A Federal Judge Ordered National Parks to Restore Removed History and Science Exhibits

Kentucky’s National Park sites preserve stories about slavery, emancipation, Lincoln, cave labor, Native removal, Civil War memory, and environmental science.

Jun 14, 2026

Camp Nelson Academy, 1864. Camp Nelson National Monument preserves the history of emancipation, Black military service, refugee families, and education during the Civil War. Source: National Park Service.

On June 12, 2026, U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley ordered the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service to restore signs, exhibits, and interpretive materials removed or altered under a federal order called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

The ruling came from the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in National Parks Conservation Association v. Department of the Interior. The plaintiffs included the National Parks Conservation Association, the American Association for State and Local History, the Association of National Park Rangers, the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, the Society for Experiential Graphic Design, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The defendants were the U.S. Department of the Interior, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the National Park Service, and Jessica Bowron, the official exercising delegated authority of the National Park Service director.

The order does not name a Kentucky park as one of the sites where materials were removed. The Kentucky connection is not that Mammoth Cave or Camp Nelson has already been proven to have lost exhibits under this order. The Kentucky connection is that the federal park interpretation policy applies to National Park Service sites in Kentucky, and several of those sites teach subjects directly implicated in the court record: slavery, emancipation, civil rights, Indigenous history, climate, labor, land, and public memory.

What the court ordered

President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14253 on March 27, 2025. The order directed federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to emphasize a particular account of American history. The White House described the policy as restoring federal history sites to “solemn and uplifting public monuments” that remind Americans of heritage, progress, liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued Secretary’s Order 3431 on May 20, 2025. That order implemented the executive order within the Department of the Interior. It directed Interior agencies to review monuments, memorials, statues, markers, signs, and public-facing materials under Interior control.

The instruction was direct. National Park Service sites were told to review interpretive materials and identify content considered false, improper, partisan, or disparaging. According to the court order, the agency later required park sites to remove or alter materials. The court record described removals involving climate change, civil rights, slavery, diverse communities, Indigenous history, and other subjects.

The lawsuit challenged the Interior order under the Administrative Procedure Act and several National Park Service statutes. The plaintiffs argued that the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service acted unlawfully by ordering removals without the process, evidence, and statutory authority required for federal park interpretation.

Judge Kelley agreed that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on key claims. The court stayed the implementation of Section 5 of Secretary’s Order 3431 at National Park Service-managed sites. The judge ordered the government to stop further removals under that section, restore altered or removed materials within 21 days, and file a status report within five days, followed by weekly reports.

The ruling created an immediate agency obligation.

The National Park Service cannot continue removing materials under the challenged section while the order remains in effect. It must identify what was removed, restore those materials, and report back to the court.

How federal park interpretation works

The National Park Service is not simply a land manager. Congress gave the agency responsibility for preserving natural and historic objects and providing public education. The court’s ruling turned on that statutory role.

The National Park Service Organic Act requires the agency to conserve scenery, natural and historic objects, and wildlife for future generations. The National Parks Omnibus Management Act requires the use of high-quality science and information. The National Park Service Centennial Act addresses interpretation and education and directs the agency to use high-quality interpretation and education across park sites.

Park signs, exhibits, brochures, waysides, ranger talks, and visitor-center displays are not random decorations. They are the official public interpretation. They tell visitors what happened at a site, why it exists, who shaped it, which conflicts occurred there, and how current knowledge affects the public’s understanding of the place.

Normally, interpretive materials take time to create. Park staff, historians, scientists, educators, designers, accessibility specialists, local partners, and subject-matter experts may be involved. The court described comprehensive interpretive plans as part of the National Park Service’s ordinary method for deciding which stories to tell and how to tell them.

Secretary’s Order 3431 changed that by imposing a top-down political review of public-facing content. The court found that the government had not justified the removals with evidence that the materials were inaccurate, outdated, or inconsistent with statutory duties. For climate-related materials, the judge noted that the government had ordered removals without showing that the underlying science was wrong.

The court did not decide that every park exhibit must remain unchanged forever. The National Park Service can update displays when scholarship changes, when science changes, when exhibits age, or when a park improves its interpretation. The ruling addressed the legal problem created when a federal agency removes materials to fit an administration’s preferred narrative without following the duties Congress assigned to the agency.

