Springfield Armory National Historic Site

Henry Knox

The annual 2024 Director’s Management and Administration Awards recognize outstanding contributions to the advancement and service of management, administration, Information Technology, and Information Management by NPS employees. The Excellence Awards recognize employees who go beyond day-to-day duties to solve problems or create new opportunities. They do so with creative thinking and action.

Dinosaur fossils have been discovered at or are associated with at least 27 NPS units. Geographically, their finds are concentrated in the parks of the Colorado Plateau, but they have been found from central Alaska to Big Bend National Park in Texas to Springfield Armory National Historic Site in Massachusetts. The most famous site is the Dinosaur Quarry of Dinosaur National Monument, but a rush of new finds since the 1970s has greatly expanded our knowledge.

Both North and South mobilized industry to an unprecedented degree. But the North, which already had a head start in nearly every realm of industrial and agricultural development, far outpaced the South during the war. Unhampered by the southern opposition in such areas as providing free land to farmers and subsidizing a transcontinental railroad before the war, Congress passed sweeping legislation to expand the economy. As the war dragged on, in part because many of the ba

Springfield Armory National Historic Site is engaging with local military personnel and families to issue America the Beautiful military federal lands and recreation passes.

General Patton described it as “the greatest battle implement ever devised.” American infantrymen carried it at Normandy, Okinawa, and Inchon; from Europe to the Pacific; and from World War II through the Korean War. For over twenty years, from 1936 to 1957, it was the dependable friend of millions of United States soldiers, Marines, and sailors. Officially called the M1 rifle, this weapon that helped win the Second World War was often simply referred to as “The Garand".

After being mere spectators at the war's early battles, civilians both near and far from the battlefields became unwilling participants and victims of the war as its toll of blood and treasure grew year after year. In response to the hardships imposed upon their fellow citizens by the war, civilians on both sides mobilized to provide comfort, encouragement, and material, and began to expect that their government should do the same.

Unfinished: America at 250 is a partnership of historical and cultural institutions, National Park Service sites, historians, and changemakers. This partnership harnesses the stories of the past and activates historic spaces to provoke community conversations about the ongoing American Revolution.