Yosemite National Park — usatoday.com

This nearly 1,200-square-mile wilderness in the Western Sierra Nevada is a land of superlatives: Home to North America's tallest waterfall (Yosemite Falls), one of the world's largest blocks of granite (El Capitan), and, of course, the world's largest trees (an honor it shares with Sequoia National Park), it was clear from the time of the first settlers that it should be preserved for posterity. Abraham Lincoln signed the law in 1864 making it America's first wilderness preserve.

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