National Park Week, 2000

Proclamation 7293 of April 14, 2000

National Park Week, 2000

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

We are fortunate to live in an era when the explosive
growth of technology has put at our fingertips an
extraordinary array of information. But even during
this technological revolution, one of America's richest
and most fascinating educational resources is also
among its oldest: our national park system. Our
national parks are living libraries and laboratories,
where all Americans can experience the beauty and
variety of nature and learn about our Nation's history
and culture.

Preserving the rare and unusual as well as the
spectacular and beautiful, our national parks provide
botanists, wildlife biologists, chemists, and other
scientists the opportunity to conduct research into the
fragile ecosystems that affect the health of people,
plants, and animals around the world. Geologists and
paleontologists find in our national parks the story of
our continent, from the Grand Canyon's geologic
formations to the ancient bones resting at Dinosaur
National Monument.

The national park system also captures America's more
recent history. In the National Historic Sites and
along the National Historic Trails maintained by the
men and women of the National Park Service, we learn
about the lives and achievements of American heroes
like Lewis and Clark, Sojourner Truth, Abraham Lincoln,
Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Wright
Brothers, and Thomas Edison. From Fort Necessity in
Pennsylvania, where a young George Washington saw
action in the French and Indian War, to the quiet acres
of Gettysburg, where one of the Civil War's bloodiest
battles was fought, to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in
Selma, Alabama, where the modern civil rights movement
reached its emotional peak 35 years ago, Americans can
see and touch their history.

Today, we have 379 national parks, and each site offers
a unique opportunity to experience the wonder of
nature, to stand in the footprints of history, to learn
about our culture and our society, to study the natural
world, and to look toward the future. As we observe
National Park Week, I join all Americans in thanking
the men and women of the National Park Service for
their dedication in caring for these special places. We
are indebted to them for preserving and protecting our
natural and cultural heritage, not only for our
enjoyment and education today, but also for the benefit
of generations to come.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, do hereby proclaim April 17 through April 23,
2000, as National Park Week.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
fourteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord two
thousand, and of the Independence of the United States
of America the two hundred and twenty-fourth.