WASHINGTON — The National Park Service is coming up on a milestone.
“In 2016, the National Park Service will be 100 years old,” says NPS director Jon Jarvis. Congress created the organization on Aug. 25, 1916.
Jarvis says this is a good time to remind the public about what the NPS does and its mission.
“The National Park Service protects the story of America through place,” he says. It does so by managing national parks and many national monuments and telling their stories. But it also manages and cares for historical properties.
One of the places it protects is the White House which is actually considered a National Park, says Jarvis.
“We have responsibilities, not for what goes on inside, but how that physical place is maintained and how we tell story of the White House and of all the presidents that have served there,” he says, adding the NPS is also responsible for telling the stories of the first families and for preserving the role the White House plays as the office of the president.
“Since the 1930s the National Park Service has been the manager and care taker of the White House itself, of the physical plant, all the grounds, maintenance and the operation of the White House falls to the National Park Service,” says Jarvis.
The NPS cares for the special places in America that have been saved by its people and it shares these stories. You can think of these stories as patches on the quilt and that quilt is the story of America.
Follow @WTOP on Twitter and on the WTOP Facebook page.
