Then-and-Now Photos of US Landmarks That'll Have You Traveling Across the Country and Time
Most countries have famous landmarks that are deemed iconic by people from all over the world. Italy has the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Coliseum. China has the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. France has the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. The United States has. . . almost too many to count. Traveling around the world, or even cross-country, to see these landmarks isn't exactly ideal right now, due to COVID-19 restrictions. But these famous US landmark photos of some of its most iconic places at their inception and now will serve as a virtual road trip through time.
Some of these famous US landmarks look drastically different than they did when they were first built or discovered, while others appear the same on the surface but are surrounded by what seems like a whole new world. Seeing how these landmarks have transformed over the years (and watching America grow around them) from the comfort of your home may not be as fun as renting an RV and visiting them all, but it's the safest option now and will get you even more excited for your summer 2021 road trip.
When New York State Legislature enacted the 750-acre land in the middle of Manhattan in 1853, Central Park became America's first major urban, public park and began the urban park movement, according to the park's official website.
In 2019, about 42 million people visited Central Park, Statista reported, making it the most visited city park in the entire country.
Chicago engineer Joseph Strauss and his team began building the Golden Gate Bridge in 1933, which opened to the public four years later, according to the History Channel. Strauss was given the job in 1921, but it took some time to convince local residents, businesses, and civic leaders who would be affected by the bridge that it would ultimately benefit them. The bridge was named after the Golden Gate Strait that it's suspended over, connecting San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean.
The Golden Gate Bridge is the third most visited attraction in San Francisco, according to a San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau fact sheet. In addition to the 40 million people crossing the bridge via transportation each year, more than 10 million tourists visit it as well, according to the Golden Gate official website. From 1937 to 1964, the Golden Gate was the longest suspension bridge in the world, History reported. Now, it's the second largest in the US, 60 feet shorter than the Verrazano Bridge in New York.
The use of railroads in America really took off in the 1800s. According to its website, before Grand Central Terminal was built, there were already four competing lines in New York — the Hudson River, New York Central, New York & Harlem, and New York & New Haven. The Hudson, New Haven, and Harlem railroads were eager to expand and save money, so in 1871, they agreed to share one transit hub: Grand Central Depot. By 1900, the size of the Depot, now known as Grand Central Station, had doubled, and rail traffic had quadrupled.
Today, Grand Central is more than just a transit hub. It has five restaurants and cocktail lounges, 20 food stands in its lower level dining concourse, and specialty shops throughout the entire building. And in the winter, the terminal's former main waiting room is home to the Grand Central Holiday Fair, which brings in over 40 craftspeople and artisans.
In 1910, James Deering, an industrial executive and antiquities collector, decided to make a European-style villa in Miami to serve as his winter escape from his home in Paris, Maine, The Culture Trip reported. Construction began in 1914. The main house was done by 1916, but the gardens took a little longer and were completed in 1923. After Deering passed away in 1925, he left the Villa and its flourishing gardens to his brother and two nieces.
Vizcaya is a well-known landmark in South Florida. It was turned into a museum in the mid-1900s and remains one today. The beautiful property can be rented out for weddings and other formal events. Many teenaged girls also take Quincea?era (a Latinx celebration of a girl's 15th birthday) photos at Vizcaya.
According to the History Channel, the Grand Canyon was formed when the Colorado River began cutting a channel through layers of rock 5 to 6 million years ago. Since the last Ice Age, about 2.6 million years ago, humans have inhabited the area within the canyon and around it. President Benjamin Harris declared the Grand Canyon a forest reserve in 1893, granting the canyon its first federal protection.
The Grand Canyon receives around 5 million visitors from all over the world each year, the History Channel reported. The canyon is the ancestral home of the Havasupai people, who have lived in the area for more than 800 years. In 2017, there was a major development project called the Grand Canyon Escalade in the works that would have included hotels, stores, and a gondola. The Navajo Nation rejected it on environmental grounds.
Two years after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Congress created the Lincoln Monument Association to build a memorial to the former president. The location wasn't selected until 1901, and it took another 10 years for the funds to be released, according to the landmark's website. Construction began later that year, and in 1922, the memorial on the National Mall was completed. Thirty-six columns surround the memorial, each one representing a state of the union at the time of Lincoln's death, as noted on the National Park Service website.
