres eight of these capsules the former train runner on a track. When people get into the capsule, its hanging from the track and if they go to the top by the time they get to the top its on top of the track. So in order to accommodate that and make sure the people are not gonna be flipped upside down, it actually shifts and turns to keep the car level. It isnt a thrill ride, it doesnt go really fast like something at a county fair or a six flags or something. Its a unique experience, a lot of people really prize the experience of writing in the strange little capsules up to the top. And getting a nice view that they get from the top of the arch the top of the Observation Deck at the top. Right now are in the midst of a multi Million Dollar project thats being funded by many different entities that are partnering with the National Park service to kind of revitalize the park itself and to make it more accessible to people. For many years, weve been kind of an island surrounded by highspeed roads and what is gonna happen this kind of a lip is going to be placed over the highway so that you can walk directly from the city where you probably park your vehicle directly to the arch without having to cross any major streets. Truly just iconic graphic symbol of st. Louis, sort of like the space needle is to seattle or the Empire State Building of the statue of liberty as to new york. There is certainly a certain symbols and immediately identify certain place on the map, the arch is the one for st. Louis. Right now we leave the city once considered the city once the gateway to the west, and travel over the great plains and Rocky Mountains to the Colorado National mama near Grand Junction. To help here how one man preserve this area in colorado s western slope. I think everybody is just amazed by its not a widely publicized presence. The parks does not advertize so people find out about this because they read magazine articles or features that youre preparing. But it is not our typical colorado scenery. Its not what most people think of when they think of colorado so comes as a pleasant folks to fund this year. John auto was a kind of vagabond not in the sense that he was a narrative well, but he just didnt have any permanent routes. He was attracted to this area around 19 seven by the promise of employment on a waterline project. I guess this was the type of country that was really appealing to him so he began and agitate for the creation of an our National Park here. The first thing he did was he wrote a lot of letters to prominent people and so on trying to get this establishes a National Park. He also constructed a lot of trails to afford access into the canyons under the rooms of the monument. Im sure the local people came out on sunday afternoon stitch up the wagon and came out for a picnic and so on. One of the other things he did was that 1926, he started collecting buffalo nickels from kids in town and use that money to transport a couple of bison here. He wanted to establish a herd of bison. The elks club inspired to bring in a couple of elk. John got some money from the chamber of commerce to break bills and fences to contain these animals for many years we had a bison herd. Now the elk took one look around here in the city right here, they went south and high country. But all enough we are seeing more and more alex eased is. The bison were reminded removed in 1983 because they were confined to a really small area and they had a real adverse effect on the resource. Thats the kind of thing he did, he was constantly boosted the aryan and promoting it. There was no concerted effort until john ana came here to set this aside as a awe shuttle Parker National monument. Couple of distinctions between National Parks and National Monuments. And one of the distinctions is legal, relating to the method in which is established. The other is more based on its resource qualities. Otto agitated for the creation of a National Park here but the creation of a National Park requires an act of congress and so its mu

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