America's National Parks

The story of America's National Parks

Yellowstone - The Old Faithful geyser

    Those nineteenth century Congressmen could hardly have imagined the extent and the importance of the process they were setting in motion, as they drafted their legislation in Washington. With the means of transport of the age, they, and most of the American population, were several days' train ride from Yellowstone, a park on the borders of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. The legislators surely did not even dream that 150 years later, for instance, the number of visitors to National Parks Service areas would be over three hundred and ten million.

    They knew, all the same that they were doing something necessary, and something of historic value.

Stunning rock formations in Bryce Canyon

    The original Act of Congress clearly defined the purpose of the National Parks, which was to:

    "Conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife 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."

    No other country had any similar policy; yet it should be remembered that the United States was in a singularly different position at the time, from any other developed country. While virtually all land in Europe belonged to private landowners, and only a small proportion was in state hands, things were very different in the USA, particulartly in the West where there were millions of acres land, uninhabited and often uninhabitable.

    The act of 1872 established a new public land policy, namely that public lands were to be:

 "reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasure ground, for the benefit and enjoyment of people."

    Yet Recreation and enjoyment were not the only reasons for which Congress decided to set aside National Parks; as early as 1800, poets and nov­elists had been writing about the mag­nificence of natu­ral sites. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Ameri­can philosopher and writer Henry David Thoreau was al­ready fleeing city life and de­veloping his own back-to-nature movement, and his book, Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854), had a major im­pact on Americans' awareness of their natural heritage. Thoreau's idealism cer­tainly played a part in the legislators' decision to preserve large areas of America's natural heritage for posterity.

    So it was that Congress declared that some of the most spectacular and beautiful regions of the American West should be preserved for posterity. And one by one, the Grand Canyon, spectac­ular parts of the Rocky Mountains, and California's Yosemite mountains found them­selves among a number of national parks which has continued to grow for over a century.

    While the most spectacular of America's National Parks are to be found in the West, there are others in the eastern half of the USA, in Alaska and Hawaii.

    Thanks to the foresight of earlier generations, Americans, and an increas­ing number of visitors from other coun­tries, can today enjoy some of the finest National Parks in the world.