1. The United States of America By Mrs. Oliver Fascinating Landmarks

2. Golden Gate Bridge The Golden Gate bridge spans the San Francisco Bay for 1.2 miles and opened for use in 1937. The bridge took 4 years to complete at a cost of $35 million dollars. 11 men lost their lives while working on the bridge. The two towers on the bridge are 746 feet above the water. There are about 80,000 miles of cable (that length would circle the equator 3 times) and the bridge has sustained winds of up to 100 mph. When winds are high the mid span swing factor is 27 feet.

3. Mt. McKinley Mount McKinley towers 23,320 feet high in Denali National Park in Alaska. This peak is the tallest point in North America. It was formerly called Denali by the Native Alaskans. Denali is a Native American word meaning “The High One”. The mountain was renamed McKinley in honor of William McKinley the first climber to reach its summit in 1914. One half of the mountain is covered in snow and ice year round and this run off feeds many glaciers.

4. Mt. Rushmore Mt. Rushmore is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt are carved into this approximately 1,600 foot high mountain. Each face is about 60 feet high and was carved by men hanging from rope platforms off the top of the mountain. The carving was begun in 1927 and took 14 years to complete at the cost of 1 million dollars. Designs for this mountain were created by the artist Lincoln Borglum. Mt. Rushmore is now a National Park.

5. The Mississippi River The Mississippi River is 2,348 miles long, it is the longest river in North America and travels through 10 different states. The river originates in Lake Itasca in the Minnisota North Woods and empties into the Gulf of Mexico in Louisanna. The river empties at the rate of 2.3 million cubic feet of water per second. In the Algonquian language Mississippi means “Father of Waters”. The deepest point of the Mississippi is deeper than 200 feet, the shallowest is less than 3 feet.