Earth Day has been a national observance for so long that an entire generation might easily overlook its local origins. Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson launched the country's first Earth Day on April 22, 1970.

Office memos detailing his schedule that week were recently made public for the first time at wisconsinhistory.org. Nelson's itinerary opened on a Monday night with the header, "BLAST OFF!" and goes on to describe visits to 11 cities in 72 hours.

Over the next four days he gave more than a dozen speeches or press conferences and appeared on national television three times.

On Tuesday night, he checked into the Red Carpet Inn on Milwaukee's south side, having spoken to the UAW in Atlantic City, the Massachusetts Legislature in Boston and student rallies in Madison and Milwaukee. Nelson's calendar at the end of the first day simply reads, "SLEEP! What's that?"

On Wednesday, the first Earth Day, Nelson traveled from Milwaukee to Chicago, then Denver and Berkeley, where he spent the night in a Holiday Inn after addressing crowds all day. His speech in Denver, covered by CBS news, included these reflections on the day's significance:

"It may be the birth date of a new American ethic that rejects the frontier philosophy that the continent was put here for our plunder, and accepts the idea that even urbanizing, affluent, mobile societies such as ours are interdependent with the fragile, but life-sustaining systems of the air, the water, the land."

— Wisconsin Historical Society
www.wisconsinhistory.org

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