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| e1.png | ## U.S. Departm     |                | 1849 C Street, N.W  |
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**National Park Service** News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- April 15, 2004

Gerry Gaumer 202 208-6843

Sue Waldron 202 354-2274

National Park Museum Centennial

Washington, DC -- The first national park museum -- an arboretum -- was
established in Yosemite National Park in 1904. Today, the National Park
Service manages the world's largest system of museums; more than 350
national parks preserve more than 105 million objects, specimens,
documents, and images. As part of National Park Week (April 17-25), the
National Park Service will mark the centennial of national park museums.

"National park museums offer greater depth to the visitor experience and
help expand our understanding of our common heritage," said National
Park Service Director Fran Mainella. "The collections are also
extraordinary in that they are preserved in the actual places where
people and events shaped our history and environment. This context, this
direct relationship to place, distinguishes national park museums from
other museums that are repositories of objects far removed from the
places that make them important."

> National park museum collections include:

-   The derringer John Wilkes Booth used to kill President Lincoln
    (Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, DC)

-   A more than 36,000 year old fossil walrus skull (Cape Hatteras
    National Seashore, NC)

-   Stagecoaches that carried the first visitors into Yellowstone
    National Park (ID, MT, WY)

-   The shirt of Chief Red Cloud, a leader of the Oglala Sioux of the
    Lakota Nation who led his people in the 1860s wars along the Bozeman
    Trail and negotiated a truce with the United States resulting in the
    abandonment of the Army's forts along the trail (Agate Fossil Beds
    National Monument, NE)

"Many Americans know national parks as great places to hike or camp.
Parks are also fabulous places to experience the rich heritage of this
land -- and it can be just as much fun! Standing in Thomas Edison's
laboratory surrounded by his books, his papers, his inventions, even his
lab coat is still hanging on a hook, sends chills up your spine," said
Mainella. "We care for 387 national parks on behalf of the American
people and there is something for everyone in each park. Come visit!"

Additional centennial information is available on the National Park
Service Website at
[www.cr.nps.gov/museum/centennial](http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/centennial)
including a brief history of park museums and descriptions of objects
representing the depth and breadth of national park collections. In
addition the Website offers "Treasures of the Nation" and "Ask the
Conservator" features that will change regularly throughout the
centennial observance (ending December 2005).

> -NPS-
>
> EXPERIENCE YOUR AMERICATM
>
> The National Park Service cares for special places saved by the
> American people so that all may experience our heritage.