Tonto National Monument
Kayla Hughes
Tonto National Monument
Tonto is located in central Arizona in Gila county. Many tourist attractions lie in the Apache Trail, the Besh-Ba-Gowah, and the Tonto National Forest. The Apache Trail lets travelers view 39-miles worth of canyons and the Roosevelt Dam along with the forest that contains a lot of cacti and terrain.
In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt set aside 640 acres for a national monument containing the ruins of two large Salado cliff dwellings and about sixty other significant archeological sites. Originally overseen by the US Forest Service, Department of Agriculture, Tonto National Monument became a unit of the National Park Service in 1933. These excerpts are from monthly reports filed by park staff between 1935 - 1965. Laws such as the Antiquities Act of 1906 was made to conserve the park.
Progressive Era
Roosevelt's laws of conservation of wilderness reveals that the Progressive Era wanted to improve the environment and conserve natural resources to further advance among the western frontier.