Читать книгу Hike the Parks: Acadia National Park - Jeff Romano - Страница 30

The American National Park System began in 1872 with the creation of Yellowstone National Park. In the four decades that followed, Congress established parks throughout the western United States, each time from lands with only one owner in the chain of title: the federal government. George Dorr and his Hancock County Trustees of Reservation allies had the idea to establish the first national park in the eastern United States.

Lafayette National Park. After the 1916 creation of Sieur de Monts National Monument, Dorr continued to acquire lands on Mount Desert Island as he lobbied to transform the property into a national park. Both designations ensure long-term land protection, but national park status, which requires an act of Congress, is limited to those areas that “possess nationally significant natural, cultural, or recreational resources.” In 1919, Dorr’s persistence and determination succeeded. President Wilson signed into law an act to establish Lafayette National Park, the first of its kind east of the Mississippi River. The name was proposed during World War I, when the United States backed France, to honor a famous French officer who had served with George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Soon after, George Dorr was hired as the park’s first superintendent.