Since 2025, the federal government has been flagging and removing historical signs and exhibits from National Parks. Stories and exhibits on slavery, science, Indigenous history, and civil rights have been removed from the places where Americans go to learn. This page is our best attempt to explain what we know so far.
Not all 874 entries are censorship. Some are physical repair, some are "Nothing to Report." We break all of this down on our data methodology page.
In March 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14253, titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History." Two months later, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued Secretary's Order 3431, which directed the National Park Service and other federal land management agencies to review and remove public-facing content that "inappropriately disparages Americans past or living" or "emphasizes matters unrelated to the beauty, abundance, or grandeur" of natural features.
The result has been a sweeping censorship campaign targeting interpretive signs, museum exhibits, wayside markers, and educational materials across the national park system. Topics flagged for removal include slavery and the experiences of enslaved people, climate change and environmental science, Indigenous history and displacement, LGBTQ+ history, and the Civil Rights movement.
All of this is happening while the Park Service is being hollowed out from the inside. Since January 2025, the NPS has lost roughly 24% of its permanent workforce, about 4,000 people. Around 1,000 were fired in a single day in February 2025, and another 270+ were targeted in October. The proposed FY2026 budget would slash NPS funding by 36%, or $1.2 billion, the largest cut in the agency's 109-year history. On top of that, the parks themselves face a $23 billion deferred maintenance backlog across more than 75,000 assets. Nearly 70 parks have reduced visitor center hours, 22 have postponed maintenance, and 11 have closed or delayed opening facilities. Some parks are struggling with basic search and rescue. Many of the rangers and staff being asked to carry out these removals don't support the order. The Association of National Park Rangers is one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit challenging SO 3431, and its executive director has called depriving visitors of accurate, complete stories "unthinkable."
The source material here is the National Park Service's own internal review database, which was leaked to the public in early March 2026. Each entry in our map traces back to this database. We cross-reference it with the Save Our Signs Tracker (whose volunteers have done extraordinary on-the-ground documentation work), FOIA records from the Sierra Club, and press reporting. We do our best, but our classifications aren't perfect and we update them as we learn more.
Here are some documented examples from parks across the country. We've done our best to verify each one through the leaked NPS data and press reporting, but we're always refining our understanding of what happened and why.
These are just a few examples from the 874 entries in our database. You can explore the full dataset on our interactive map. We're adding context and corrections regularly, so if something looks off, check back or let us know.
In February 2026, a coalition of six organizations filed NPCA et al. v. Department of the Interior, a federal lawsuit challenging the censorship campaign. We're deeply grateful to the National Parks Conservation Association for leading this effort, and to Democracy Forward for representing the coalition in court. The other plaintiffs include the Association of National Park Rangers, the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, the American Association for State and Local History, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Society for Experiential Graphic Design. It takes real courage to take on the federal government, and these organizations are doing it.
The lawsuit names Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and acting NPS Director Jessica Bowron as defendants. It argues that the removal directives violate federal law governing the management and interpretation of national parks, and that the censorship is "arbitrary and capricious" under the Administrative Procedure Act.
In an earlier, related action, Federal District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe ordered the NPS to restore exhibits at the President's House Site in Independence NHP, ruling that the removal likely violated the law. The exhibits were partially restored on February 19, 2026, showing that legal challenges can make a real difference.
So far, one entry in our database has been confirmed as court-restored (the President's House at Independence NHP, with 12 of 30 signs confirmed back in place). We expect this number to grow as the legal process continues. We update the map as new data comes in.
National Parks are America's classrooms. More than 300 million people visit them each year. For many Americans, a park visit is the primary way they encounter stories about the nation's history, its triumphs and its failures.
When exhibits about slavery are removed from plantation sites, when climate science is erased from glacier parks, when Indigenous history is stripped from canyons that Native peoples have inhabited for millennia, the message is clear: some truths are too inconvenient to tell.
History that goes undocumented becomes history that never happened. This project is one piece of a much bigger community effort to keep these removals visible. We're building on the work of Save Our Signs, the Sierra Club, NPCA, and many others. We don't have all the answers, but we're trying to contribute what we can and improve the data as we go.
Document what you see. If you visit a national park and notice missing signs or empty exhibit cases, photograph them. Report them to the Save Our Signs project. Their volunteers are doing incredible, tireless work documenting what's happening at parks across the country, and more eyes always help.
Share the data. This map is free and open. Share it with journalists, educators, and anyone who cares about public history. The more people paying attention, the harder it is to erase things quietly.
Support the people fighting this. The National Parks Conservation Association and Democracy Forward are fighting this in court and they deserve all the support they can get. The Sierra Club continues to pursue FOIA requests that keep federal agencies accountable. These organizations are doing the hard work that makes projects like this one possible.
Explore 874+ flagged, removed, and restored entries across America's national parks and refuges.
🗺 Open the Interactive Map Read About SO 3431 →