For America's 250th anniversary, which national park was established first in the United States?

Yellowstone National Park was established as the first national park in the United States on March 1, 1872. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act, setting aside the area for public benefit and enjoyment.

Yellowstone lies primarily in Wyoming, with smaller portions extending into Montana and Idaho. Its geothermal features, including Old Faithful and the Grand Prismatic Spring, helped make it internationally famous. The park also protects a large ecosystem containing wildlife such as bison, elk, bears, wolves, and pronghorn.

Yosemite and Sequoia are frequent alternatives because both became protected national parks in the nineteenth century. Yosemite was established as a national park in 1890, and Sequoia followed in 1890. The Grand Canyon received national-park status in 1919.

Yellowstone's creation helped establish the national-park idea: a landscape could be protected by the federal government for broad public use rather than transferred to private ownership. The model later spread across the United States and internationally.