With President Joe Biden’s action to restore the original boundaries of the Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, 13 U.S. presidents have now invoked the Antiquities Act of 1906 a total of 25 times to establish, expand or — in the case of President Donald Trump’s 2017 declaration, reduce — national monuments in Utah.
[Related: Biden returns 2 million acres to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase | What changes in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante with Biden’s order?]
Some of the lands protected later became Zion National Park, Arches National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park and Capitol Reef National Park. Below is a list of all presidential proclamations under the Antiquities Act that have established or adjusted national monuments in Utah:
April 16, 1908 • Natural Bridges National Monument established by President Theodore Roosevelt (120 acres)
July 31, 1909 • Mukuntuweap National Monument (later Zion National Monument) established by President William Howard Taft (15,200 acres)
Sept. 25, 1909 • Natural Bridges NM expanded by Taft (2,740 acres)
May 30, 1910 • Rainbow Bridge National Monument established by Taft (160 acres)
Feb. 11, 1916 • Natural Bridges NM boundary expansion under Taft confirmed by President Woodrow Wilson (2,740 acres)
March 18, 1918 • Zion and Mukuntuweap monuments expanded by Wilson (61,600 acres)
Oct. 14, 1922 • Timpanogos Cave National Monument established by President Warren G. Harding (250 acres)
June 8, 1923 • Bryce Canyon National Monument established by Harding (7,440 acres)
April 12, 1929 • Arches National Monument established by President Herbert Hoover (4,520 acres)
Aug. 22, 1933 • Cedar Breaks National Monument established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (5,701 acres)
Jan. 22, 1937 • Second Zion National Monument, the Kolob Section, established by Roosevelt (49,150 acres)
Aug. 2, 1937 • Capitol Reef National Monument established by Roosevelt (37,060 acres)
Nov. 25, 1938 • Arches National Monument expanded by Roosevelt (29,160 acres)
July 2, 1958 • Capitol Reef National Monument expanded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower (3,040 acres)
July 22, 1960 • Arches National Monument boundaries adjusted by Eisenhower, adding 480 acres and removing 720 acres of grazing land
March 27, 1962 • Timpanogos Cave National Monument boundaries confirmed by President John F. Kennedy
Aug. 14, 1962 • Natural Bridges National Monument boundaries adjusted by Kennedy, adding 5,236 acres and removing 320 acres
Jan. 20, 1969 • Arches National Monument expanded by President Lyndon B. Johnson (48,943 acres)
Jan. 20, 1969 • Capitol Reef National Monument expanded by Johnson (215,056)
Sept. 18, 1996 • Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument established by President Bill Clinton (1,700,000 acres)
Dec. 28, 2016 • Bears Ears National Monument established by President Barack Obama (1,350,000 acres)
Dec. 4, 2017 • Bears Ears National Monument reduced by President Donald Trump to 228,784 acres
Dec. 4, 2017 • Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument reduced by Trump to 1 million acres
Oct. 8, 2021 • Bears Ears National Monument restored by President Joe Biden to 1,360,000 acres
Oct. 8, 2021 • Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument restored by Biden to 1,870,000 acres
