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political career. Having already won a Nobel Peace Prize for diplomacy, Roosevelt increasingly envisioned his postpresidential role in part as being a global spokesperson for big game animals, wildlife protection, and natural resources conservation. Didn’t South Africa need antelope preserves? Shouldn’t India find ways to protect its tigers? Couldn’t China develop its own fish hatcheries? This had always been Roosevelt’s hope for the Boone and Crockett Club—that it would go global with its preservationist and conservationist message and ideas. Akeley, a new club member, actively promoted this global approach. And Roosevelt was about to write his first non-American centric book, even though the content was about an American naturalist expedition traveling in the so-called dark continent. “I speak of Africa and golden joys,” Roosevelt later wrote in African Game Trails. “The joy of wandering through lonely lands; the joy of hunting the mighty and terrible lords of the wilderness, the cunning, the wary, and the grim.”37

III

The success of Mesa Verde National Park in 1906 had gotten Roosevelt extremely interested in the Four Corners states and territories: Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. Guided by Congressman Lacey, Roosevelt had read about Montezuma Castle, El Morro, and other prehistoric ruins of the Southwest. And at some point Roosevelt also read an article in National Geographic magazine titled “The Colossal Natural Bridges of Utah,” which had piqued his curiosity.38 Pinchot’s U.S. Forest Service—at the time, a branch of the USDA—was in charge of Utah’s two national forests, Sevier and Manti. And Utah also had many more spectacular wonders. Word had reached the White House that southeastern Utah had the largest number of natural bridges in the world. The novelist Edward Abbey later wrote rapturously about the three bridges, which retained their original Hopi names. The first, Kachina, meant “spirits that had lightning snake symbols on their bodies” the second, Uwachomo, signified “flat rock mound” the third, Sipapu, meant “place of emergencies.” The bridges, the largest of which was 222 feet high, had been formed by streambed erosion (unlike many other arch formations in Utah, which were created by wind, rain, and ice). Surrounded by piñon forest, Anasazi ruins, and a gorgeous slickrock canyon, Natural Bridges met every criterion for national monument status.39

Priding himself on knowing everything about the West, Roosevelt started reading every book he could find on Hopi and Navajo culture, and later contributed an essay about the southwestern tribes of the Four Corners region in his A Book-Lover’s Holidays in the Open (1916).40 Ultimately Roosevelt was taking a tricky line: preserving Hopi-Navajo culture in the southwest while also encouraging soldiers, agents, missionaries, and traders to Americanize these peoples. Roosevelt never hesitated to promote the education of Native Americans, and he seemed unaware of the humiliation being inflicted on tribes by the imposition of the Bible and reservation life. “The Indian should be encouraged to build a better house,” Roosevelt wrote of this policy, “but the house must not be too different from his present dwelling, or he will, as a rule, neither build it nor live in it.” 41

On April 16, 1908, Roosevelt signed into existence Natural Bridges National Monument, his first such designation in Utah. These three natural sandstone bridges, spanning a desert canyon and isolated from any town or hamlet, met Roosevelt’s scientific qualifications for monument status because they were “extraordinary examples of stream erosion.” 42 Over the decades, Natural Bridges National Monument became a popular hiking and camping destination, especially for families. Together with National Geographic, Roosevelt helped launch the movement to save Utah’s splendid canyons from private development.

Certainly, Roosevelt’s heavy-handed federalism angered people besides corporate bigwigs and disgruntled ranchers. Many westerners had long felt that businessmen on the east coast had treated the