How the U.S. Cavalry Saved Our National Parks

Hampton, Harold

Late in the evening of AUGUST 17, 1886, Troop "M," First United States Cavalry, marched into the Yellowstone National Park. Three days later the military commander relieved the Park Superintendent of his duties and inaugurated a new era of National Park administration. Established in 1872 in response to the urgings of a few dedicated men, the Park had been administered by civilian appointees who were provided with neither physical nor legal force to stop the endemic vandalism, poaching, and trespassing which threatened its existence. Some Congressmen, faced with this apparent administrative failure, labeled the park concept an absurdity. Congress declined to appropriate money for the continued operation of the Park in 1886, and the Secretary of the Interior was forced to request sufficient troops to protect the Park. The resulting military management was extended to the Yosemite, General Grant, and Sequoia National Parks, and continued in the Yellowstone until 1918. Thus these parks were preserved for posterity, and thus were laid the foundations of the National Park Service. The period of military administration of the National Parks is unique in American history. Before 1894 in the Yellowstone, and throughout its administrative career in the California Parks, the cavalry operated without a legal framework or means of law enforcement. Yet during the thirty-two years of military guardianship a National Park policy was evolved and administrative procedures were formulated. Moreover, when the National Park Service began operating in 1918, it took over from the military a previously trained cadre of men. Even more important, the National Park Service, when organized, had something to administer: the Yellowstone, the Yosemite, the General Grant, and the Sequoia National Park. In a very real sense, the cavalry saved these parks, and in so doing, saved the National Park idea.

How the U.S. Cavalry Saved Our National Parks

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