<p>"We have permanently safeguarded an irreplaceable primitive area," said President Truman as he dedicated Everglades National Park in 1947. Bit what is permanence, and what is "safeguarded"? Did he speak too soon?</p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> In reconstructing the past, Old Sturbridge Village is doing a lot more than selling penny candy and buggy rides. Struggling for verisimilitude, curators are raising scrawny chickens, trudging behind 150-year-old plows—and keeping pesticides out of the orchards.</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> In the underpinnings of our cities, in desolate swampland, beneath coastal waters—wherever the early settlers left traces of their lives—a new generation of archaeologists is uncovering a lost world</span> </span></p>
<p><span class="deck"> From Fort Ticonderoga to the Plaza Hotel, from Appomattox Courthouse to Bugsy Siegel’s weird rose garden in Las Vegas, the present-day scene is enriched by knowledge of the American past</span> </p>
<p><span class="deck"> As newlyweds in 1901 they were the first to climb the towering Montana peak, but when evidence of the feat surfaced after eighty-four years, nobody believed it</span> </p>
<p><span class="deck">Ninety years ago, a high-born zealot named Gifford Pinchot knew more about woodlands than any man in America. What he <span class="typestyle"> did</span> about them changed the country we live in and helped define environmentalism. </span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Its waters were so precious that it was made a federal preserve in 1832. Ever since, it has been both a lavish spa for the robust and an infirmary for the frail.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Alone among all American battlefields, the scene of the Civil War’s costliest encounter is patrolled by government-licensed historians who keep alive for visitors the memory of what happened there.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">This isn’t the first time a Virginia governor has found himself embroiled in controversy about the commercialization of a Civil War site.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">FOR MORE THAN A DECADE NOW, TENS OF THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS HAVE BEEN LEAVING LETTERS AND SNAPSHOTS, CIGARETTES AND CLOTHING AND BEER FOR THEIR FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND PARENTS WHO NEVER MADE IT BACK FROM VIETNAM.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck"><lead_in> After three times</lead_in> traveling the trail they blazed, the author imagines what the two captains of Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery would make of the civilization we have built on the tremendous promise they offered.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Hidden in the park’s southwest corner, the lightly visited Bechler district offers a 200-square-mile wilderness of meadows, hot springs, fantastic rock formations, and an unparalleled abundance of waterfalls.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">From Richmond to Appomattox Court House, roads unchanged for 140 years tell the story of the final days and the final hours of the Confederacy.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">Skirmishing about environmentalism may well continue forever, but the major war is over. It lasted far longer than most people realize.</span></p>
<p><span class="deck">The sprawling inn that is the heart and soul of Yellowstone National Park has just achieved its hundredth birthday, thanks, in large part, to a few dedicated employees and specialists determined to keep it safe.</span></p>
