Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall joined one of these tours in 1961, and took the campaign to Washington.

In 1962, the Canyonlands park bill was introduced by Utah Democratic Senator Frank Moss (in photo above). Also that year, the U.S. Department of the Interior published a paper entitled A Proposed Canyonlands National Park.

On September 12, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Public Law 88-590 establishing Canyonlands National Park. Initially consisting of 257,640 acres, Congress expanded Canyonlands to its present size of 337,598 acres in 1971.

From A Proposed Canyonlands National Park: "Rock -- carved, colored and clothed by weather -- controls the character of our land. Nowhere is the relationship between earth's framework and the forces that shape it more dramatic than in the plateau and canyon country of the American Southwest."

Visit the Canyonlands National Park website for more on the creation and history of the park.