Pictured above is an original Anderson Design Group (ADG) poster depicting the historic Roosevelt Lodge in Yellowstone National Park. Theodore Roosevelt once said, referring to American wilderness, “Leave it as it is. You cannot improve upon it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.”
We’ve been using original artwork to celebrate “America’s Best Idea” for almost two decades. In that time, our award-winning poster artists have created over 400 original illustrations of every flagship park on the 63-park roster, plus dozens more of lesser-known yet no-less-beautiful NPS sites.
In the last of our three-part series celebrating the National Park Service’s 110th birthday (see our happy birthday article here, and our Yellowstone adventure article here), we thought we’d reflect on the NPS’s 11 best accomplishments in its 11 decades.
Before we dive into the 11 greatest achievements, check out this video reel, a quick look at Anderson Design Group's recent adventure to the park where it all began, Yellowstone.
1) The inception of the NPS made for a unified park system.
When the National Park Service was established on August 25, 1916, the U.S. already had 14 national parks, 21 national monuments, and other federally protected lands. However, management, jurisdiction, rules, regulations, conservation strategies, and administrative doctrine differed wildly, one park to the next.
To be clear, how we use public lands still differs today, depending on the type of public land in question. But when the NPS was created in 1916, it created a single, coordinated management agency with the resources and wherewithal to, quoting the Organic Act that established the NPS, “preserve natural and historic resources while making them available for public enjoyment without impairing them for future generations.”
Preserving parks, unmarred, for generations to come became the driving principle of the National Park Service and the park system it managed.
Pictured below, The Arch at Yellowstone, photographed during Joel and Patty Anderson's recent trip to America's first national park. The Arch features the mission statement of the National Park System and the Park Service that manages it.
2) The National Park Service transformed Americans’ notion of “wilderness” from western lands to lands in every U.S. state.
When Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872 (the first national park), America was still in its frontier era, expanding westward and claiming vast swaths of wilderness. But in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt brought 56 national monuments, military sites, and other public spaces administered by the Department of War and the Forest Service under the purview of the National Park Service.
This meant the NPS was now protecting and managing lands across the U.S., and it expanded its mandate from preserving spectacular scenery to preserving America’s natural and cultural heritage.
Pictured below, the NPS expanded to include the protection of sites important to American heritage, like one of the first water-powered mills in North America, Saugus Iron Works.
3) The National Park Service helped employ millions of Americans during the Great Depression.
Around the same time the NPS brought monuments and military parks under its umbrella, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) began launching what would become the biggest conservation effort in American history. The CCC employed millions of unemployed Americans to build roads, bridges, trails, campgrounds, visitor centers, forest fire watchtowers, scenic pullouts, and other infrastructure in U.S. parks, much of which is still visible and in use today.
The collaborative efforts of the NPS and the CCC during the Great Depression taught Americans that public land conservation could be an employment program and a cultural mission all in one, a way to provide the public with jobs and connect them to the importance of their natural heritage at the same time.
Pictured below, in our illustrated coffee table book Beyond the National Parks, we write about and feature some of the people that made the parks a reality during the 20th century.
4) The NPS’s modernization of park infrastructure put accessibility first.
In a nation that did not pass the Americans with Disabilities Act until 1990, the National Park Service was ahead of its time. Because protecting and preserving national heritage for all Americans was central to the NPS ethos, the Park Service began modernizing its infrastructure as early as 1956, building on the foundation created by the CCC to create accessible trails, campgrounds, scenic drives, and scenic viewing areas.
In a nutshell, the NPS used Mission 66, launched in 1956, to make wilderness sites that had previously been inaccessible available to people with serious mobility constraints, at a time when even major American cities were largely unnavigable for the mobility-impaired. Within a few years, the parks shifted from being available only to adventurous, highly fit individuals to places that families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities could visit.
Pictured below, the boardwalk network in Yellowstone and Lassen Volcanic National Parks have made the parks very accessible to people of all mobility capabilities.
5) The NPS championed the idea that “wild character alone has value.”
Following the Wilderness Act of 1964, the NPS became a major steward of American wilderness, protecting huge swaths of land in the National Wilderness Preservation System, which protects more than 111 million acres of federal land.
What made this accomplishment unique is that the NPS helped institutionalize the idea that some landscapes should be preserved and remain undeveloped, not necessarily because they are visually breathtaking, but simply because the wild character of that land, in itself, has value.
Pictured below, an original illustration of Cape Krusenstern National Monument, an extremely remote wilderness in Alaska protected for its ecological benefit. At this park, just the wilderness alone is worth preserving.
6) The agency helped pioneer efforts at protecting American history and archeology.
