Public Lands History Center at Colorado State University

Please join the PLHC and our wonderful partners as we reflect on three years of pandemic life. At the Ram Stories Symposium, researchers will share what they've learned from conducting interviews with dozens of CSU students about how their lives changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Join us on April 7th from 8-12 in the Long's Peak room or online from anywhere! RSVP to join in person, seats are limited. We look forward to seeing you there.

On December 28, 2016, President Barack Obama established Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah.

Co-managed today by the Bureau of Land Management, United States Forest Service, the Navajo Nation, Hopi, Ute Mountain Ute, Ute Indian Tribe, and Pueblo of Zuni, this remarkable landscape draws tens of thousands of visitors annually.

On December 20, 2019, President Donald Trump signed legislation establishing White Sands National Monument as the United States’ most recent national park.

White Sands National Park is the most-visited NPS site in New Mexico and has long been an iconic filming location for Hollywood directors.

On November 19, 1919, Woodrow Wilson redesignated southwest Utah’s Zion National Monument (formerly Mukuntuweap National Monument) as Zion National Park. Today, over 4 million visitors travel to this iconic landscape every year.

On November 12, 1971, Richard Nixon established Arches National Park—a moment that marked the most recent shift in the area’s status (Herbert Hoover had designated Arches as a national monument in 1929).

Today, more than 1.5 million visitors travel to explore the unique geology and rock formations of Arches National Park.

“Students have a lot to say, and we’re learning that the pandemic deeply affected them during a formative period in their lives.” History Professor Emerita Ruth Alexander said.

Alexander is the principal investigator and the PLHC’s Ariel Schnee is the project manager for Ram Stories, an oral history project focused on 200 students and recent alumni and their accounts of their COVID-19 experiences while at CSU.

Read more on the project below:

Ram Stories team will interview 200 CSU students to document their COVID-19 pandemic experiences A team of Colorado State University researchers will spend the next academic year interviewing 200 students and recent alumni to obtain first-hand accounts of what it was like to be in college during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On October 15, 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed the National Historic Preservation Act into law providing a legal framework for evaluating and protecting the nation’s historic resources. Today, cultural resource managers at national parks and on other public lands rely on the NHPA to manage our shared heritage.

📸: Below, PLHC researchers Jake Swisher and Dillon Maxwell discuss historic preservation during a research trip and survey of Mission 66 architecture in Yellowstone National Park. Credit: Rebekah Schields, 2019.

On October 1, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed an act of Congress establishing Yosemite National Park at the urging of John Muir and others. Today, Yosemite National Park sees over 4.5 million annual visitors, many who travel to the park to enjoy the sublime waterfalls and granite domes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

📸: Below, two visitors pose on an overhanging granite rock. George Fiske, 1900.

On September 18, 1916, President Bill Clinton established Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. Home to stunning sandstone canyons, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument attracts hikers, backpackers, and canyoners alike.

Photo: Spooky Slot Canyon as seen from Dry Fork Trailhead at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.