2014 Pyramid Competition - 10th/11th Grade text "The National Park Service"

The National Park Service

The National Park Service, which is also known as the NPS, is an agency of the United States federal government within the Department of the Interior. The NPS manages all U.S. national parks, many American national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties.  It was established on August 25, 1916 by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act.

It is argued that Yosemite was the first national park in the United States, but Yosemite National Park began as a state park; the land for the park was donated by the federal government to the state of California in 1864 for perpetual conservation. Yellowstone was managed by the federal government prior to Yosemite. Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872, and due to the fact that Wyoming wasn't yet a state, it couldn't be left as a state park. Therefore, the federal government assumed control, making it the first national park of the United States.

National parks and national monuments in the United States were originally individually managed under the auspices of the Department of the Interior. There were inconsistencies and irregularities between the various parks and each was being managed with various degrees of success. The movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded by business magnate and conservationist Stephen Mather, as well as J. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for the Department of the Interior. They wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational, inspirational, and recreational benefits. This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service. On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill that mandated the agency "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife 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." This later became the management principle for the NPS. Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS and reported directly to the Secretary of the Interior.

On March 3, 1933, President Herbert Hoover signed the Reorganization Act of 1933. The act allowed the President to reorganize the executive branch of the United States government. It wasn't until later that summer when the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, made use of this power. Deputy Director Horace M. Albright had suggested to President Roosevelt that the historic sites from the American Civil War should be managed by the National Park Service, rather than the War Department. President Roosevelt agreed and issued two Executive orders to make it happen. These two executive orders not only transferred to the National Park Service all the War Department historic sites, but also the national monuments managed by the Department of Agriculture and the parks in and around the capital, which had been run by an independent office.

In 1951, Conrad Wirth became director of the National Park Service and went to work on bringing park facilities up to the standards that the public expected. The demand for parks after the end of World War II had left the parks overburdened with demands that could not be met. In 1952, with the support of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he began Mission 66, a ten-year effort to upgrade and expand park facilities for the 50th anniversary of the Park Service. New parks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities were upgraded and expanded.

Initially, the primary employee was the Park Ranger, who did everything that was needed in the parks. Now, the National Park Service employees 22,000 people who have various jobs and specialties they focus on. A few of the current jobs include law enforcement, dispatchers, interpretive rangers, carpenters, historians, firefighters, and scientists. During the summer, seasonal employees are hired to help with the increase of visitors who travel and visit these protected areas. The summer season is considered the peak season, as most parks are visited between April and September. The title or designation of a unit need not include the term park, in fact; only 59 units are designated national parks. The NPS manages 401 units with over 20 different titles. On top of their federal protection, 16 of the 19 World Heritage Sites in the United States are NPS managed lands. A World Heritage Site has enough universally recognized natural and cultural features that they are considered to merit the protection of all the peoples in the world.

The System as a whole is considered to be a national treasure of the United States, and some of the more famous national parks and monuments are sometimes referred to metaphorically as "crown jewels". The system encompasses approximately 84.4 million acres (338,000 km²).The largest unit is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve located in southeast Alaska. At 13,200,000 acres (53,000 km²), it is over 16 percent of the entire system. Wrangell-St. Elias is abutted to Kluane National Park in Canada, which is approximately 11 million acres (44,550km²). Combined, these two parks make up the largest area of protected land in the world. On the other side of the spectrum, the smallest unit of the NPS is Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial in Pennsylvania and is only 0.02 acre (80 m²). The National Park System receives over 280,000,000 visits each year throughout the 401 units. The ten most visited units of the National Park System handle 30% of the visits to all of units. The top ten percent of parks (40) handle 61.2% of all visits, leaving the remaining 361 units to deal with 38.8% of visits. Visitors go to the various units managed by the NPS for all sorts of reasons. Some of the reasons they visit the bigger parks in the western states are to go backpacking, hiking, camping, take photos, view wildlife, and get the restorative effects of spending time in the Wilderness. People also visit parks to learn about the nation’s history and may go to the Civil War battlefields or the nation’s capital for school field-trips.

Ideally, the parks will remain unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations as mandated in the National Park Service Organic Act by President Wilson.