History
In 1904, the National Geographic Magazine publicized the bridges and the area was designated a National Monument April 16, 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt. It is Utah's first National Monument.
The Monument was nearly inaccessible for many decades (a three-day horseback ride from Blanding, Utah, the nearest settlement), as reflected by the visitor log kept by the Monument's superintendents. The park received little visitation until after the Uranium boom of the 1950s, which resulted in the creation of new roads in the area, including modern day Highway 95, which was paved in 1976.
Read more about this topic: Natural Bridges National Monument
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“Like their personal lives, women’s history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)