The San Francisco Mountains are located ten miles north of present-day Flagstaff, Arizona and include Humphreys Peak, the tallest in the state. Formed as a stratovolcano from 2.8 million to 200,000 years ago, erosion eventually carved the eastern side of the rim away, leaving a semi-circular ridge line of peaks that rise above the timberline. The range includes the San Francisco Volcanic Field, which covers about 1,800 square miles in northern Arizona.

The mountain peaks hold sacred significance for thirteen Indigenous nations in the Southwest, including the Diné (Navajo), Hualapai, Hopi, Southern Paiute, Havasupai, Yavapai, Zuni, Acoma, and several Apache tribes. The Diné regard the San Francisco peaks (Dookó’oslííd in Diné) as the western boundary of Dinetah, or Navajo homeland. For the Diné, the sacred peaks connect cosmology to the physical world and spiritual power to their people. In traditional Diné culture, the peaks were created by First Man and imbued with an inner spiritual form known as bii’istiin. Each of the sacred boundary mountains has an associated color full of history and significance, such as yellow for the San Francisco mountains.

The peaks not only occupy a central place in cosmological narratives, they also play a vital role in medicinal and ceremonial practices in daily life. The mountains’ spiritual nature requires that they can only be ascended in a respectful way that includes prayer and song. Healers visit the mountains to collect soil and materials for medicine bundles, and to renew spiritual powers. Diné spiritual leaders regularly invoke the powers of the mountains in ceremonies across Dinetah.

The spiritual significance that the San Francisco mountains have for the Diné and other Indigenous peoples collide with Euro-American approaches to the land. In the 1800s American settlers began grazing livestock on the mountains’ slopes, including the Mormon-run cattle company at Fort Moroni. In 1908, Theodore Roosevelt designated the peaks as National Forest land and, in 1920, a Flagstaff entrepreneur began building a road to the top of the peaks for tourists. In 1938, the Forest Service leased land to entrepreneurs who created a ski resort called the Arizona Snowbowl, which has been in operation ever since.

An ongoing controversy began in 2002 when the Snowbowl announced plans to expand the resort and create artificial snow using reclaimed wastewater. After years of pushback, a 2007 court of appeals ruled in favor of the Diné who sued the Forest Service over using reclaimed water. The court reversed their religious rights decision a year later. In 2012, an appeals court ruled in favor of the resort against the wishes of the Hopis, and artificial snowmaking commenced. In 2022, after years of snowmaking, a proposed 60 millionaire dollar expansion led to increased tribal resistance that is presently ongoing.

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In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps removed Moraine Lodge from Rocky Mountain National Park in an initiative to restore the land to its original state. They converted the lodge’s remaining assembly hall into a museum in 1936 and the following year added the Moraine Park Museum Amphitheater. Like other outdoor venues in the national parks, the amphitheater follows Greek design with a rustic naturalism that blends in with the setting. The architecture plays a subordinate role to nature, responding to the terrain rather than controlling it, by following basic principles such as refraining from removing large numbers of trees to create seating, incorporating a distant natural view as the stage background, and placing a campfire near the stage. The amphitheater also reflects the ‘Parkitecture’ era of Park Service design that naturalized visitor centers, creating an organic aesthetic for guests that blended manmade structures with nature. Overlooking a view of Longs Peak, the amphitheater features rustic design elements like the plank and stone seating built around the topographic shape of the bowl, ponderosa pines creating a wall around the stage, and stone steps and trails for pedestrian traffic. The new museum and theater were important additions to the Park Service’s education and interpretation programs at Rocky Mountain and served as a venue for delivering slideshow presentations. The first lecture took place in the summer of 1937 and hosted 97 guests. The Estes Park Trail—a local newspaper—published a list of weekly programs held at the amphitheater which included motion pictures like Glimpses of the National Parks and campfire lectures such as “Oddities in Nature’s Gardens” and “Winter Life in the Rockies,” both given in the week of July 25, 1938. The Moraine Park Museum Amphitheater site is one of the best representations of National Park rustic design and remains unchanged to this day. Using the natural landscape, retaining native plants, and including views of the park were key elements of the Park Service’s conservation movement in the 1930s. Citizens nominated the site to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, and promoted understanding landscapes as places of historical information. Since its original construction, the National Park Service replaced the amphitheater’s stone seating with wood planks in the 1950s. The amphitheater has hosted many events over the years, ranging from lectures and religious gatherings to stargazing and campfires. It remains in use today largely for weddings and school education programs.

