During the 1890s, four more areas became national parks. Congress set up the National Park Service in 1916 to oversee the parks. Stephen T. Mather, a Chicago businessman, became its first director. When Mather started, the United States had 16 national parks and 21 national monuments. Mather started a movement to reclaim land that continues to this day.
National parks are very popular.
Visitors numbered 287,130,879 across the country in 1999. The National Park Service is made up of 384 areas. These areas cover more than 83.3 million acres. Not all of this land is national park land. The National Park Service also preserves and protects monuments, battlefields, military parks, historical parks, lakeshores, recreation areas, scenic rivers and trails, and the White House.