The National Park Service Turns 110

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK – The National Park Service turns 110 on Tuesday, August 25, and the anniversary lands in a year that already means something around here. Congress authorized Great Smoky Mountains National Park on May 22, 1926, which makes 2026 the park’s own centennial year.

No One In Charge

By 1916 the country already had national parks. Yellowstone had been protected since 1872, and Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Crater Lake and Glacier followed, along with a growing pile of national monuments created under the Antiquities Act of 1906.

What the country did not have was anybody running them.

The parks were scattered across different federal offices with no shared mission, no reliable funding and no consistent management. Some were patrolled by U.S. Cavalry troops. Others sat unguarded and open to poaching, squatting and whatever commercial development wandered in.

Congress kept creating parks faster than it created anyone to care for them.

Mather’s Push

The man who forced the issue was Stephen Mather, a Chicago businessman who had made a fortune in borax mining. He wrote to the Secretary of the Interior to complain about conditions in the western parks and got a reply suggesting that if he thought he could do better, he should come to Washington and try it.

He accepted.

With a young lawyer named Horace Albright at his side, Mather spent two years lobbying, publishing and personally hauling influential people into the backcountry until Congress moved. President Woodrow Wilson signed the bill on August 25, 1916.

The law is known as the Organic Act, and its central sentence still governs the agency. It directs the National Park Service to conserve park scenery, wildlife and historic objects, and to provide for public enjoyment of them in a way that leaves them unimpaired.

Preserve and provide access, at the same time, permanently. Every hard call a superintendent makes traces back to that one instruction.

Buying The Smokies

Mather’s agency began with 35 parks and monuments. It now manages 433 units covering more than 85 million acres in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the territories, according to the National Park Service. Only 63 of those carry the “national park” designation.

The Smokies got in the hard way. Out west, the government protected land it already owned, but in the southern Appalachians there was no federal land to protect.

Every acre had to be bought from private owners: farmers, homesteaders and timber companies actively logging the mountains. Congress agreed to accept the park only after somebody else assembled it.

What followed was one of the more remarkable fundraising campaigns in American conservation history. Tennessee and North Carolina appropriated funds. Knoxville and Asheville business leaders organized drives, civic clubs pledged money, and schoolchildren donated pennies.

It still was not enough. John D. Rockefeller Jr. closed the gap with $5 million through the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial, named for his mother, on a dollar-for-dollar matching basis.

Mather and Albright pushed the project the whole way, seeing an eastern park as the thing that would make the system truly national.

Acquisition dragged on for years. The Park Service began administering the land in the early 1930’s, full establishment came in 1934, and President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the park at Newfound Gap on September 2, 1940.

Civilian Conservation Corps crews built much of what you still use, including trails, campgrounds, bridges and the stonework along the roads.

The Park Today

The park covers 522,427 acres, split nearly evenly between Tennessee and North Carolina, and it has led the system in visitation for decades.

The Park Service counted 11,527,939 recreation visits to the Smokies in 2025, more than double the next national park on the list, out of more than 323 million visits across the whole system. Both figures were down from 2024. A 43 day federal shutdown in October and November closed or partly closed sites nationwide.

Still No Entrance Fee

One piece of that unusual founding shows up in your wallet. When Tennessee handed the Newfound Gap Road corridor to the federal government, the deed barred any toll for passage, and the Smokies charge no entrance fee to this day.

Since March 2023 the park has sold parking tags instead: $5 daily, $15 weekly and $40 annual, required for any vehicle parked more than 15 minutes anywhere inside the boundary. All of that revenue stays in the park. Nonprofit partners including Friends of the Smokies and Smokies Life cover a good deal of the rest.

So the practical note for your next trip: driving through costs you nothing, and stopping costs you five bucks. Buy the tag before you leave the house, print it, and put it on the dash.

Disclaimer

My Smoky Mountain Guide aims to provide accurate, up-to-date information about Great Smoky Mountains National Park and surrounding areas, using reputable sources. However, details about events, attractions, trails, or businesses may change without notice due to factors like weather or park policies. We cannot guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of our content. Visitors should verify details with official sources, such as the National Park Service or local businesses, before planning. My Smoky Mountain Guide is not liable for inaccuracies, omissions, or consequences from using this information. You are responsible for your own decisions based on our content. For feedback or corrections, please contact us.