This Day in History 11 January:1908 Theodore Roosevelt makes Grand Canyon a national monument

 
    On January 11, 1908, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt declares the massive Grand Canyon in northwestern Arizona a national monument.

   Though Native Americans lived in the area as early as the 13th century, the first European sighting of the canyon wasn’t until 1540, by members of an expedition headed by the Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. Because of its remote and inaccessible location, several centuries passed before North American settlers really explored the canyon. In 1869, geologist John Wesley Powell led a group of 10 men in the first difficult journey down the rapids of the Colorado River and along the length of the 277-mile gorge in four rowboats.

   By the end of the 19th century, the Grand Canyon was attracting thousands of tourists each year. One famous visitor was President Theodore Roosevelt, a New Yorker with a particular affection for the American West.After becoming president in1901 after the assassination of President William McKinley, Roosevelt made environmental conservation a major part of his presidency. After establishing the National Wildlife Refuge to protect the country’s animals, fish and birds, Roosevelt turned his attention to federal regulation of public lands. Though a region could be given national park status–indicating that all private development on that land was illegal–only by an act of Congress, Roosevelt cut down on red tape by beginning a new presidential practice of granting a similar “national monument” designation to some of the West’s greatest treasures.

  In January 1908, Roosevelt exercised this right to make more than 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon area into a national monument. “Let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is,” he declared. “You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is keep it for your children, your children’s children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.”

  Congress did not officially outlaw private development in the Grand Canyon until 1919, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Grand Canyon National Park Act. Today, more than 5 million people visit the canyon each year. The canyon floor is accessible by foot, mule or boat, and whitewater rafting, hiking and running in the area are especially popular. Many choose to conserve their energies and simply take in the breathtaking view from the canyon’s South Rim–some 7,000 feet above sea level–and marvel at a vista virtually unchanged for over 400 years.

 Also on This Day,1775: Jewish Patriot joins Provincial Congress of South Carolina

   Francis Salvador, the first Jew to hold an elected office in the Americas, takes his seat on the South Carolina Provincial Congress on this day in 1775.

  Born in 1747, Salvador was descended from a line of prominent Sephardic Jews who made their home in London. His great grandfather, Joseph, was the East India Company’s first Jewish director. His grandfather was influential in bravely moving a group of 42 Jewish colonists to Savannah, Georgia, in 1733 despite the colony’s prohibition on Jewish settlers. The Salvadors then purchased land in South Carolina.

  After the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 destroyed their Portuguese property and the East India Company collapsed, draining the family’s resources, the American property was all the Salvadors had left. In 1773, Francis Salvador left his wife and children in London to establish himself in South Carolina with the hope of rebuilding his family’s fortune. Within a year of his arrival, Salvador won a seat in the South Carolina General Assembly. In 1774, South Carolinians elected Salvador to the revolutionary Provincial Congress, which began to meet in January 1775, and in which Salvador spoke forcefully for the cause of independence.

  On July 1, Salvador earned the nickname “Southern Paul Revere” when he rode 30 miles to warn of a Cherokee attack on backcountry settlements. Exactly one month later, while leading a militia group under the general command of Major General James Wilkinson, Salvador and his men were ambushed by a group of Cherokees and Loyalists near present-day Seneca, South Carolina. Salvador was shot and scalped by the Cherokees. Although he survived long enough to know that the militia had won the engagement, he never learned that the South Carolina delegation to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia had taken his advice and voted for independence from Britain.

  Salvador was the first recorded Jewish soldier killed in the American War for Independence. He died at the age of 29, never having managed to bring his wife and children from London to the new country for which he fought so bravely.