Good forOutdoor lovers
Olympic National Park has no single entrance gate, no obvious hub — three completely different ecosystems and nearly a million acres, and you're on your own. The visitor center at 3002 Mount Angeles Road is where that changes. Rangers here can help build a realistic itinerary, the Wilderness Information Center handles backcountry permits, and exhibits cover the park's geology, wildlife, and ecosystems. The fee booth sits further up Hurricane Ridge Road; the visitor center itself costs nothing to enter.
Quick facts
- ·Lieutenant Joseph P. O'Neil launched his 1885 expedition into the Olympic interior from Port Angeles, then a remote settlement of roughly 40 residents (per NPS: 'a town of about forty inhabitants, a hotel, a sawmill, and two stores'), selected because of its nearness to the mountains, making the town the staging point for what NPS itself calls 'the first well documented exploration of the interior.' [Source: nps.gov/olym exploration-of-the-olympic-peninsula.htm]
- ·President Theodore Roosevelt set aside the Mount Olympus National Monument by proclamation on March 2, 1909 -- two days before leaving office -- with the proclamation citing protection of 'objects of unusual scientific interest, including numerous glaciers' and explicitly naming the Olympic Elk (Cervus roosevelti) as 'rapidly decreasing in numbers' as a reason for the reservation. The commonly cited acreage figure of roughly 600,000 acres and the later renaming of the species to 'Roosevelt elk' in Theodore Roosevelt's honor are accurate per corroborating sources (National Parks Conservation Association), though the acreage itself is not stated in the cited UCSB proclamation text. [Source: presidency.ucsb.edu proclamation-869, corroborated by npca.org]
- ·On October 1, 1937 (following arrival on the peninsula September 30), President Franklin D. Roosevelt toured the peninsula loop from Lake Crescent through Jefferson County to Lake Quinault, Aberdeen, and Hoquiam, and that evening at his Lake Crescent Lodge cabin, in front of assembled Park Service, Forest Service, and congressional officials, said: 'You are not allowing a large enough national park. I am thinking 50 years ahead.' [Source: historylink.org/File/5434, corroborated via National Parks Traveler]
- ·Nine months after FDR's 1937 visit, Congress passed and Roosevelt signed the bill creating Olympic National Park on June 29, 1938, redesignating and substantially enlarging the earlier national monument specifically to protect old-growth, low-elevation rainforest that the monument's boundaries had excluded -- corroborated by National Parks Traveler ('a wilderness preserve large enough to protect intact old-growth forest communities') and independently by historian Adam Sowards ('rain forests on the western edge' as the park advocates' goal). [Sources: nationalparkstraveler.org olympic-national-park-75-planetary-legacy, historylink.org/File/5434]
Memories
Be the first to leave a memory at Olympic National Park Visitor Center (Port Angeles).
Sign in to see memories your family has left at this place.
Editorial content compiled with AI assistance. Place details verified against public records.