America’s National Park Service is nearly 110 years old. President Woodrow Wilson signed the act that created the NPS on Aug. 25, 1916, and since then the parks have attracted a steady stream of nature lovers who want to take in all the beauty the parks have to offer. National parks are a source of pride for hundreds of millions of Americans, and the following are some interesting facts about these special places across North America.
Acadia National Park in Maine is the oldest national park east of the Mississippi River, tracing its origins to 1916. Landscape architect Charles Eliot and American preservationist George Dorr were influential in the establishment of the park, as was American financier John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who was vital to the construction of a network of carriage roads that ran throughout the park upon its opening.
Arches National Park is appropriately named. The park, located in eastern Utah, features more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches, including the well-known and widely recognized Delicate Arch.
Biscayne National Park south of Miami, Florida, is 95 percent water. Perhaps that’s why a half dozen shipwrecks spanning nearly a century have been mapped on the park’s Maritime Heritage Trail.
Capitol Reef National Park in south-central Utah contains rocks that History.com notes have estimated to be as much as 270 million years old.
Sea turtles are among the many notable features of Dry Tortugas National Park, which is located roughly 70 miles west of Key West. Accessibility is another notable quirk of the park, which can only be reached via seaplane.
Glacier Bay National Park in southeast Alaska is covered by 2,000 square miles of glaciers. No roads lead to Glacier Bay National Park, which is typically reached by air or sea travel.
Great Basin National Park in Nevada features the Lehman Cave system, which began forming 550 million years ago while the area was still submerged in a shallow ocean.
American fjord fans may think of Norway when seeking these beautiful bodies of water, but they can see some right within the nation’s borders as well. Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska contains numerous coastal fjords that were carved by glaciers.
The national park system is so expansive it actually extends south of the equator. The National Park of American Samoa is the only national park south of the equator, and even features a World War II gun emplacement.
