Celebrate National Parks Week with USU Libraries
April 18–25, 2026
Contact: Sarah Berry, Digital Archivist | sarah.berry@usu.edu
This April, USU Libraries invites the campus community to celebrate National Parks Week (April 18–25) by exploring a rich collection of digitized photographs, historic documents, and rare films held in Special Collections and Archives. From the red rock towers of Monument Valley to the majestic Yellowstone Park, USU Libraries preserves firsthand accounts of the people who opened the American West's most iconic landscapes to the world.
April 22nd | Silent Film Screenings: Yellowstone Through a Ranger's Lens
On Earth Day, Wednesday, April 22, USU Libraries will host two screenings of silent film reels of Yellowstone National Park taken by Park Ranger Marion Crowell in the 1930s. The films offer a rare glimpse of the park as seen through the eyes of one of its caretakers during an era when the National Park Service was still defining its mission. USU Libraries Digital Archivist Sarah Berry will be on hand to share interesting details about the films and their place in the library's collections.
- Register for the 11 a.m. Screening
Merrill-Cazier Library, Room 101 - Register for the 2 p.m. Screening
Merrill-Cazier Library, Room 101
The films are also available to view online through USU's Digital History Collections.
Explore Our National Parks Collections
USU Libraries holds a wide range of digitized materials connected to America's national parks and public lands. Here are a few highlights:
Forest Ranger Daybooks of Aaron Parley Christiansen
These handwritten daybooks from 1915 to 1921 document the daily work of Aaron Parley Christiansen, an assistant forest ranger stationed on the Uinta National Forest near Nephi, Utah. The entries serve as a detailed log of early Forest Service life — from timber sales and grazing leases to fighting forest fires and reseeding projects. Christiansen spent much of his time working out of the Salt Creek Ranger Station, and his writings offer a compelling firsthand account of conservation philosophy in the early twentieth century.
Dolph Andrus's Monumental Highway Expeditions Digital Exhibit
In the spring of 1917, Dolph Andrus of Bluff, Utah, set out to prove that Monument Valley could be opened to automobile tourism. Accompanied by dentist and photographer William H. Hopkins, Andrus completed an automobile journey through Monument Valley and on to Kayenta, Tuba City, and Lee's Ferry, Arizona. A second expedition later that summer — this time with photographer L.W. Clement, along with Andrus's wife Irene and daughter Torma traveling by burro — captured photographs of the natural bridges and monuments of the valley. This digital exhibit brings together images from both the Dolph Andrus Photograph Collection and the Dr. William H. Hopkins Addendum Collection, featuring landscape photographs of Monument Valley, Natural Bridges National Monument, Zion National Park, the Colorado River, and the San Juan River.
100 Years of National Parks: Zion National Park History LibGuide
Congress created Zion National Park on November 19, 1919, but the area's history as a preserved natural environment dates to 1909, when it was first designated as a national monument. This LibGuide, curated by USU's Government Information Department, gathers digitized historic documents including a 1919 tourism pamphlet from the United States Railroad Administration, visitor circulars from the 1920s, and a 1937 park history written by naturalist A.M. Woodbury. The guide also provides links to the USGS geological survey of the Zion region and resources for researching other national parks through the HathiTrust, Library of Congress, and USU Special Collections.