El Paso Parks by Radius

National Park Service

Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument
Alibates Flint, distinctive for its varied coloration, occurs in dolomite outcrops atop Permain Aged Redbeds in the Canadian River breaks near Amarillo and Fritch, Texas. Early inhabitants left shallow pits as evidence and quarry activity

Amistad National Recreation Area
This area once was home to over 300 generations of hunters and gatherers. They left a record of their existence through colorful rock art panels, bits of tools and fibers preserved for thousands of years by the arid desert climate.

Bandelier National Monument
Best known for mesas, sheer-walled canyons, and the ancestral Pueblo dwellings found among them, Bandelier also includes over 23,000 acres of designated Wilderness.

Big Bend National Park
Big Bend merges natural environments from desert to mountains. It is a place where south meets north and east meets west, creating a great diversity of plants and animals.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Established to preserve Carlsbad Cavern and numerous other caves within a Permian-age fossil reef, the park contains 100 known caves, including Lechuguilla Cave the nation's deepest limestone cave at 1,567 feet (478m) and third longest.

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument
Casa Grande Ruins, in Arizona, the nation's first archeological preserve, protects the Casa Grande and other archeological sites within its boundaries.

Chamizal National Memorial
The Chamizal Convention was a milestone in diplomatic relations between Mexico and the United States in 1963.

Chiricahua National Monument
Twenty seven million years ago a volcanic eruption of immense proportions shook the land around Chiricahua National Monument. The Turkey Creek Caldera eruption eventually laid down two thousand feet of highly silicious ash and pumice. This mixture fused into a rock called rhyolitic tuff and eventually eroded into the spires and unusual rock formations of today. Chiricahua plants and animals represent one of the premier areas for biological diversity in the northern hemisphere.

Coronado National Memorial
Coronado National Memorial commemorates the first major European exploration of the American Southwest. The Memorial lies on the United States-Mexico border within sight of the San Pedro River Valley, through which the Coronado Expedition first entered the present U.S. in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola.

El Malpais National Monument
Historic and archeological sites provide reminders of past times. More than mere artifacts, these cultural resources are kept alive by the spiritual and physical presence of contemporary Indian groups, including the Puebloan peoples of Acoma, Laguna,and Zuni, and the Ramah Navajo.

El Morro National Monument
Rising 200 feet above the valley floor, this massive sandstone bluff was a welcome landmark for weary travelers. A reliable waterhole hidden at its base made El Morro (or Inscription Rock) a popular campsite. Today, El Morro National Monument protects over 2,000 inscriptions and petroglyphs, as well as Ancestral Puebloan ruins

Fort Bowie National Historic Site
Fort Bowie commemorates in its 1000 acres, the story of the bitter conflict between the Chiricahua Apaches and the United States military. Apache resistance was finally crushed at Fort Bowie, and the result was the end of the Indian wars in the United States.

Fort Davis National Historic Site
Fort Davis is one of America's best surviving examples of an Indian Wars' frontier military post in the Southwest.

Fort Union National Monument
Fort Union was established in 1851 by Lieutenant Colonel Edwin V. Sumner as a guardian and protector of the Santa Fe Trail. During it's forty-year history, three different forts were constructed close together. The third and final Fort Union was the largest in the American Southwest, and functioned as a military garrison, territorial arsenal, and military supply depot for the southwest

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument
Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument offers a glimpse of the homes and lives of the people of the Mogollon culture who lived in the Gila Wilderness from the 1280s through the early 1300s.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park
This mountain mass contains portions of the world's most extensive and significant Permian limestone fossil reef. Also featured are a tremendous earth fault, lofty peaks, unusual flora and fauna, and a colorful record of the past. Guadalupe Peak, highest point in Texas at 8,749 feet; El Capitan, a massive limestone formation; McKittrick Canyon, with its unique flora and fauna; and the "Bowl", located in a high country conifer forest, are significant park features.

Hohokam Pima National Monument
Preserved here are the archeological remains of the Hohokam culture. Hohokam is a Pima Indian word meaning "those who have gone."

Lake Meredith National Recreation Area
Lake Meredith was created on the Canadian River and now fills many breaks whose walls are crowned with white limestone caprock, scenic buttes, pinnacles, and red-brown, wind-eroded coves. Above lies the mesquite, prickly pear, yucca, and grasses of arid plains. And up the sheltered creek beds stand cottonwoods, soapberry, and sandbar willows.

Montezuma Castle National Monument
The five-story, 20-room cliff dwelling served as a "high-rise apartment building" for prehistoric Sinagua Indians over 600 years ago. Early settlers to the area assumed that the imposing structure was associated with the Aztec emperor Montezuma, but the castle was abandoned almost a century before Montezuma was born.

Pecos National Historical Park
Pecos preserves 12,000 years of history including the ancient pueblo of Pecos, two Spanish Colonial Missions, Santa Fe Trail sites, 20th century ranch history of Forked Lightning Ranch, and the site of the Civil War Battle of Glorieta Pass

Petrified Forest National Park
Petrified Forest features one of the world's largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood. Also included are the multi-hued badlands of the Chinle Formation known as the Painted Desert, historic structures, archeological sites and displays of 225 million-year-old fossils.

Petroglyph National Monument
Petroglyph National Monument protects a variety of cultural and natural resources including five volcanic cones, hundreds of archeological sites and an estimated 25,000 images carved by native peoples and early Spanish settlers.

Saguaro National Park
This unique desert is home to the most recognizable cactus in the world, the majestic saguaro. Saguaro cacti provide their fruits to hungry desert animals. They also provide homes to a variety of birds. With an average life span of 150 years, a mature saguaro may grow to a height of 50 feet and weigh over 10 tons.

Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument
What remains today are austere yet beautiful reminders of this earliest contact between Pueblo Indians and Spanish Colonials: the ruins of four mission churches, at Quarai, Ab, and Gran Quivira and the partially excavated pueblo of Las Humanas.

Santa Fe National Historic Trail
Between 1821 and 1880, the Santa Fe Trail was primarily a commercial highway connecting Missouri and Santa Fe.

Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument
Sunset Crater is the youngest volcano on the Colorado Plateau. The volcano's red rim and the dark lava flows seem to have cooled and hardened to a jagged surface.

Tonto National Monument
Well-preserved cliff dwellings were occupied by the Salado culture The people farmed in the Salt River Valley and supplemented their diet by hunting and gathering native wildlife and plants. The Salado were fine craftsmen, producing some of the most exquisite polychrome pottery and intricately woven textiles to be found in the Southwest. Many of these objects are on display in the Visitor Center museum.

Tumaccori National Historical Park
Tumaccori National Historical Park is comprised of the abandoned ruins of three ancient Spanish colonial missions.

Walnut Canyon National Monument
Walnut Canyon was carved by Walnut Creek over a period of 60 million years. The people that lived here moved on to become the modern pueblo people of today. Walnut Canyon is one of their ancestral homes.

White Sands National Monument
White Sands National Monument preserves a gypsum dune field, along with the plants and animals that have successfully adapted to this constantly changing environment.

Wupatki National Monument
Wupatki is the only known location in the Southwest where physical evidence from at least three archeologically separate ancestral Puebloan cultures is found together in a number of archeological sites. Today, Wupatki National Monument protects 56 square miles of high desert directly west of the Little Colorado River and the Navajo Reservation.