{"id":889982,"date":"2026-10-21T21:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T21:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/889982\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T21:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T21:12:11","slug":"chiricahua-is-the-nations-newest-national-park-what-does-that-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/889982\/","title":{"rendered":"Chiricahua is the nation\u2019s newest national park \u2013 what does that mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a stroke of a pen, President Donald Trump has officially created the United States\u2019 64th national park<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chiricahua<\/a>, in southeastern Arizona, was established as a national monument in April 1924<\/a> to protect its towering rhyolite hoodoos \u2013 tall spires of rock \u2013 and diversity of wildlife. The mountainous landscape is commonly known as a \u201cwonderland of rocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

An act of Congress<\/a>, signed by Trump, has now designated the 12,000-acre property a national park, the flagship label of the National Park Service system. It joins the Grand Canyon<\/a>, Petrified Forest<\/a> and Saguaro<\/a> as the fourth national park in Arizona.<\/p>\n

As a geographer<\/a> who studies parks and the naming of places, I have seen that when a National Park Service property is redesignated as a national park, the new label doesn\u2019t typically include much change for the site itself beyond signs and branding.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s not usually more money available to manage or protect the site. But the new title serves political purposes and could mean quite a lot to visitors, supporters and surrounding communities alike in the coming years.<\/p>\n

How parks are designated<\/p>\n

The National Park Service manages 433 properties, which it calls units<\/a>, with 19 different designations<\/a>, such as \u201cnational battlefields,\u201d \u201cnational lakeshores\u201d and \u201cnational scenic trails.\u201d Only 64 of these units<\/a> carry the formal title or designation of \u201cnational park.\u201d<\/p>\n

All but one of these categories can be bestowed only by Congress. National monuments can be created by the president directly, under the provisions of the Antiquities Act of 1906<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For example, the Antiquities Act has been at the center of a decade-long controversy over the size of Bears Ears National Monument<\/a>, which President Barack Obama created to protect 1.3 million acres in Utah in December 2016. That same act allowed Trump to shrink the protected area to 200,000 acres<\/a> in 2017 and President Joe Biden to reexpand it to 1.3 million acres<\/a> in 2021. In 2026, Trump slashed it again, to 121,000 acres<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Made <\/a><\/p>\n

Why redesignations make a difference<\/p>\n

My previous analysis of the contentious redesignation<\/a> of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis to Gateway Arch National Park<\/a> in 2018 found that it was not done to offer additional protection for this monument to the United States\u2019 Western exploration and growth.<\/p>\n

Rather, the move was meant to take advantage of the public significance of the \u201cnational park\u201d label<\/a> and thereby attract more tourists and tourism revenue to the local economy.<\/p>\n

The effort to make it a national park was part of a local campaign to renovate the underground visitor center<\/a>, revitalize the park grounds and increase tourism. But the law that formalized the change<\/a> included no additional funding, resources or protections for the Gateway Arch.<\/p>\n

Changing the designation contradicted the park service\u2019s own declaration that the term \u201cnational park\u201d should be used for an area that \u201ccontains a variety of resources<\/a> and encompasses large land or water areas to help provide adequate protection of the resources.\u201d <\/p>\n

During congressional hearings, the deputy director of the National Park Service, Robert Vogel, recommended the Gateway Arch not be labeled a national park but rather a national monument, because it \u201cis too small and limited<\/a> in the range of resources the site protects and interprets to be called a national park.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gateway Arch National Park is now the smallest-area park in the U.S., at less than 200 acres, and is home to a large steel arch, an open lawn area, a museum and a single historic building<\/a> \u2013 a courthouse where one of the Dred Scott trials<\/a> was heard, along with other civil rights cases.<\/p>\n

However, it does not provide opportunities to view wildlife in its natural habitat, spectacular geologic features, diverse outdoor recreation opportunities or a sense of wilderness that the public has come to expect from national parks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The park\u2019s website admits \u201cit is unusual for a national park to have no natural plant life<\/a>\u201d and describes the park as adjacent to the \u201cconcrete jungle of downtown St. Louis<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Chiricahua\u2019s rocky landscapes<\/a> and archaeological evidence of long-standing Indigenous use and occupation<\/a> more closely resembles what many people expect for a national park<\/a>, it likely will receive some of the same public critique<\/a> that the Gateway Arch and other national parks redesignated during the first Trump administration have received.<\/p>\n

Potential \u2018new\u2019 national parks on the horizon<\/p>\n

In rare cases, a community, group or other organization proposes adding an area that is not currently managed by the National Park Service to the system, but that process takes a lot of time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is more common to change the formal designation of a property already within the system, as has happened with this redesignation of Chiricahua.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore became Indiana Dunes National Park<\/a> in 2019. That same year, White Sands National Monument in New Mexico became White Sands National Park<\/a>. And in 2020, New River Gorge National River in West Virginia became New River Gorge National Park and Preserve<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are redesignation efforts underway seeking to make national parks in other locations as well, including the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area<\/a> in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore<\/a> in Wisconsin, and Rock Creek Park<\/a> in the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n

In my measure, it is simply a waiting game to see whether these National Park Service sites will also be redesignated to national parks.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Chiricahua\u2019s landscape has been called a \u2018wonderland of rock.\u2019
\n Ron Kerbo\/National Park Service via Associated Press<\/a><\/p>\n

What will actually change for Chiricahua?<\/p>\n

Making Chiricahua a national park was a bipartisan effort \u2013 co-sponsored by Arizona U.S. Reps. Juan Ciscomani, a Republican, and Greg Stanton, a Democrat \u2013 that has received some opposition for several reasons.<\/p>\n

The complaints have highlighted fears that the new label will bring increased tourism<\/a> and overcrowding in what is considered a small park with limited infrastructure<\/a>. Now that Chiricahua has been redesignated, the potential influx of new visitors in the coming years could affect the more personal and isolated experience<\/a> that they currently appreciate.<\/p>\n

However, the only real changes in these places would be in marketing \u2013 the signs, brochures<\/a> and merchandise sold in gift shops. But these changes have an important effect: The tagline of \u201cnew national park\u201d markets well<\/a> to potential visitors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the funding that Chiricahua receives from the federal government will not change, and the label of \u201cnational park\u201d won\u2019t actually protect this landscape any better than it already is under the stewardship of the National Park Service.<\/p>\n

This article includes material previously published<\/a> in an article about the potential redesignation of Ocmulgee Mounds on Dec. 8, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a stroke of a pen, President Donald Trump has officially created the United States\u2019 64th national park.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-889982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}