Description
“For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People” is inscribed on the Roosevelt Arch into Yellowstone National Park. Its namesake, Theodore Roosevelt, greatly expanded efforts to preserve the United States’ natural wealth in parks open to all, but the history of these lands dates even further back. For centuries, wilderness regions have been inhabited and honored by Indigenous peoples. The US government began its formalized conservation efforts in 1872, when Ulysses S. Grant established Yellowstone as the first national park. Such devotion to preservation can best be summed up by Roosevelt again, who famously said of the Grand Canyon, “Leave it as it is. You cannot improve it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar. What you do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and for all who come after you.”