National Park Service U S

The flashlight beam lighted up the dark interior of Abraham Lincoln's left boot as if the inside of a tomb, and there at the bottom was the smooth and shiny indentation made by the martyred president's heel. The odor of fine leather still clung to the top of the boot, where the white cloth pull straps were sewn. When the light hit a maroon section of the hide, boot maker Michael Anthony Carnacchi whispered, "Aha. There's your original color."

Kate Cannon gazed across the high red desert to the snowy La Sal Mountains rising in sharp relief at the horizon. That view of uninterrupted nature is what draws nearly a million yearly visitors to this remote part of southeast Utah. "Look at the mountains," said Cannon, superintendent of Arches and neighboring Canyonlands national parks. "You can see them. Part of the majesty of this country is the grand sweeping views. The visitors do love it."