Stroll Through History With This National Parks Quiz

Nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, New River Gorge National Park and Preserve is the United States’ newest — and West Virginia’s first — national park. The 72,000-acre park was formally established as federally protected land by lawmakers in December 2020, making it the country’s 63rd national park. The park’s best-known feature is its 876-foot-tall bridge that spans its namesake gorge.

Before becoming the country’s largest national park, Yellowstone had a different name: Wonderland, due to the 2.2 million-acre area’s many natural wonders. In the early 1800s, the Northern Pacific Railroad masterminded a marketing strategy banking on the park’s former name, and advertised the attractions as being akin to the popular book "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland." The railroad’s brochure-style ads featured a grown-up Alice traveling by rail from Chicago to the real-life wonderland via the railroad’s “Wonderland Route.”

Isle Royale National Park (located in Lake Superior, near the Michigan-Canada border) is the only national park closed to visitors each winter — and for good reason. During warmer months, visitors are only able to reach the 400-island archipelago by ferry or seaplane, but harsh winters make the park entirely inaccessible. Turbulent waters, subzero temperatures, and treacherous waterways have also created a graveyard of sunken ships along Isle Royale’s coast, with 10 preserved shipwrecks listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Today, there are more than 1,100 UNESCO World Heritage Sites that recognize places of outstanding cultural, historical, and natural value around the world. But it all started with a group of 12 places in 1978 — and two of them were national parks in the United States. The country’s first two UNESCO sites were Yellowstone National Park (located in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana) and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.

Olympic National Park in Washington may seem like an obvious choice, but the only national park to ever bid to host the Winter Olympics was Yosemite in California. The bid was part of an effort to lure winter visitors to the popular summertime destination after the construction of a new highway in 1926. Though the bid was ultimately unsuccessful (the 1932 games went to Lake Placid, New York), winter sports continued to be promoted in the area, and the park remains a popular site for ice skating, hockey, curling, sledding, and more.

While Yellowstone holds the title as the first national park in the United States, Maine’s Acadia National Park was the first established east of the Mississippi River. And it’s been a hit ever since: Today, Acadia is the second-most-visited national park east of the Mississippi, after Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Many visitors flock to Cadillac Mountain on Mount Desert Island — the highest peak on the East Coast — at sunrise to see the first rays of daylight hit the continental United States.

Today, Michigan has five national parks and lakeshores — but its first, Mackinac Island, isn’t one of them. Nearly 150 years ago, in 1875, Mackinac Island National Park — a rocky island in Lake Huron between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas — was established as the second national park in the U.S. But just 20 years later, the military decided to close the fort on the island, effectively discontinuing the upkeep of the park. The state of Michigan stepped in and the site was reopened as a state park, which is still open to the public today.

Rocky Mountain National Park is Colorado’s most-visited national park and one of the top five most-visited parks in the entire country. The 415-square-mile area has been protected by the federal government since 1915. The park’s forests and alpine tundra sit on the Continental Divide in northern Colorado. Home to the Trail Ridge Road, this scenic highway was created in 1932 for motorists to take in breathtaking views at 12,000 feet.

Of the 63 official national parks in the U.S., Great Smoky Mountains National Park — established in 1926 by President Calvin Coolidge and located on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina in the Appalachian Mountains — saw the most visitors in 2020, welcoming a total of 12.1 million in one calendar year.

Arizona’s Grand Canyon joins Mount Everest and the Great Barrier Reef as one of the world’s most spectacular natural wonders. The Grand Canyon National Park Act was signed by President Woodrow Wilson in February 1919 after nearly four decades of pressure from the Senate. The park spans over 1 million acres in northwestern Arizona, getting its notoriety from a 277-mile canyon carved out by the Colorado River.

After visiting the Wyoming wilderness, Horace Albright, the future director of the NPS, convinced John D. Rockefeller Jr. to purchase the land for Grand Teton National Park in 1930. However, Wyoming locals weren’t thrilled with the plan, fearing the interference of the federal government would disturb the natural environment. They blocked early attempts to include the new land in a protected park, but a compromise was reached in 1950.

Formed by a volcanic eruption over 7,000 years ago, Crater Lake is one of the deepest lakes in the world. A journalist named William Gladstone Steel first read about the lake in 1870 as a boy living in Ohio. After visiting the site in 1885, he began a long campaign to make it a national park, lobbying President Grover Cleveland to protect the area. His efforts finally succeeded in 1903.

Mount Rainier, located in Washington state’s Cascade mountains, was just the fifth national park in the nation when it was established in 1899, and the first to allow vehicles in the park. By 1910, its roads were so crowded that about a third of the park’s rangers were managing traffic.

Overlooking the Mississippi River as it cuts through the heart of St. Louis, Missouri, the Gateway Arch was constructed in 1965 as a monument to U.S. western expansion. The national park complex includes the Old Courthouse where the landmark Dred Scott cases were tried in 1847 and 1850. To help protect it from intense wind and earthquakes, the Arch has foundations that reach 60 feet underground.

A naturalist from childhood, Teddy Roosevelt believed that a significant part of America’s wealth was found in its forests, mountains, and plains. During Roosevelt’s presidential term, from 1901 to 1908, the U.S. added 150 national forests, 51 bird preserves, four game preserves, and five national parks. Theodore Roosevelt National Park, established in 1978, is located in western North Dakota.

When Mt. McKinley National Park was officially dedicated in 1917, there was already debate over the name. The Alaska Engineering Commission declined efforts to use the local Indigenous name, Denali (meaning “the high one” in Koyukon Athabaskan language), believing it wasn’t descriptive enough. The park’s name was finally changed in 1980. In 2015, Mt. McKinley itself was renamed.

Signed by President Ulysses S. Grant, the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act designated over 2 million acres of northwestern Wyoming as a preserved area. Today it’s known for its scenic mountains, lush forests, hot springs, and geysers, including “Old Faithful,” which has erupted many times per day since its discovery in 1870.

Thousands of years ago, Indigenous American tribes were the first to discover the beautiful cliffs and canyons of southwest Utah, calling it “Mukuntuweap” or “straight canyon.” In the late 1800s, Mormon explorers heading west were so moved by the beauty of the land that they named it “Zion,” the biblical name for the “holy land.” In 1909, President William Howard Taft designated 16,000 acres for Mukuntuweap National Monument — the name was changed to Zion National Park in 1919.

In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill known as the “Organic Act,” which created the National Park Service (NPS), a new bureau within the Department of the Interior. Although national parks had been around for several decades already, they weren’t organized or overseen by any unified body before this. The NPS would later be given custody of more than 50 major monuments and military sites as well.

With nine different national parks, the Golden State’s reputation for beautiful wildlife is well earned. From the towering trees of Redwood National Park to the rolling desert expanse of Death Valley, California’s different parks provide a great cross-section of American wilderness. The Channel Islands, accessible only by boat, even offer a look at an undisturbed marine environment.