National Park Service

While most folks think of the beginning of the National Park movement as starting with Yellowstone in 1872, the actual National Park Service didn't begin until August 25, 1916. Prior to that, the various lands that had been set aside for conservation or public use, actually from that 1832 date of the Hot Springs Reservation, were spread among various departments of the government. At first, some were managed by the Agriculture Department, with later transfer to the NPS. For most of these lands, that actually occurred after the 1916 date, although there were exceptions. Nine National Monuments were in the Agriculture Department as of the 1916 date and are among the others listed outside the original 33 (plus 5) that should be considered, and are by the parks themselves, as part of the Centennial Parks group. Seven national battlefields were also outside the National Park Service in 1916, many in the War Department until the 1933 reorganization. They are in that other category as well, but certainly Centennial Parks as we would think of them today. This group includes Gettysburg, Antietam, and Shiloh, among others. It's a total of twenty, if you don't count their subunits.

So what's that talk about the original 33 plus 5. Well, there are today thirty-three national parks left in the National Park Service that were in the original 1916 declaration as part of the NPS. Five parks are no longer part of the service or considered a National Park, including Mackinac Island, which had been protected since 1875 as a National Park, but transferred to the state of Michigan in 1895 prior to the 1916 date. There were also four parks that made it to 1916, but were later decommissioned; Sully's Hill National Park in North Dakota was transferred to the Agriculture Department as a Game Preserve in 1931, Lewis and Clark Cavern National Monument in Montana was abolished in 1937, Shoshone Caverns National Monument in Wyoming was abolished in 1954, and Pagago Saguaro National Monument in Arizona was abolished in 1930. So how did all this National Park Service stuff start, even prior to 1916? Well, it actually began a long time before the NPS itself, with visionaries such as artist George Catlin, and public officials such as California Senator John Conness, who convinced federal authorities to set aside and transfer lands in the Yosemite Valley to the state for preservation. None other than President Abraham Lincoln signed that act on June 30, 1864, in the middle of the Civil War as Grant chased Lee to Richmond and Petersburg. Some of lands would be set aside after expeditions to the region uncovered wonder not often seen, such as those in Yellowstone, then prompted by railroads who wanted a destination for their travelers to visit, a tourist draw, were set aside. This did not occur without some opposition, but on March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant would sign Yellowstone and its two million acres into preservation law.

At the beginning of 1916, the Interior Department was in charge of fourteen national parks, twenty-one national monuments, plus two reservations at Hot Springs and Casa Grande. Competing interest from business and conservation were often at odds on just how to manage the areas. This led to Congress passing an act to create the National Park Service, which President Woodrow Wilson would sign into law on August 25, 1916. The bureau would be responsible for the 36 national parks and monuments then in the Interior Department, plus the Hot Springs Reservation.

Growth in Visitation

In total, it's been amazing, from the twelve reporting sites in 1916 that saw a total attendance of 326,000 now reaching toward 300 million. For the individual parks, it's been just as dramatic.