Ultimate Statesmen

This was great! Took me a minute to know where to go once I noticed the state abbreviations at the ends of the big answers. I think CT/CUT being physically close together clued me in to the connection. Thanks for the puzzle!

This was fun! I had a hunch what the answer was early on, but just couldn't see how to get there. Funny what happens when you give it a couple hours and then come back!

Had to submit multiple permutations of the same answer before it got accepted! Very nice

Nice one, Chris! Went down a couple of bunny holes before finding the mechanism. Just the right kind of hard for a Monday!

So I tired MOUNT RUSHMORE, MT RUSHMORE and (fumble fingers) RUSHNORE before I finally got it right. You threw me for a bit of a loop when the U was out of sequence, but the letters were all there and that park was of course the perfect answer. I saw the "ultimate (end) states" pretty quick, but deciding what to do with them was the trick.; their first letters spelled nothing, their last letters spelled nothing, they have either more than one or no national parks to take letters from...what to do, what to do. Then I saw NEE and ASK and MOE etc. and said, "Why that sly little bourbon quaffer!" Nice one Chris, classic mechanism, enjoyed it immensely.

Well Done!

Very nice puzzle Chris! But wow did I try to make that hard. First I wrote out all the state names. Looked at their last letters. Tried to see if there was one famous National Park in each (some had none, some had multiple). Looked up capital cities. Looked up governors. Checked to see if there was one obvious founder for each state. FINALLY thought to look back at the grid.

I was looking for the endings of the names of the guys (statesmen) in the picture, but in my dotage, I've forgotten who was in the Virginia Assembly. Fortunately, Plan B was more successful.

Whoa! It's only after you wander through the states and come up with the final answer that you see why the title says "statesmen"!

At one point, while out walking the dog, I wondered if we were supposed to find a 2-word national park that followed the same pattern. Fortunately, no.

I saw the letters hiding in some of the 3LW between state abbreviations long before I saw the state abbreviations in the ultimate positions. :D DRE DE R, ASK AK S, MMA MA M, NEE NE E. But RSME didn't mean anything so I went a different direction, only to circle back around to my initial idea.

That was a nice piece of construction; well-done!

Thanks for the puzzle! Very enjoyable

I had Mount Rushmore just from the title, but couldn't see how to get it. Even after getting all the states, it took me a while to see the 3 letter words they went with. Very nice meta. Thanks, Chris!

I think I told myself twice "no, he can't be doing that". Ah, but he was.

If I'm running late, I'll have to RUSHMORE. Well done!

Submitted SD and South Dakota before the Mount Rushmore success. I’m sure many others did as well.

Once I saw all the state abbreviations at the ends of the words (oh…. ULTIMATE!) then I spent some time figuring out what to do with those. Is there exactly one national park in each state? (no). Does each have a man governor? Does each have exactly one male senator? Did exactly one president come from each? (no, no, and no). Then looked back and noticed CUT and DRE right there near CT and DE. One hiccup was I circled the R in MAR for the MA one. Did others do that? (That unneeded “MA+” 3-letter could have been changed to MUR by making SWAIN be STAIN, and WRATH be TRUTH, no?). Anyhoo… great challenge and fun solve!

I was looking for the location ( ie the state it was located in???) But South Dakato wasn’t right so I tried Mt Rushmore, it was correct. Very well done, Chris!

Nice puzzle...thanks Chris!

For a moment, I wondered if there was another layer. Roosevelt was the ultimate president on Rushmore, so the answer must be the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, right? But that seemed pretty flimsy compared to how solid the rest was. Nice puzzle!

Missed the “ultimate” = “end”, so I also had PA and GA to deal with as well, but RUSHMORE was pretty clear as the letters emerged. Really enjoyed this challenge!

Went through just about all that others have mentioned -- just took my time about doing so. :-)

This was terrific, Chris! Downright National Treasure! Thanks!

Finally got it! Nice job, Chris! I was doing the same thing rjy was doing with PA and GA. Gotta pay closer attention to the instructions next time!

Kicking myself that I needed the hints! I went through pretty much everything that @KayW mentioned, except for finding the real path on my own. Also I was 100% sure the answer would be a state, so I submitted South Dakota first, and still think that should have been accepted :-)

Like to state that solving gave a rush more exhilarating than most, even with the nudges. Thanks Chris!

Fun puzzle! I haven't solved too many meta-puzzles so I didn't figure it out and had to piece together how to get to the answer from all of your comments, which was helpful. I do have a quibble, though--when I was looking for hints in the puzzle, I was looking for things like Yosemite Valley, Yellowstone, maybe Glacier or Acadia....actual national parks. Mt Rushmore, while a national memorial run by the National Park Service, is not a national park. Sure, sometimes people use this term to refer to anything under the purview of NPS, but I found the hint "well-known national park" to be pretty misleading. Would you clue the Lincoln Memorial a "well-known national park"? It has the same designation.