Marsh Billings Rockefeller National Historic Park, Vermont

The Marsh Billings Rockefeller Historic Site is a complicated place. Located in the town of Woodstock, perhaps Vermont's fanciest town, it is the state's first and only National Park. It consists of a few hundred acres covering Mount Tom, and the farm and houses of an estate donated to the government in 1992 by its last owners, Mary and Laurance Rockefeller. The estate is significant especially for its history of conservationally inclined land use practices, and former owners. The Park Service operates a visitor center at the site that describes the history of American conservation, from John Wesley Powell to John Muir, and its New England roots in things like the Appalachian Mountain Club, and the three phases of residents of this place: the early conservationist writer George Perkins Marsh (author of "Man and Nature," published in 1864); the lawyer, railroad president, businessman-turned conservationist Frederick Billings; and the Rockefellers, whose many good works include giving this place to the people.