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| NPS Photo by Patrick Myers | | Dunefield and Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Autumn |
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Management History and Guidelines
Monument and Park Establishment
Great Sand Dunes National Monument was established in 1932 by Herbert Hoover, in response to a local citizens' effort spearheaded by the Ladies' PEO chapters in the San Luis Valley. In the 1920s, gold was found in the Great Sand Dunes, and active gold mining in the sand, and sand extraction for cement production began to occur.
San Luis Valley residents became concerned about long-term protection of the Great Sand Dunes. An intense but remarkably short and successful campaign to gain support and protection for the dunes ensued, culminating in President Hoover's Proclamation:
"Whereas it appears that the public interest would be promoted by including the lands hereinafter described within a national monument for the preservation of the Great Sand Dunes and additional features of scenic, scientific, and educational interest….now therefore I, Herbert Hoover…do proclaim and establish the Great Sand Dunes National Monument…"
Hoover's proclamation focuses on the preservation of the dunes, giving us clear guidance on one of primary interpretive stories: the dunes themselves, our primary resource. We are equally clearly directed to also protect and interpret the 'additional features' which make this landscape so diverse and captivating.
On November 22, 2000, Congress passed the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve Act of 2000, which authorized the expansion of the national monument into a national park almost four times its original size. Like the proclamation of 1932, it was powered largely by valley residents who banded together to protect the resources important to them; in this more modern era, groundwater. Perhaps most importantly, the legislation authorized the eventual purchase of privately held property from willing sellers for inclusion in Great Sand Dunes National Park.
Lands identified as vital to the protection of park resources included the area known as "The Baca", owned for the past two decades by a consortium of commercial water developers. The Baca includes the northwestern corner of the dunefield, wetlands, nesting and migratory bird habitat, and numerous archaeological sites. This purchase, finalized on September 10, 2004, enabled the Secretary of the Interior to affirm that “sufficient diversity of resources has been acquired to warrant designation of the land as a national park” on September 13, 2004. Great Sand Dunes National Monument was redesignated as a national park.
As part of the Act of 2000, roughly 42,000 acres of national forest wilderness area were immediately transferred to NPS management, and were renamed the Great Sand Dunes National Preserve. Natural resources in this area are quite different from those in the older national monument or the expanded national park, and include alpine tundra and lakes, extensive virgin subalpine forest, aspen forests, and high elevation wetlands. Further land transfers from the BLM to NPS management were authorized on the west and south sides of the old monument.
The park and preserve now protect most of the dunes natural hydrological system, from mountain watershed to wetlands, ensuring "the perpetuation of the entire ecosystem for the enjoyment of future generations." Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is also administered under the provision of the Organic Act of 1916, which specifies that units of the National Park system are: "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein…and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."
National Significance
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve:
- contains the tallest dunes in North America and one of the most fragile and complex dune systems in the world
- protects a globally significant, water- and wind-driven system, which includes creeks that demonstrate surge flow, a rare hydrologic phenomenon
- provides tremendous scenic settings that, for many, provoke strong emotional responses. These settings (including massive dunes surrounded by alpine peaks, a desert valley, creeks flowing on the surface of the sand, pristine mountains, and rural range land) offer spacious relief from urban America, exceptional solitude and quiet, and a remarkably unspoiled day and night sky
- hosts a great diversity of plants and animals, including insect species found nowhere else on earth. The system, which spans high desert to alpine life zones, supports rare biological communities that are mostly intact and functional
- contains some of the oldest (9,000+ years before present) known archeological sites in America. The dunes have been identified as having special importance by people of various cultures, and the area is recognized for the culturally diverse nature of human use
- provides special opportunities for recreation, exploration, and education in the highly resilient dune mass and adjoining creek environments.
The Purpose of Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve
The purpose of Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is to:
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