From Washington To You
Sunset at Rialto Beach on the Olympic coast, land added to the park in 1953.
Photograph by the National Park Service. The coast strip was added to the park in 1953. Public domain.

From Washington to you

Olympic National Park, 1938

Olympic National Park · Jefferson County · June 29, 1938

Franklin Roosevelt signed the park into law on June 29, 1938, after a 1937 visit, on ground first reserved in 1897 and later set aside for Roosevelt elk.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the act establishing Olympic National Park on June 29, 1938. NPS says the enabling language made it a public park for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. He had visited the Olympics in 1937.

The ground had an earlier paper trail. President Cleveland created a forest reserve in 1897. President Theodore Roosevelt created Mount Olympus National Monument in 1909 to protect Roosevelt elk. The Pacific coast strip was added to the park in 1953.

This card is the establishment story. Hurricane Ridge, the Hoh, and the coast are the places that came after. The sources below are the National Park Service history of the park.

  • Geography & Geology
  • History

Sources (2)

Last reviewed: September 20, 2026

Keep wandering

  • same park

    Blue Glacier

    Olympic's largest glacier has receded more than a third of a mile and lost more than 150 feet of ice thickness since 1919.

  • same park

    Hoh Rain Forest

    Pacific storms drop 12 to 14 feet of rain a year on one of the last primeval temperate rain forests in the lower 48.

  • same park

    Hurricane Ridge

    The most easily reached mountain area in Olympic National Park sits 17 miles south of Port Angeles, with ridgetop trails and winter snow sports when the road is open.

  • same park

    Lake Quinault

    Olympic's west-side valleys take more than 12 feet of rain a year, and Quinault's north shore is in the park while the south shore is National Forest.

  • same park

    Olympic Marmot

    The only marmot that lives nowhere else is a high-meadow squirrel of the Olympic Mountains, and Washington named it the official endemic mammal in 2009.

  • same park

    Olympic Mountain Goats

    Twelve mountain goats released near Lake Crescent in the 1920s were not native — and by 2018 the Olympic herd had grown to about 725.

  • same park

    Ozette Loop

    Three boardwalk and beach legs make a 9-mile triangle from Lake Ozette to Cape Alava and Sand Point.

  • same park

    Pacific Fisher Reintroduction

    On January 27, 2008, twelve fishers from British Columbia stepped into Olympic National Park — the first of 90 animals used to bring a housecat-sized weasel back to Washington.

  • same park

    Rialto Beach

    Drift logs, seastacks, and a 1.5-mile walk to Hole-in-the-Wall define this Olympic wilderness beach 75 miles from Port Angeles.

  • same park

    Sol Duc Falls

    NPS calls this the most picturesque waterfall in Olympic National Park — and it is only eight-tenths of a mile through old-growth forest.