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National Park Quiz 70: Bad

USS Arizona Memorial. National Park Service photo.

1. True or false? Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site preserves both the place where President Lincoln was mortally wounded and the place where he died.

2. True or false? James A Garfield National Historic Site preserves the place where President Garfield was assassinated.

3. True or false? The deadly tsunami that struck Crescent City, California, on March 27, 1964, destroyed the main visitor center at Redwood National Park.
4. The only National Park System unit devoted to the tragic events of September 11, 2001, is located in
a. Washington, DC
b. Pennsylvania
c. New York
d. New Jersey

5. Infamous murderer Charles Manson lived for a time at the Barker Ranch in ______, an area that later became part of Death Valley National Park.
a. Goler Canyon
b. Saylor’s Cove
c. Orchard Valley
d. Horseshoe Bend

6. On August 23, 2009, a seven-year old child was killed and more than a dozen other visitors were injured when a rogue wave struck them as they stood near the shoreline in the Thunder Hole vicinity of
a. Channel Islands National Park
b. Acadia National Park
c. Assateague Island National Seashore
d. Point Reyes National Seashore

7. The U.S.S. Arizona Memorial is a stark reminder of the heavy toll in American lives resulting from the December 7, 1941 Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. All of the following statements about the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial are true EXCEPT:
a. The U.S. Navy is responsible for shuttling visitors to the sunken vessel’s location.
b. The names of those who died aboard the Arizona are inscribed at the site.
c. The sunken ship is the final resting place for many Arizona crew members.
d. The visitor center is on Ford Island, where the Arizona was berthed.

8.. On November 29, 1864, a militia force attacked a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho and murdered 150-200 Indians, nearly all of them women, children and elderly men. The place where this atrocity occurred, now preserved as the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, is in eastern
a. Colorado
b. Montana
c. Wyoming
d. New Mexico

9. One of the darkest stains on America’s civil rights record occurred during World War II when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, directing the internment of Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese aliens. Manzanar National Historic Site has the best preserved example of the ten internment camps used for this purpose, but remnants of another of these concentration camps are preserved at ______ Internment National Historic Site.
a. Tule Lake
b. Gila River
c. Minidoka
d. Puyallup

10. Thomas Richardson claimed that his wife Juanita slipped and fell to her death from a 140-foot cliff, but a jury decided that Mr. Richardson pushed his wife over the edge This dastardly deed took place in June 2006 in
a. Grand Portage National Monument
b. Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area
c. Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
d. Congaree National Park

Extra Credit Question:

11. In 1981, police captured serial killer Wayne Williams after it was determined that he had gotten rid of his most recent victim’s body by dumping it off a bridge in
a. Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area
b. Golden Gate National Recreation Area
c. Gateway National Recreation Area
d. Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

Super Bonus Question
:

12. At 282 feet (86 meters) below sea level, Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park is further below sea level than any other place in North America. However, Badwater is not the lowest place in the Western Hemisphere. What place holds that distinction?

Answers:

(1) True. The dying President was carried from Ford’s Theatre across 10th Street to the home of William and Anna Petersen. The Peterson House is preserved as a component of Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site.

(2) False. The James A Garfield National Historic Site preserves President Garfield’s Lawnfield estate in Mentor, Ohio. Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881, at a railroad station in Washington, DC, and died six months later. The National Gallery of Art now occupies the site of the shooting.

(3) False. Redwood National Park -- now an administrative component of the National Park System unit designated Redwood National and State Parks -- did not exist until 1968. Interestingly, the building that houses the park headquarters and an information center was constructed in Crescent City on a site formerly occupied by buildings that the 1964 tsunami wrecked.

(4) b -- Flight 93 National Memorial, the only National Park System unit devoted to the tragic events of 9/11, is located in Stonycreek Township (Somerset County) in southwestern Pennsylvania.

(5) a -– Manson’s hideout was in Goler Canyon in the southern Panamint Mountains. The structure was gutted by fire, presumably the work of an arsonist, in May 2009.

(6) b -– Thunder Hole, a sea cave, is one of Acadia’s most popular shoreline attractions. Hurricane Bill was responsible for the unusually heavy wave activity that day.

(7) d -– The visitor center for the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial is located on the Pearl Harbor Naval Base. To see the sunken ship, visitors must take the Navy-operated shuttle boat to Battleship Row on Ford’s Island.

(8) a -– Sand Creek is located about 80 miles southeast of Denver.

(9) c -– Minidoka Internment National Historic Site near Twin Falls, Idaho, preserves remnants of the Minidoka Internment Camp (aka Hunt Camp), a facility that housed around 9,000 Japanese Americans, mostly from Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Established as a National Monument in 2001, the site was recently redesignated National Historic Site and expanded to include parts of Bainbridge Island, Washington.

(10) c – This premeditated murder occurred in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, a park that has plenty of cliffs, but has still never had a visitor fatality due to an accidental fall.

(11) a – Williams murdered about 30 children and young adults in the Atlanta area before he was finally caught.

(12) The lowest place in the Western Hemisphere (and the Southern Hemisphere) is San Julian's Great Depression in Argentina. At 105 meters below sea level, San Julian's beats Death Valley's Badwater site by a whopping 19 meters.

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

A sad followup to #3:
Early reports are that yesterday's 8+ earthquake and tsunami wiped out the visitor's center at National Park of American Samoa. The good news is that all employees and visitors are accounted for. The bad news is that roughly 100 people died in Samoa, American Samoa, and Tonga.


#3 is definitely an eerie coincidence, tomp.


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