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Honorable Mentions: And the Nominees are...

The destinations—and honorable mentions—for the Top 25 Essential Historic Sites in America span from sea to shining sea.
After we compiled our list of the 25 Essential Historic Sites, we had 117 nominated sites left. Here are some of the other places our nominators selected.

Tom Brokaw (NBC News anchor) listed 10 nominees, including:
The Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah
Completed in 1867, this hall is famous for its oval dome, outstanding acoustics, and pipe organ.
The Chicago Commodities Exchange
Chicago pioneered the method of dealing with farm products as though they were stocks and bonds. According to one historian, it was "one of the most purely capitalistic endeavours the world has ever known."

Elvis is not dead and neither is Al Green—he has a church here.
Ken Burns (documentary filmmaker) sent in a full 25 nominations, including:
Lemhi Pass("Where Lewis and Clark found no Northwest Passage," says Burns)
Lemhi Pass is on the Montana-Idaho border. According to Stephen E. Ambrose in his book about Lewis and Clark, Undaunted Courage, "it is the closest we can come today to seeing a site as Lewis saw it in 1805."
The Brooklyn Bridge, New York City
Lexington Green and Concord's North Bridge, Massachusetts
Yankee Stadium ("or Fenway Park or Wrigley Field...")



Ms. Magazine founding editor Gloria Steinem's 10 nominees included:
Sites of the Mound Builders
"to show the sophistication of cultures here before the Europeans."
The Black Hills and the Badlands
"to see the difference between what was taken from Native Americans and where they were driven."
Chicago's preserved tenements,
"to see immigrants' living places."
The Mission Trail in California
"for the Spanish history of California."

Byron Farwell (author and historian) included:
Grant's Tomb in New York City
Fort Robinson in Nebraska
Established after the Civil War as an Indian Post, Fort Robinson was where Crazy Horse was killed.
Port Republic in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley
The site of a Confederate victory by Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson in 1862.

Walter Boyne (author and historian) chose:
The "Taj Mahal" at Randolph Field in San Antonio
Dedicated in 1930, Randolph Field is a historic Air Force base. Its famed "Taj Mahal" is actually a complex that includes a well-disguised water tank.
Mark Twain's house in Hannibal, Missouri
SAC (Strategic Air Command) Headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska
St. Louis Courthouse, venue for the Dred Scott Decision
Dred Scott, a slave, first petitioned for his freedom at this courthouse, on the grounds that his owner had taken him into a free state. He won, but the decision was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

Edwin Simmons (Retired Brigadier General, U.S. Marine Corps) nominated several well-planned itineraries, including:
Hudson Valley, New York
"Drive from Albany south to West Point, or do it the other way from south to north."
The Shenandoah Valley
"...from Harper's Ferry south to Lexington through Winchester and Staunton (Woodrow Wilson's birthplace)."
Bismarck, North Dakota,
"probably the most remote state capital in the 48 contiguous states. It is a good place to learn about the last Indian wars."

Eric Zencey (novelist, historian) included:
Plains of Abraham, Quebec City
"Why we speak English and not French."
Titusville, Pennsylvania
The Drake Well Museum commemorates the first commercial oil well, dug here by Colonel Edwin Drake in 1859.

Sites nominated by Tabitha Soren (Political reporter, MTV) included:
New Orleans
The "birthplace of jazz."
Memphis, Tennessee
"Elvis is not dead and neither is Al Green—he has a church here."
Seattle, Washington
"Birthplace (and death) of grunge rock."

Brian P. Lamb (Chairman and CEO, C-SPAN), sent in a list of 19 sites. Among them:
Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC
"Gravesites of J. Edgar Hoover, Elbridge Gerry, Mathew Brady, and John Philip Sousa."
Thomas Paine's cottage in New Rochelle, New York
Adams Home and Sam Adams Library in Quincy, Massachusetts
Harry Truman home in Independence, Missouri

Cokie Roberts (ABC News) provided 10 nominations, including:
National Archives in Washington, DC
The Cabildo in New Orleans
which offers displays about the city's history.
Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia,
where Martin Luther King, Jr., served as pastor.

Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Senator from Colorado) nominated:
Silverton, Colorado
A mining town from the 1870s, Silverton offers many historic buildings in a beautiful setting.

On his list, James Fallows (editor, U.S. News and World Report) included:
Maryland's Eastern Shore

Paul A. Hutton (historian and author) included:
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Arlington National Cemetery


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