Issued as the fourth of five releases in 2016 of the United States Mint’s America the Beautiful Five Ounce Silver Uncirculated Coin™ series will be the 2016 Theodore Roosevelt America the Beautiful Silver Uncirculated Coin. A design showcased on the reverse of the coin will be emblematic of Theodore Roosevelt National Historical Park located in the state of North Dakota.
Coins in the America the Beautiful Five Ounce Silver Uncirculated series are each struck from five ounces of .999 fine silver. In addition, they also feature the extremely large diameter of three inches.
These specifications are also used by the United States Mint for the related America the Beautiful Silver Bullion Coins™ Program. The similarities between the two series do not end at their specifications, however.
Both also made their debut with five 2010-dated strikes and feature five new releases annually. Both programs will also be completed in 2021 when the last of fifty-six coins have been issued in each series.
The same basic designs are also featured on coins of both series. These designs are actually originally created for a third US mint series – the America the Beautiful Quarters® Program.
As such, all America the Beautiful related coins have an obverse portrait of George Washington, the first President of the United States. This portrait was originally created by artist John Flanagan and has been featured, with minor variations, on circulating quarter dollars since 1932.
The reverse of the coins feature the designs emblematic of the selected sites of national interest, in this case Theodore Roosevelt National Park of North Dakota. This means this reverse design is featured on coins of three different US Mint series – this uncirculated coin series as well as the related bullion coins and circulating quarter dollars.
Congress authorized the production of the bullion coins and quarter dollars with the passage of the America’s Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Act of 2008 which became Public Law 110-456. The US Mint, in turn, created the silver uncirculated coin series as the numismatic version of the bullion coins under the authority granted the Secretary of the Treasury in 31 U.S.C. §5111(a) (3) to "prepare and distribute numismatic items."
Final design information for the reverse of the Theodore Roosevelt America the Beautiful Silver Uncirculated Coin should be released by the United States Mint in late 2015.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota
Theodore Roosevelt National Park is located in three different areas of the Badlands of North Dakota. It was first originally established as Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area in 1935 before becoming the Theodore Roosevelt National Wildlife Refuge on February 25, 1946.
The site then became the Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park on April 25, 1947 and was and is the only site to have ever been named a national memorial park. Its name was changed again in 1978 to just a national park.
The location is named Theodore Roosevelt after the twenty-sixth President of the United States who operated two ranches in the area.
The paragraph below is used by the National Park Service to describe the site:
"In Honor of a President"
"When Theodore Roosevelt came to Dakota Territory to hunt bison in 1883, he was a skinny, young, spectacled dude from New York. He could not have imagined how his adventure in this remote and unfamiliar place would forever alter the course of the nation. The rugged landscape and strenuous life that TR experienced would help shape a conservation policy that we still benefit from today."