February 26, 1919: The Grand Canyon is designated a National Park

In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.

- Theodore Roosevelt

... Speaking of the Grand Canyon: the lottery for 2016 private river trips was held this week, and it looks like we'll be rafting down the Colorado River through the Canyon for approximately 21 days in December of next year!