The national parks started early, with the first parks being areas of astonishing natural beauty that weren’t much in demand for grazing, mining, forestry, or agriculture. Perhaps most important, they were still federal land in a nation with enormous amounts of public lands yet to be distributed or developed. Nonetheless, as viewers learn from Ken Burns’s documentary The National Parks: America’s Greatest Idea, there were hard-fought conflicts with those who thought tourism to Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon should be in private hands, or those who sought mining or forestry rights.

National Parks weren’t an entirely unprecedented idea. Several European nations had royal gamelands that later became important public recreational amenities. This was the background when Yosemite was given in 1864 to the state of California to protect. In 1872, Congress moved to protect the equally breathtaking Yellowstone area—but since Wyoming was still a territory rather than a state with its own fully functional government, it became the world’s first national park.

In recent decades, the setting aside of large areas of Utah rangeland or Alaskan forests to create new parks has been quite controversial, spurring protests from those who think the land should be available for grazing or logging, and from those who oppose federal control of such large landholdings on an ideological basis.