New monuments join National Park System this summer

It's a kind of familiar ritual of summer: pack up the family and head out for the great American road trip -- maybe to camp and visit some of our national parks and monuments. This summer, there are a couple of new additions to the national park system you might consider seeing. Joan Anzelmo, of the National Park Service Retirees group, said three new parks were added to the National Park System in time for this summer: Charles Young Buffalo Soldier’s National Monument in Ohio, First State National Monument in Delaware, and Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument in Maryland. In addition, San Juan Islands National Monument in Washington and the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in the Taos Plateau were also added to the Bureau of Land Management system, she said. The three new parks all share in common that they celebrate people and ideas, rather than places. The Buffalo Soldier monument, for example, pays tribute to the African Americans who served in the Union Army during and after the Civil War, while the Harriet Tubman museum captures the history of the underground railroad, which brought slaves to freedom in the north before slavery was abolished. And the first state monument is a tribute to Delaware's status as the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution in 1787...more