We Need a Bigger Stick!

Theodore Roosevelt examining sea turtle egg.

For conservation, that is!

Read this disturbing little tidbit, and began to wonder about my favorite president, Teddy Roosevelt.

THE PRESIDENT’S TABLE: Two Hundred Years of Dining and Diplomacy, by Barry H. Landau (Collins/HarperCollins, $34.95), built around the author’s vast collection of presidential memorabilia.

Now we can see what our leaders actually ate: at that 1843 reception for President Tyler, the first course was green turtle soup and boiled fish, followed by ham, corned beef, mutton or “fowls, with oyster sauce.”

Turtle soup remained popular at state dinners through the end of the century, as did oysters and fish, but other fashions depended on political considerations and the tastes of the resident president.

Let's face it. Ted most likely ate sea turtle raw. In his defense, it may not have been recognized as a quickly dwindling species at that point. Plus, he was a hunter who saw the need for land and animal conservation, so he's still tops on my list. See the list below!

National Parks

Crater Lake National Park (OR) - 1902

Wind Cave National Park (SD)- 1903

Sullys Hill (in N.D.)- 1904 (now managed by US Fish & Wildlife Service)

Platt National Park (OK) - 1906 (now part of Chickasaw National Recreation Area)

Mesa Verde National Park (CO)- 1906
Added land to Yosemite National Park (Been here)

National Monuments

Devil's Tower - 1906 (I've been here!)

El Morro - 1906

Montezuma Castle - 1906

Petrified Forest - 1906 (now a National Park)

Chaco Canyon - 1907Lassen Peak - 1907 (now a National Park)

Cinder Cone - 1907 (now part of Lassen Volcanic National Park)

Gila Cliff Dwellings - 1907

Tonto - 1907

Muir Woods - 1908

Grand Canyon - 1908 (now a National Park) Theodore Roosevelt fought unsuccessfully to make it a National Park. (Here too!)

Pinnacles - 1908

Jewel Cave - 1908

Natural Bridges - 1908

Lewis & Clark (MT) - 1908 (later given to the state of Montana)

Tumacacori - 1908

Wheeler (Colorado) - 1908 (given to the Forest Service in 1950)

Mount Olympus - 1909 (now Olympic National Park)

"In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it." Theodore Roosevelt