The Frontier

Yellowstone National Park is a frontier in the history of national parks. In the 1800's, people thought development was good for America, and people kept expanding towns from the east to the west, but that all changed when on Friday, March 1st, 1872, Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the United States, signed a bill that protects Yellowstone National Park from human interference, making Yellowstone the world's first national park (Black 352). The same day the bill was signed, the newspapers were all over the topic. "The telegraphic dispatches this morning announce that the bill introduced by Senator Peneroy, providing for a National Park on the headwaters of the Yellowstone, has passed the Senate." (Fisk 2). The government sent a team of explorers to prove the land should be protected and when the photos came back, congress was shocked at what they saw ("Birth of a National Park"). The government influenced themselves to make more national parks and programs like the National Parks Service ("Birth of a National Park"). Yellowstone National Park for sure changed peoples opinions on the protection of land.