Eleven parks deepened with new primary-source research. Yellowstone, Glacier, Hawai'i Volcanoes, Kings Canyon, Mount Rainier, Olympic, Rocky Mountain, and Yosemite each roughly double in depth, with new sections on labor history, women's history, and the history of science at each park. Yellowstone's pass also corrects seven errors that had shipped in earlier versions. Capitol Reef and Dry Tortugas get smaller sourced additions. Every claim is verified independently against primary records before it ships.

Ten parks deepened or corrected, drawing on newly located archival records. Hot Springs: a full history built from scratch -- Walter T. Bailey's real biography, the bathhouse district's segregation-era rules and fees, named Black federal employees, and the McLaughlin-era vice economy. Big Bend: the first named women in the park's history, the Buffalo Soldiers named instead of "U.S. troops," the Seminole Negro Scouts, and a new section on the 2026 border-wall litigation. Congaree: Forest Joe's Maroon encampment verified from primary newspapers, the preservation campaign's real organizers credited, and post-emancipation Black land ownership documented. Crater Lake: all four executed Modoc leaders named, the 1954 Klamath Termination Act's full timeline, women's scenic advocacy, and the 2024 Klamath River dam removal. Cuyahoga Valley: the 1969 river-fire myth corrected against the record, Mayor Carl Stokes and the fire's political aftermath, the Underground Railroad's real canal-corridor history, and the Krejci Dump Superfund case. Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Carlsbad Caverns, Biscayne, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison: fabricated citations and popular myths corrected, named women added, and sourcing gaps closed against primary records. Also: report an error or send feedback right from Settings, the featured park on the home screen now rotates daily, and several reader-UI fixes. Every claim is sourced independently and checked against primary records.

Big Bend, Badlands, National Park of American Samoa, and Biscayne deepened with fact-checked research, and labor and segregation history newly added across nearly 50 more parks. Big Bend gets its first named women: Juana Hernandez, a 1936 Terlingua landowner, and Ofelia and Lilia Falcón, who kept their Boquillas restaurant running through the 2002 border closure and 2013 reopening. Also names the Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry, documents where Black CCC recruits were actually sent when kept out of the park's own camp, and gives the 2026 border-wall construction fight its own section. Badlands is fully rewritten from primary sources: the 1942 condemnation of 341,726 Pine Ridge acres for a WWII bombing range, the CCC's segregated camps alongside the Lakota-run Indian Division, and the tribe's still-active 1976 co-management agreement with the Park Service. National Park of American Samoa: corrected tsunami damage that was wrongly attributed to an uninhabited island instead of the park's own headquarters, fixed a conflated settlement chronology, and updated bat conservation status. Biscayne: corrected a claim that Porgy Key was briefly a "segregated Black resort" when it was continuously the Jones family's working homestead, hedged an Islandia vote count and a Jones land-sale valuation that outran what the record actually shows, and separated a conflated Turkey Point contamination claim into its two distinct groundwater and surface-water pathways. Nearly 50 more parks — Yellowstone, Yosemite, Acadia, and dozens more — gained labor-history and segregation sections that were previously missing. Yellowstone's, for instance, covers Gardiner and Cody's color lines alongside Marguerite Lindsley, the park system's first full-time female ranger in 1925. Also fixes a display bug where Badlands and Arches showed duplicate, contradictory history sections. Every claim is sourced independently and checked against primary records.

Six parks deepened or rewritten, drawing on newly located archival records. Channel Islands: a full island history anchored by the 1884 killing of Ah You — the ranching-era labor force of Kanaka vaqueros and Chinese and Japanese abalone divers, the epidemic and trade collapse that emptied the islands, the killing's unresolved jurisdictional fight, the 1984 Chumash lawsuit, and Tuqan Man's thirteen-year wait for reburial under NAGPRA. New River Gorge: a full coalfield history anchored by the Hawks Nest Tunnel disaster — the deliberately divided Black and immigrant workforce, the disaster's segregated hospital and the unmarked graves at Whippoorwill, the Battle of Stanaford, and the reckoning that followed. Mammoth Cave: Matt Bransford's own 1921 letters describing the segregated cave tours he ran under his employer's explicit instruction, and the 1941 dismissal of the cave's last Black guides. Dry Tortugas: a slave-hire payroll transcription drawn from Fort Taylor's own ledgers, a corrected cemetery and hospital timeline, and newly documented 1861 labor-recruitment attempts in Havana and the Bahamas. Mesa Verde: a full labor-history and source-strength audit, surfacing a 1934 Ute grievance over exclusion from park labor. Grand Teton: the tribal bison hunts on the National Elk Refuge that followed Herrera v. Wyoming, and two nations restored to the park's own record. Every claim is sourced independently and checked against primary records.

Four parks rewritten with substantially deeper history. Dry Tortugas: the enslaved men who built Fort Jefferson, named from the engineers' own payroll ledgers, the 1847 escape, the military prison, and the 1867 yellow fever epidemic. Zion: the 1852 Utah slavery statutes, the interpreter who was present at Mountain Meadows and then opened Zion Canyon, and what the park's own history pages leave out. Mammoth Cave: the saltpeter works, the enslaved guides, the tuberculosis huts inside the cave, and segregation at the park. Grand Teton: the 1895 killing that ended Native treaty hunting rights for 123 years, the secret purchase of Jackson Hole, and the 1943 standoff. Every claim is sourced independently and checked against primary records.

Expanding on the history of Grand Teton

Version 1.4 Highlights: • Timeline readability: Improved abbreviation and sentence handling across all park timelines. • Historical updates: Added deep-dive historical records for Great Smoky Mountains, Shenandoah, and Acadia. • Filter updates: Active check indicators on state filter chips. • Bug fixes & performance improvements: Smoother navigation and reader experience.

National Parks History Project is the real history of all 63 U.S. national parks — the Indigenous nations who lived on these lands, how each park was actually created, who was displaced, and how each place is reckoned with today. Everything works offline. No accounts, no ads, no tracking. Found something wrong? admin@nullciphersystems.com

Just a small update this time! This update includes a minor historical refinement to ensure our park timelines remain accurate, plus general under-the-hood improvements.

This update corrects historical details across all 63 parks after a full fact-check against primary sources — founding dates, the Indigenous nations named, and how each park actually came to be. No new features, just more accurate stories.