Governors tap state funds to keep some national parks open during the government shutdown
Source: NBC News
Oct. 7, 2025, 5:00 AM EDT
With the government shutdown about to extend into a second week, some governors are drawing on state funds to ensure popular national parks remain open for visitors.
Utah and West Virginia said they already have funding streams to keep places like the Zion and New River Gorge parks operational. Tennessee is playing a role in helping keep Great Smoky Mountains National Park open, while Colorado is eying similar steps for some of the National Park Service attractions in its state.
The Interior Department issued guidance last week allowing open-air sites at parks to remain open during the shutdown, but indoor structures like visitor centers would be closed to the public.
Nearly 64% of the National Park Service's 14,500 employees are expected to be furloughed amid the funding lapse.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/governors-tap-state-funds-keep-national-parks-open-government-shutdown-rcna235569
For some reason whenever there is a funding lapse and shutdown, the media obsesses over the national parks.
As a note - this place is closed -
But you can still see the Liberty Bell (in its own building across the street from Independence Hall, that is also closed) from the outside -
But this place is still open (a couple blocks north of Independence Hall, with a view of it, and is privately funded) -
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Like for Yosemite if you want to camp, you have to book it up to 1 year in advance. And collectively they get many millions of visitors from all over the world each year. Thus, when there's a government shutdown, there tends to be a whole lot of people who want to hear reporting on the status of the parks (although of course most probably go to the websites as well).
Also, National Park employees tend to be among the best regarded Federal employees by the general public, so when they are getting fucked over, people "care more" than they do when, say, IRS employees are unhappy 
and consider, based on the past couple dozen years, avoiding trips around the end of a federal fiscal year (the FY ending Sept. 30).
I know "fall" trips are very much a great time of year for visiting these large parks as the temps are cooling and traffic might be less because kids are back in school, etc. But it's also the "end of a fiscal year".
The number among the "general public" meeting Park Rangers is most likely very limited because half of the country lives in urban areas and don't always have access to get to these parks. They might visit their state parks instead, many of them pretty incredible and "local" to boot.
My federal building had the Park Service in it at one time and with it being a couple blocks from Independence Hall, I saw Park Rangers daily (along with the NPS bike police). But that is not "typical".
