2. SULLY'S HILL NATIONAL PARK
Sully's Hill National Park was established in 1904. Its area is only seven hundred and eighty acres. It is on the south shore of Devil's Lake, in northeastern North Dakota, near Fort Totten.
Lack of an appropriation for the care and protection of the Park makes it necessary (1917) for the Superintendent of the Government Industrial School for Indians, which is about one mile east of Fort Totten, to act as Superintendent of the Park. It is badly in need of conveniences—as roads, trails, clearings, etc. Although money has been appropriated for the establishment and maintenance of a game preserve on the tract, not a cent has ever been set aside for development and improvement.
It is well wooded and has many rugged hills, including Sully's Hill. Another of its natural beauties is Sweet Water Lake. The Park is popular as a picnic-ground and Devil's Lake affords a good bathing-beach and fine opportunities for yachting. It is one of the beauty-spots of North Dakota, and its scenery is of the restful and delightful character.
3. CASA GRANDE RUIN RESERVATION
The most important prehistoric Indian ruin of its type in the Southwest is now protected and preserved, for the study and enjoyment of the people, in the Casa Grande Ruin Reservation. This contains four hundred and eighty acres, set aside in 1892. It is near Florence, Arizona, about eighteen miles northeast of Casa Grande railroad station. The ruins are of undetermined antiquity. A Jesuit missionary discovered them in 1694. As excavated so far, a great house built of puddled mud moulded into walls and dried in the sun is the main structure of the group. As it is of perishable character, the walls have been gradually disintegrating, and a corrugated iron roof has been put over the ruins to protect them from the elements so far as possible. Considerable more repair and protection work is needed.
The main building was originally five or six stories in height and covered a space fifty-nine by forty-three feet. Surrounding Casa Grande proper is a rectangular walled inclosure. A number of buildings or clusters of rooms have been excavated in this, and others as yet unexcavated are known to be there. One hundred rooms with plazas and surrounding walls now open on the ground floor of the reservation. These ruins are of great historic and scientific interest, and have strong claims for archæological study, repair, and preservation.
4. HOT SPRINGS RESERVATION
Although the Yellowstone was our first scenic National Park, the honor of being the oldest national recreation place falls to the Hot Springs Reservation, in the mountains of central Arkansas. It was created in 1832. Forty-six springs of hot water possessing radioactive properties, and also some cold-water springs of curative value, are embraced within the tract of nine hundred and twelve acres, fifty miles west by south from the city of Little Rock. The waters flow from the sides of Hot Springs Mountain. Rheumatism and other bodily ills are relieved or remedied by the waters. Eleven bathhouses on the reservation, and a dozen more within the little city of Hot Springs, are under government regulation.
As early as 1804 the power of the waters was known to white men, and a settlement had already begun there at that time. Tradition says that the Indians knew of the springs long before the Spanish invasion, and that they warred among themselves for their possession. Finally a truce was made, and thereafter all the tribes availed themselves of the healing waters.