The idea for the park, located 30 miles from Moab, began with Arches National Monument Superintendent Bates Wilson, who advocated for the creation of a new park that encompassed the view from Grand View Point at Island in the Sky.
Wilson led government officials on jeep tours featuring lengthy talks over campfires and dutch oven dinners.
One recipient of this “dutch oven diplomacy” was Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall, who returned to congress and lobbied for the proposed park.
The park was established on Sept. 12, 1964, after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Public Law 88-590, marking the 257,640 acres of land in southern Utah as Canyonlands.
Congress expanded the park to its present size in 1971, but much of the original area envisioned by Wilson was not included and remains unprotected.
The 337,570 acre Canyonlands wilderness was carved by the Colorado River and its tributaries. The park is divided by rivers into four districts, Island in the Sky, The Needles, The Maze and the rivers themselves.
Canyonlands was the final national park to be established in Utah as part of the state’s Mighty Five.
Zion National Park was the first to be established in the state in 1919. Nine years later Bryce Canyon officially became a national park and a year later President Herbert Hoover established Arches in 1929.
Capitol Reef was established right before the start of World War II in 1937.
