17 July 2008
U.S. National Parks Rooted in Individual Visions
Personal leadership, philanthropy drew public support for conservation
Washington -- The U.S. National Park System arose from the energy, passion -- perhaps even obsession -- of visionaries who committed their time, talents and resources to focusing national attention on national treasures. Without them, natural wonders like Yellowstone, Yosemite, Denali and the Everglades likely would not exist in their current forms.
The U.S. National Park System holds the nation’s most valuable wilderness in trust for the citizens of the United States for enjoyment by this and future generations. Each year, more than 400 million people experience that legacy firsthand in visits to 388 areas encompassing more than 336,000 square kilometers. (See “Spirit of America Reflected in U.S. Park System.”)
It might be difficult for modern-day Americans to believe that the importance of preserving these spectacular open spaces ever was in question, but early conservationists faced an uphill battle to protect the natural wonders that became the U.S. National Park System.
FERDINAND HAYDEN AND YELLOWSTONE
Geologist Ferdinand Hayden capitalized on interest in the Yellowstone region by asking Congress for funds for an official expedition into the Yellowstone region. A $40,000 grant funded his geographical survey to investigate the Missouri and Yellowstone territories. He published Geological Report of the Exploration of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers in 1859-1860 in 1869.
In 1871, another Hayden-led team included photographer William Jackson and artist and Thomas Moran. The sketches, photographs and notes that accompanied specimens newly collected from Yellowstone helped convince the public, and ultimately Congress, that the region's best use was as a park, preserved in its natural state.
On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses Grant signed legislation creating the Yellowstone National Park and setting a precedent for preserving similar areas. In 1972, on Yellowstone’s centennial, President Richard Nixon described the park in these terms: “Against the vast span of geologic time out of which its scenic grandeur was born, Yellowstone's first century as a national park came and went in a moment. Today, just as in 1872, Yellowstone's capacity to whet man's sense of wonder and refresh his spirit remains ageless and undiminished.”
JOHN MUIR AND YOSEMITE
John Muir, a Scottish immigrant to the United States, was an industrial engineer who fell in love with the Sierra Nevada wilderness and worked in a variety of jobs while he studied it. Accounting to popular accounts, Muir, a talented amateur naturalist and geologist, shifted his attention from studying the Yosemite area to protecting it when he encountered loggers cutting down ancient sequoias.
On June 30, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill granting Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias to the state of California as an inalienable public trust. Unfortunately, the lands remained open to exploitation. Muir’s struggle against the devastation of the Yosemite’s meadows by grazing livestock he called “hoofed locusts,” drew national attention, and his widely read series of articles in Century magazine resulted in the creation of Yosemite National Park on October 1, 1890.
Muir also founded the Sierra Club, an international nonprofit organization that promotes the exploration, enjoyment and protection of the wild places of the earth, in 1892 to "do something for wildness and make the mountains glad." In 1901, Muir’s book, Our National Parks, drew the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt and helped lay the foundation for the president’s conservation programs.
CHARLES SHELDON AND DENALI
In 1906, naturalist, hunter and railroad executive Charles Sheldon first traveled to Alaska’s interior and the 960-kilometer mountain range crowned by Mount McKinley to study boundaries for a proposed game preserve. Following his visit, Sheldon began a campaign to protect the sub-Arctic desert populated by moose, caribou, Dall sheep, grizzly bears and wolves.
When Sheldon returned to the East in 1908, the Game Committee of the Boone and Crockett Club, of which he was chairman, launched the campaign to establish a national park that resulted in the establishment of Mount McKinley National Park in 1917.
Sheldon wanted to call the park Denali, a suggestion ignored until 1980, when President Jimmy Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which enlarged the park’s boundaries to its present 19,162 square kilometers and redesignated it as the Denali National Park and Preserve.
GEORGE DORR AND ACADIA
In 1901, alarmed by development in the Bar Harbor area on the state of Maine’s Atlantic coast and the dangers he saw in the newly invented gasoline-powered portable sawmill, George Dorr and others established the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations to preserve land for perpetual public use. By 1913, it had acquired 2,400 hectares.
Dorr offered the land to the federal government, and in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson announced the creation of Sieur de Monts National Monument. Dorr continued to acquire property and pursue full national park status for his beloved preserve.
In 1919, President Wilson signed the act establishing Lafayette National Park, the first national park east of the Mississippi. In 1929, the park name was changed to Acadia.
ERNEST COE AND THE EVERGLADES
“Here are no lofty peaks seeking the sky, no mighty glaciers or rushing streams wearing away the uplifted land. Here is land, tranquil in its quiet beauty, serving not as the source of water, but as the last receiver of it. To its natural abundance we owe the spectacular plant and animal life that distinguishes this place from all others in our country.” With these words, President Harry S. Truman formally dedicated Everglades National Park on December 6, 1947, in a ceremony held at Everglades City.
This event crowned years of work by a dedicated group of conservationists to make a national park in the Florida Everglades a reality. The early movement to protect a segment of the Everglades coincided with the settlement and growth of South Florida.
In 1916, the Royal Palm State Park, on Paradise Key, was created as the first protected area in the Everglades. This 1,619-hectare tract later became the nucleus of Everglades National Park dedicated by Truman.
Since their creation, these parks have been expanded, maintained and improved with government and private-donor support. That spirit of philanthropy continues today, through contributions, large and small, and the efforts of dedicated volunteers who help ensure the nation’s parks will be around for many, many generations to enjoy.
Additional information on Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, Denali National Park and Preserve, Acadia National Park and Everglades National Park is available on the parks’ Web sites.
See also the July eJournal National Parks, National Legacy.
