By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
The Crawford Park District threw a birthday party for the organization that could be considered its older sibling Thursday afternoon.
In honor of the National Park Service’s 100th birthday, the local Park District held an open house and even offered birthday cake to anyone who visited Lowe-Volk Park Nature Center.
“We wanted to honor that as a wonderful thing in this United States,” said Park District Director Bill Fisher.
Fisher credited our country for creating the first national park in the world – Yellowstone National Park in 1872.
“The whole concept that our lawmakers, the people who felt a kinship with nature, realized that this really had to happen. It’s a reflection of our democratic society. These parks are owned by the people, they are for the people,” Fisher added.
He believed that preserving natural beauty and sustaining biodiversity was critical to having a quality nation and way of life.
The Crawford Park District’s mission was modeled from the National Park Service.
“You take special places where you’re at – Crawford County – and we try to own them by the public. Anybody that comes here to Lowe-Volk Park and hikes, they think ‘wow, this is what flat Crawford County can look like?’”
Fisher said the county has much more to offer than people realize.
“You get that feel of immersion in nature. Who knew that we could preserve part of the (Daughmer Prairie Savannah) that was thousands and thousands of acres right here in our county and surrounding counties. A chunk of it is going to be here continuing for kids and grandkids on and on,” he said.
Just as the National Park Service expanded over the decades to include more tourists and parks, the Crawford Park District has increased its program offerings. Fisher noted that the Kids Learning Tree Exhibit, which debuted to the public earlier this year, helped the nature center hit over 3,000 visitors in the first time in its history.
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“We averaged through the years about 1,000 people coming in, some more in the summer, some less in the winter,” Fisher explained. “But that’s a wonderful increase. It is an indication that this community views this park system as really a valuable asset.
“Getting out into the woods is the best,” Fisher said with a chuckle as he described families taking advantage of the Learning Tree, free fishing, and hiking.
As much as Fisher enjoyed talking about the unique areas Crawford County had to offer up, he didn’t negate how special each national park was for its specific area.
“New ones – bring them on,” Fisher said with a grin.
Congress and President Woodrow Wilson passed the Organic Act in 1916, which created the National Park Service whose purpose was to conserve natural and historical objects and wildlife for the enjoyment of future generations. The Yellowstone, Yosemite, Mount Rainier, Crater Lake, and Rocky Mountain national parks were established in the decades before the creation of the National Park Service. It absorbed all national battlefields into the park system in 1933. The National Park System consist of 412 areas in every state, along with sites in the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. President Barak Obama named Maine’s Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument as the newest national park the day before the National Park Services’ centennial celebration.
For more information about the National Park Service, visit www.nps.gov. Information about the Crawford Park District and its programs and parks can be found at www.crawfordparkdistrict.org.