The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [621]
* There is some debate as to whether Crater Lake was the fifth, sixth, or seventh national park. Because Mackinac Island was decommissioned and General Grant was absorbed into King Canyon National Park in 1940, the ranking can vary. Officially it was the seventh national park established. I’m going with sixth because that was how President Roosevelt saw it in 1902.
* To be exact Wister’s dedication read: “TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT…Some of these pages you have seen, some you have praised, one stands new—written because you blamed it; and all, my dear critic, beg leave to remind you of their author’s changeless admiration.”
* Roosevelt may have thought Pat Garrett adhered to the western code, but he didn’t. Garrett’s law enforcement decades had many unethical episodes.
* Not included in this table is the Medicine Bow Forest Reserve (Colorado and Wyoming). Originally created on May 22, 1902, it had about 2 million acres. Medicine Bow Forest Reserve has gone through a number of changes since its creation, including boundary modifications on July 26, 1902, and May 17, 1905. Absaroka is not generally included as one of Roosevelt’s 1902 accomplishments, as it was absorbed into Yellowstone Forest Reserve on January 29, 1903. See “100 Years of Conservation and Public Service on the Medicine Bow,” U.S. Forest Service Archives, Washington D.C. See also Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year Ended June 30, 1905 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1905), pp. 213–215.
* Gottlob had dropped off Arthur, then about twelve, in Crestline, Ohio, with his brother Adolf.
* Indian River oranges were and are considered, by many, the best in the world, and are known as the “royalty” of oranges. Three-quarters of all Florida grapefruit comes from the Indian River region.
* Visitors from New York got to the Indian River by railroad to Jacksonville. Then they took a steamboat up the Saint Johns River, debarking at Salt Lake, near the town of Enterprise. From there it was a mule-drawn wagon tram to Titusville.
* The Pelican Island refuge was increased to 616 acres; and in 1968 403 acres more were added to the refuge. As of 2009 it encompassed 4,359 acres of mangrove islands and bottomland in the Indian River (some of which was under lease from the state of Florida).
* The Hermit was Mason A. Walton, called the “hermit of Gloucester.” He spent many solitary years in the woods of Bond’s Hill, Massachusetts. Walton was known for his 1903 book The Hermit’s Wild Friends; or, Eighteen Years in the Woods. His home was called “Ravenswood.”
* On January 1, 1905, Senator Mitchell was indicted, for favoritism regarding land claims, before the U.S. Land Commissioner. On July 5 Mitchell was convicted while the Senate was in recess. He died that December. Mitchell was one of only eleven elected U.S. senators ever indicted. President Roosevelt, cheering on cartoonists who portrayed Mitchell’s beard in rich people’s pockets, took his death as good riddance.
* In 1917–1918, elks, bison, and white-tailed deer were reintroduced to Sully’s Hill. On March 3, 1931, Congress transferred Roosevelt’s North Dakota national park to the National Wildlife Refuge System; today it is managed as a big game preserve.
* While Roosevelt may have thought his campaign refused the money a 1912 investigation came to a different conclusion. The check had been cashed by the RNC. Although it was determined that Roosevelt hadn’t been in the loop.
* Emperor Menelik was an unusual personality—he lived surrounded by pets—and an unusual leader. He helped Ethiopia create its first modern banks, railroads, postal service, and so on. Anxious to establish modern capital punishment techniques in Ethiopia, he ordered three electric chairs. Unable to produce the electric current necessary for executions, yet not wanting to throw his purchase out, Menelik used one as his throne.