Wilson creates a single agency to run the national parks

For 44 years after Yellowstone became the first national park, the government ran its scattered parks with no central agency, often leaning on the army to patrol them. On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act, creating a single bureau inside the Department of the Interior to manage them. The law charged the new service with conserving scenery, wildlife, and historic objects while keeping them open for the public, "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Stephen Mather, the businessman who had lobbied hardest for the agency, became its first director…