Statista reported that upwards of 7 million people visit the Lincoln Memorial each year, making it the most visited memorial in all of Washington DC. The long reflecting pool that stands between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument is also a part of the 16th president's memorial and was rebuilt in 2010.
Alcatraz Island was once the United States' go-to maximum-security prison. According to the History Channel, from 1934 until 1963, Alcatraz was home to some of America's most notorious criminals, like Al Capone, George ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly, and Alvin ‘Creepy’ Karpis. Most of the inmates were considered violent or dangerous. Before becoming a federal penitentiary in the 1930s, Alcatraz was an army fortress and military prison. The prison closed in 1963 because it was too expensive to maintain.
Today, Alcatraz is one of San Francisco's most popular tourist attractions. According to the NPS, about 4,500 tourists visit the island daily. They can tour the main cellhouse, dining hall, lighthouse, morgue, library, and prison yard, among other things. Every year since 1980, hundreds of athletes participate in the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon, which starts with the swim from Alcatraz and is followed by an 18-mile bike ride and an 8-mile run throughout San Francisco.
Fisherman's Wharf was established in 1900 to serve as a hub for commercial fishing boats. Many of these fishermen came from generations of fishermen who carried on their families' legacies. There were previous docks in the area, but when the San Francisco Bay continued to expand, the state decided to move commercial fishing away from the busy areas they were in before and into the Wharf, according to an essay in San Francisco's Digital Archive. Fishermen would dock there and sell directly to people from their boats. Slowly, some fishermen began to notice that they could set up stalls on the pier and sell meals made with their catch. Over time, seafood restaurants started popping up.
The Wharf is an iconic landmark in San Francisco. According to Fisherman's Wharf's 2014-2015 annual report, anywhere between 10 and 12 million people visit Fisherman's Wharf every year, averaging about 24,000 daily — sometimes even up to 100,000, if it's peak tourist season or a really nice day. Pier 39 stands on the east of Fisherman's Wharf and his home to those silly little sea lions who like to lie around the docks all day.
The Vieux Carré. The Old Square. The French Quarter. The oldest neighborhood in New Orleans goes by many names. Established by the French in 1734, the Vieux Carré is located on the banks of the Mississippi River, close to Lake Pontchartrain, the French Quarter Management District reported. The district was the only part of New Orleans for decades, but as the city began expanding, suburbs came with it.
With New Orleans' open container laws and countless bars up and down Bourbon Street, the Vieux Carré Historic District is seen by many as more of a party place than anything else — and with good reason. But there is so much more to New Orleans and even the French Quarter. It's rich with history of pirates, voodoo, ghosts, and delicious food.
The Space Needle was dreamt up by the chief organizer of the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle, as noted on its official website. He visited Germany a few years before the Fair and was inspired by a broadcast tower he saw when he was there. He encountered challenges with the structure's final design, location and financing. A little over a year before the World Fair opening, he got the money he needed and the location. By December 1961, eight months after they began construction, the Space Needle was completed.
Between 1962, when the Space Needle opened to the public, and 2017, about 60 million people visited it, making it the number one attraction in the Pacific Northwest, the Space Needle Fact Sheet noted. The saucer-shaped top of the Needle is home to Seattle's largest observation deck, providing indoor and outdoor panoramic views of the entire city and beyond.
Hollywood wasn't always the film and entertainment mecca it is now. Before the early 1900s, Hollywood was home to the area’s native people, the Gabrielinos. According to the Hollywood Sign's website, the now worldwide symbol of the entertainment industry began as an outdoor ad campaign for a suburban housing development called "Hollywoodland" in 1923. By then, Hollywood had already taken on its endearing nickname of Tinseltown.
Today, the Hollywood sign is a symbol of hope for many aspiring actors, directors, and producers. Travel + Leisure reported that about 45 million tourists visit Los Angeles each year, 10 million of whom often make to Griffith Park, which gives you the best access to the Hollywood sign, via its many hiking trails.
Construction on Independence Hall began in 1732 and was completed 21 years later. It was originally built to be the Pennsylvania State House, which was home to all three branches of the state's government, the NPS noted. The Declaration of Independence was adopted within the walls of this famous landmark, and the Constitution was debated, drafted, and signed here as well.
