Plymouth Rock: Oldest Tourist Attraction in the USA

Plymouth, Massachusetts

For a simple rock, Plymouth Rock has become a surprisingly controversial American icon, marking the spot where the Pilgrims first set foot on America in 1620. Maybe. The tale of the Rock wasn't reported until 1741, long after anyone who could dispute it was dead. And most New Englanders point out that no sailor would risk breaking a boat by parking it next to a rock.

What we know today as Plymouth Rock isn't even the whole rock; it was hacked off of a larger rock in 1774, dragged to various locations for a hundred years, then brought to this site on the water's edge in 1880. Someone then chiseled the date 1620 into it, at which point the Rock became official.

In 1921 a Greekish portico -- it looks like a scaled-down Lincoln Memorial -- was erected around it. The Rock -- known locally as "the great New England disappointment" -- lies in the center, a gray boulder in a caged-in sand pit. Twice a day it isn't even visible, being covered by high tide.

Some people hate the thing. In 1970 the American Indian Movement painted the Rock blood red, a vandalism that has been unimaginatively repeated many times. In 1995 another group of protestors jumped into the sand pit and buried the Rock.

Most visitors are content to walk around the pit on the portico's elevated platform. Not knowing what to do at an attraction that's just a rock, they throw pennies at it.