want people to think about what it was like 200 years ago. think about this. clark and his party are heading down the yellowstone river, hoping and planning to meet up with lewis. and as they are coming down the river, they're having to stop at various intervals. and you might ask, what are they stopping for? to hunt, to gather food. they're stopping because of the immense herds of buffalo crossing the river. kwh i talk immense, i am talking about herds so large, there could be times they would have to stop for four, even six hours to wait for the buffalo to cross the river before they could continue on. another reason they would stop is simply, i think, partly curiosity and the natural intent of an explorer, to look at the land and see the land. as we think about all those things, and as we tell the story today, clark is coming down the yellowstone, and that morning,

they had gotten up, they had hunted. they had seen immense herds of buffalo. he decides to get off the river and walk for a while and see this. this large sandstone outcrop here. i think it's just naturally part of human interest to want to come to something large, climb up on top of it, and look around. that's exactly what he did. as part of an explorer, as somebody who was looking to traverse the west, to create maps, to learn about things that are the landscape, the natural history, et cetera, he comes and he ascends the pillar, goes up on top, looks around. triangulates his position, comes back, and on his way down, he leaves his mark. right over here, his signature. thus leaving behind the only remaining on-site evidence of the entire lewis and clark expedition. this signature represents not just the visit of clark, but i

think of it as signifying the start of something. but a legacy that had actually in some ways been here before him. clark's signature on july 25th, 1806 and subsequently written about and chronicled in his journals led a lot of folks who then traveled across the west to come to this rock, mark their names as well as drawings, inscriptions, all kinds of things all over the ruk. as you look at his signature directly to the left, you can see all of these different signatures and marks and names, and they cover the entire rock. so throughout paompeii pilys pi there are signatures. starting off with f trappers an going into the time of the homesteaders and wagon trains traveling up to the modern era, folk whose tilled the land for agricultur agriculture, and i'm sure if we looked hard enough, we would prand find some local high school class's name on here from

the '60s and '70s. pompeys pillar tells a story, and that story starts some ways with clark, but it continues on today with this legacy of all these people who have passed by. each time a visitor comes here, given they can no longer scrawl their names or write on the rock, they leave that legacy, too. but as i mentioned before, that legacy kind of started before clark. if you look over here at the rock, you can see where there are some markings on the rock, and sort of a reddish hue. those are actually native american pictographs and petroglyphs. this was culturally significant to the native americans of the area. when we get on top, i'll explain a little bit about why there was such a significance to the site both culturally as well as given the great and immense hunting that was available to the native americans that lived and used the area. this rock i ascended, and from its top, i had a most extensive view in every direction. after satisfying myself

sufficiently in this delightful prospect of the extensive country around and the immense herds of buffalo and elk, i descended and proceeded on. we are standing on the top of pompeys pillar national monument. what is so remarkable and amazing about this site is we're able to tell a story that is over 200 years by standing in one spot. what is also remarkable is being able to stand here and see these landmarks and the landscape for what it was 200 years ago but also for what it is today. the first thing is the animals. when clark was here 200 years ago, this landscape was covered with buffalo, elk, antelope, all kinds of different species would have been here. with them, the same predators we read about many times, cioetoco mountain lions and the wolf. why were they here? and they're not here today. as you look at the rims and the

cliff formation, you see this natural break. this was a funnel. these ran all the way to billings and quite a distance to the east. here we have a natural break where the herds of buffalo, elk, and other animals would have been able to funnel down to the river, cross, and feed in this area. when we talk back about the native americans and their use of the site, they had this large platform to stand upon and use both for cultural ceremonies and also for hunting is immense. you think about the number of animals that would have been in this area on a regular basis. as we think about this and think about the changes because for us, the buffalo herds are not really here anymore, there are still some elk seen. the big horns, sheep that were seen by clark on the cliffs are no longer here. we still have a few mountain lions hanging out in the area, and of course, coyotes wander around every once in a while. but the landmarks are still here. and from those landmarks start a story. and that story is of the west. so pompeys pillar is one of

those rare places you can come and tell an entire story of our country's west from one place. >> 100 years ago today, president woodrow wilson signed legislation creating the national park service. we're featuring national monuments and historic sites to commemorate the centennial. pompeii pys pillar is on the national park service's national register of historic places. this is american history tv, only on c-span3. >> sunday night on "q&a." >> it was an average of one racial lynching a week in the south. and it was a brilliant psychological device to hold down a race, because if you were black, you were afraid this could happen to you. >> author lawrence talks about his literary career, including his latest book "the lynching." the epic courtroom battle that

