Yellowstone National Park
The world's first national park. A bison and a geyser that regularly spouts water are its symbols.
Yellowstone National Park, spanning mainly the state of Wyoming, was the first place in the world to be designated a national park. It is a vast treasury of nature where geysers spouting hot water and steam, broad meadows and forests, and wildlife all come together.
The reverse of the coin depicts a single bison together with “Old Faithful.” In the foreground stands a massive bison, while behind it the famous geyser sends up a column of water.
The bison is an iconic animal that once filled the Great Plains of America, and Old Faithful earned its name because it spouts hot water as regularly as a clock. Together, the two show both the living nature of Yellowstone and the mysterious power of the land.
Yellowstone was designated a national park on March 1, 1872. It was the moment when the idea of “let no individual take this wondrous land but leave it as everyone’s” was realized for the first time, and it later became a model for the national park systems of many countries around the world.
This quarter, holding a bison and a geyser together on a single coin, brings to mind—right in the palm of your hand—the first step the United States took to protect nature.