Which U.S. national park, established in 1872, was the first national park and remains part of America's 250-year story?

Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States and is widely regarded as the world’s first national park.

President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act on March 1, 1872. The law reserved the region as a public park rather than allowing it to be sold or privately settled. Yellowstone spans parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.

The park became famous for geothermal features such as Old Faithful, colorful hot springs, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Government surveys and vivid photographs from the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 helped persuade Congress to protect the area.

Yellowstone’s creation predates the National Park Service, which was established in 1916. The U.S. Army managed the park for several decades before the National Park Service assumed responsibility in 1918. This distinction makes Yellowstone important both as a landscape and as a turning point in public-land conservation.