The National Park Service is celebrating its 100th birthday today with events across the U.S. including the creation of a giant, living version of its emblem in Washington, D.C., a naturalization ceremony on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and an outdoor concert at Yellowstone National Park. The centennial comes as the agency that manages national parks as well as historic places welcomes a new national monument and nature forces some changes in the party in the West.

More than 1,000 kids and adults used brown, green and white umbrellas to create a living version of the park service emblem on the National Mall, which the agency photographed from a helicopter above. The emblem contains elements symbolizing the major facets of the national park system. A Sequoia tree and bison represent vegetation and wildlife, mountains and water represent scenery and recreation and the arrowhead shape represents history and archaeology. The first 1,000 participants were allowed to keep their umbrellas and got T-shirts commemorating the event.

In honor of the centennial anniversary, we looked through our archive and made a selection of photos of U.S. National Parks though the years. 

See these photos on AP Images.com

Text from the AP news story, Park Service marks centennial with new citizens, monument, by ME State Wire.

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