National Park Service Celebrates 100
Years
2016
marks the centennial of the National Park Service. The NPS is an agency
"to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and
wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such a
manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment
of future generations."
Although we are celebrating 100 years of the National
Park Service this year, artist George Catlin, famous for his paintings
of Native Americans, in 1832 first expressed the idea of land being
preserved for everyone. He pondered what impact America’s westward
expansion would have on the Native Americans, the wildlife and the
wilderness he so much enjoyed.
Nothing happened with Catlin’s idea until 1864 when
President Abraham Lincoln signed an act of Congress to transfer the
federally-owned Yosemite Valley and nearby Mariposa Big Tree Grove to
the State of California on condition that it would "be held for
public use, resort, and recreation … inalienable for all time."
Then in 1871 the Senate Public Lands Committee presented a park
legislation bill to Congress, using Yosemite as a precedence, to protect
the Yellowstone region, keeping it in federal custody and unavailable
for development. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill into law in
1872, creating Yellowstone National Park as the world’s first of many
to come.
Once the proverbial ball started rolling, Congress
continued the preservation path with an act in 1875 making most of
Michigan’s Mackinac Island a national park. (In 1895, the Federal
Government turned it back over to the State of Michigan for development
as a State park.). Sequoia and Yosemite became national parks in 1890,
Mount Ranier in 1899, Crater Lake in Oregon in 1902, Wind Cave in South
Dakota in 1903, Mesa Verde in Colorado in 1906, Glacier in Montana in
1910. You can see the progression.
There was a plethora of others all before August 25,
1916, when President Woodrow Wilson created the National Park Service to
oversee the already established national parks. The NPS was directed by
the legislation to "conserve the scenery and the natural and
historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the
enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave
them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."
President Theodore Roosevelt was one of the park
system’s greatest patrons. During his administration (1901-09) he
created five new parks, as well as 18 national monuments, four national
game refuges, 51 bird sanctuaries, and over 100 million acres of
national forest.
Today, according to the NPS, twenty-seven states and
the territories of American Samoa and the United States Virgin Islands
have national parks. The total area protected by national parks is
approximately 51.9 million acres. The NPS employs more than 20,000
alongside about 221,000 volunteers in 412 national parks, monuments,
battlefields, military parks, historical parks, historic sites,
lakeshores, seashores, recreation areas, scenic rivers and trails, and
the White House.
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