Coastal Prominences of the United States Quiz

Answer: Cape Mendocino

Cape Mendocino isn't far from where I live. As with many of the prominences in this quiz, it has an island (Sugarloaf) just off-shore and was home to a lighthouse. There is a plaque nearby stating it is the westernmost point of the lower 48 states, a mistaken claim as shown below.

Answer: Cape Blanco

Just 150 miles up the coast we have already surpassed Cape Mendocino. Cape Blanco is 124 degrees, 34 minutes, 23 seconds west longitude to Cape Mendocino's 124, 24, 21, a distance at this latitude of about nine miles. Cape Blanco also has a lighthouse.

Answer: Cape Flattery

Now we come to the westernmost point of the lower 48. Cape Flattery lies at 124 degrees, 44 minutes, 11 seconds west longitude. Cape Alava falls less than a mile short at 124, 43, 58, putting it also past Capes Mendocino and Blanco. Cape Flattery has Tatoosh Island offshore to further bolster its claim and Tatoosh Island has one of Washington's over 25 lighthouses, this one first lit in 1857.

Answer: Attu Island

Attu Island is so far west, its official longitude is 173 degrees EAST, putting it in the Eastern Hemisphere; if it were not for a big detour of the International Date Line, it would be tomorrow there. It was occupied for almost a year by the Japanese in World War Two.
Point Barrow has its own claim to fame as the northernmost point in the United States.

Answer: Key West

I think Key "West" is a great name for the southernmost point. Until the admission of Hawaii to the Union, it was the southernmost point in the United States, just a little north of the Tropic of Cancer.

Answer: Cape Hatteras

Cape Hatteras is the easternmost point on almost a thousand miles of the eastern seaboard. It boasts the tallest lighthouse in the nation at 208 feet and striped like a barber pole.

Answer: Montauk Point

Montauk Point beats out Shagwong Point by only a mile or two for this distinction. They both lie at the tip of Long Island to the south of Block Island Sound. Its lighthouse is the oldest in New York at over 200 years.

Answer: Nauset Light Beach

Nauset Light Beach is the easternmost point on Cape Cod. There have been several lighthouses here, with Nauset Light established in 1836 and moved 336 feet inland in 1996. It was also the terminus of a Transatlantic Telegraph Cable begun in 1879.

Answer: Quoddy Head

Quoddy Head is indeed the furthest east you can go in the U.S. and is nearly 6000 miles from Attu Island. It is also known as West Quoddy Head. It has a lighthouse (of course), the first one finished in 1808. The island just off Quoddy Head, Campobello, in New Brunswick, Canada is the site of Franklin Roosevelt's vacation home.

The area is on the Bay of Fundy, famous for its huge tides.

Answer: Palisades Park

Palisades Park is on the Hudson River just where New Jersey meets New York, near the town of Norwood in Bergen County. It isn't really a prominence into an ocean, but it is the easternmost point of the state.
Most of the "most" places in this quiz are isolated and hard to get to, but nearly 20 million people are within an hour's drive of Palisades Park.
I hope you enjoyed this excursion.