Travel Back in Time at Colorado's New National Historic Landmarks

Chautauqua Park and Granada Relocation Center Honored for Heritage Preservation

DENVER (March 16, 2006) - In Colorado, travelers will find two new National Historic Landmarks - Colorado Chautauqua Park and the Granada Relocation Center, a World War II internment camp - trace the legacies of two significant events in American history. With these recent designations by Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, Colorado now claims no less than 20 National Historic Landmarks.

Located at the base of the Flatirons in Boulder, Colorado Chautauqua Park was founded in 1898 and is part of the Chautauqua movement, one of the first mass movements to educate and enlighten citizens through cultural and educational experiences. Orators, performers, and educators traveled a national Chautauqua circuit of more than 12,000 sites bringing lectures, performances, concerts, classes, and exhibitions to thousands of people in small towns and cities. Theodore Roosevelt called Chautauqua's, "the most American thing in America." Colorado's Chautauqua Park is one of only three remaining Chautauqua's in the United States and the only site west of the Mississippi River in continuous operation with its original structures intact. Today, it is open year-round with an outdoor auditorium featuring a summer concert series, a dining hall with food-oriented programs, as well as a variety of hiking trails and nature tours.

Located in Southeastern Colorado near Granada, The Granada Relocation Center was the smallest of 10 camps that housed Japanese-Americans forced from the West Coast in the 1940s by the War Relocation Authority. There were 7,620 inhabitants of whom two-thirds were American citizens. At one time the relocation camp contained 30 blocks of residential barracks, each with its own mess hall, laundry and shower rooms. Children attended school while adults worked on a farm growing crops such as alfalfa and corn. The camp closed in January 1946 when the evacuees were released after the war. Today, historic roadways, barracks foundations and a cemetery remain on the site.

The National Historic Landmark designation is the highest such recognition accorded by the Federal Government to historic properties. These special places embody the actual sites where significant historical events occurred, or where prominent Americans worked or lived, and represent the ideas that shaped the nation. Fewer than 2,500 historic places carry the title of National Historic Landmark.

For more information and a list of Colorado's other National Historic Landmarks, visit the National Historical Landmarks Program at http://www.cr.nps.gov/nhl/.

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