National parks across the country have undergone many changes this year. One of those changes in particular has resulted in the removal of signs that portray U.S. history in a “negative” light. The move is in accordance with a new federal directive tied to a 2025 executive order from President Trump.
Ozarks at Large’s Casey Mann looked into how these changes are playing out in Arkansas and beyond, and spoke with a historian and a national park blogger about what's at stake for visitors, staff and the stories our parks tell.
At national park sites across the country, visitors may notice that something has changed. Educational signs detailing slavery, climate change, forced migration, and other painful chapters of American history are slowly disappearing, replaced or removed under new federal directives.
A directive that University of Arkansas history professor Matthew Stanley says is a move toward state propaganda.
“What do you call it when the past becomes subject to the approval of a political regime? Or if there's a quote-unquote official narrative that's counter to what historians understand to be true, and what the evidence clearly reveals? When uncomfortable facts are called subversion, or woke, or something to be suppressed. And there's a word for that. And it's state propaganda.”
The changes are in accordance with an executive order from President Trump. The order, called Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, was signed by the president in March 2025. As a result, national parks across the country have been instructed to remove any interpretive signage that portrays the U.S. in an unjust, negative light.
The move by the Trump administration focuses primarily on changes made under former President Joe Biden. The Department of the Interior, responsible for overseeing the National Park Service, is tasked with determining whether, since Jan. 1, 2020, public monuments, memorials, statues, and similar properties within its jurisdiction have been altered to falsely reconstruct American history, minimize the value of historical events or figures, or encourage improper partisan ideology.
Stanley says the move by the administration goes back to the influence of Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation, who has publicly stated that he has a goal of institutionalizing Trumpism. The Heritage Foundation wrote Project 2025, a conservative political playbook, and has a guide to historic sites on its website that grades prominent sites around the country based on their perceived accuracy.
As a historian, Stanley says he is not opposed to changing historical interpretations, but he says the revision process should be rooted in rigorous research and review, not altered to better align with political narratives. Since Stanley believes the administration is not going through this review process, he views these changes not as historical, but political.
“But what I'm seeing from the Trump administration and their directives has nothing to do with correcting inaccuracies or anything like that. Um, it really has to do with rejecting any historical narrative that the administration doesn't like, particularly ones that complicate the idea of a triumphalist American story.”
He says a triumphalist rewriting of American history creates a bedtime story version that insults the intelligence of average Americans. It also removes the context of racial and gender oppression, class conflict, and anything else deemed unfavorable or inconvenient.
“People don't come to the national parks or to a museum to encounter a simple, sanitized, glorious, triumphalist, uncomplicated, mythologized version of the past that a first grader might comprehend as the past. They don't. That's not what they come for. Most people come because they're curious.”
Stanley has worked at both national and state parks throughout his career. He interned at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park in Virginia and at Perryville Battlefield in Kentucky. One of Stanley’s historical focuses is on collective memory, which is the way groups of people remember the past. He says those in power often attempt to manipulate collective memory to better align with their agendas.
“You know, like people, nations want to present the best version of themselves rather than sometimes face uncomfortable truths about ourselves. Of course, that's what we call mythology, right? So, so much of collective memory is, in fact, myth making.”
When nations present this sanitized version of themselves, it results in a loss of diversity and perspectives that historians have been fighting to include for the last half century, Stanley says. It also lends itself to growing inequity, and a reality in which only the wealthiest and most powerful can tell their stories.
“We don't want a version of history that conforms to the interests and prerogatives of the super rich, of the elite, of the ruling class. We want one that includes a variety of perspectives. That includes all Americans and everyone who has helped shape the story of this country, for better or worse. And that's just not what the Trump administration is interested in.”
Since the order’s signing, posters have been appearing at parks across the country urging visitors to report any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans, or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.
In a statement from the National Parks Conservation Association, president and CEO Theresa Pierno called the posters disturbing and said they undermine the National Park Service. She said:
“For over a hundred years, National Park Service rangers have brought American history to life and the American people deeply respect their work. Rangers should be able to talk about the history of Japanese American incarceration at Amachi, or the history of slavery at Fort Monroe, without looking over their shoulders in fear. If our country erases the darker chapters of our history, we will never learn from our mistakes. These signs must come down immediately.”
Some of the displays marked for removal include a famous photo of an enslaved Black man heavily scarred with whip marks at Georgia’s Fort Pulaski National Monument, and several signs referencing climate change at Acadia National Park. Another removed display at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in New York City read:
“Some very new parks preserve not just lands or buildings, but our nation's ideas and ideals. They remind us of things we hope to live up to, like women's rights and liberty, and things we hope never to repeat, like slavery, massacres of Indians, or holding Japanese Americans in wartime camps.”
