Death
Valley National Monument was established by presidential
proclamation under the Antiquities Act of 1906, on February
11, 1933 (Proclamation No. 2028). The original monument
contained approximately 1,601,800 acres. Supplementary
proclamations in March 1937 (No. 2228) and January 1952
(No. 2961) increased the monument’s acreage to 2,067,793
acres. The monument was subsequently enlarged and changed
to Death Valley National Park by Congressional action
on October 31, 1994, with the passage of the California
Desert Protection Act (16 U.S.C. 410aaa-83). Approximately
1.3 million acres of new lands were added, bringing the
total acreage of the new Park to about 3,396,192 acres.
Nearly 95% of the Park was designated as wilderness by
that same act. Death Valley National Park is the largest
national park unit in the conterminous 48 states. The
vast majority of its lands are located in the California
counties of Inyo and San Bernardino, but a small portion
of the Park is located in the Nevada counties of Nye and
Esmeralda. California State Highway 190 crosses the Park
east to west, and Highway 95 parallels the Park
north to south on the Park’s eastern boundary.
Death
Valley National Park Mission: Death Valley National
Park dedicates itself to protecting significant desert
features that provide world class scenic, scientific,
and educational opportunities for visitors and academics
to explore and study.
NPS
Mission: The
National Park Service mission was clearly stated in its
1916 Organic Act:
“…the
fundamental purpose of the said parks, monuments, and
reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery
and the natural and historic objects and the wild life
therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same
in such manner and by such means as will leave them
unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
Death Valley National Park is the lowest point in the
Western Hemisphere and one of the hottest places in the
world. It is also a vast geological museum, containing
examples of most of the earth’s geologic eras. Here,
plant and animal species, some of which occur nowhere
else in the world, have adapted to the harsh desert environment.
Humans have adjusted to these severe conditions, as evidenced
by extensive archeological sites; historical sites related
to successive waves of prospectors; miners, and homesteaders;
present-day residences of Native Americans; and the current
resort developments and active mines.
Perhaps
the Park’s greatest assets today are the clear air,
vast open spaces that stretch toward distant horizons,
and the overwhelming silence. Approximately 1.2 million
people a year (1999 numbers) come to Death Valley to experience
the stark and lonely vastness of the valley; the panorama
of rugged canyons and mountains; the pleasures of the
dry, moderate winter climate; the challenge of the hot,
arid summer; the relief of the cooler mountains; and the
reminders of frontier and Native American ways of life.
Death
Valley National Park includes all of Death Valley, a 156-mile-long
north/south-trending trough that formed between two major
block-faulted mountain ranges: the Amargosa Range on the
east and the Panamint Range on the west. Telescope Peak,
the highest peak in the Park and in the Panamint Mountains,
rises 11,049 feet above sea level and lies only 15 miles
from the lowest point in the United States in the Badwater
Basin salt pan, 282 feet below sea level. The California
Desert Protection Act added most of the Saline, Eureka,
northern Panamint, and Greenwater valleys to the Park.
The
diversity of Death Valley’s plant communities result
partly from the region’s location in the Mojave Desert,
a zone of tension and overlap between the Great Basin
Desert to the north and the Sonoran Desert to the south
(Kearney and Peebles 1960). This location, combined with
the great relief found within the Park, from 282 feet
below sea level to 11,049 feet above sea level, supports
vegetation typical of three biotic life zones: the lower
Sonoran, the Canadian, and the Arctic/Alpine in portions
of the Panamint Range (Jepson 1923; Storer and Usinger
1968). Based on Munz and Keck (1968) classifications,
seven plant communities can be categorized within these
life zones, each characterized by dominant vegetation
and representative of three vegetation types: scrub, desert
woodland, and coniferous forest. Microhabitats further
subdivide some communities into zones, especially on the
valley floor.
Death
Valley National Park and the adjacent desert support a
variety of wildlife species, including 51 species of native
mammals, 307 species of birds, 36 species of reptiles,
three species of amphibians, and five species and one
subspecies of native fishes (Hansen 1972 and 1973; Landye
1973). Small mammals are more numerous than large mammals,
such as desert bighorn, coyote, bobcat, mountain lion,
and mule deer. Mule deer are present in the pinyon/juniper
associations of the Grapevine, Cottonwood, and Panamint
mountains.
Many
historic properties exist within the Park. Most of those
meeting the national register criteria for significance
and integrity have been listed on the National Register
of Historic Places. Most of the sites contain structures
or other tangible remains of the activities that took
place there. Death Valley National Park is unique because
it displays a continuum of mining activities from at least
the 1860s to the present day. Many historic mining resources
are of particular significance either because similar
resources are not found elsewhere within the national
park system or because they are in a better state of preservation
than examples found elsewhere.
