Best National Monuments

This iconic statue, built in 1886 on Liberty Island and 151 feet (46 m) tall, commemorates the centennial of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence and is a gesture of friendship from France to the U.S

Philadelphia

Philadelphia

The tower is a monolithic igneous intrusion of volcanic neck rising dramatically 1,267 feet (386 m) above the surrounding terrain. Proclaimed by Theodore Roosevelt, this was the first national monument

Following the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, this area was set aside for research, recreation, and education

This monument includes the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn between George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry and a combined Lakota-Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho force, Custer National Cemetery, and the Reno-Benteen Battlefield

Jewel Cave is the second longest cave in the world, with about 141 miles (227 km) of mapped passageways in the Black Hills

Representative of 18th-century Virginia tobacco farms, this site is the birthplace and boyhood environment of George Washington

The ruins contain Pueblo structures from the 11th to 13th centuries with more than 400 masonry rooms which were misidentified by early American settlers as Aztec

Designated a research national monument, it is a large, unexcavated Ancestral Puebloan archeological site. The site is one of many Anasazi (Ancestral Pueblo) village sites located in the Montezuma Valley occupied between AD 900 and 1300

A natural amphitheater canyon similar to formations at Bryce Canyon National Park, it stretches over 3 miles (4.8 km) and is more than 2,000 feet (610 m) deep

This monument commemorates the landing of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo at San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, which was the first European expedition on what later became the west coast of the U.S.

Rising out of the chaparral-covered Gabilan Mountains, east of central California's Salinas Valley, are the spectacular remains of an ancient volcano. Massive monoliths, spires, sheer-walled canyons and talus passages define millions of years of erosion, faulting and tectonic plate movement. Pinnacles National Monument is a release site for the endangered California condor, and the birds can sometimes be seen from hiking trails throughout the park.

Colorado National Monument preserves one of the grand landscapes of the American West. But this treasure is much more than a monument. Towering monoliths exist within a vast plateau-and-canyon panorama. You can experience sheer-walled, red rock canyons along the twists and turns of Rim Rock Drive, where you may spy bighorn sheep and soaring eagles.

The only place designated a national monument and historic shrine, Fort McHenry is a star-shaped fort best known for its role in the War of 1812 when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack by the British navy. It inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner"

Daniel Freeman's homestead was recognized by the United States Congress as the first homestead in the nation obtained through the Homestead Act of 1862. The monument contains a visitor center, a tract of tallgrass prairie, and the Freeman School

This monument preserves a group of structures surrounded by a compound wall in the Gila Valley that were built in the early 13th century

Scotts Bluff is an important 19th century geologic formation and landmark on the Oregon Trail and Mormon Trail

Spanish fort, built in St. Augustine, FL in 1672

site preserves Moses Carver's farm, which was the boyhood home of George Washington Carver, a scientist and educator who developed many uses for peanuts. It was the first national monument dedicated to an African-American and first to a non-president

Rich with American Indian, early explorer and Mormon pioneer history, this site shows Ancestral Puebloans and Kaibab Paiute Indian and pioneer life in the Old West, including the cabin where explorer John Wesley Powell's survey crew stayed in 1871. The water of Pipe Spring, discovered in 1858, made it possible for plants, animals, and people to live in this dry desert region

Built by James Oglethorpe between 1736 and 1748, these remnants of a fort and town protected the southern boundary of the British colony of Georgia from Spanish raids. It was the site of the Battle of Bloody Marsh

The Booker T. Washington National Monument preserves portions of the 207-acre (0.84 km2) tobacco farm on which educator and civil rights leader