2011 Olympic Park America the Beautiful Quarter

Design Candidates for Olympic Park America the Beautiful Quarter

The 2011 Olympic Park America the Beautiful Quarter will be the eighth release of the new quarter series featuring National Parks and Sites of the United States. Olympic National Park was selected as the site to be depicted on Montana’s quarter.

Although the release date for the new quarter is still far off, design candidates have been prepared by the US Mint. These were reviewed by the Commission of Fine Arts and Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee for recommendation and comment. The CCAC favored design WA-01, which depicts a Roosevelt elk stepping into the Hoh River with Mount Olympus in the background. The CFA recommended the same design candidate. The final design selection will eventually be made by the Treasury Secretary.

The Washington America the Beautiful Quarter will be released third during the year 2011. Check back at this page for more information on the design selection and exact release date.

About Olympic National Park

The mountains of Washington State and their close proximity to the sea made them particularly interesting to early explorers looking for a passage across the American continent to the Pacific Ocean. Although many records exist claiming that seafaring men took expeditions up into the slopes of the Olympic Mountains in the mid-1800s, the first documented ascent took place in 1885 in an expedition led by Melbourne Watkinson.

After this, expedition parties became much more prepared for the treacherous journey up into the slopes of the Olympics, and many started documenting the passes and trails that they had taken so that others could follow in their footsteps. Two such explorers were Lieutenant Joseph O’Neil and Judge James Wickersham who met while exploring the range in the 1890’s.

When asked to report on what he had seen in the Olympics, O’Neil would write that he found them to be of high value, and highly recommended that they be incorporated into a National Park to protect their beauty, and the sanctity of the endangered species they contained, most notably the elk.

In 1897 the majority of the forested land of the peninsula was incorporated into the Olympic Forest Reserve by Congress. As soon as the national park service was officially formed, the area was officially designated a National Park in 1938.