AMERICA’S NATIONAL Trust for Historic Preservation has named a dozen distinctive destinations designed to appeal to tourists with a taste for historic places. Here are their suggestions for holiday spots:
• Swedish and Finnish settlers first populated Delaware in 1638. Twenty years later, the British drove out the Dutch and named the town after the county seat of East Sussex. Delaware was the first of the 13 colonies to ratify the Constitution, becoming the first US state.
• Kaua’i, the first Hawaiian Island sighted by Captain James Cook, boasts a canyon almost as deep as the Grand Canyon, a Russian fort and a huge irrigation ditch the Polynesians dug in the 1200s.
• Arrow Rock, Missouri, is on a hill high above the Missouri River, with grand views and well-preserved houses from the early 1800s, when the Lewis and Clark expedition travelled west on the river to explore the far reaches of the newly purchased Louisiana territory.
• Bartlesville, Oklahoma, which was enriched by an early oil strike, boasts the only skyscraper designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
• Bowling Green, Kentucky, hosts notable Civil War sites and an old cavern where outlaws and soldiers hid.
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the US beer-making capital, is home to a famous art museum and zoo, and has a deep German tradition.
• Monterey, California, once the Spanish and Mexican capital of the region, is the site of a huge aquarium and the setting for John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row
• Palm Springs, California, is an oasis known for its famous residents, climate and jet-set lifestyle.
• Philipsburg, Montana, bestows a mining tradition in a beautiful landscape and has the state’s oldest operating school, jail and opera house.
• Prescott, Arizona, was born overnight when gold was discovered, celebrating the Wild West and Native Americans in its museums.
• Saranac Lake, New York, has been a health resort since the early 1800s, set amid lakes, mountains and evergreen forests.
• West Chester, Pennsylvania, is an old Quaker village with brick sidewalks and period architecture.
