This June, the Antiquities Act turns 120 years old. Since Teddy Roosevelt signed the law on June 8, 1906, nearly every president has used it to designate national monuments — a total of nearly 170 cherished preserves. Only Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush chose not to use this powerful conservation tool.
The Utah congressional delegation is not likely to celebrate. They’re chomping at the bit to challenge this executive power. In the Senate, Utah Republican Mike Lee leads the charge against what he calls “presidential abuses of the Antiquities Act.” The Act, though, deserves high praise, and Iowa Congressman John Lacey, a witness to cultural vandalism run rampant in New Mexico, deserves our belated gratitude for championing the law.
The law allows presidents to establish preserves solely on public lands that already belong to the people of the United States, and only if these lands harbor “objects of historic and scientific interest.” These objects can be big. One of Teddy Roosevelt’s first uses of the Act protected the Grand Canyon, a bold interpretation of the law that was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1920.
After a president uses the Act to conserve historic places or significant landscapes, Congress often later elevates these national monuments to national parks, as happened with Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Grand Teton, Olympic, Death Valley, Saguaro and two dozen others.
One national park pilgrimage traced by millions of awestruck travelers begins at St. George, Utah, following an itinerary that wouldn’t exist without the Antiquities Act. Heading east, first comes Zion, preserved originally as Mukuntuweap National Monument by William Howard Taft in 1909, and now the second most visited national park.
This national parks tour leads next to Bryce Canyon, where you perch above hoodoos protected by President Warren Harding in 1923. Winding east on Scenic Byway 12, you drive through the slickrock bowls and fossil-filled badlands of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. President Bill Clinton designated Grand Staircase in 1996, and for the first time gave the Bureau of Land Management a conservation role instead of transferring control to the National Park Service. President Joe Biden used the Antiquities Act in 2021 to restore the monument after its evisceration by Donald Trump.
Highway 12 leads to Capitol Reef National Park and its great wall of barrier cliffs. Established as an Antiquities Act national monument by Franklin Roosevelt in 1937, it was later greatly enlarged by both Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson.
Onward through Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which embraces Rainbow Bridge National Monument, designated by President Howard Taft in 1910, to Bears Ears National Monument, Barack Obama’s 2016 bow of respect to regional tribes and their sacred lands. After a five-year truncation by Trump, Joe Biden restored Bears Ears to full size.
On to Moab, past Canyonlands National Park, created by an act of Congress and so the single exception to all these Antiquities Act preserves, and, finally, to Arches National Park, first designated a national monument by Herbert Hoover in 1929.
This is only a partial list of Antiquities Act preserves in Utah. Why so many?
The answer: aridity. Utah has the nation’s second highest percentage of public land because we are the second driest state. Our arid land couldn’t provide a living to homesteaders, so two-thirds of Utah remains publicly owned. Utahns surrounded by these public lands have inherited a gift.
All Americans have equal say over national public lands, yet the Utah delegation claims state rights that have no basis in law or history. They pepper the Supreme Court with lawsuits, and are attacking Grand Staircase right now, seeking to overthrow the current conservation-leaning resource management plan.
The American people believe otherwise. An impressive 91 percent of Western voters say national monuments should retain existing boundaries; 94 percent say rollback of environmental laws is a serious problem. In Utah, 75 percent of voters want the delegation to prioritize conservation on public lands over energy production.
On its 120th anniversary, let’s celebrate this essential law that allows presidents to maintain, strengthen and highlight the bedrock values of our diverse lands, cultures, and communities. The writer Wallace Stegner famously said that national parks are “America’s best idea.”
The visionary Antiquities Act brings this idea to life, on the ground, for us all.
Stephen Trimble is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. A new edition of his classic natural history of the Great Basin Desert, The Sagebrush Ocean, will be published in October.
Orderville Canyon, Zion National Park, Utah, Stephen Trimble photo
