Photograph from 1892 of a pile of American bison skulls in Detroit (MI) waiting to be ground for fertilizer or charcoal
Beginning in the 1860s, conflict raged on the prairies as the US Army attempted to suppress the Native Americans of the Plains region in order to make way for white settlers and railroad lines. Federal officials recognized the importance of bison on the Plains, where Native nations had yet to be forced onto reservations. In 1873. the Secretary of the Interior noted that “civilization of the Indian is impossible while buffalo remain on the plains”; following this logic, the Army provided free ammunition to hide hunters, who brought bison to the brink of extinction. By 1894, Yellowstone National Park hosted the only known wild herd in the United States.
Valley of the Drums, as it appeared in 1979. Photo credit: The Courier-Journal
The Valley of Drums is a toxic waste dump in the northern Bullitt County, Kentucky, near Louisville. It is named after the waste-containing drums strewn across the area. The area had been collecting waste since the 1960s when the EPA analyzed the property and creek in 1979. The EPA found high levels of heavy metals and over 140 other chemical substances. Cleanup began in 1983 and officially ended in 1990 although problems continued on the site for years after. In 2008, EPA inspectors found about four dozen rusted metal drums on land just outside the part of the site they had capped and fenced in the 1980s.
Aerial view of Grand Prismatic Spring
The Grand Prismatic Spring is the largest hot spring in the United States and is located in Yellowstone National Park. The first records of the spring are from early European explorers and surveyors. In 1839, a group of four trappers from the American Fur Company crossed the Midway Geyser Basin and made note of a "boiling lake", most likely the Grand Prismatic Spring. The bright, vivid colors in the spring are the result of microbial mats around the edges of the mineral-rich water. The mats produce colors ranging from green to red; the amount of color in the microbial mats depends on the ratio of chlorophyll to carotenoids and on the temperature gradient in the runoff.
Contains thousands of videos, including documentaries, educational films, and news clips spanning the widest range of subject areas.
Please note: If using Firefox some embedded video content may be blocked. You can watch the video by opening this guide in a different browser or by clicking this link: The Big Burn.
Video Summary:
Inspired by Timothy Egan’s best-selling book, The Big Burn is the dramatic story of an unimaginable wildfire that swept across the Northern Rockies in the summer of 1910. The fire devoured more than three million acres in 36 hours, confronting the fledgling U.S. Forest Service with a catastrophe that would define the agency and the nation’s fire policy for the rest of the 20th century and beyond. As America tries to manage its fire-prone landscapes in the 21st century, The Big Burn provides a cautionary tale of heroism and sacrifice, arrogance and greed, hubris and, ultimately, humility, in the face of nature’s frightening power.
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Video Summary:
THE NATIONAL PARKS is the story of an idea as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence: that the most special places in the nation should be preserved for everyone. The series traces the birth of the national park idea in the mid-1800s and follows its evolution for nearly 150 years, chronicling the addition of new parks through the stories of the people who helped create them.
