The Top 25: History's Best Landmarks
What makes a historic site essential?
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| The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are icons of American history. |
Ask a dozen people and you might get a dozen answers. It's a question we struggled with while compiling this special list for Historic Traveler. Our audience knows that the United States offers a wealth of historic destinations, and narrowing them down to a mere 25 promised to be difficult. (It was.) Our goal was to pick 25 that—taken together—provided a good overview of the nation, historically and geographically. We didn't want only destinations on the East Coast, or just Civil War battlefields or presidential homes. And we decided to steer away from museums, even the best ones. We were interested in places where history happened, the places where time's stream was diverted in some way.
Some sites made our list not only because they are distinctive but also because of the company they keep. Colonial Williamsburg, splendid as it is, has added advantage of being near Jamestown and Yorktown. We picked Boston's Freedom Trail in part because visitors to the city could make a side trip to the important sites of Lexington and Concord.
And we allowed ourselves some exceptions. Mount Rushmore didn't change the world, but it has great symbolic weight. It also sits amid South Dakota's beautiful Black Hills, a land held sacred by the Sioux and the Cheyenne.
What follows are the 25 sites we decided best met our criteria. We've arranged them in roughly chronological order, so as you read them you can get a sense of how the nation grew and changed. It is by no means a comprehensive list of every historic site worth visiting in the United States. We present it more like a historical connect-the-dots puzzle. Visit all 25 of these sites and you'll get a quick profile of the historical events that shaped this nation. We encourage further travel to fill in the details.
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