Humans are irrevocably tied to place. As conservationist Heather Shumaker wrote in her seminal book Saving Arcadia: A Story of Conservation in the Great Lakes, “Once a human life settles on a piece of the planet, that life is linked to the land. Hearts are obstinate that way. After all, you can dig up a pet skeleton or trundle out a freezer, but you can’t take with you what truly matters. The land itself won’t budge.”
The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 gave the NPS additional responsibilities to preserve archaeological and historic sites. From historic buildings to districts, landscapes, and archaeological sites, the NPS streamlined and modernized American efforts to preserve human history inextricably connected to the great American landscape.
Pictured below, art of one of many historic sites preserved for its valuable human history.
7) The NPS expanded its storytelling to include the stories of voices that had previously been forgotten.
From African American history during slavery to Native American histories, the NPS in the 20th century prioritized protecting sites and cultural districts that preserve important events through the lens of the communities that experienced them, with a particular focus on communities that had been marginalized at the time.
Rather than solely celebrating the most famous figures and events of American history (which are still celebrated), the NPS used much of the latter half of the 20th century to begin managing and interpreting historic sites connected to the Civil Rights movement, the abolitionist movement, Native American rights movements, and the suffrage movement, to name a few.
Pictured below, art of the preserved historic site that protects the oldest standing Black settlement site west of the Mississippi River.
8) Wildlife became a major factor in NPS preservation efforts.
Toward the end of the 20th century, the NPS modernized again, this time by adding a new focus on ecosystem management and health. The prime directive was no longer just protecting public lands and ensuring they would not be developed. Now the NPS became intimately involved in improving ecosystems harmed by natural or manmade forces.
One example was the 1995 reintroduction of gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park. Wolves had been hunted to extinction in that area during westward expansion and cattle ranching. In the 1990s, scientists brought gray wolves back to Yellowstone, a program that led to significant ecosystem repair, improved biodiversity, and a rebound in environmental health. Today it is hailed as one of the most successful conservation programs in American history.
Pictured below, a collage poster of Alaskan wildlife and the parks that they call home.
9) Parks became a central focus in urban areas, too.
Also in the late 20th century, the NPS began establishing park sites in urban areas, pushing back on the notion that to experience public land one must drive, fly, sail, or otherwise transport themselves to a faraway wilderness.
The NPS began managing places like Gateway National Recreation Area in New York City and Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco to ensure that even urbanites could access federally protected public parks.
Pictured below, the Statue of Liberty is one of the most easily recognizable NPS sites on the roster.
10) The Park Service has played an integral role in preserving America’s Last Frontier.
Historians may debate, but many would say the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 was the largest single expansion of the national park system. It added more than 47 million acres of Alaska lands to the National Park Service, effectively doubling NPS-managed land.
This move to protect Alaskan wilderness ensured that America’s Last Frontier would remain just that, a frontier.
Pictured below, places like former mining communities and prospector river routes and roads became part of the National Park System.
11) The NPS turned national parks into America’s largest public classroom
Though research was already being conducted in the parks, the 1992 Vail Agenda officially proclaimed them “Living Laboratories,” places where critical studies were done because no other places in the country offered such rich biodiversity.
Hundreds of experts met in Vail, Colorado, to celebrate the Park Service’s 75th anniversary and discuss the organization’s future in the 21st century. The event marked the first time the organization recognized that all its future decisions had to be grounded in scientific research rather than the cultural or political inclinations of the day.
Pictured below, countless friend groups, like Friends of the Black Canyon, work tirelessly with the Park Service to implement educational programming in the nation's parks.
110 Years Later, the National Park System and the Park Service Continues to Preserve American Heritage
As National Park Week, the 110th Anniversary, and the summer adventure and travel season more broadly all come to a close, it’s worth mentioning that the greatest accomplishment of the National Park Service isn’t just that the organization has managed, preserved, and protected natural and scenic sites for the last 110 years, but rather that the NPS has changed the nation’s very conception of what belongs to all Americans.
Pictured below, the Andersons at Bryce Canyon National Park, one of the adventures that inspired our 2 books: 63 Illustrated National Parks and Beyond The National Parks.
Today, the NPS manages more than 400 sites and more than 84 million acres, including sites in all 50 states and U.S. territories. We’ll keep traveling to these incredible places, taking reference photos and on-site sketches so we can depict natural sites and historic areas in vintage-style poster art, and we hope our art of adventure inspires you to visit, protect, and preserve these iconic American places.
Until next time,
-Ren Brabenec
Anderson Design Group Staff Writer
Pictured below, a bison meandering along the shoulder of a road in Yellowstone National Park.
