Finger Lakes

Proposed National ParkNew York
A Finger Lake stretching between wooded hillsides and farmland
All proposed National ParksFinger LakesNo active campaign
Location
New York
Current protection
Watkins Glen, Taughannock Falls, Robert H. Treman
Status
National heritage area bill in Congress
Tier
Tier 1 · National Park
Undiscovered America
Featured in the film and the book

Why should it be a National Park?

The Finger Lakes region is a geographically distinct landscape in central New York state made up of 11 long, narrow lakes and the hills between them. Around two million-years-ago an ice sheet traveled south from what is now Canada and altered the terrain. Glaciers carved tremendous gorges into the ground before the ice sheet eventually receded. These gorges filled with water and became known as the Finger Lakes. At the northern end of the lakes is a relatively flat environment between Rochester and Syracuse. In the south, the Finger Lakes overlap the northern end of the Allegheny Plateau. The lakes and mountainous topography result in an array of canyons, river gorges, and waterfalls.

Today, the Finger Lakes are a popular summer escape, but there is no overarching park structure to unify the natural setting and the historical elements. The intersecting trails, gorges, ravines, waterfalls, woodlands, grasslands, swamps, wildlife, and historical events are more than deserving of a National Park that assembles each of these features into one cohesive protected area.

The history of National Park Campaigns

No National Park has ever been proposed for the Finger Lakes; the region's federal footprint is a small national forest (assembled from Depression-era farm buyouts) and a national heritage area campaign that is now on its fifth Congress.

Distinct National Park attempts
0
Other designation attempts
national forest 1982/85; NHA bills 2015, 2017, 2019, 2024, 2025 (5 Congresses)

Sources

  • congress.gov S. 1288 / H.R. 2697 (119th)
  • NPS Finger Lakes NHA Feasibility Study (2023, parkplanning.nps.gov/FingerLakes)
  • Forest Service Museum, "Green Mountain & Finger Lakes National Forests Rangers" (Hector history)
  • Green Mountain–Finger Lakes NF Land Management Plan (2006)
Know of a campaign? Tell us
  1. 1863 / 1906

    Watkins Glen opens as a private resort; becomes a state park (1906); 1920 Robert H. Treman SP; 1924 Buttermilk Falls SP; 1925 Taughannock Falls SP and Fillmore Glen SP.

  2. 1933–38

    Federal government buys exhausted farmland between Seneca and Cayuga lakes under the Federal Emergency Relief Act; managed as the Hector Land Use Area by the Soil Conservation Service. (Forest Service Museum; traveleidoscope)

  3. 1938

    Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge.

  4. 1954

    Administration transferred to the U.S. Forest Service (Hector Ranger District, under Green Mountain NF); 1982 — added to the National Forest System; 1985 — Congress renames it the Finger Lakes National Forest (16,259 acres), New York's only national forest. (Wikipedia; FS Museum)

  5. 1980

    Women's Rights NHP; 2017 — Harriet Tubman NHP.

  6. 2015, 2017

    Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's Finger Lakes National Heritage Area feasibility bills; 2019 — study directed by the Dingell Act (P.L. 116-9); 2023 — NPS finds the region eligible; 2024 — S. 2743 (118th).

  7. April 3, 2025

    S. 1288, Finger Lakes National Heritage Area Act (119th Cong.), and April 7, 2025 — H.R. 2697; Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee action recorded June 10, 2026. (govinfo BILLSTATUS-119s1288)