THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE: 

 ITS HISTORY, ACTIVITIES AND 

 ORGANIZATION 



CHAPTER I 



HISTORY 



The National Park Service is a bureau of the Department 

 of the Interior, being the ninth bureau to be established in 

 that department. It is engaged in the supervision, manage- 

 ment, and control of those national parks and monuments which 

 are under that department's jurisdiction. It was created by 

 the act of August 25, 1916 (39 Stat. L., 535), but did not be- 

 gin to function until after the approval of the deficiency ap- 

 propriation act of April 17, 1917 (40 Stat. L., 20) which pro- 

 vided funds for its establishment. 



The National Park System a Development of the "National 

 Park Idea." Though the National Park Service is of recent 

 origin the system of national parks of which it is an out- 

 growth dates back half a century to the creation, in 1872, 

 of the Yellowstone National Park, the first true national park 

 established in the United States. Inasmuch as the creation 

 of the Yellowstone was the result of a conception of the con- 

 servation of natural wonders which has come to be known as 

 the "National Park Idea," it will be proper at this point to 

 discuss briefly, first the events leading up to the inception of 

 the idea; and, second, its subsequent development. 



The existence of the natural wonders which occur in such 

 profusion in the upper Yellowstone country had been known 