Why Kentucky’s park sites are implicated

Kentucky has several National Park Service sites where public interpretation is central to the visitor experience. The NPS lists Kentucky sites, including Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park, Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, Camp Nelson National Monument, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, Fort Donelson National Battlefield, Mammoth Cave National Park, Mill Springs Battlefield National Monument, Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, and the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.

At Mammoth Cave National Park, federal interpretation includes the labor and knowledge of enslaved African Americans who worked in saltpeter mining, cave exploration, and early tourism. The National Park Service’s own history describes enslaved guides such as Stephen Bishop, Mat Bransford, Nick Bransford, and Alfred Croghan. It also describes how Black guides shaped the early public understanding of the cave and were later excluded when the National Park Service assumed operations in 1941.

At Camp Nelson National Monument, federal interpretation includes slavery, emancipation, military recruitment, refugee life, and the United States Colored Troops. The National Park Service describes Camp Nelson as a major recruitment and training center for Black soldiers and a refugee camp for people fleeing slavery and war. More than 10,000 formerly enslaved men became soldiers there during the Civil War.

At Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park, federal interpretation connects Kentucky to Lincoln’s early life, the Civil War, and the national memory surrounding emancipation. At Mill Springs Battlefield, interpretation addresses Kentucky’s place in the Civil War. At Cumberland Gap, interpretation includes migration, Native history, settlement, land, and memory. The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail includes Kentucky in the story of the Cherokee people’s forced removal.

Those stories require accuracy. They also require the National Park Service to present more than a celebratory summary.

Kentucky’s federal park sites preserve stories of courage, exploitation, forced removal, war, labor, emancipation, environmental change, and public memory.

When federal policy pressures park staff to remove or soften difficult facts, visitors to Kentucky receive a narrower account of Kentucky history.

This matters for schools, too. Teachers use National Park Service sites as educational resources. Families visit these parks. Local tourism agencies promote them. Historical societies and community organizations partner with them. The people affected are not only historians and park employees. The affected people include students, parents, visitors, local businesses, descendants, researchers, and Kentuckians whose family histories are connected to these places.

What to watch and what you can do

The first thing to watch is compliance. The court required the federal government to file a status report within five days of the June 12 order and thereafter every seven days. Those reports should identify what was restored and where.

Track the docket in National Parks Conservation Association v. Department of the Interior, Civil Action No. 1:26-cv-10877, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Watch for a government appeal, a request to stay the order, or new filings describing restoration work.

Ask a specific question: Were any interpretive materials at Kentucky National Park Service sites reviewed, flagged, removed, altered, covered, damaged, or delayed under Executive Order 14253 or Secretary’s Order 3431?

That question can be directed to Kentucky’s congressional delegation, the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, and local park leadership. Readers can also ask whether any Kentucky site received letters, emails, compliance instructions, or lists of flagged signs after May 20, 2025.

Open a Freedom of Information Act request to seek communications about Executive Order 14253 or Secretary’s Order 3431 involving Mammoth Cave, Camp Nelson, Abraham Lincoln Birthplace, Cumberland Gap, Mill Springs Battlefield, Fort Donelson, Trail of Tears, or Big South Fork. The most useful records would include emails, removal lists, visitor complaint submissions, QR-code reports, photographs, status reports, and instructions from regional or national NPS leadership.

Document what you see. If a visitor-center display has been removed, covered, replaced, or softened, take a photo, note the date, and identify the location. If a school group uses NPS materials, compare current web pages, brochures, and exhibits against archived versions when possible.

Kentucky historical organizations can ask for briefings from park leadership. Local tourism boards can ask whether interpretive changes affected visitor experience or educational programming. County and city leaders near federal park sites can ask whether the court order affects local partnerships, exhibits, tours, or events.

For Kentucky, the next step is to find the records: Did any Kentucky National Park Service site change or remove materials under this federal order? If the status reports or FOIA records show that Kentucky park materials were reviewed or removed, that becomes a local accountability story. If no Kentucky materials were changed, the ruling still establishes an important boundary: a federal administration cannot disregard the National Park Service’s legal duty to tell history and science accurately simply because some facts are politically uncomfortable.

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