Ken Burns: The National Parks - America's Best Idea

In 1851, Indian fighters in California encounter a place of astonishing beauty, setting in motion events that bring other newcomers to Yosemite Valley. Then, in 1872 Congress creates the world's first national park at Yellowstone.

Conservation's greatest champion is Theodore Roosevelt who sets aside 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon. John Muir fights to prevent San Francisco from burying the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park under a reservoir.

In John Muir's absence, a new leader steps forward on behalf of America's remaining pristine places; a new federal agency is created to protect the parks; and in Arizona, a fight breaks out over the fate of the grandest canyon on earth.

Mather and Albright ally themselves with the automobile to "democratize" the national parks. Horace Kephart and George Masa launch a campaign to save the forests of the Smoky Mountains from destruction by establishing a national park.

FDR expands the national park idea and enters battles to create national parks on the Olympic Peninsula, Florida's Everglades, and California's High Sierra. George Wright argues that the parks are not doing enough to protect wildlife.

After World War II, an increasingly mobile nation visits the parks. When President Carter sets aside 56 million acres in Alaska, the largest grassroots movement in conservation history fights for the creation of seven new Alaska parks.