Monuments, Refuges and Preserves of the United States, From Pelican Island in 1903 to Noatak in 1978

Start with the first National Wildlife Refuge in the country. President Theodore Roosevelt created it by executive order on March 14, 1903, to protect egrets and other birds from extinction through plume hunting, and it covers only a 3-acre island in the Indian River Lagoon in Florida.

Established on January 9, 1908, this monument shields old growth coast redwood on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California. About 240 of its 554 acres are old growth redwood, among the few such stands left in the San Francisco Bay Area, and it is named for the naturalist John Muir.

Also made a monument in 1908, this was the first one ever established specifically to protect a cave. The Black Hills cave is mapped to 220.33 miles of passageway as of July 2025 and is a well known breathing cave, where outside air pressure drives air through its passages.

Established on May 2, 1924, it protects three lava fields along the Great Rift of Idaho. A proclamation in November 2000 greatly expanded it, and in August 2002 the expanded National Park Service portions became a national preserve, so one site now carries both designations.

This site first appears here as a national monument, protected on February 11, 1933, and was redesignated a national park on October 31, 1994. More than 93 percent of its 3,422,024 acres is designated wilderness, and Badwater Basin lies 282 feet below sea level.

Established in 1939 to protect desert bighorn sheep, this Arizona refuge covers more than 665,400 acres of the Sonoran Desert. The Kofa Wilderness occupies 547,719 acres of it, and Palm Canyon shelters native California fan palms.

Founded in the same year, 1939, this New Mexico refuge protects 57,331 acres of Rio Grande wetland and desert. It has become a premier place to watch sandhill cranes during their fall and winter residency, and its Spanish name means woodland of the Apache.

Established in 1943, this refuge of about 14,000 acres occupies mostly the Virginia part of Assateague Island. Its beach, dune, marsh and maritime forest habitats support the Chincoteague pony, whose herd is swum across the channel each year in the Pony Swim.

Established in 1960, it covers 19,286,722 acres across the Alaska North Slope and is the largest national wildlife refuge in the country. It hosts polar, grizzly and black bears, along with moose, caribou and wolves.

The last stop was first proclaimed a national monument on December 1, 1978, and redesignated a preserve in 1980 under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. It protects the Noatak River Basin, considered the last complete river system in the United States unaltered by human activity, and unlike neighboring national parks it allows sport hunting.