Protecting Public Lands for Inspiration

Abstract

This chapter focuses on major milestones in public land policy: Yosemite and Yellowstone. Here, the growing interest in science and the scenic wonders of the West had not left a mark on public land policy until 1864. This was when a war-weary Congress called for the permanent preservation in public ownership, for the public's “use, resort and recreation,” of some thirty thousand acres of public land in California in a region called Yosemite. Eight years later, as the nation was struggling with Reconstruction, Congress did something similar with an area of public land fifty times larger, known as Yellowstone, in the Wyoming Territory. These actions marked the beginning of a profound change in the direction of public land policy.