Joshua Tree celebrates 83 years as a national monument

Today marks a special day for Joshua Tree National Park.

“It’s the 83rd birthday for Joshua Tree,” Park Superintendent, David Smith told News Channel 3 on Saturday.

Many people gathered at the Oasis Visitor Center to celebrate the park with park rangers and eat cake.

“A lot of special hikes are going on today and honestly the cake is pretty exciting,” Smith said.

Continuing with birthday festivities, later in the evening, volunteers will work on a special search and rescue project.
“It’s an exciting time,” he said. “I don’t think anyone envisioned when this park was created that we would have three million visitors coming out here a year,” he added.

Two of those at the celebration were a couple who love the park so much they got married here and now live here.

“We live in the town of Joshua tree and we’ve been here for two and a half years now,” Mitch Miller said. “I’ve been coming out to photograph and camp and we got married here 20 years ago,” he said.

There are many reasons to love and appreciate this unique national park.

“Today people would come out here for rock climbing, they come out here for night skies, for air quality or solitude and when it was created it was specifically for desert plants to be protected,” Smith said.

The park is a little smaller than Delaware and a little bigger than Rhode Island and it’s where two different deserts come together. The Colorado and the Mojave deserts.

“We love it, it’s magical,” Miller told News Channel 3.

It was 83 years ago that Joshua Tree was made a national monument by then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 58 years later, President William Jefferson Clinton signed the California Desert Protection Act, making Joshua Tree a national park.