Independence Hall is a museum now. Free, timed tours are the only way you can enter the building most of the year, with a few exceptions. Throughout the tour, you can see George Washington's "rising sun" chair, the actual inkstand used when signing the Declaration, and an original draft of the Constitution, among other things. Last year, more than 4 million people visited Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and Washington Square, all of which can be found in the same Philadelphia park, the NPS reported.
In the 1880s, the US obtained exclusive rights to Pearl Harbor from the then-Hawaiian Kingdom, in exchange for allowing Hawaiian sugar to enter the US duty free, as noted on the Pearl Harbor website. Ten years later, during the Spanish American War, the US decided it needed to have a permanent place in the Pacific Ocean and annexed Hawaii, the Military Times reported. Shortly after, workers began dredging the harbor in order to allow navy ships to maneuver through it easier, and in 1908, Peal Harbor Naval Base was created.
When you hear the words Pearl Harbor now, they can often elicit strong emotions. Most people's minds probably go straight Dec. 7, 1941, the day that marked the US' entrance into World War II, after Japan attacked the naval base off the coast of Hawaii. According to the Pearl Harbor Visitors Bureau, it is still an active joint naval and air force base, and there are numerous memorials to the War and those who were lost in the attack.
The Taos Pueblo in New Mexico has been around for almost 1,000 years, according to its website. The ancestors of the Taos people lived in the area long before even Christopher Columbus stumbled upon America. The main structures of the Pueblo were probably built some time between 1000 and 1450. The NPS noted that the first Taos Pueblo stood slightly east of its current location and is now a ruin and sacred sight. In its early days, it was a central point of trade between other native populations along the Rio Grande and their northwest neighbors.
About 150 people live in the Taos Pueblo full-time, the site reported, while others live in summer homes near their fields or more modern ones on other parts of Pueblo land — about 1,900 people in total. Within the Tao Pueblo walls, there is no electricity or running water.
Organized in 1873, the 16th Street Baptist Church was the first Black church in Birmingham, its official website noted. The church served many purposes — a meeting place, social center, and lecture hall. It was nicknamed "everybody's church" when people from across the city and neighboring towns started going there. In the early 1960s, civil rights mass meetings and rallies took place at the church. It became more well-known around the country when a bomb exploded in the church, killing four young girls at Sunday School and injuring many others.
The 16th Street Baptist Church remains an active ministry in the heart of the Birmingham Civil Rights District and receives around 100,000 visitors each year, the Birmingham Times reported. Due to its significant place in Alabama history, as well as US history, the church provides tours of the chapel and its campus.
In the early 1930s, when the Hoover Dam was being built, an entire city was created for the men who were working on it, according to the History Channel. Boulder City, Nevada, housed 5,000 dam workers and their families, who were mostly living in squatters' settlements before the city was built. Until 1968, Hoover Dam was the tallest dam in the world.
Though no longer the tallest, the Hoover Dam is the most visited dam in the world, welcoming around 7 million tourists each year, the NPS noted. The dam spans across the Arizona-Nevada border and lies about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas. Its height is equivalent to a 60-story building.
The Gateway Arch was originally founded in 1935 by the NPS to commemorate Thomas Jefferson's westward expansion with the Louisiana Purchase, doubling the size of the US, the monument's official website stated. The arch stretches between the steps overlooking the Mississippi River to St. Louis' Old Courthouse — the latter of which tried many iconic cases in the 1800s, like Dred Scott and his wife's who sued for their freedom from slavery and Virginia Minor who did so for women's right to vote.
To this day, the Gateway Arch is still the country's tallest monument. Statista reported that over 2 million people visited the Arch in 2019. There's a relatively new museum below that highlights Native Americans, explorers, pioneers, and rebels who contributed to the America we know today, the monument's official site noted. Visitors can also take a tram ride to the top of the Gateway Arch.
The Belle of Louisville was built in 1914 and used to be known as Idlewild, Louisville Magazine reported. She launched from Pittsburgh in October of that year, serving as a ferry and packet boat. She carried cattle and cargo between Tennessee and Arkansas at first and then traveled as far as the Gulf Mexico to Canada. In the 1960s, the Belle of Louisville and the Delta Queen partook in the first Great Steamboat Race, the magazine noted, which has happened every year since on the Wednesday before the annual Kentucky Derby.
