National Parks - A Brief History
One of the first people generally credited with conceptualizing a "national park" was George Catlin (1796-1872), a self-taught artist who traveled extensively among the native peoples of North America, while sketching and painting portraits, landscapes, and scenes from daily Indian life. On a trip to the Dakotas in 1832, he worried about the impact of America's westward expansion on Indian civilization, wildlife, and wilderness. They might be preserved, he wrote, "by some great protecting policy of government . . . in a magnificent park . . . . A nation's park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature's beauty!"
courtesy of the National Park Service |
The idea had gained some acceptance years later, when in 1864
Congress donated Yosemite Valley to California for preservation
as a state park. The establishment of Yellowstone National Park by
act of Congress on March 1, 1872, for the first time signified
that public lands were to be set aside and administered by the
federal government "for the benefit and enjoyment of the
people." In 1891, President Harrison established Yellowstone
Timberland Reserve as the nation's first forest reserve, and in
1903 President Roosevelt established Pelican Island in Florida
as the first national wildlife refuge.
There was still no real system of national parks in the United
States until August 25, 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson signed
the Organic Act creating
the National Park Service (NPS).
Established under the umbrella of the Department of the Interior,
the NPS was responsible for protecting the 40 national parks and
monuments then in existence.
courtesy of the National Park Service |
In the years that followed, additional national parks and monuments (mostly in the western states) were administered by the NPS, while other monuments and natural and historical areas were administered as separate units by the War Department and the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture. No single agency provided unified management of the varied federal parklands. An Executive Order in 1933 transferred 63 national monuments and military sites from the Forest Service and the War Department to the National Park Service. This action was a major step in the development of today's truly national system of parks-a system that includes areas of historical, cultural, scientific, and scenic importance.
In 1970, Congress declared in the General Authorities Act that all units of the system have equal legal standing in a national system. Areas of the National Park System, the act states,
"though distinct in character, are united through their inter-related purposes and resources into one national park system as cumulative expressions of a single national heritage; that, individually and collectively, these areas derive increased national dignity and recognition of their superb environmental quality through their inclusion jointly with each other in one national park system preserved and managed for the benefit and inspiration of all people of the United States..."
Additions to the National Park System are now generally made through acts of Congress, and national parks can be created only through such acts. But the President has authority, under the Antiquities Act of 1906, to proclaim national monuments on lands already under federal jurisdiction. The Secretary of the Interior is usually asked by Congress for recommendations on proposed additions to the System. The Secretary is counseled by the National Park System Advisory Board, composed of private citizens, which advises on possible additions to the System and policies for its management.
courtesy of the National Park Service |
Though we use the term "national park" in a general sense when referring to the individual units within the National Park System, the classification system used by NPS actually encompasses 19 separate designations. Some are descriptive listings, such as lakeshores, seashores, and battlefields, but others also include titles that can't be neatly categorized because of the diversity of resources within them. The National Park System today comprises 376 areas covering more than 83 million acres in 49 States, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, Saipan, and the Virgin Islands. These areas are of such national significance as to justify special recognition and protection in accordance with various acts of Congress.
In the next segment I'll examine the classification system used to define units of the National Park System.
