On what date did Yellowstone National Park become the first U.S. national park?

Yellowstone National Park became the first U.S. national park on March 1, 1872.

President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act on that date. The law set aside the region as a public park and prohibited private settlement, sale, or occupation of the land. Yellowstone is widely regarded as the world’s first national park as well as the first in the United States.

The park lies mainly in Wyoming, with smaller sections in Montana and Idaho. It is famous for geothermal features including Old Faithful, colorful hot springs, mud pots, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Native peoples had lived in and traveled through the region for at least 11,000 years before the park was created.

The National Park Service did not yet exist in 1872; it was created in 1916. The U.S. Army managed Yellowstone from 1886 until 1917, when administration transferred to the new National Park Service. This distinction often causes people to confuse the park’s founding date with the agency’s creation date.