Intermountain and Pacific-West Landscapes
Fort Point National Historic Site, California, 1978. Fort Point was built between 1853 and 1861 by master brick masons for the U.S. Army Engineers. It was part of a defense system of forts planned for the protection of San Francisco Bay.
The Intermountain and Pacific-West regions of the National Park Service are home to more than a hundred parks ranging from Hawaii to Washington State and down to Texas. The earliest park to be established in this region is Yellowstone National Park, which spans Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. The U.S. Congress under President Ulysses S. Grant formed this 2 million acre-plus park in 1872. The most notable aspect of Yellowstone is the geyser Old Faithful, but there are also several mountain ranges containing bears, wolves, and bison. The largest park in the region, Death Valley, is located in California and Nevada. Established as a national park in 1994, Death Valley is the hottest national park (record of 134 degrees Fahrenheit) in the U.S. and it covers more than 3 million acres.
