If you ask a random person on the street who founded the national parks, they’ll probably shout "Teddy Roosevelt!" before you even finish the sentence. It makes sense. We’ve all seen the grainy photos of him standing on a cliffside with John Muir, looking rugged and intense. But honestly? The story is a lot more crowded than that. It wasn't just one guy with a big mustache and a penchant for hunting. It was a chaotic, decades-long relay race involving a con man, a giant of the banking world, a few obsessed painters, and a whole lot of Indigenous people who were already there long before the government decided to draw lines on a map.
The concept of a "National Park" didn't just pop into existence. It leaked out slowly.
The Myth of the Lone Founder
Let’s get one thing straight: Theodore Roosevelt didn't start the first national park. Not even close. When Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act in 1872, Roosevelt was a scrawny thirteen-year-old in New York. Grant is technically the guy who put pen to paper for the world’s first official national park, but he didn't "found" the movement. He just signed a bill that landed on his desk.
So, who actually moved the needle?
You have to look at guys like George Catlin. Back in the 1830s—way before the Civil War—Catlin was a painter who traveled the Great Plains. He saw the "progress" of white settlement and realized everything was about to get steamrolled. He wrote about a "nation’s park" containing both the wilderness and the Native American tribes. It was a radical idea for a time when most people viewed the forest as something to be conquered or chopped into firewood.
Then you have the 1871 Washburn-Doane-Langford Expedition. These were the guys who actually scouted Yellowstone. Legend says they sat around a campfire at the junction of the Firehole and Gibbon Rivers and decided, out of the goodness of their hearts, that the land should be preserved for everyone. It’s a great story. It’s also probably fake. Historical records suggest they were mostly interested in how a park might bring a railroad through the area. Money usually speaks louder than birdsong.
Why John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt Get All the Credit
John Muir was a wild man. He lived on tea and bread crusts and climbed trees during windstorms just to feel the branches sway. He was the PR machine the movement needed. His writings about the Sierras turned "nature" into a religion for Victorian-era readers who were tired of city smog. When he took Roosevelt camping in Yosemite in 1903, he basically spent the whole weekend guilt-tripping the President into protecting more land.
It worked.
Roosevelt used the Antiquities Act of 1906 like a sledgehammer. He realized he didn't need Congress to approve every single park. He could just declare "National Monuments" by executive order. This is how we got the Grand Canyon protected when mining interests were trying to gut it. Roosevelt preserved about 230 million acres. That’s why his face is on the mountain. He wasn't the "founder" in a chronological sense, but he was the guy who made the system permanent.
The Stephen Mather Era: Selling the Parks
By 1915, the parks were a mess. Yellowstone was run by the Army. Yosemite was a chaotic mix of state and federal oversight. There was no central agency. Enter Stephen Mather.
Mather was a millionaire who made his fortune selling Borax (the soap). He was also prone to bouts of severe depression and found that hiking was the only thing that kept his head straight. He wrote a complaint letter to the Secretary of the Interior about the poor state of the parks. The Secretary wrote back and basically said, "If you don't like it, come run them yourself."
Mather did.
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He understood marketing. He knew that if the parks didn't have visitors, they wouldn't have political support. He courted the wealthy, built grand lodges, and made sure the "See America First" campaign convinced people that the Grand Canyon was just as cool as the Swiss Alps. He and his right-hand man, Horace Albright, are the reason we have the National Park Service (NPS) as it exists today. They founded the institution, even if they didn't found the parks.
The People We Usually Forget to Mention
It’s easy to talk about rich white guys in hats. It’s harder to talk about the fact that "founding" a park usually meant kicking people out.
Yellowstone wasn't an empty wilderness. It was home to the Tukudika (Sheep Eaters), the Crow, and the Blackfeet. To make the park feel "pristine," the government had to forcibly remove these tribes and create a narrative that the land was "untouched." This is a huge part of the founding story that most textbooks skipped until recently. You can't talk about who founded the national parks without acknowledging that the creation of these "pleasuring grounds" came at a massive human cost.
