Released as the third of five 2020-dated strikes of the US Mint’s America the Beautiful Quarters® Program will be the Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve Quarter. It honors the site in the US Virgin Islands and also marks the fifty-third release of the program which debuted in 2010.

The program is scheduled to end in 2021, the year after the Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve Quarter is released. When the program is completed, a total of fifty-six coins will have been issued as part of it starting with the Hot Springs National Park Quarter in 2010.

Coins in the series were issued in the order upon which the selected sites came under the direct control of the federal government.

Preceding the release of the Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve Quarter in 2020 will be the National Park of American Samoa Quarter and the Weir Farm National Historical Park Quarter. Following it will be the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park Quarter and the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve Quarter.

Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve information

The Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve of the US Virgin Islands was established on February 24, 1992 by an Act of the US Congress. It consists of 945.77 acres important not only for historic reasons, but also for environmental concerns.

Historically, the site is important because it marks the only known location where members of the Columbus expedition set foot on what is now United States territory. It also preserves several sites linking it to the colonial-era of the region.

Also found within the park and preserve are upland watersheds, mangrove forests and other environments that support threatened and endangered species.