15 remarkable American places that are older than the United States

By Joe Yogerst, CNN

(CNN) — It may seem like an awful long time since the Founding Fathers took steps toward creating the United States by signing their names to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. And 250 years of nationhood is definitely something to celebrate.

Yet the history of the land — and the people who have resided on the vast expanse that became the United States — stretches back much further.

It includes colonial times and the pre-Columbian era with its mosaic of Native American cultures, plus the long-ago days when giant reptiles roamed the Earth and the first humans made their way onto the North American continent across the Bering Land Bridge.

One of those reptiles was “Sue” the Tyrannosaurus — one of the world’s largest, best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons. Dating back some 67 million years, Sue is now a permanent resident of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History.

And in southern New Mexico, fossilized footprints in a remote corner of White Sands National Park attest to human movement long before the colonists. Embedded in hardened gypsum soil, the footprints were surrounded by ancient grass seeds radiocarbon dated to between 21,130 and 22,860 years ago.

Both discoveries are part of the rich history behind the place now known as America.

Here are 13 more spots to explore that predate the founding of the nation:

Effigy Mounds, Iowa (circa 500 BC)

Beginning more than 2,500 years ago, Native peoples in what is now Iowa constructed elaborate earthen mounds along the Mississippi River. The Effigy Mounds are associated with about 20 Native American tribes.

Archaeologists have determined the mounds served ceremonial, spiritual and burial functions, though many details of their cultural significance remain a mystery. According to the National Park Service, which maintains the site where the mounds lay, the formations are believed by archaeologists to indicate preferred areas for hunting and other activities.

The majority are shaped like the animals — turtles, panthers, bear, birds and other creatures — that inhabited the region.

Hopewell Earthworks, Ohio (0-400)

The ancient people living in present-day Ohio were also into mound building. Located around 45 miles (72 km) south of Columbus, Hopewell Culture National Historical Park preserves dozens of large burial and ceremonial mounds in a region later settled by the Shawnee people.

Declared a World Heritage Site in 2023, the mounds are scattered across five different sites around Chillicothe, Ohio. According to UNESCO, some of the massive earthen squares, circles and octagons are executed with great precision and in alignment with sun and moon cycles.

Ritual objects discovered at the sites show that the Hopewell people traded with many other bygone societies between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.

Taos Pueblo, New Mexico (1000-1450)

One of the nation’s oldest continuously occupied sites, the iconic Taos Pueblo in northern New Mexico looks much the same today as when the Spanish explorers first arrived in the 1540s.

The two multi-story historic structures — known as Hlauuma (North House) and Hlaukwima (South House) in the Indigenous Tiwa language family — are still occupied by around 75 of the village’s 1,400 residents. Taos Pueblo hosts numerous special events, including a powwow and multi-tribal cultural festival on the second weekend of July.

Visitors can tour the traditional Adobe homes and guided tours are offered year-round.

Cahokia, Illinois (900-1300)

Rising above the Illinois prairie on the opposite side of the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Cahokia was once a thriving urban area and trade center with a population that may have rivaled many of the largest cities of Europe at its peak around 1250.

Now an Illinois state park, the site includes an excellent archaeological museum, the reconstruction of an ancient astronomical observatory called Woodhenge and scores of earthen mounds. With a footprint equivalent to the largest pyramids of ancient Egypt, Cahokia’s colossal Monks Mound is the largest pre-Columbian structure north of central Mexico.

Jamestown, Virginia (1607)

It may not have a famous rock to mark the spot, but Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in what would later become the United States — 13 years before the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Like their British brethren in Plymouth and the earlier lost colony on Roanoke Island in North Carolina, the original inhabitants of Jamestown struggled to survive at first. They endured a “Starving Time” of disease, failed crops and conflict with the Powhatan Native American tribe to become the seed from which the Virginia colony sprouted.

Jamestown also begat the legend of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas. And that’s just what it was — a legend rather than historical fact. A daughter of a Powhatan chieftain, Pocohontas was never in love with Smith and married a different Englishman (John Rolfe).

Harvard University, Massachusetts (1636)

For an institution that has educated so many American presidents, Nobel laureates and Declaration of Independence signers, Harvard University had a rather humble beginning.

Allotting a grand total of 400 British pounds for the task, the Great and General Court of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England declared that “a schoale or colledge” should be created for higher education.

Harvard’s first home was a modest house on an acre of land overlooking what was called “Cow-yard Row” — a rural area on the outskirts of Boston. The first graduating class in 1642 boasted just nine men. And Cow-yard Row eventually evolved into modern-day Harvard Yard.

Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau, Hawaii (circa 1650)

Located along the Kona Coast on the Island of Hawaii, this seaside temple complex served as a place of refuge for civilians during times of war.

It also housed defeated warriors seeking to avoid execution by the victors and anyone who broke the kapu, which means “forbidden” in Hawaiian, and refers to a set of sacred laws or taboos that endured until 1819.

Today’s national historical park features a reconstruction of the Hale o Keawe temple surrounded by a wooden stockade, volcano stone wall and carved wooden kiʻi figures of Hawaiian gods. It’s still an active place of worship.

Wall Street, New York (1653)

Erected by the Dutch colonial government, the original Wall Street was literally the path along the inside of a timber and earthen wall to protect New Amsterdam from potential attacks by rival colonial powers and other perceived threats.

It’s believed that slave labor carried out the construction of “Waal Straat.” What is known for sure is that shortly after the wall’s demolition, the intersection of Wall Street and Pearl Street served as New York City’s slave market from 1711 to 1762.

The original Federal Hall, completed in 1703, later served as New York’s city hall and the first US Capitol building after the Revolutionary War (1785 to 1788). Around that same time, securities traders began meeting under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street, the al fresco origin of the city’s stock exchange.

White Horse Tavern, Rhode Island (1673)

It may resemble a big red barn, but this culinary landmark in Newport, Rhode Island, is considered one of the nation’s oldest operating restaurants and one of the 10 oldest eating establishments on the entire planet.

Although the structure dates from 1652, it didn’t become a food and beverage outlet for another two decades. Once it was licensed to sell “all sorts of strong drink,” the White Horse Tavern became the meeting place of the colonial assembly, city council and criminal court.

New England clam chowder, beef Wellington, Scotch egg and bread pudding are some of the vintage dishes on the current menu at the White Horse.

Concord’s Colonial Inn, Massachusetts (1716)

One of the nation’s oldest hotels played a role in the American Revolution, The Colonial Inn in Concord, Massachusetts, first as a meeting place for rebellious colonists and then a target of the ill-fated Redcoat march from Boston.

Learning that Patriot forces had stored arms and provisions at the inn and other nearby structures, the British Army marched on Concord in April 1775. The two forces clashed at the North Bridge over the Concord River near the inn. The bridge, a short walk from the inn, is now located in Minute Man National Historical Park and is most famous as the location of the “shot heard ‘round the world,” which launched the Revolutionary War.

One of the inn’s most famous residents was author, philosopher and environmentalist Henry David Thoreau, who bunked there briefly in the 1830s while attending Harvard.

New Orleans’ French Quarter, Louisiana (1718)

Stepping ashore along the Mississippi River in 1718, French-Canadian explorer Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville founded the colony of La Nouvelle-Orléans as part of French efforts to bolster their presence in North America.

As governor of the nascent colony, Bienville had his engineer design a neat grid pattern of streets and blocks that characterized the Vieux Carré or what we know today as the French Quarter.

Among the neighborhood’s oldest surviving buildings is the Old Ursuline Convent, completed in 1752 and now the oldest Euro-American building in the Mississippi Valley. Today, the convent is a museum with exhibits on local history that’s sometimes used for wedding banquets and special events.

González–Álvarez House, Florida (circa 1720)

Located in St. Augustine, which is considered the oldest continuously occupied settlement in the US, the González–Álvarez House is Florida’s oldest surviving Spanish colonial residence. It was built by a soldier stationed at nearby Castillo de San Marcos who needed a place for his family to live. The upper story is covered in wooden clapboards while the ground floor features coquina limestone masonry walls and seashell tabby flooring.

The González–Álvarez is part of the Oldest House Museum Complex that also includes the Tovar House (built in the 1760s), a shady garden, a small history museum and a collection dedicated to local surfing history and culture.

The complex, operated by the St. Augustine Historical Society, is open to the public, houses a research library and hosts weddings.

Mission San Diego de Alcalá, California (1769)

The first of 21 Spanish religious missions in California, Mission San Diego de Alcalá was founded by Father Junípero Serra.

Rather than build it beside San Diego’s substantial bay, Serra chose a site around nine miles (14.5 km) up Mission Valley that offered fresh water, good soil and closer proximity to the Native Americans that he wanted to convert to Catholicism.

Abandoned during the Mexican period of California history, the mission was returned to the Catholic Church in 1862 via a decree from President Abraham Lincoln. Nowadays, San Diego’s landmark church has a very active parish and welcomes visitors to take self-guided tours.

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