GILLETTE, Wyo. — Campbell County Board of Commissioners recognized the 150th anniversary of the establishment of Yellowstone National Park as the first national park.
“Campbell County Board of Commissioners congratulates Yellowstone National Park on its sesquicentennial anniversary; celebrates 150 years of the unique heritage and natural beauty of Yellowstone National Park; and encourages people across the United States and around the world to visit Yellowstone National Park to experience this extraordinary treasure,” the board’s proclamation celebrating the anniversary states.
President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act in March 1872, setting it apart as a public park, the proclamation stated.
Yellowstone National Park encompasses 3,472 square miles, and 96% of it is in Wyoming, the resolution said. It’s the core of one of the largest natural ecosystems on the planet. Sites at the park include Old Faithful Geyser, Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone Lake, Tower Fall and Mammoth Hot Springs. It’s also home to the largest fee-ranging bison herd in North America.
More than 4 million visitors from around the world enjoy the park annually. Those visits contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to the state’s economy.
For thousands of years before it became a national park, Native Americans hunted, fished, gathered plants, quarried obsidian and used the thermal waters for religious and medicinal purposes, the proclamation stated.
