Catoctin Furnace [MD]

Description

The Catoctin Iron Furnace operated from 1776 until 1903, and is located in Cunningham Falls State Park. The furnace site was once a booming industrial complex and community, and utilized the surrounding woodlands for fuel provision. Today, the state park encompasses both the old furnace and the surrounding landscape, and offers visitors an impressive variety of outdoor activities, from hiking to fishing. In addition, visitors can explore much of the Catoctin Furnace historic site.

The site offers visitor information and maps for the state park, along with a fairly detailed history of the furnace.

Arlington Historical Society, Knapp History Park, and Museum [TX]

Description

The Arlington Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Arlington, TX, and its people. To this end, the society operates the Knapp Historical Park and a local history museum within the 1914 Fielder House. Exhibits include barbershop and general store settings and a reconstruction of a steam engine. The Knapp Park contains two mid-19th-century cabins and a circa 1910 one-room schoolhouse.

The society offers tours of the museum and of the Knapp Historical Park. The park welcomes school tours.

Senftenburg-Brandon House Museum [TX]

Description

This house reflects many different patterns, materials, and colors in its construction, decoration, furnishings, and apparel collection. Partially built before the Civil War in Greek Revival Style (a second story was later added), changes made in the early 1900s are best described as Stick Style with Queen Anne features. Highlights include a tub stenciled in an 1890s pattern created by Candace Wheeler, a well-known designer of fabrics and wallpaper; a basement that houses a children's toy exhibit; a bird's egg collection; Renaissance Revival, Queen Anne, and Empire style furnishings; and hand-cut English-style wallpaper.

The house offers tours.

Historical Society and Museum of Ocean Grove and Centennial Cottage

Description

The Society's Museum has a collection of approximately 15,000 artifacts and pieces relative to the history of Ocean Grove, the Holiness Movement, camp meetings, Methodism, Monmouth County, and 19th-century life. The Museum is dedicated to preserving the history of Ocean Grove, recording the history of camp meetings, and to recording aspects of the Victorian Age. The 1879 Centennial Cottage serves as the Society's living history museum. Visitors to the cottage gain an understanding of life in a 19th-century camp meeting and seaside resort community.

The society offers tours, lectures, and research library access; the museum and cottage offer exhibits, tours, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Georgetown Loop Historic Mining and Railroad Park [CO]

Description

An engineering marvel originally built in 1884, the Georgetown Loop railroad fulfilled the hopes of Georgetown citizens to become a prosperous settlement connected to Denver and points east. In connecting Silver Plume and Georgetown, towns over 2 miles apart, the tracks scaled an elevation of 640 feet over mountainous terrain, requiring trestles, cuts, fills, loops, and curves totaling 4.5 miles. Today the Loop is once again a popular tourist attraction and an uncommon way to see the Clear Creek Valley. Along the route visitors may stop for guided tours of a historic silver mine. The park is located on 978 acres and includes an 1884 depot, the Morrison Interpretive Center, two 1860s mines, an 1871 mill building, four reconstructed mine buildings, a locomotive maintenance building, the 1874 Pohle House, and a new rolling stock shelter.

A second, individual website for the park can be found here.

The park offers a short film, train rides, tours, and exhibits.

Cedar Hill State Park and Penn Farm Agricultural History Center [TX]

Description

In 1854, John Anderson Penn settled in the rugged cedar-covered hills of southwest Dallas County—an area known as the Cedar Mountains. Today, remnants of the original Penn Farm survive intact in the confines of Cedar Hill State Park. Penn Farm Agricultural History Center pays tribute to the disappearing Texas family farm and affords a glimpse into agrarian history as farm machinery took the place of the horse and mule almost a century ago. It includes reconstructed and historic buildings from the mid-1800s through the mid-1900s.

The site offers tours and occasional recreational and educational events.

Old Sacramento State Historic Park [CA]

Description

Old Sacramento State Historic Park is a cluster of noteworthy, early Gold Rush commercial structures. Historic buildings include the 1849 Eagle Theater; the 1853 B. F. Hastings Building, once home to the California Supreme Court; and the 1855 Big Four Building. Old Sacramento's historical significance comes from it being the western terminus of the Pony Express postal system, the first transcontinental railroad, and the transcontinental telegraph. With over 50 historic buildings, Old Sacramento has more buildings of historic value in its 28 acres than any area of similar size in the West.

A second website for the park can be found here.

The park offers exhibits, tours, educational programs, living history programs and events, and other educational and recreational events.

Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site [MA]

Description

The Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site commemorates the life of Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), owner of the world's first full-scale landscape design office.

The site offers guided walking tours of Boston-area parks designed by Olmsted, outreach slide presentations, custom-designed educational programs in the "Emerald Necklace" parks, an educator's packet, and teachers' workshops.

The Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site is closed for construction. The site is expected to reopen in 2010.

Fort Richardson State Park, Historic Site, and Lost Creek Reservoir State Trailway [TX]

Description

Fort Richardson was established in November 1867 and was named in honor of General Israel B. Richardson, who died in the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War. The fort was the northernmost of a line of Federal Forts established after the Civil War. The soldiers arrived in Jacksboro in 1866 with orders to establish a fort at Buffalo Springs, 20 miles north of Jacksboro. Due to unhealthy conditions at Buffalo Springs and the constant Indian raids, the fort was abandoned. The soldiers returned to Jacksboro and eventually received orders to establish a fort on the South Bank of Lost Creek. Expeditions sent from Fort Richardson arrested Indians responsible for the Warren Wagon Train Massacre in 1871 and fought Comanches in Palo Duro Canyon. The Fort was abandoned in May 1878.

The site offers exhibits, tours, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).

Chisholm Trail Museum [OK]

Description

Once the greatest cow trail in the world, the Chisholm Trail served to get Texas cattle north to the Kansas railheads from which they were shipped to the other parts of the country. The main stem of the Chisholm Trail ran along what is now US 81. Cattle were first moved over the trail in 1867. In the ten years from 1867 to 1877, more than three million head of cattle passed through Oklahoma to Kansas. In Kingfisher County all three parts of the trail can be seen. The Chisholm Trail Museum is located directly on this famous trail.

The museum offers exhibits.