National Parks That No Longer Exist

In 1872, the very first national park of the United States — Yellowstone — was created as “a public park…for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” By 1916, 35 parks had been opened to the public, and the National Park Service (NPS) was created to protect them. 

Today, 58 national parks and hundreds of national monuments and memorials managed by NPS are found in all 50 states, collectively comprising more than 84 million acres of land.

However, not all national parks that were created over the last 147 years have made it to modern day. Many have been downgraded to state parks, and a few have completely disappeared.

Learn the where, when and why about the parks, monuments and memorials that have slipped through the NPS system. 

The second national park in the United States after Yellowstone, Michigan’s Mackinac (pronounced Mack-in-aw) National Park consisted of more than 1,000 acres connected to Fort Mackinac, overlooking Lake Michigan.

It was a national park for just 20 years, from 1875 to 1895, before the state asked to take control and it became the first state park in Michigan.

Today, Mackinac Island State Park is a summertime hotspot and home to the beautiful Grand Hotel, which has been a mainstay and draw to the island since 1887. The National Historic Landmark, with its limited automobile access, daily tea service and nightly dancing to the sounds of an in-house orchestra, is the grand dame of the island, offering a step back in time.

Per the 1895 agreement, if Mackinac Island State Park is not properly maintained by the state, it will revert back to a national park.

One of the officially lost national monuments is Shoshone Cavern, originally designated in 1909 by President William Taft. Requiring a hike up Cedar Mountain to reach, the 2,500-foot cavern is encrusted with rock crystals. Considered too expensive to develop into a full-fledged park with infrastructure, the NPS dropped the monument and transferred all 210 acres of land in 1951 to the city of Cody, Wyoming, just 4 miles from the site.

Today, Shoshone Cavern is called Spirit Mountain Cave and is owned by the Bureau of Land Management. Permits must be obtained from the Bureau in Cody in order to visit the cave, and the mountain is no longer serviced as a park in any form.

General Grant National Park was named after Ulysses S. Grant, the great general who commanded the Army of the North during the Civil War and went on to become president of the United States. 

Designated in 1890, the park was actually created to preserve a 267-foot tree named for Grant. The third largest tree in the world, the giant sequoia was deemed the “Nation’s Christmas Tree” by President Calvin Coolidge in 1926 and declared a national shrine by President Dwight D. Eisenhower — the only living thing declared a shrine in the U.S.

The tree still stands, although today it is within General Grant Grove, a section of Kings Canyon National Park. General Grant National Park was expanded and renamed in 1940 to encompass more natural features. Along with neighboring Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon — with its mile-deep valley carved by a glacier, giant sequoias and 14,000-foot mountain peaks — is today one of the country’s most popular national parks.

Outside of Ketchikan, Alaska, the old Haida village of Kasaan was an unincorporated native village discovered by cruise passengers who were so taken with its totem poles and other native Alaskan ornaments and buildings that they spread the word. From the late 1800s through the early 1900s, it became a popular excursion stop for tourists. 

The people of the village abandoned Kasaan in 1903, and the U.S. government honored the cultural site as a national monument in 1916. However, the allure of the village faded as items were removed and there was nothing more to see. The national monument was transferred to the Forest Service in 1955.

The former village is these days part of the 16.7-acre Tongass National Forest stretching along Alaska’s panhandle, visited mainly by cruise-ship passengers on Inner Passage expeditions. Ranger services are available for deeper exploration.