National Parks

Grand Canyon National Park, south rim of canyon.

A National Park Service MD 900helicopter

NPS Preliminary Survey party, Great Smoky Mountains, 1931

Winter at the Gettysburg Battlefield

Since its inception in 1916, the National Park Service has managed each of the United States' national parks, which have grown in number over the years to 58.

Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States. In 1872, there was no state government to manage it, so thefederal government assumed direct control. Yosemite National Park began as a state park; the land for the park was donated by the federal government to the state of California in 1864 for perpetual conservation. Yosemite was later returned to federal ownership.

At first, each national park was managed independently, with varying degrees of success. In Yellowstone, the civilian staff was replaced by the U.S. Army in 1886. Due to the irregularities in managing these national treasures, Stephen Tyng Mather petitioned the federal government to improve the situation. In response, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane challenged him to lobby for creating a new agency, the National Park Service, to manage all national parks and some national monuments. Mather was successful with the ratification of the National Park Service Organic Act in 1916. Later, the agency was given authority over other protected areas, many with varying designations as Congress created them.