Peninsula Daily News news services
WASHINGTON — Quarters used to buy souvenirs in Olympic National Park in 2011 could feature the park itself.
The U.S. Mint announced Wednesday that Olympic will among the national sites honored in its new “America the Beautiful” 56-coin series of quarters.
Beginning in 2010, a national park, national forest, wildlife refuge or other federal site in each state and territory will be featured on the back side of the quarters (the front will feature a portrait of George Washington).
The coins will be issued in the order Congress approved the national sites and will end with Alabama’s Tuskegee Airmen memorial in early 2021.
Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, which was set aside for preservation by the federal government in 1832, will be honored on the first of the special quarters.
Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming will be featured second.
Olympic National Park on the eighth will be honored in 2011.
While Yellowstone is considered the first national park, the federal government set aside Hot Springs four decades earlier to preserve its thermal waters for public benefit, so it will be featured first.
New coins will be released about every 10 weeks beginning in early 2010.
Following the Yellowstone quarter in 2010 will be California’s Yosemite National Park, Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park and Oregon’s Mount Hood National Forest.
Olympic National Park would be third of five quarters issued in 2011.
It will be issued after quarters honoring Gettysburg (Pa.) National Military Park and Glacier National Park in Montana.
The other two quarters in 2011 following Olympic will honor the Vicksburg (Miss.) National Military Park and Chickasaw (Okla.) National Recreation Area.
But a specific release schedule hasn’t been determined — nor have designs been unveiled, U.S. Mint spokeswoman Carolyn Fields said Wednesday.
But Mint officials said South Dakota’s coin will feature Mount Rushmore, which also was depicted on the back of quarters created as part of the popular 50-state series issued from 1999-2008.
The 50-state quarter program made collectors of people who previously had never given numismatics a thought.
U.S. Mint Director Ed Moy has said 147 million people collected state quarters ranging from Delaware in 1999 to Hawaii in 2008.