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Show First Pleasuring Ground National Parks Celebrate 109 lb Birthday -'(IKK" . -to S?, few sv Old Faithful 'known the world over as the symbol of Yellowstone National Park will be seen this year by more people than ever before as the National Park Service celebrates cele-brates one hundred years of the national park idea. It was on March 1, 1872, that President Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill which provided "the tract of land . . . lying near' the headwaters to the Yellows'tone River ... is hereby here-by reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." By this Act, President Grant created Yellowstone National Na-tional Park the first public park in the world. From this beginning the Park Service has grown to include in-clude almost 300 areas natural, na-tural, historic, recreational and cultural. The world'- system of national parks also has grown with about 100 coun-, coun-, tries having systems of their own totaling 1200 national parks or equivalent reserves. President Nixon has officially official-ly proclaimed 1972 as National Parks Centennial Year. Posters, brochures, films, slide shows, and special exhibits are available avail-able at national park sites calling call-ing attention to the beginning of the national parks idea. The culmination of the yearlong year-long -celebration will be the Second World Conference on National Parks to be held in September at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Delegates from about 90 countries coun-tries are expected to attend the Conference. Through this Conference and other public events scheduled Taken in 1871, this is one of the earliest known photographs of Old Faithful. The photographer was William Henry Jackson ami the picture was niade with a large view camera on a wet plate. Before making it, Jackson had to crouch in a small tent darkroom, dark-room, coat a plate of glass with a silver solution and rush the wet plate into the camera. For his "speed" work, such as this picture, Jackson had rigged up a shutter, powered by a rubber band, which gave exposures of about one-tenth of a second. Normally, the lens cap served as a shutter, and exposures ran from 10 to 15 seconds. The plates were developed immediately after exposure. Most of Jackson's 300 pound photo kit was carried car-ried on the back of his mule, Hypo. . during the year, the National Park Service 'intends to use the Centennial not as a time of self-congratulation, but as an opportunity to re-examine its values and chart a course for the next hundred years of i national parks. |