The magazine reported the Belle of Louisville is the oldest steamboat of her kind in the US and the second oldest in the world. Most steam-powered and paddle-wheel propelled boats like the Belle only last three to five years. Private groups can rent out the Belle for weddings, field trips, or charters, according the boat's official site. The Belle also offers sunset cruising, Saturday picnicking, and Sunday brunching.
The Beale Street Historic District was established in 1841 and immediately became a thriving area for Black-owned businesses, clubs, restaurants, shops, and Black culture in general, according to Civil Rights Trail. Ida B. Wells' anti-segregation newspaper, Free Speech, was also headquartered in the iconic district. In the early- to mid-1900s, countless artists took to Beale Street and played their music, resulting in the sweet Memphis blues sound you know today. Lots of Black people also gravitated toward the historic district to entertain and be entertained, shop, strategize, and protest.
Beale Street continues to be a hub for entertainment today — music, nightlife, dining, and the arts. According to its official website, it's one of the most popular tourist attractions in Tennessee. (There's even a Beale Street app.) The historic district was also labeled the official "Home of the Blues" by Congress, Memphis Travel reported. The Beale Street Music Festival takes place every year at the beginning of May and launches a month of festivities across the city.
Opening to the public in 1930, Adler Planetarium became the first planetarium in the western hemisphere, according to its site. From 1937 to 1945, the planetarium was run by Maude Bennot, making her one of the first women to ever lead a major science museum.
The official site reported that each year, Adler Planetarium welcomes about half a million visitors and reaches millions more through its outreach efforts. The museum is constantly updating its exhibits and and finding new ways to entertain its visitors to keep them coming back.
Pikes Peak was once home to the Ute Indian tribe, and before that, the Clovis Culture, which were people who were around during the last Ice Age, according to the Pikes Peak Region Attractions website. Shortly after the US acquired the mountain in the Louisiana Purchase, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike and his group of explorers came across Pikes Peak and attempted to climb it... in November. Needless to say, they failed. The first person to successfully climb the mountain was Edwin James in 1820.
To this day, Pikes Peak is the most visited mountain in North America, its official website reported, attracting hundreds of thousands visitors annually who climb or drive to the peak. The Region Attractions site also noted three lakes, hiking trails, biking trails and a restaurant called the Summit House can all be found on or near the mountain. Events like Pikes Peak Marathon and Ascent, Pikes Peak Hill Climb, and the Pikes Peak Cycling Hill Climb take place every year.
Old Faithful got its name for its frequent and pretty predictable eruptions, which have slightly varied over the years. According to the Yellowstone official website, the geyser was discovered by the Washburn Expedition in 1870, before Yellowstone was even labeled the world's first National Park. Old Faithful is only one of almost 500 geysers in Yellowstone but is one of the six that park rangers can predict with much certainty.
The geyser erupts at an average of every 74 minutes but the timing could range from anywhere between 60 to 110 minutes for about 1.5 to 5 minutes, the official website noted. Old Faithful attracts more than 4 million visitors each year, making it difficult to find a time when there aren't huge crowds surrounding the famous geyser. June through September tend to be peak tourist times at Yellowstone.
Completed in 1792, The Old Cape Henry Lighthouse was the first federally funded public works project of the newly independent United States, according to Preservation Virginia. It served as the sole guide for boats coming in and out of Chesapeake Bay until 1881 when a second lighthouse was built 350 feet away.
Once the second lighthouse was created, the Old Cape Henry Lighthouse remained in service as a daylight marker for ships. Today, it's open to the public on a seasonal basis.
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Then-and-Now Photos of US Landmarks That'll Have You Traveling Across the Country and Time
Most countries have famous landmarks that are deemed iconic by people from all over the world. Italy has the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Coliseum. China has the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. France has the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. The United States has. . . almost too many to count. Traveling around the world, or even cross-country, to see these landmarks isn't exactly ideal right now, due to COVID-19 restrictions. But these famous US landmark photos of some of its most iconic places at their inception and now will serve as a virtual road trip through time.
Some of these famous US landmarks look drastically different than they did when they were first built or discovered, while others appear the same on the surface but are surrounded by what seems like a whole new world. Seeing how these landmarks have transformed over the years (and watching America grow around them) from the comfort of your home may not be as fun as renting an RV and visiting them all, but it's the safest option now and will get you even more excited for your summer 2021 road trip.
Think of this as a virtual, time-traveling road trip. ??
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