Brief by Central Staff
Outdoors – October 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
It’s official now: Great Sand Dunes National Monument is now Great Sand Dunes National Park. The transition occurred on Sept. 13, when Interior Secretary Gale Norton visited the Dunes and made the proclamation.
She was in the company of two Colorado politicians: Sen. Ben Campbell and Rep. Scott McInnis, who pushed legislation through several years ago to change the area’s status.
The law allowed the Interior Secretary to declare the Dunes a park once the 100,000-acre Baca Ranch had been acquired by the federal government, and that sale, though not completed, is far enough along for the new name.
In a practical sense, there isn’t much difference between a National Monument and a National Park, since both are usually administered by the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The major difference lies in how they were initially designated. Under the Antiquities Act, the U.S. President can declare just about any parcel of public land a National Monument. A Park, on the other hand, generally requires an act of Congress.