Did You Know? Gatsby’s home in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" was inspired by Oheka Castle on Long Island. Charles Lindbergh launched the world’s first solo transatlantic flight from Roosevelt Field on Long Island (1927). The “horse head” scene in “The Godfather” (1972) was shot at the Falaise mansion
Did You Know? Lake Tahoe is North America’s largest alpine lake, with a surface area of 193 square miles. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation controls the top 6.1 feet of Lake Tahoe as a reservoir. Below 600 feet and during winter, the Lake Tahoe’s water remains a constant 39 F.
Did You Know? Winds and pounding surf have created the world’s largest freshwater dune system on Lake Michigan’s eastern shore. Michigan is America’s top producer of blueberries and tart cherries. A ghost town called Singapore sits under the dunes near Saugatuck. On about 10,000 acres, Michigan produces just under 21
Did You Know? Riders travel 176 feet per second (120 mph) on the Top Thrill Dragster, the fastest coaster in Cedar Point Amusement Park. It is thought the phrase “Holy Toledo!” was inspired by the cluster of churches on Toledo’s Collingwood Boulevard. Inventor Thomas Edison was born a few miles
Did You Know ... ? The 1964 Good Friday earthquake, the continent’s largest, destroyed 90% of Seward. More than 100,000 birds feed on the 4.5-mile sliver of land called Homer Spit. The Harding Icefield is larger than Rhode Island and is half a mile deep. The first major Alaska oil
Did You Know? The westernmost inhabited spot in the U.S. is on Kauai. Kauai has Hawaii’s only navigable rivers. “South Pacific” (1958) is among the more than 60 films and TV shows with scenes shot on Kauai. Only 10% of Kauai’s landscape is accessible by road. Nineteenth century Portuguese immigrants
Did You Know? Joshua trees don’t have growth rings, making it hard to calculate their ages. Prospectors developed about 300 mines within today’s park, most not worth much. But, the park’s Lost Horse Mine produced gold and silver worth about $5 million today, between 1894 and 1931. Early proponents of
Did You Know? The Diamond Lady docked at Bettendorf was America’s first casino riverboat in the modern era (1991). The U.S. Lock and Dam No. 19 at Keokuk was the world’s largest electricity generating plant when built (1913). The Council Bluffs name stems from a council held by Lewis and
Did You Know ... ? Tongass is America’s largest national forest at 16.8 million acres. Juneau is the only state capital in the U.S. with no road access. Admiralty Island claims North America’s highest concentration of nesting eagles. Malaspina Glacier is North America’s largest glacier. In another era, there were
Did You Know? There are more than 1,135 native plant species in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The national park’s 126-foot-high Mount Baldy moves inland at an average rate of four feet a year. It takes 1.6 times more energy to run on sand than on a hard surface. Lake
