Happy 100th birthday, National Park Service! The agency is celebrating its centennial this weekend, and we're all invited to the party -- for free.
In honor of the milestone birthday, admission is free to all national parks and historic sites today through Sunday. Parks will also be holding special events throughout the weekend.
In Baltimore, Fort McHenry will mark the occasion with a naturalization ceremony, swearing in 25 new U.S. citizens, at 2 p.m. today. Michael L. Connor, deputy secretary of the Interior, will speak.
The Hampton Mansion in Towson will serve birthday cake from noon to 12:30 p.m. today.
And over in our nation's capital, the National Park Service is gathering more than 1,000 people on the National Mall to create a giant, living version of its emblem.
It's safe to say that the National Park Service has grown quite a bit in the past 100 years. When President Woodrow Wilson established the agency on Aug. 25, 1916, it had 14 parks, 21 monuments and two reservations open to the public. Now, it encompasses over 400 sites.
The Associated Press and Baltimore Sun staff contributed to this article.