Monuments for All

The 1906 Antiquities Act gives the president the authority to establish national monuments on federal lands. During its nearly 120-year history, 18 presidents have used the law to conserve millions of acres of lands and waters, including gems such as Grand Canyon and Acadia national parks, which were originally protected as monuments. Former President Joe Biden exercised his right under the law to create 10 new national monuments, from large landscapes that bolster climate resilience and provide wildlife habitat connectivity to smaller sites with outsized historical importance.

Biden also expanded two national monuments in California, Berryessa Snow Mountain and San Gabriel Mountains, and he restored boundaries or protections at three that President Donald J. Trump had shrunk or otherwise altered during his first term. Trump had lifted a fishing ban at Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, and he had reduced the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by 85% and about half, respectively — a move that the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, NPCA and other partners pointed out was illegal and challenged in court.

The Antiquities Act “was never intended for presidents to be able to create and shrink monuments,” said Cory MacNulty, campaign director for NPCA’s Southwest region, adding that further attempts to reduce the size of any monument, old or new, would be met with fierce opposition by NPCA and its allies. “An attack on one monument is an attack on all,” she said.

Threats to public lands, political or otherwise, are present during every administration, but even as NPCA remains vigilant, it’s important to celebrate victories when they come. Below, you can find snapshots of every monument Biden established. Come armchair travel with us, or head on out to these lands, your lands, which are largely open to the public already — and ripe for exploration.

—Editors

Avi Kwa Ame National Monument, Nevada

Managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service

Established March 21, 2023

[SPRING 2025] Monuments Avi Kwa Ame

A Joshua tree frames a view of Spirit Mountain. 

©L.E. BASKOW/LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Avi Kwa Ame National Monument preserves more than 500,000 acres of the Mojave Desert’s rugged peaks and dry washes. Nestled in the southern tip of Nevada, the site anchors an unbroken network of protected land that stretches from Canyonlands National Park in Utah to Joshua Tree National Park in California. This landscape “represents one of the greatest desert conservation reserves in the world,” said Neal Desai, NPCA’s acting director for the Pacific region. Spirit Mountain, known to the Mojave people as Avi Kwa Ame, stands sentinel along the eastern border of the monument, which is home to Joshua trees, desert tortoises, golden eagles and more. The area is sacred to 12 Tribes, whose members still perform ceremonies in this region, where human occupancy extends back more than 10,000 years. Today, evidence of these inhabitants abounds in the form of projectile points, pictographs, pottery fragments, rock shelters and more.

Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni–Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, Arizona

Managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service

Established Aug. 8, 2023

It is all in the national monument’s (long) name: “Baaj nwaavjo” means “where Indigenous peoples roam” in Havasupai, and the Hopi call the area “i’tah kukveni” or “our ancestral footprints.” The nearly 1 million acres located north and south of Grand Canyon National Park are part of the homelands of a dozen Tribes. The landscape contains thousands of cultural and historical sites, including some that are central to creation stories or ceremonial songs. The park is also home to numerous rare creatures and plants, such as the endangered California condor and the Fickeisen plains cactus. “It is an absolutely unique, amazing, big, complex landscape and ecosystem,” said Ernie Atencio, NPCA’s former Southwest regional director.

For many years, the Tribes of the Grand Canyon region, along with NPCA and other organizations, worked to protect these lands from uranium mining, and eventually advocated for the creation of the monument. (The park is very popular in Arizona, with the governor and most voters supporting it, but the Arizona state legislature and others have filed a lawsuit arguing that Biden overstepped his authority when he established the national monument.) For now, the lands on both sides of the Colorado River are protected, from southeastern Utah to the outskirts of Las Vegas. “There’s a contiguous line of protection that runs from Moab all the way across in national monuments, national parks, national recreation areas, all the way down to Chuckwalla,” Atencio said, referring to the new national monument near Joshua Tree National Park. “It’s exciting to see.”

Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument, Colorado

Managed by the U.S. Forest Service

Established Oct. 12, 2022

The first national monument created by the Biden administration protects more than 50,000 acres of narrow valleys and towering peaks in central Colorado. Before being forced out by the federal government in the mid-1800s to pave the way for miners, Ute people had traveled through and lived in the area for thousands of years, as evidenced by stone circles, camps and burial sites. The rugged terrain served a new purpose in the early 1940s, when thousands of U.S. soldiers trained there to acquire the mountaineering skills that would allow them to defeat Nazi troops in a dangerous operation in February 1945 in the mountains of Italy.

Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument, Pennsylvania

Managed by the National Park Service and the U.S. Army

Established Dec. 9, 2024

[SPRING 2025] Monuments Carlisle

Young Sioux students in uniform at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, circa 1880.

NATIONAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARCHIVES, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

Last October, Biden became the first president to apologize for the multigenerational trauma federal Indian boarding schools inflicted on Native American families and communities. “It’s a sin on our soul,” Biden told a crowd as he recounted the horrors children faced at the 500-plus off-reservation boarding schools that operated between the early 1800s and the 1960s. A few weeks later, he designated Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument. The site housed some 7,800 children from more than 140 Tribes during its 40-year run.

Though the total number of young people removed from their homes and shipped to these far-off schools for forced assimilation is unknown, the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition has determined that 83% of Native school-age children were attending one of these facilities by 1926. Those running the schools stripped the children of their traditional clothes, language, names, religion and cultural practices, and often enforced rules through physical abuse and neglect. Katie Shea, NPCA’s Tribal co-management policy fellow and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, described the boarding schools as “an instrument of cultural genocide” and said the new monument will prevent this dark chapter from being forgotten. “My personal hope,” Shea said, “is that it creates opportunities for Tribes to finally get the justice they deserve.”

Castner Range National Monument, Texas

Managed by the U.S. Army

Established March 21, 2023

[SPRING 2025] Monuments Lizard

A Texas horned lizard, one of the species found in the newly established Castner Range National Monument.

©DANITA DELIMONT/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

This 6,672-acre expanse of Chihuahuan Desert near El Paso preserves the habitat of more than two dozen threatened and endangered species, as well as petroglyphs, pottery shards and other tangible reminders of the land’s earliest inhabitants. More recently, the site served as a training ground for soldiers from nearby Fort Bliss. It is closed to the public until the conclusion of the Army’s remediation efforts, which include the removal of ammunition and other explosives.

In the interim, those interested in learning more about the area’s rich history and experiencing the desert’s diversity can visit the El Paso Museum of Archaeology, which sits within the monument’s footprint.

Chuckwalla National Monument, California

Managed by the Bureau of Land Management

Established Jan. 14, 2025

[SPRING 2025] Monuments Chuckwalla

The desert tortoise, listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, spends the majority of its life below ground. 

©TIM FITZHARRIS/MINDEN PICTURES

In January, NPCA, Tribes and other partners celebrated the designation of Chuckwalla National Monument south of Joshua Tree National Park. The site’s canyons, desert forests and mesas are home to a diversity of species, some of which can’t be found anywhere else on the planet. Chuckwalla also protects ancient petroglyphs, critical habitat for the desert tortoise, 1.5-billion-year-old rocks, World War II training camps, and 50 miles of the Bradshaw Trail, a historic route first used by Indigenous peoples before being adopted by gold miners in the 1860s. Like Avi Kwa Ame, the monument’s 624,000 acres contribute to a vast network of protected lands spanning four states. In a recent episode of NPCA’s “The Secret Lives of Parks” podcast, the organization’s California desert program manager, Luke Basulto, called Chuckwalla “one of the most beautiful places on the planet.”

A note from the editors: News reports over the weekend of March 15, 2025, indicated that the Trump administration intended to roll back protections on 1 million acres of public land, including recently established Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands national monuments. At the time this story was posted online, concerns from both Democrats and Republicans had the administration backpedaling, and it was unclear whether the rescission would proceed. Follow NPCA on social media or check NPCA’s press releases for the most recent updates.

Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, Mississippi and Illinois

Managed by the National Park Service

Established July 25, 2023

In the early hours of Aug. 28, 1955, two white men later identified as Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam abducted Emmett Till from his relatives’ home outside Money in the Mississippi Delta. A group including Emmett, who was visiting from Chicago, had gone to the grocery store managed by Bryant’s wife earlier in the week to buy candy. Emmett had whistled at her from outside, according to one of his cousins.

[SPRING 2025] Monuments Emmett Till

Emmett Till, circa 1955.

©WORLD HISTORY ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

The price of this violation of the South’s racist, unwritten rules was horrific. Emmett’s broken body was found three days later in the nearby Tallahatchie River. He had been shot in the head, and a 70-pound cotton gin fan was tied around his neck with barbed wire. He was just 14 years old.

