Portal:Erie/Selected article/2
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Presque Isle State Park (pronounced IPA: /ˌprɛskˈʔaɪl/) is a 3,200 acre (13 km²) state park in Pennsylvania on an arching sandy peninsula that juts out into Lake Erie, 4 miles (6 km) west of the city of Erie, in Millcreek Township, Erie County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The peninsula sweeps eastward for more than 13 miles (21 km), surrounding Presque Isle Bay along the park's southern coast. Presque Isle has a monument to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, a naval squadron leader during the War of 1812, near the eastern end of the peninsula, who strategically used the peninsula’s bay as a pier and a place to construct six out of nine of the ships in his fleet for the Battle of Lake Erie.
The park, operated by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, hosts over 4 million visitors per year, the most of any Pennsylvania state park. Popular recreational activities include swimming, hiking, biking, in-line skating and bird watching. The park is on Pennsylvania Route 832, also known as Peninsula Drive. Presque Isle State Park is one of twenty-one chosen by the Pennsylvania Bureau of Parks for its "Twenty Must-See Pennsylvania State Parks" list.