The Origin of the National Park Service Idea: 1880 through 1910

The grandeur of the American West gave birth to the idea of national parks. There, vast landscapes still untouched by "progress" filled the eye. Artists, authors, and scientists struggled to capture the beauty they encountered by recording and sharing their discoveries.

But people worried. What would happen when westward expansion arrived on the doorstep of the wilderness? Artist George Catlin, during an 1832 trip to the Dakotas, was perhaps the first to suggest a novel solution to this fast-approaching reality. Indian civilization, wildlife, and wilderness were all in danger, wrote Catlin, unless they could be preserved "by some great protecting policy of government ... in a magnificent park.... A nation's Park, containing man and beast, in all the wild[ness] and freshness of their natural beauty!"

Encouraged by art, literature, and science, a powerful preservationist viewpoint gradually emerged. Even without a national policy, individual sites won protection.