If you thought Fort Vancouver was a small-time national park site, think again.
The pioneer-era historical park on the Washington side of the Columbia River saw a record number of visitors in 2016, as a whopping 1,117,443 people stopped by – a 36 percent increase from 2015.
The park has only eclipsed a million visitors once before, in 2009 when 1,017,326 people came through, according to National Park Service records. Since then, annual visitation numbers have generally hovered between 700,000 and 800,000 people.
“I’m very excited for us,” Bob Cromwell, acting chief ranger, said. “I hope it just continues to build on the relevancy on national parks in general.”
The record numbers mean Fort Vancouver will remain, by and far, one of the most popular national park sites in the Pacific Northwest, ranking above full-fledged national parks Crater Lake (a record 756,344 visitors in 2016), Mount Rainier (755,648) and North Cascades (28,647). Only Olympic National Park eclipses it, with nearly 3.4 million visitors last year.
The site also does better than other national historical parks in the region, besting San Juan Island (316,122), Lewis and Clark (281,576) and Nez Perce (239,909).
Fort Vancouver is a popular spot for school groups around the region, but that factor doesn’t appear to have played into the record crowds last year. Just more than 9,000 group visitors came through in 2016, compared to 8,000 in 2015.
So what is it about Fort Vancouver?
Cromwell said the record crowds could have been related to last year’s National Park Service centennial, which encouraged Americans to visit national park sites around the country. He also noted that recreational visits include the increasing number of dog walkers and joggers who use the park’s sizable green space.
“It indicates to us the need to continue to have positive interactions with the public,” Cromwell said. “It’s a reaffirmation of the positiveness of our mission.”
–Jamie Hale | jhale@oregonian.com | @HaleJamesB
Crater Lake smashes visitation numbers in 2016
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