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The Presidents and the National Parks
The national parks preceded the National Park Service, but the first great natural park was a state park. California’s Yosemite State Park was established in 1864, by a federal cession approved by President Abraham Lincoln, and on October 21, 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes toured California’s Yosemite in an open carriage. On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant had approved the establishment of Y