Caption:
President Theodore Roosevelt on a horse in Colorado. Photographer unknown, 1905. After his inauguration as president of the United States in 1901 Roosevelt became an even greater champion of conservation. In 1903, he interrupted a national speaking tour to spend two weeks camping in Yellowstone National Park; visited the Grand Canyon and called for its protection; then went to Yosemite, where he and John Muir slept out under the stars for three nights while Muir urged him to make Yosemite Valley part of a larger Yosemite National Park. As president, Roosevelt created five national parks (doubling the previously existing number); signed the landmark Antiquities Act and used its special provisions to unilaterally create 18 national monuments, including the Grand Canyon; set aside 51 federal bird sanctuaries, four national game refuges, and more than 100 million acres' worth of national forests.