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The first development at the Beaver Creek Administrative Area in what became Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park was in 1908, when Forest Service ranger Al Austin built the Stewart Ranger Station in what was then known as Teton National Forest. Between 1908 and 1929, there were a few small additions to the landscape, including three buildings, a road, fencing, and a flagpole. When Grand Teton became a National Park in 1929, the National Park Service took over the land and used it as a utility and administrative site. The 1930s brought new infrastructure to the park which conformed to the Park Service’s rustic building style. With funds from the New Deal program, the Park Service had a superintendent residence built, and they designed this first construction in the area to look rustic. The Civilian Conservation Corps added log cabins, garages, and buildings to the landscape. In addition, replanting natural vegetation was key to blending human development with the region’s natural aesthetic.  The Beaver Creek Administrative Area continued to serve as the park’s headquarters from 1929 until 1958, when a new site near Moose, Wyoming replaced it. The original administrative area remains one of the easiest-to-identify National Park Service rustic sites in the United States. The use of unprocessed building materials like the lodgepole pine trees and river stones create a sense that the building grew directly out of the landscape, and the dark brown paint and green-rolled asphalt roofing meld the buildings with the natural color palette of the Teton forest. The absence of decorative design helps these man-made structures further blend into their environment. The Forest Service buildings that remain in Beaver Creek have undergone renovations since their construction in 1908 which combined the two log buildings into one under a new roof and added porches to the east and west sides of the structure. The historic administrative area has been a topic of debate for Grand Teton National Park in years past. The buildings are still in use as housing, offices, and storage, but the NPS believes the area is an opportunity to showcase National Park designed rustic architecture. Accommodating both tourism and administrative operation requires conscience respect for the the size and design of the historic district. These buildings stand the test of time and exemplify the conservation movement and rustic architecture that the National Parks strove for in the 1930s.

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Marigold Mall is a pedestrian mall nestled between the Harold B. Lee Library, Herald R. Clark Building, and Martin Classroom Building on the west and the Wilkinson Student Center, Harvey Fletcher Building, and Clyde Engineering Building on the east. The space has been named and maintained in honor of Marigold N. Saunders and her generous gift to Brigham Young University. A resident of Oakland, California, Marigold N. Saunders was the wife—and, in her later years, the widow—of H.J. Saunders, a life insurance executive who had worked for companies such as New York Life Insurance and California–Western States Life Insurance. The couple had no children or heirs, but they took an interest in supporting the young. Personal friend and colleague Grant Taggart remembered them as “an inspiration” who mentored him from an eighteen-year-old salesman into a member of the California–Western board of directors. After contemplating how to bequeath her wealth, Saunders decided to leave it to college students in need in the form of scholarships. Saunders named Taggart executor of her estate and instructed him to take whatever remained of her wealth after other bequests and taxes and donate it to universities and colleges of his choosing. BYU was one clear choice. Saunders had visited BYU as a guest of Adelaide Hardy before Hardy’s passing in 1967. As the Provo Daily Herald related, Saunders “was tremendously impressed by what she saw and learned about the University, what it stood for, and what it was doing with young people.” After contacting BYU administration, in May 1977 Taggart publicly announced the Saunders estate was donating $500,000 to BYU for the establishment of an endowment to fund scholarships. Dallin H. Oaks, BYU president at the time, announced that this endowment would annually finance twenty-five “Marigold N. Saunders Awards.” Each grant fully funded a student’s tuition for two semesters. In gratitude, the Board of Trustees moved to name the campus’ north-south pedestrian mall “Marigold Mall,” in Saunders’s honor, and landscape it with decorative flora, including marigolds. Today, a commemorative plaque on the east side of the Lee Library denotes Marigold Mall. The landscape stretches as far south as Campus Drive, encompassing both the concrete sidewalks between the library and Wilkinson Center and the grassy lawns between the Clyde Building and Martin Building. In addition to the sidewalks, benches, and lawns—perfect for resting between classes—the mall also hosts three distinctive art pieces. The class of 1916 established a sundial on the mall, giving the time during daylight hours. Since 1975 (just two years before the mall was named for Saunders), the south end has featured Windows of Heaven, a stained glass statue by sculptor Francis P. Riggs commissioned to celebrate BYU’s centennial year. And in 2002, BYU relocated First Born—a statue featuring a family holding hands—from the then-demolished Smith Family Living Center to the north end of the lawns on Marigold Mall. Saunders’s gift continues to finance what is now known as the Marigold N. Saunders Scholarship, which fully funds each recipient’s tuition for a year, and Marigold Mall continues to express BYU’s “grateful remembrance.”

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Antelope Island represents the largest island within the Great Salt Lake, covering an area of 42 square miles. First inhabited by indigenous natives about 2,000 years ago, natives utilized Antelope Island up until the 1840’s. Indigenous camps discovered on the island provide the knowledge of this use. In 1845, John C. Fremont and Kit Carson explored the island and documented their expedition. Carson’s journal states that he and Fremont hunted Pronghorn Antelope on this island, just like the members of the Ute tribe, and decided to name the island after the animal.

In 1848, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints moved a herd of cattle to the island under the rancher Fielding Garr. The Church continued to run a ranch on the island until 1875, when the homestead movement and the Union Pacific Railroad required land, causing the Church to abandon its use on the island. The land passed through the hands of numerous owners throughout the years until it was purchased in totality in 1981 by the State of Utah.

John White and John Dooly, the ranchers during that time, introduced twelve bison to the island in 1893. Overgrazing and overpopulation with the grazing animals on the island caused it to become necessary to cull and relocate the herd regularly. The herd created a significant genetic pool for use in bison conservation and breeding efforts today. In modern time, numerous species of animals reside on the island, including bighorn sheep, deer, birds, pronghorn, bobcats, among numerous other species.

Antelope Island contains many natural resources. Mining activity included prospecting for slate (1874), gold and copper (1899), oil (1904), and sand and gravel deposits (1967). Eventually, the State of Utah purchased part of Antelope Island in 1969 and bought the rest in 1981, when it officially became a part of the Utah State Parks System. Mining activities halted in 1979 and the state park, which opened to the public in 1993, is currently a habitat for the wildlife inhabiting the island.

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