Then there’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Most people think of parks as mountains and geysers. She saw a swamp. In the 1940s, everyone thought the Everglades were a bug-infested wasteland that should be drained for farms. She wrote The Everglades: River of Grass and single-handedly changed the public's perception of wetlands. She's a founder in the sense that she expanded the definition of what was worth saving.
Why the "Founder" Question is Actually Kind of Complicated
If you look at the timeline, it’s a jagged mess:
- 1832: George Catlin dreams up the idea.
- 1864: Abraham Lincoln signs the Yosemite Grant (giving the land to California, setting the precedent).
- 1872: Grant signs Yellowstone into existence.
- 1906: Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act.
- 1916: Woodrow Wilson signs the Organic Act, creating the NPS.
So, who won? Nobody. Or everyone.
The founding of the parks was a slow-motion realization that the American frontier was disappearing. By the late 1800s, the "Wild West" was basically over. The census declared the frontier closed in 1890. People panicked. They realized that if they didn't fence off the prettiest parts of the country, there would be nothing left but strip mines and cow pastures.
The Practical Legacy: What This Means for You Today
Knowing who started this whole thing actually changes how you travel. When you visit a place like Acadia or the Great Smoky Mountains, you aren't just looking at trees. You're looking at a political miracle.
Most of the parks in the East weren't carved out of public land; they had to be bought back from private owners. In the Smokies, thousands of small farmers and timber companies had to be convinced (or forced) to sell. In Acadia, George Dorr (another "forgotten" founder) spent his entire personal fortune and decades of his life piecing together bits of land to donate to the government.
If you want to experience the legacy of these founders, stop going to just the "Big Five" (Zion, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain). Those are overcrowded and struggling.
Instead, look into the sites that reflect the broader history of the movement:
- Mesa Verde: This was the first park created to protect "works of man" (Ancestral Puebloan sites) rather than just scenery. It shows the shift in why we preserve things.
- Biscayne National Park: Almost became a series of resort islands. It was saved by local activists and a guy named Lancelot Jones, who refused to sell his family's land to developers.
- The Buffalo National River: The first "National River." It proved that the park concept could apply to moving water, not just static mountains.
Actionable Steps for the Modern Park Traveler
If you’re planning a trip to see what these founders built, don’t just wing it. The system is under more strain than Mather or Roosevelt ever imagined.
Check for Reservation Windows: Many of the parks Roosevelt loved now require timed entry. For places like Arches or Glacier, you often need to book months in advance. Don't be the person who drives 10 hours only to get turned away at the gate.
Look at "National Monuments": Remember how Roosevelt used the Antiquities Act? Many of those monuments are just as spectacular as National Parks but have half the crowds. Grand Staircase-Escalante or Bears Ears offer that "untouched" feeling the founders raved about.
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Support the "Friends" Groups: The NPS is chronically underfunded. Almost every park has a "Friends of [Park Name]" non-profit. These groups do the actual grunt work—fixing trails, funding research—that the federal budget misses. If you care about who founded the parks, help be the person who keeps them founded.
Acknowledge the Full History: When you enter a park, take a second to look at the tribal history of that land. Most visitor centers are finally starting to include this. It gives the landscape a much deeper, more complex meaning than just a pretty view for an Instagram post.
The national parks aren't a finished product. They’re a weird, ongoing experiment in democracy. They were founded by painters, presidents, bankers, and poets who somehow agreed on one thing: some places are too important to be owned by just one person. That’s the real takeaway. It wasn't one founder. It was a collective "no" to the destruction of the American landscape.
Explore the lesser-known history of the Antiquities Act to understand how modern presidents still use Roosevelt's "loophole" to protect millions of acres of land today. Visit the official National Park Service history archive to see original maps and photos from the 1871 expeditions that started it all. Plan your next trip to a National Monument to experience the wilderness without the crowds of the major parks.