PARKS: Which American presidents did the most to preserve the land we love as national parks and preserves?
With the presidential election around the corner and the U.S. National Park Foundation receiving a record-breaking grant of $100 million, Lawn Love ranked 22 Presidents Who Preserved National Parks at lawnlove.com/blog
To rank the presidents, they factored in the acreages of 94 different national parks, national military parks, national preserves and national trails.
The president who preserved the most land was Jimmy Carter at 40.47 million acres, more than three times the amount of land preserved by the second president on the list, Woodrow Wilson at 12.06 million. Third was Franklin D. Roosevelt at 7.41 million.
All of the top three were Democrats. The first Republican on the list was Calvin Coolidge, who preserved 4.78 million acres. He’s followed by Republicans Ulysses S. Grant at 2.22 million acres, William Howard Taft at 2.08 million and Benjamin Harrison at 1.64 million acres.
Democrats Bill Clinton preserved 1.56 million acres and Lyndon B. Johnson, 1.36 million acres. Republican Herbert Hoover is in tenth at 1.1 million acres.
That’s 74.7 million acres preserved in 10 presidential terms.
For a frame of reference, the state of Nevada is 70.2 million acres in size. Pennsylvania is a mere 28.6 million acres.
To put the study in perspective, Yellowstone, the first national park, was designated in 1872 by Ulysses S. Grant. Since then, conservation efforts have expanded to 431 distinct sites managed by the National Park Service, including 63 national parks and 19 national preserves.