The trial was a parody of justice, and Bryant and Milam were swiftly acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury — the two would admit to murdering Emmett in a magazine interview the following year. But Mamie Till-Mobley made sure the murder of her son would not be forgotten. She decided to hold an open-casket funeral and allowed Jet magazine to publish photos of Emmett’s mangled body. Millions across the country could no longer ignore the brutal reality of Black people’s lives in the South, and Emmett’s lynching and his mother’s militant advocacy are credited with helping ignite the modern Civil Rights Movement.

On what would have been Emmett’s 82nd birthday, Biden designated the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument. The park includes the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, where the trial took place; nearby Graball Landing, the approximate location where Emmett’s body was discovered; and the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ on Chicago’s South Side, the site of his funeral.

“Without a shadow of a doubt, this story is as relevant today as it was in ’55,” said Benjamin Saulsberry, the public engagement and museum education director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, a key partner of the fledgling national monument. “As a society and as a country, in some ways, I think we have made meaningful, lasting progress, and part of that progress is because of our willingness, or rather, our deliberate choosing to not forget certain stories.”

Frances Perkins National Monument, Maine

Managed by the National Park Service

Established Dec. 16, 2024

[SPRING 2025] Monuments Perkins

Frances Perkins, one of the architects of the New Deal, was instrumental in the creation of several of its programs, including the Civilian Conservation Corps, which built infrastructure and trails at dozens of national park sites.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

In December, Frances Perkins National Monument, located on a 57-acre site in Newcastle, Maine, became the country’s 433rd national park site. One of 13 park units specifically created to spotlight women’s history, the site includes an 1837 brick house and attached barn as well as nature trails going down to the Damariscotta River.

A trailblazing advocate for social justice, economic security and labor rights, Perkins served as secretary of labor under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet and became one of Roosevelt’s closest advisors.

“From the 40-hour workweek to the minimum wage, to workplace safety and fire prevention, to the abolition of child labor, to the creation of Social Security, Perkins remains one of the most influential women in U.S. history,” Keith Mestrich, chair of the board of the Frances Perkins Center, said at the time of the designation.

“Frances Perkins, to many people, was a buried history. Today changes that,” Kristen Brengel, NPCA’s senior vice president of government affairs, told USA Today after attending the proclamation-signing ceremony. “We need to do our homework a little bit more and not let these women sort of go without the recognition that they deserve.”

Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, California

Managed by the U.S. Forest Service

Established Jan. 14, 2025

The central feature of this 224,000-acre national monument in Northern California is the Medicine Lake Volcano, which is about 10 times the size of Mount St. Helens. The area includes both lush forests and barren landscapes, as well as unique volcanic formations, such as parts of the longest-known lava tube system in the world. The lands within the monument are sacred to the Pit River Tribe and Modoc Nation and hold deep significance for many other Tribes.

Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument, Illinois

Managed by the National Park Service

Established Aug. 16, 2024

[SPRING 2025] Monuments Springfield Race Riot

Members of the Illinois State Militia stand in a burned-out home in Springfield.

SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE

On Aug. 14, 1908, a crowd composed largely of young white men gathered at the Springfield, Illinois, county jail, demanding the local sheriff let them mete out mob justice to two Black inmates being held there. The sheriff, hoping to defuse tensions, spirited the inmates away to a jail in another city. That decision proved deadly. Inflamed, the men turned violently on the city’s Black residents. In a two-day rampage, the crowd burned, looted, vandalized and attacked Black-owned businesses and homes. The carnage left several people dead, including some members of the mob, and hundreds injured.

The brutal episode was widely covered in the news partly because it took place in the North at a time when much of the country assumed that racial violence was a Southern problem. The events caught the attention of several prominent civil rights activists, who established the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People the following year.

Over time, this tragic piece of history faded from memory, but public interest in the story grew after a 2014 archaeological dig related to a high-speed rail project uncovered artifacts from that period, along with the foundations of five homes that had been burned in the riot. Biden advanced the effort to highlight this history when he created Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument.

“You don’t know where you could go and where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been,” said Crystal Davis, NPCA’s senior Midwest regional director. “Being able to designate a site like this really pays homage to our ancestors who lived through these incidents that have really shaped the landscape, the Civil Rights Movement as we know it today.”