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National Park Quiz 43: Names

If you want to get to Dry Tortugas National Park, you'll have to travel by seaplane or boat. Do you know what the park was called before it got its present name? Photo by rickz via Wikimedia Commons.

1. Dry Tortugas National Park was created in 1992 through an expansion and redesignation of
a. Cane River Creole National Historical Park
b. Dry Tortugas National Monument
c. Fort Jefferson National Monument
d. Fort Matanzas National Monument

2. First established as Sieur de Monts National Monument in 1916, ______ acquired its present name in 1929.
a. Isle Royale National Park
b. Acadia National Park
c. Voyageurs National Park
d. Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve

3. Denali National Park & Preserve was called ______ before it acquired its present name in 1980.
a. Mount McKinley National Park
b. Mount Foraker National Park
c. Kahiltna National Preserve
d. Kantishna National Monument

4. When you see the term Ancestral Puebloans in national park literature, you know that you are looking at a less controversial, “new and improved” name for an ancient people more commonly called the
a. Mayans
b. Aztecs
c. Anasazi
d. Clovis culture

5. The Custer Battlefield National Monument was renamed ______ because the former name was considered disrespectful to Native Americans.
a. Little Bighorn National Memorial Battlefield
b. Little Bighorn National Historic Site
c. Little Bighorn National Military Park
d. Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

6. Designated ______ National Historical Park when it was originally established in 1955, Hawaii’s Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park acquired its present name through a 1978 redesignation.
a. Kamehameha
b. City of Refuge
c. Father Dameon
d. Kona Coast

7. True or false? Aztec Ruins National Monument preserves the remains of an ancient Aztec temple.

8. True or false? Wright Brothers National Memorial was once named Kill Devil Hill National Monument.

9. True of False? None of the 391 National Park System units has a name that begins with the letter “Q”.

10. True or false? Of the 58 designated National Parks, none has the word “Fort” in its name.

Extra Credit Question:

11. Which of the 391 units in the National Park System unit has the longest name?

Super Bonus Question:

12. What is the only national park whose name includes the word “Shrine”?

Answers:

(1) c -– Fort Jefferson, a huge brick masonry fort that never saw combat, remains the historical-architectural centerpiece of Florida’s Dry Tortugas National Park.

(2) b -– Acadia was actually redesignated several times. On February 26, 1919, the park was redesignated Lafayette National Park in honor of Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette. It kept that name until January 19, 1929, when it was again redesignated – this time to Acadia National Park.

(3) a -– The great mountain named Mount McKinley might also have been renamed Denali had it not been for the staunch opposition from the Ohio Congressional delegation. President William McKinley, the man for whom North America's highest mountain is named, was an Ohio native son.

(4) c -– Although the ancient cliff dwelling people of the Colorado Plateau (especially Mesa Verde ca. 800-1300 a.d.) are still often referred to as Anasazi , nearly all of the several dozen tribes that have or claim ancestral affiliation with this ancient culture prefer the term Ancestral Puebloans.

(5) d -– The park was redesignated Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in 1991.

(6) b -- Puʻuhonua is a Native Hawaiian word meaning “place of refuge. Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau denotes “the place of refuge at Hōnaunau,” a site on the Big Island’s Kona Coast.

(7) False.  The Aztec empire was in Mexico. The pioneers who saw the sophisticated masonry structures now preserved in the park couldn't believe that the First Peoples of the region could have built them. In ascribing the works to Aztecs, they followed the lead of scholars who theorized that the Aztecs originated in the Southwestern U.S. and migrated to Mexico.

(8) True.  When the park was authorized on March 2, 1927, it was given the name Kill Devil Hill National Monument. It acquired its present name through a redesignation that took place in 1953. Kill Devil Hill is the name of the 90-foot sand dune on which the Wright Brothers Memorial is situated.

(9) True.  But you can give yourself a “close, but no cigar” if you thought of Quinebaug and Shetucket Rivers Valley National Heritage Corridor (which is not a unit of the National Park System).

(10) True. This seems rather incongruous too, since Fort appears as the first word in 25 other park unit names.

(11) The National Park System unit with the longest name is Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National Military Park.

(12) The only national park name that contains the word “shrine” is Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine. (In fact, there apparently is no other historic site in the United States bearing the double designation “National Monument and Historic Shrine.” ) Give yourself a "close, but no cigar" if you thought of the Stonewall Jackson Shrine (which is part of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National Military Park).

Grading: 9 or 10 correct, rest on your laurels; 7 or 8 correct, pretty darn good; 6 correct, passable fair; 5 or fewer correct, nothing to brag about.

Comments

9 out of 12. That Little Bighorn bit was a cheap shot. :-P ;-)

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My travels through the National Park System: americaincontext.com


We try to include something for everybody, including people who enjoy a cheap shot now and then. ;-)


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