These 6 U.S. Landmarks Earn The Most Revenue From Visitors
With Memorial Day upon us, Americans are taking to beaches and other great outdoor spots around the country to enjoy the long weekend (and bask in finally being able to wear white!). With so many national parks and landmarks, we are tipping our hat to the nation's top six (and two very honorable mentions) that make America so beautiful ... and earn the most revenue from visitors.
Blue Ridge Parkway
2016 Visitor Dollars: $979M
Visitors in 2016: 15.2 million
This national parkway is so much more than just the source of a great John Denver lyric. At 469 miles, the Blue Ridge Parkway is both America’s longest linear park and its most popular. With the exception of 2013, the parkway has been the most visited unit of the National Park System every year since 1949. The road was initially funded and construction began during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration, partially through the New Deal. The park winds through Virginia and North Carolina as a link between Shenandoah National Park and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was completed in 1987 — 52 years after work began in 1935!
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
2016 Visitor Dollars: $943M
Visitors in 2016: 11.3 million
More than 11 million people head to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina each year to revel in sights like Clingmans Dome (the highest mountain in the Smokies) and Cades Cove, a valley with several preserved buildings offering a peek into the life of early Appalachia. Encompassing just over 816 square miles, this park is one of the largest protected areas in the eastern United States. Nearby towns like Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge (home to Dolly Parton’s Dollywood) in Tennessee make a significant amount of tourist revenue due to the park. It made headlines in 2016 when wildfires burned over 10,000 acres of the park (and 6,000 more outside its perimeter), one of the largest natural disasters in the history of Tennessee.
Grand Canyon National Park
2016 Visitor Dollars: $648M
Visitors in 2016: 6 million
The Grand Canyon is viewed as one of nature’s great wonders and has captivated hearts for over a century. While it was only designated a national park in 1919, President Theodore Roosevelt (known as the “Conservationist President”) declared it a national monument in 1908. During a visit to the site in 1903, he said, “The Grand Canyon fills me with awe. It is beyond comparison — beyond description; absolutely unparalleled throughout the wide world. Let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is. Do nothing to mar its grandeur, sublimity and loveliness. You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.”
Denali National Park And Preserve
2016 Visitor Dollars: $604M
Visitors in 2016: 587,000
Encompassing over 6 million acres, Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska is highlighted by Denali (formerly Mount McKinley), the highest mountain in North America, and features forests, tundra and glaciers. Visitors each year head to Denali for dog-sledding, cross-country skiing and snowmobiling. The park is also one of the country’s most prehistoric, as human habitation on the site is estimated as far back as 7130 B.C. at the park’s Teklanika River site.
The site was established as Mount McKinley National Park in 1917 before the Alaska territory officially became a state in 1959. The mountain’s former name came from President William McKinley but was immediately met with criticism, as its original moniker was in the Athabaskan language of a native group. Its name reverted back to Denali in 2015 when President Barack Obama directed his Secretary of the Interior to make the change.
Grand Teton National Park
2016 Visitor Dollars: $597M
Visitors in 2016: 3.3 million
Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park is a popular destination for mountaineering, hiking and fishing, as it includes the Teton Range of mountains as well as portions of the Jackson Hole valley. Only 10 miles south of Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton (when combined with Yellowstone and the neighboring National Forests) forms the 18 million-acre Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the largest mid-latitude ecosystems in the world.
Yellowstone National Park
2016 Visitor Dollars: $524M
Visitors in 2016: 4.3 million
Signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872, Yellowstone was the first national park in the United States and the world. U.S. Sen. George Vest (D-MO) was an early defender of the park and said, during an attempt to develop it, that Yellowstone would always be needed as a “great breathing place for the national lungs.”
The park is home to the Old Faithful Geyser, which has erupted on average every 92 minutes to heights as high as 184 feet. Larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined, Yellowstone has more than 290 waterfalls, 67 species of animals and 285 species of birds living within its perimeter, according to the National Park Service.
Honorable Mentions
In the spirit of Memorial Day, we look to the national landmarks that memorialize those who lost their lives serving in the armed forces while protecting the United States.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C., which saw 5.3 million visitors last year, is made up of two dark rock walls etched with the names of servicemen. Sunken into the ground and tapered in design, the memorial is designed to symbolically represent a healing wound.
On the other side of the country, the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument spans nine sites in three states, including the USS Arizona Memorial and Visitor Center at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The multi-state monument was established in 2008 by President George W. Bush.