Arkansas parks have not remained untouched by the order either. According to a statement from the National Park Service sent via email, at Fort Smith National Historic Site, which preserves almost 80 years of Native American history, a map was flagged for updating from “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America.”
This move reflects another Trump administration executive order. Representatives from the Fort Smith site did not respond to requests to discuss the change after numerous attempts requesting comment.
In the same September message, the National Park Service stated that it would be premature to comment on the situation, as actions regarding national parks in Arkansas are ongoing. In response to additional requests, the NPS in November wrote that interviews with local park staff are not available and they do not comment on personnel matters.
“The National Park Service remains focused on ensuring parks in Arkansas and across the country are safe and accessible to the public,” an NPS spokesperson wrote. “Park operations continue in accordance with enacted appropriations and departmental policy.”
The president’s instruction to rewrite, reorganize, or remove history has also sparked the creation of the Save Our Signs Project, or SOS. SOS is a community-driven effort to preserve NPS interpretive materials before they are changed or removed.
The project is a public archive of more than 10,000 crowdsourced photos taken across the country. A group of librarians, historians, and data experts co-founded the project in partnership with the Data Rescue Project and Safeguarding Research in Culture. SOS’s website features a downloadable spreadsheet that includes information about each photo, such as the name of the park where it was taken, the date it was taken, and the title of the sign.
At least 155 photos have been taken at Arkansas NPS sites, according to SOS data. The website also includes an interactive map of all national park sites, noting which have photos submitted. As of the most recent map update, four of seven Arkansas NPS sites have submissions, including Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site, Fort Smith National Historic Site, Hot Springs National Park and the Arkansas Post National Memorial.
The Pea Ridge National Military Park, Buffalo National River and the President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site have not had SOS photos submitted.
As these changes occur, some park visitors have to grapple with the fact that the lands they love are being altered, often in ways they believe are inaccurate.
Jennifer Melroy has visited 59 of 63 national park sites.
“Yeah, so my group kind of, if you've ever been to the National Park Service website, they're very bare bones and they vary in quality greatly based on how much money that park gets. So my group is kind of to help them put together the pieces of, I've done all this research, I have all this information in my head. I have these things I want to do. How do I get from that point to actually booking a trip?”
Melroy is the founder of National Park Obsessed, a blog she started to make national parks as accessible as possible. She says any attempt to limit information and frame U.S. history as faultless is unacceptable. She makes a point of providing park travelers with information about Native American history in relation to the parks, and her website includes a land acknowledgment.
Melroy says that although the signs are being altered now, it's important to keep in mind that they haven’t always been accurate in the past either.
“I think we should be recognizing that history. My biggest pet peeve is Aztec Ruins in New Mexico and Montezuma Castle in Arizona. Both of those sites have nothing to do with the Aztecs or Montezuma. We need to get with the tribes that are in the area and say, what do you want this called?”
Melroy says that when visitors cannot access firsthand knowledge and complete history, they learn a version of a story that is not necessarily wrong but incomplete. She says she’s noticed some discussion and disappointment among parkgoers about changes to the Park Service, including recent funding and staffing cuts.
Nonetheless, she says it’s important to keep visiting NPS sites.
“Because at the end of the day, if we're not using them, we're going to lose them. So part of it is getting people to care about them. And it's a lot easier to care about stuff if you actually go see it once in a while.”
According to data from NPS Integrated Resource Management Applications, from January to October 2025, total yearly park recreation visits have decreased for the first time in more than five years. Monthly park recreation visits have also been lower each month in 2025 compared with the same month in 2024, except in January.
Melroy says it’s not just visitors who are harmed by these changes, but staff too. She’s been friends with several park rangers for years and says that although she cannot speak for them, it’s clear that they’re having a difficult time.
“They are all just kind of like, I'm just going to keep my head down and just hope I have a job tomorrow.”
She says the rangers she knows do not want to see the funding, staffing, and signage changes occur. She added that some of her friends have become more cagey with her recently when it comes to discussing the parks, out of fear that anything they say could be misinterpreted.
“They just shake their head, keep their head down and like four more years, four more years or three more years, whatever. How many more? So a couple of them, I'm pretty sure somewhere have a calendar where they're counting down the days. Just get through this and then we'll see what comes next.”
As actions regarding sign changes in Arkansas and beyond continue, it remains unclear how many interpretive materials will ultimately be affected. What is clear is that the directives have already reshaped the landscape of educational signs at national parks, altering what millions of people will encounter on their visits.
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