National Park Service celebrates 108th anniversary

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Park Service celebrated its 108th anniversary on Saturday. 

According to the Library of Congress, Yellowstone was the first National Park to be designated in 1872. The new concept sprouted from the conservation movements of the 19th century. 

However, a service dedicated to managing national parks was not immediately created. 

According to the Library of Congress, different federal departments ran the parks for the first 44 years of Yellowstone’s history. Before the establishment of the National Park Service, four more national parks were designated.

President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act into law on Aug. 25, 1916, starting the organization. Per the NPS website, the service was meant to preserve the land and wildlife within the boundaries of the parks. 

In 1933, an executive order transferred 56 national monuments and military sites to the management of the organization. Previously, the Forest Service and the War Department managed those sites.

The National Park Service now

Nowadays, the NPS manages 431 sites. According to the NPS website, while they are all commonly referred to as parks, there are “at least” 19 naming designations. In total, the NPS manages over 85 million acres of land. 

It is comprised of 20,000 employees. 

Of the 431 sites, 63 are national parks. Utah is home to five of them: Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Zion, and Bryce Canyon.

The Beehive State is also home to several national monuments and historic trails. 

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