brought down the klan, about the trial following the 1981 killing of michael donald by the kkk in mobile, alabama. >> michael was this teenager. he's trained to become a bricklayer. he's the youngest of seven children. he's home with his mother in their house, and his aunt wants to ask him to go out and get a pack of cigarettes. gives him a dollar, goes out. this old buick pulled up behind him. and james tiger knowles pulls out his pistol and orders him into the back seat of the car. he knows when he gets in the car what's going to happen. black man in alabama, you know. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." >> american history tv is marking the centennial of the national park service. we asked members of congress about which national park service sites in their states have the most significance for them. >> well, great falls has a very

special significance. i lived my whole life in paterson, new jersey. it's part of my district, my congressional district. i didn't live too far from the falls. i have a lot of great fond memories. this is where alexander hamilton brought george washington and developed really the first industrial city in the united states. with the technology that was brought from europe. so this site, this national site, which has been a national park for the last seven years, just is a new park. and usually, a park service was not into urban parks, but this is right smack in the middle of urban america, industrial urban america. with some problems, of course, industrialization, it's changed. even though there's still manufacturing going on, this combines the aestheticoffs the

great falls which is the second greatest falls in the east, with the great historic happenings of the great falls. the industrial revolution, first submarine, first cars, trains. we had tremendous engines build in paterson, new jersey. more engines come out of paterson, new jersey, right in the great falls area, than in any place in america. it was the silk city of the world. paterson, new jersey. and when people say you gotta be kidding me, no, we couldn't grow the mulberry bush. we tried to do that. a long time ago. but we still developed the silk industry. the silk wove from asia to paterson, new jersey. hamilton knew exactly what he was doing. he had a mind for finances for economics. he saw this city in new jersey as a place to begin this great

industrialization. i'm very, very proud to be part of that, and we're proud to have a national park in our city, and it's growing. we've had some growing pains, obviously, when you're growing up, you have pains. we just completed a park on one side of the falls, mary ellen kramer was the wife of one of the mayors of paterson, new jersey, who is still living. she's not still living. she was a great person. she got me interested in the falls. she got me interested in preservation. preservation does not mean putting ropes around a place. so people can't see it, really, or touch it. no, this is a very part of our community. it's a lifeline. we try to make it a destination, this national park. so that people will come here and from all over the world, as they do, but we want more to come. so we're very proud of our national park.

i'm proud, very proud of the park service. they do a fantastic job day in and day out. most of the time, we take it for granted, but we don't do that in paterson. they have made a very, very severe move to make sure the community is involved day in and day out at the paterson great falls. we have grown, the park has grown in just a very short period of time a lot of visitors are coming here from all over the world now. now we have a stadium, which we had legislation for. we had it passed thanks to the help of the resource committee. and it is a very historic stadium. this is where the negro leagues played. this is where larry doby, the first african american to play in the american league played for the cleveland indians for 12 years, over 12 years. he grew up in paterson, new jersey. i knew larry very well. i just introduced a gold medal

award for him in the congress. we hope we can get that done by the end of the year. so this stadium is now an addition to it. we're growing, but we're not growing beyaond what we can handle, what we can maintain. we're getting older and younger people involved in preservation. preservation is important, because we know history but we don't know culture. culture is more important than history, the facts, the daily situations that we face day in and day out. what are your values? what do you value? and the industrial revolution was really a value point for america. this is what america is about. hard work. getting your hands dirty once in a while. building america. building america. of course, we have lost a lot of our manufacturing production, but we're trying to maintain what we do have because that's important for middle-class people in this country.

>> join american history tv tonight live at 7:00 p.m. eastern time to commemorate the national park service centennial. >> 100 years ago, president woodrow wilson signed the bill creating the national park service. today, we look back on the past century of these caretakers of america's natural and historic treasures. at 7:00 p.m. eastern, we're live from the national park service's most visited historic home, arlington house, the robert e. lee memorial at auralrlington national sem tore. join us with your phone calls as we speak with robert stanton and the former arlington house site manager who will oversee the upcoming restoration of the

mansion and grounds. today, the 100 anniversary of the park service live from arlington house at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. >> the national monument was authorized back in 1934, basically, to preserve these prehistoric mounds. that's what they thought was here when the park was first authorized. back in the 1930s, before the park was even established, while the locals were still working with the legislature trying to get the park authorized and established, the locals also realized that this might be an ideal location for a new deal works project. so once again, working with the legislature, they managed to get this designated as a wpa work site. and with the smithsonian, they sent down two smithsonian

archeologists and those two men oversee a work force of 800 men. so pretty difficult for two archeologists to oversee that large ofworkforce. but they basically ran trenches various locations on this site, did some trenches on top of the great temple mound and they found here that huge continuum. we ended up with over 2 1/2 million items that this dig found in this location. we discovered it had a time period that goes back to the ice age manmouth hunters. this site was ausused since the first arrival of humans. the park is so much more than