March 1, 1872.
President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act into law. In doing so, Yellowstone became not only the first national park in the nation but is also considered to be the first national park ever.
Yellowstone gets its name from the Yellowstone River. It is believed that Native Americans began to hunt and fish on the park’s land as early as 11,000 years ago. Humans of Clovis origin, a prehistoric Paleoamerican culture, have been dated to such a time due to an arrowhead found and dated during the 1950s.
In 1871, the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 occurred. With government sponsorship, Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden, and a group that included William Henry Jackson and Thomas Moran, explored the Yellowstone region and compiled a comprehensive report. The report aimed to convince Congress to withdraw the region from public auction. Hayden believed in “setting aside the area as a pleasure ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” He also warned that people would choose to use the land for monetary purposes and “make merchandise of these beautiful specimens.”[1] He warned that if the bill failed, then “the vandals who are now waiting to enter into this wonder-land, will in a single season despoil, beyond recovery, these remarkable curiosities, which have required all the cunning skill of nature thousands of years to prepare.”[2]
On March 1, 1872, Hayden’s hopes became a reality:
THE ACT OF DEDICATION
AN ACT to set apart a certain tract of land lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River as a public park. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the tract of land in the Territories of Montana and Wyoming … is hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people; and all persons who shall locate, or settle upon, or occupy the same or any part thereof, except as hereinafter provided, shall be considered trespassers and removed there from …
Approved March 1, 1872.[3]
In 19778, Yellowstone National Park was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Today, it is one of the most visited National Parks in the country.
[1] Marlene Deahl Merrill, Yellowstone and the Great West: Journals, Letters, and Images from the 1871 Hayden Expedition, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), p. 208.
[2] Chittenden, Hiram Martin, The Yellowstone National Park-Historical and Descriptive, (Cincinnati: Stewart and Kidd Co., 1915), p. 77–78.
[3] Chittenden, Hiram Martin, The Yellowstone National Park-Historical and Descriptive, (Cincinnati: Stewart and Kidd Co., 1915), p. 77–78.
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