UNITED STATES — On this day in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed an act known as the “Organic Act,” creating the National Park Service, a new federal bureau in the Department of the Interior.
Today, the National Park Service is celebrating its 109th birthday.
The “Organic Act” states that “the Service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments and reservations … by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purpose of the said parks, monuments and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life 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.”
In 1916, the Department of the Interior managed 35 national parks and monuments. Today, the National Park System comprises of more than 400 areas covering more than 84 million acres in 50 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, Saipan and the Virgin Islands.
Yellowstone was the first national park, created in 1872 by President Ulysses S. Grant. He signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law, protecting more than 2 million acres of land.
An Executive Order in 1933 transferred 56 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 as well as scenic and scientific importance.
