The Ark Encounter

Rising from a Grant County hillside just off Interstate Seventy-Five in Williamstown, Kentucky stands a full-scale replica of Noah's Ark as described in the book of Genesis. Built by Answers in Genesis and opened in July two thousand sixteen, the wooden structure stretches five hundred ten feet long, eighty-five feet wide, and fifty-one feet tall, dimensions drawn from a literal reading of the Hebrew cubit. It cost roughly one hundred million dollars to construct and drew fierce debate: Kentucky awarded the project tourism tax incentives over objections that it was a religious attraction.

Supporters call it the largest timber-frame structure in the United States. Whatever one makes of the theology, the park has reported roughly one million visitors a year, making it one of Kentucky's most-visited tourist sites and an unlikely economic anchor for a rural county.