HISTORY 5 



ent importance of the territory it was designed to protect, 

 but because it was a marked innovation in the traditional 

 policy of governments. From time immemorial privileged 

 classes have been protected by law, in the withdrawal, for 

 their exclusive enjoyment, of immense tracts for] forests, 

 parks and game preserves. But never before was a region 

 of such vast extent as the Yellowstone Park set apart for 

 the use of all the people without distinction of rank or wealth.^ 



It is proper, at this point, to make a slight digression in 

 order to make clear a somewhat anomalous situation that has 

 long existed with regard to the question — if it be a question — 

 as to what park of the present national park system was the 

 first to be established. The Yellowstone has been referred to 

 above as the first true national park. As has just been pointed 

 out, its establishment was the direct result of the birth 

 of the national park idea. Nevertheless there is another park 

 of the system, the Hot Springs National Park, which was set 

 aside almost forty years to a day before the creation of the 

 Yellowstone (Act of April 20, 1832; 4 Stat. L., 505) and 

 which is frequently referred to as the first national park. 



To refer to it thus is incorrect, although it might be proper 

 to call it the oldest member of the national park system. 

 The confusion has arisen through the fact that at the time 

 of the creation of the Yellowstone the Hot Springs Reserva- 

 tion in Arkansas was being administered by the Secretary of 

 the Interior, not as a national park, because up until that time 

 such a thing as a national park in the sense we imderstand it 

 to-day was not dreamed of, but merely as a portion of the 

 public domain which for certain reasons had been withdrawn 

 from settlement or sale. Those reasons pertained to the me- 

 dicinal springs which the area contained. Their curative prop- 

 erties becoming widely known throughout the country, a fear 

 arose that they might pass into private ownership and be pri- 

 vately exploited. To prevent this was the purpose of the 

 Act of 1832. This law merely states that the area containing 



1 Chittenden, The Yellowstone NationaJ Park, p. 79. 



