"Shift To Cultural Parks Despite Thin Funding Stirs Crisis"

"When President Obama designated New York's Stonewall Inn in June as a national monument, it became the first dedicated to what the president called "the struggle" for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights.

Stonewall National Monument also became the National Park Service's 412th park unit, underscoring the immense and diverse array of parks covering some 84 million acres in every state.

Although most people associate NPS with preserving natural wonders like Grand Canyon or Yellowstone national parks, roughly two-thirds are, like Stonewall, designated specifically to protect historical or cultural resources.

In total, NPS manages 27,000 historic structures, including 9,500 buildings and 3,500 statues and monuments. It also oversees an estimated 2 million archaeological sites and 168 million museum objects and archival documents -- a collection bested only by the Smithsonian Institution's assemblage of museums."

Scott Streater reports for Greenwire August 2, 2016.