To the Immortal Name and Memory of George Washington
To the Immortal Name and Memory of George Washington

Author: Louis Torres

Publisher:

Published: 2010-09-01

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 9781907521287

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The Washington Monument is one of the most easily recognized structures in America, if not the world, yet the long and tortuous history of its construction is much less well known. Beginning with its sponsorship by the Washington National Monument Society and the grudging support of a largely indifferent Congress, the Monument's 1848 groundbreaking led only to a truncated obelisk, beset by attacks by the Know Nothing Party and lack of secured funding and, from the mid-1850s, to a twenty-year interregnum. It was only 1n 1876 that a Joint Commission of Congress revived the Monument and entrusted its completion to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.In "To the Immortal Name and Memory of George Washington": The United States Corps of Engineers and the Construction of the Washington Monument, historian Louis Torres tells the fascinating story of the Monument, with a particular focus on the efforts of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Lincoln Casey, Captain George W. Davis, and civilian Corps employee Bernard Richardson Green and the details of how they completed the construction of this great American landmark. The book also includes a discussion and images of the various designs, some of them incredibly elaborate compared to the austere simplicity of the original, and an account of Corps stewardship of the Monument up to its takeover by the National Park Service in 1933. First published in 1985. 148 pages, ill.

Nature's Army
Nature's Army

Author: Harvey Meyerson

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2020-04-15

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0700629505

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Blessings on Uncle Sam’s soldiers! They have done their job well, and every pine tree is waving its arms for joy.–John Muir Muir’s words and this book both celebrate a crucial but largely forgotten episode in our nation’s history—how a generation prior to the creation of a National Park Service, the US Army ran Yosemite National Park in an unusual alliance with the fabled preservationist John Muir and his Sierra Club. Harvey Meyerson brings that largely forgotten episode in our nation’s history to life and uses it as a touchstone for a reconsideration of a century of civilian-military cooperation in environmental protection and infrastructure construction whose impact and relevance still resonate. Despite the worldwide renown and popularity of Yosemite National Park, few people know that its first stewards were drawn from the so-called Old Army. From 1890 until the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916, these soldiers proved to be extremely competent and farsighted wilderness managers. Meyerson recaptures the forgotten history of these early environmentalists and how they set significant standards for the future oversight of our national parks. The army, Meyerson suggests, had actually been well prepared to assume this stewardship. During its first hundred years—and despite the interruptions of warfare—its soldiers had crisscrossed the American landscape, preparing maps and writing detailed reports describing climate, weather, physical terrain, ecosystems, and the diverse flora and fauna populating the lands they explored and often protected during an era of wide-open exploitation of natural resources. Such experience made the army better suited than any other federal agency to oversee the early national parks system. Combining environmental, military, political, and cultural history, Meyerson’s study is especially timely in light of Yosemite’s enormous popularity (four million visitors annually) and recent controversies pitting conservation forces against dam builders and proponents of expanded public access.