11/10/2014 10:52 AM EST
Happy birthday, Badlands National Park in South Dakota. First established as a national monument in 1939, Badlands was redesignated as a national park in 1978. The park’s 244,000 acres protect an expanse of mixed-grass prairie where bison, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs, and black-footed ferrets live today.
Photo by Harlan Humphrey (www.sharetheexperience.org).