In 1986 the NPS launched a program through Eastern National entitled “Passport to Your National Parks.”  The purpose was to provide an activity that would increase visitation to, and interest in, our National Parks.  Americans are fond of collecting anything they can get their hands on.  Baseball cards, coins, and Coca-Cola cans are common examples.  Ok, maybe there are not that many people collecting Coca-Cola cans (though, hundreds of new Coca-Cola can designs are printed around the world each year).  Why not create a game involving the National Parks which requires one to obtain proof of having been on-site?  But how would this work?  Were there any examples in today’s world which this idea could benchmark?  Since the NPS is part of the United States Executive branch, maybe look to another part of the Federal Government for an answer.  People must travel to get to a National Park unit, right?  Where else do people journey?  Other sovereign nations, of course.  And what do people have to acquire before they can legally enter another country?  The answer is a stamp in their government-issued passport.  Why couldn’t the same concept work when visiting each National Park unit?  The “Passport to Your National Parks” program was born.

Eastern National (www.eParks.com), a non-profit organization, was selected to administer the program.  One of the first decisions to be made was agreeing on the shape of the stamps.  A circle was adopted.  Next, what should go inside each circle?  Again, a quick look at a U.S. government-issued passport provided three answers.  Those passports identify the country being entered, the point of entry (i.e. an airport), and the date of entry.  The stamps in the NPS program would, likewise, list the park unit’s name, the point of entry (i.e. town) or interest (i.e. a specific VC), and the date the traveler visited the park.  The stamp would be designed to have the date in the middle of the circle so a set of 4 tumblers could be used to change the month, date/date, and year numbers (i.e. DEC 24 2015… could change to DEC 26 2015).

The park’s name and stamping location would be circumferentially oriented around the inside of the circle, akin to the design on our country’s coinage.  Many parks have multiple stamps due to unique stamps being located at specific points of interest in the park (multiple VCs, buildings, barns, lighthouses, churches, etc.).  As an example, Cape Lookout National Seashore has six locations to obtain stamps.  I have recently heard the total count is above 5,000 stamps for all NPS units over the 35+ years.

The NPS is organized into multiple administrative regions.  To add more fun to the collecting game the idea to color-code each region was approved.  Each stamping station would have an ink pad with ink color matching its designated region.  Redwood National Park in California has green ink for the Western Region, while the color for Acadia National Park in Maine is brown, the North Atlantic Region.  It is of note that when the Passport Cancellation program was initiated the NPS was divided into nine regions (today there are seven regions), so to this day the program continues to reflect the number of regions from 1986.