FREE WHITEWATER

Daily Bread for 1.11.13

Good morning.

Whitewater will see a foggy morning, followed by a cloudy day, with a high of forty-seven today.

On this day in 1908, Pres. Roosevelt makes the Grand Canyon a national monument:

On this day in 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt places the Grand Canyon under public protection, declaring it a national monument. In a statement made during a visit to the Grand Canyon in 1903, Roosevelt indicated his intention to preserve one of America’s most unique natural sites. He urged Americans to “let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is. Do nothing to mar its grandeur, sublimity and loveliness. You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.”

Miners had discovered valuable mineral resources in the Grand Canyon in the 1800s, yet extraction was a dangerous and expensive task. At the beginning of the 20th century, mining claims waned while tourism increased. Photographers, writers and painters captured the Grand Canyon’s dramatic beauty in their works and, with improvements in transportation, the Grand Canyon became a popular tourist destination.

In our own state’s history of conservation, on this day in 1887,

1887 – Aldo Leopold Born
On this date Aldo Leopold, a major player in the modern environmental movement,  was born. A conservationist, professor, and author, Leopold graduated from Yale University and worked for the U.S. Forest Service in the Southwest. He rose to the rank of chief of operations. In 1924 he became associate director of the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison. In 1933 he was appointed chair of game management at the University of Wisconsin. In 1943, Leopold was instrumental in establishing the first U.S. soil conservation demonstration area, in Coon Valley in 1934. As a member of the state Conservation Commission, he was influential in the acquisition of natural areas by the state. His reflections on nature and conservation appear in A Sand County Almanac (1949). [Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, p.227]

Google-a-Day has a sports question: “The basis of modern Fantasy Football was developed by Wilfred Winkenbach in 1962, laying the blueprint for a League that was known by what acronym?”

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