Free Joshua Tree Park admission starts today

Today, the Park Service oversees 413 sites, including 59 major national parks, covering 84 million acres – from the Great Smoky Mountains, the most visited, to the Grand Canyon, to the Everglades.

The National Park Service turned 100 years old Thursday, a milestone being celebrated everywhere from Independence Hall to Mount Rainier.

The Park Service took an aerial photograph of Thursday’s gathering. The first 1,000 participants were allowed to keep their umbrellas and got T-shirts commemorating the event.

All national parks are additionally offering free admission August 25 to 28 in celebration of the centennial. Today, we’re going to point out the national parks right here in MA and New England.

The answer to the question of what you get the National Park Service that has everything seems to be an adorable doodle. The National Park Service is waiving entrance fees in honor of the parks’ 100th birthday.

The monument’s creation was opposed by state lawmakers and critics who fear that it will hinder efforts to rebuild a forest-based economy in the region.

“It was like lying in a great solemn cathedral, far vaster and more handsome than any built by the hand of man”, Roosevelt wrote after a 1903 presidential visit to California’s Yosemite National Park.

Check out the other most-visited national parks over at National Geographic.

In preparation for the centennial the Park Service issued a “call to action” to employees and partners, with the goal of helping the park service move into its second century of stewardship, according to the park service website.

However, entrance will be free to Joshua Tree Superintendent David Smith’s 10 a.m. cutting of the NPS birthday cake at the park’s Oasis Visitor Center. Some visitors didn’t even realize one of the free spots is on Fisherman’s Wharf, the Maritime National Historical Park.