Miniseries

News of a stunning valley in California's Yosemite spread nationwide in 1851, drawing both merchants eager to monetize the scenery and preservationists determined to keep it unspoiled. Among them, the Scottish-born wanderer John Muir embraced safeguarding the land as a calling of the spirit. In 1864, Congress enacted a measure shielding Yosemite from commercial development for public use, resort and recreation, the first instance in world history of such protection being proposed by a government and it handed control of the land to California. Simultaneously, the remote northwest corner of the Wyoming Territory revealed a surreal landscape of geysers, mud pots, and sulfur springs that captivated visitors. In 1872, Congress enacted another law to safeguard this land as well. Because it lay in a territory rather than a state, it earned the designation of America's first national park: Yellowstone.