Olympic National Park to hold open house as a thank-you gesture to area residents
Published 12:01 am Monday, August 19, 2013
PORT ANGELES — Olympic National Park officials want to thank residents for their support.
An open house is planned from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 29, at the park’s visitor center at 3002 Mount Angeles Road.
It is organized “in celebration and gratitude for area communities’ support and collaboration during the 75-year history of Olympic National Park,” Superintendent Sarah Creachbaum said in a statement.
No formal remarks or presentations are planned. Creachbaum and other members of the park staff will be on hand to greet and thank those who attend.
“We’ve been very honored by the outpouring of congratulations and well-wishes during the park’s 75th anniversary year,” Creachbaum said.
“We hope our neighbors and fellow community members will stop by the open house so that we can honor and thank them for their years of support for Olympic National Park.”
The park was established June 29, 1938, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill that founded the park.
As defined in the bill establishing the park, the purpose of Olympic National Park is to:
“Preserve for the benefit, use and enjoyment of the people, the finest sample of primeval forests of Sitka spruce, western hemlock, Douglas fir, and western red cedar in the entire United States; to provide suitable winter range and permanent protection for the herds of native Roosevelt elk and other wildlife indigenous to the area; to conserve and render available to the people, for recreational use, this outstanding mountainous country, containing numerous glaciers and perpetual snow fields and a portion of the surrounding verdant forest together with a narrow string along the beautiful Washington coast.”
Olympic National Park protects 922,651 acres of three distinctly different ecosystems: rugged glacier-capped mountains, more than 70 miles of wild Pacific coast and magnificent stands of old-growth and temperate rain forest.
More information about Olympic National Park, including images and a timeline tracking its first 75 years, is available at the park’s website, www.nps.gov/olym.
