This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the National Park Service (NPS), the federal bureau established in 1916 to manage and preserve America's natural and historic treasures. It traces the origins of the national park idea from George Catlin's 1832 vision through the Organic Act of 1916, examines the NPS's organizational subdivisions, and explains the evolving legislative mandates that have shaped its powers. The paper also discusses the role of park rangers, the political pressures surrounding resource use, and the contemporary challenges — including pollution, invasive species, oil exploration, and funding constraints — that face the agency in the twenty-first century.
Since 1916, more than 370 parks of great natural beauty and grandeur — from Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands to the Hawaiian Islands — have been managed and preserved by the National Park Service (NPS), a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior. Such great historic and natural treasures as the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone are now parks that preserve pristine animal habitats or echo the nation's history, such as the Gettysburg Battlefield, or preserve notable landscapes such as Mesa Verde, as well as parks along seashores, lakeshores, and river-ways. They also provide opportunities for outdoor activities, such as at Assateague Island and Lake Mead (National Park Service, 2006).
Millions of people visit national park areas every year. The NPS has been in charge of preserving park resources since its creation in 1916. In the twentieth century, it became a superior visitor services agency while practicing a combination of active management and passive acceptance of natural systems and processes.
This management style has since become insufficient to save the natural resources. Parks are becoming increasingly crowded reminders of past ages in a stressed landscape, with incompatible uses of resources, pollution coming from inside and outside the parks, and invasions of non-native plant, insect, and animal species (National Park Service, 2006). In addition, political pressure has drawn unwelcome attention from certain groups interested in tapping the resources within the National Parks, and the present management approach is seen as insufficient and contradictory.
The NPS is made up of five different subdivisions:
The Air Resources Division monitors current air quality conditions in parks, tracks air quality trends in national parks, and, through ARIS, issues ozone health advisories.
The American Indian Liaison Office was created to improve relationships between American Indian Tribes, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and the National Park Service through consultation, outreach, technical assistance, education, and advisory services.
The Geological Resources Division includes Mining Operations Management, Minerals Management, Mining, and Oil and Gas oversight.
The National Park Service Division (NatureNet) is the educational division for students and teachers learning about protecting and restoring ecosystems of air, biology, geology, sound, and water. It also oversees Science and Research, Social Science, and the Natural Resource Challenge. The Natural Resource Challenge represents a major effort to address the challenges of caring for the country's natural heritage within the complexities of today's modern landscapes.
The Water Resources Division distributes water information and data, maintains a section on Marine Conservation and Water Resources, and deals with wetlands within the National Parks.
The concept of the "national park" — keeping intact a large-scale natural preserve — has been credited to the artist George Catlin. While visiting the Dakotas in 1832, he recognized the effects that America's westward expansion would have on American Indian civilization, wildlife, and wilderness. They would be better preserved, he suggested, "by some great protecting policy of government...in a magnificent park.... A nation's park, containing man and beast, in all the wild[ness] and freshness of their nature's beauty!" (Everhart, 1996).
George Catlin's vision began to find favor in 1864, when Congress donated Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove to California as a state park. Eight years later, in 1872, Congress reserved Yellowstone country in the Wyoming and Montana territories "as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." Since there was no state formed to which it could be entrusted, Yellowstone remained a property of the U.S. Department of the Interior and was designated as a national park — the world's first.
In the 1890s, Congress applied the Yellowstone precedent and reserved other national parks. In the early 1900s, these included Sequoia, Yosemite (which was returned to the U.S. Government for this purpose), Mount Rainier, Crater Lake, and Glacier. The idea of preserving beautiful scenery was accompanied by a wave of tourism to these areas. Soon, western railroads lobbied for the right to enter the parks and built grand rustic hotels within them to boost their passenger business (Everhart, 1990).
Preserving prehistoric Indian ruins and artifacts on public lands became a priority in the late nineteenth century. In 1889, Congress moved to protect Arizona's Casa Grande Ruin, and in 1906 it created Mesa Verde National Park, which contained the dramatic cliff dwellings of southwestern Colorado.
On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Organic Act, creating the NPS through an Act of Congress. This followed six years of debate by interest groups and public officials aimed at raising the concern of the American public. The campaign was led in the House by Congressmen William Kent and John Raker of California, and in the Senate by Reed Smoot of Utah. Congressman Kent was advised by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.
Stephen T. Mather, a wealthy borax industry executive, became the first full-time Director of the new NPS. He, along with a number of recreational and outdoor groups, tourist groups, the American Civic Association, and automobile associations, were heavily involved in lobbying for the creation of the agency (Winks, 1997).
They advocated for the preservation of scenic reserves in most of the 37 parks that then existed and placed a wide range of park proposals before Congress. Switzerland was frequently cited as a comparison, since it had capitalized on its natural scenery more effectively than almost any other nation. The growing popularity of railroad and automobile travel also argued for more consistent administration of existing parks, both to protect them and to ensure that accommodations and campgrounds met a consistent standard for public enjoyment. The governing language of the NPS Act of 1916 reads as follows:
The service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter specified 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 (16 U.S.C. § 1 (1994)).
William Henry Jackson, a photographer, was part of Dr. Ferdinand Hayden's U.S. Geological Survey of the territories, which brought him west with his camera. His portable darkroom and cameras included glass plate sizes up to 20" × 24". Jackson's work produced the first-ever photographs of some of the most significant resources of North America — the falls and geothermals of Yellowstone, the ruins of Mesa Verde, the mountains of Colorado, and southwestern pueblos. These pioneering photographs are credited with convincing Congress to preserve many of these western treasures as national parks (Winks, 1997).
Many more parks were added to the roster, and varying degrees of rights and state privileges came with each enactment. Theodore Roosevelt took advantage of the Antiquities Act of 1906 to proclaim 18 national monuments before he left office. These included cultural features such as El Morro, New Mexico — site of prehistoric petroglyphs and historic inscriptions — and Montezuma Castle, Arizona, an outstanding cliff dwelling, as well as natural features like Wyoming's Devils Tower and Arizona's Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon. Congress later "promoted" Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, and many other natural monuments to full National Park status (Everhart, 1990).
"Olmsted's mission statement and enjoyment vs. preservation tension"
"Congressional powers granted and ranger responsibilities"
"Lobbying, legislation, and resource use conflicts"
The current funding may be sufficient, if training of rangers in technologically current procedures is included. The history of the NPS precludes elimination and drastic restructuring, as it has evolved through multiple mandates of Congress and the lifelong ideals of too many individuals who devoted their lives to obtaining and protecting precious natural resources. However, a restructuring of the NPS administration may be warranted, if only to add protection against the twenty-first-century challenges described above. The structure of the NPS has evolved over time and appears flexible enough to encompass these new issues. If they are addressed, and if Congress remains willing to protect and expand upon the precious lands within the national parks, then the NPS may successfully adapt to a new century — and the wildlife, plants, insects, trees, and animals within the parks may be able to survive humanity's encroachment on their shrinking share of this planet.
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