It is not significant that Mr. McCormick walked or touched these items, as compared to say Abraham Lincoln. What is important to me is the example of preservation and an example of how the National Park Service had its beginnings. If it were not for the few people that had the monies to amass large chunks of land, many wilderness parcels would not I be here today. Once land is split apart, it is very difficult to put back together again.

Today, checkerboard patterns of land ownership and use form an erratic and profound imprint of industrial Man upon the land, and preservation becomes very difficult. By contrast, if no checkerboard patterns but chunks of land are present, then there is a story, A quiet story indeed, as to how this chunk came to survive amid the checkerboard.

Are there any chunks of land in the prairies of America, where we can go and witness what it used to be like? With many feet of rich topsoil? What wild grasses used to grow there? What birds flew about? Could we at least put some buffalo there? Could we at least see no fences for 30 to 40 miles? Could we imagine Indians wandering here?

We ask, what has been preserved in this country so treasured by White Man. Please, list the preserves that I may go and see what the old power must have been like. Where are the undisturbed blocks of land? Why are they still here and what did it take to save them?

Well, McCormick is an example of preservation of what little is left. It illustrates one chunk. And here in one McCormick cabin, called the Library cabin, are books that tell of other chunks throughout the United States, each with a unique story. The story of their "camp". Their Great Camp. Their structure. Their buildings.

What family or story connected their buildings to the land? That building itself lived on the chunk and sheltered those persons, and in so doing also protected the chunk.

Here in the Library cabin are presented books on the chunks available to date. Continued research is being done to expand our collection.