Puerto Rico America the Beautiful Quarter

The Puerto Rico America the Beautiful Quarter will begin the third year of the series featuring National Parks and Sites, and is scheduled for release in early 2012. It will also be the first quarter to feature a site in one of the United States Territories. The scope of the program was written to include the territories and the District of Columbia.

The Puerto Rico Quarter will feature El Yunque National Forest. This will be depicted on the reverse design of the coin, paired with a portrait of George Washington presented on the obverse. Typically, the US Mint will release design candidates the year before issue, which are reviewed by the Secretary of the Interior, the chief executive of the host jurisdiction, the CFA, and the CCAC.

About El Yunque National Forest

Some think that National parks and forests only exist inside the continental United States, but this certainly is not true. Puerto Rico was a country that was originally controlled by Spain in the days of early exploration to the New World. In 1876, King Alfonso of Spain decreed that the large and lustrous rain forest located on the slopes of the Sierra de Luquillo Mountains in Puerto Rico would be set aside as a natural reserve. This makes the El Yunque National Forest one of the oldest known natural reserves in the Western Hemisphere.

When Puerto Rico became an unincorporated territory of the United States, this natural reserve became one of the only rain forest habitats to come under the jurisdiction of the United States National Forest System. In June of 1935, the general land office decided that the Luquillo Forest Reserve, as it was then known, would become the Caribbean National Forest.

This marvelous area covers almost seventy thousand square miles of rain forest, and is home to over two hundred of the most unique species of plants and trees. Some of the plant and animal life that is found in the National Forest is not found anywhere else in the entire world. In April of 2007, President George W. Bush officially changed the name to the El Yunque National Forest to better reflect the unique heritage of the Puerto Rican people.