Forest Capital Museum State Park [FL]

Description

The importance of forestry in Florida dates back to the early 1800s. The museum celebrates the heritage of Florida's forest industry. The heart of the museum is dedicated to longleaf pines and the 5,000 products manufactured from them. The 50-plus-year-old longleaf pines growing on the museum grounds provide a majestic canopy and create an enjoyable walking trail for visitors. Adjacent to the museum is an authentic 19th-century Cracker homestead, much like those scattered throughout Florida at the turn of the century.

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

Constitution Convention Museum State Park [FL]

Description

A boomtown founded in 1835, St. Joseph competed with Apalachicola as a trading port on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The original settlement lasted only nine years, but during its short life the city hosted Florida's first State Constitution Convention. The Museum commemorates the work of the 56 territorial delegates who drafted Florida's first constitution in 1838. Following four more constitution conventions, Florida was finally admitted to the Union in 1845 as the 27th state. Visitors can take a self-guided tour through displays and exhibits of 19th-century life in St. Joseph. Life-size, audio-animated mannequins in the replicated convention hall demonstrate the debate and process of drafting a state constitution.

The park offers exhibits and tours.

Wilder Ranch State Park [CA]

Description

The park has 34 miles of hiking, biking, and equestrian rails winding through coastal terraces and valleys. Several restored buildings once belonging to the Wilder family are preserved. The park has tours and living history demonstrations to help visitors explore the history of early ranchers and farmers along the Central Coast. The site was originally the main rancho supplying Santa Cruz Mission. It later became a successful and innovative dairy ranch. Surrounding grounds include Victorian homes, gardens, and historic adobe.

The park offers tours; exhibits; demonstrations; and occasional recreational and educational events, including living history events.

Plumas-Eureka State Park [CA]

Description

Plumas-Eureka State Park provides visitors with a glimpse into a fascinating period of California history, as well as opportunities for quiet recreation in a high Sierra mountain setting. The focal point of the park is the museum building and historic area surrounding it. Originally constructed as the miner's bunkhouse, the museum now serves as a visitor center. Inside, displays depict the natural and cultural history of the park. Outside and across the street from the museum is the historic mining area, where the Mohawk Stamp Mill, Bushman five-stamp mill, stable, mine office, Moriarity House (historic miner’s residence), and the blacksmith shop depict life in gold rush-era California.

The park offers exhibits, tours, and demonstrations.

Donner Memorial State Park and Emigrant Trail Museum [CA]

Description

Located in the Sierra Nevada, Donner Memorial State Park offers visitors opportunities for camping, picnicking, boating, fishing, water-skiing, and hiking. Visitors are welcome year-round at the Emigrant Trail Museum and at the Pioneer Monument, built to commemorate those who emigrated to California from the east in the mid-1800s. Included in the museum are displays and information about one of the earliest pioneer wagon trains, the Donner Party, forced by circumstances to camp at the east end of Donner Lake in the winter of 1846—47, resulting in human suffering and loss of life.

The park offers exhibits, tours, and educational and recreational events.

California State Mining and Mineral Museum

Description

There is still gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, at the California State Mining and Mineral Museum, in historic Mariposa. This is where explorers John C. Fremont and Kit Carson found the rich Mariposa Vein and opened the first mill to crush ore and extract gold in California. Visitors can discover for themselves California's mineral wealth, colorful history, and geologic diversity as they view the official mineral collection of the state of California. The collection, which began in 1880, contains over 13,000 objects including mining artifacts, rare specimens of crystalline gold in its many forms, as well as beautiful gem and mineral specimens from California and around the world. The museum displays the Fricot "Nugget," a rare specimen of crystallized gold discovered in the American River in 1864. This 13.8-pound specimen is the largest remaining intact mass of crystalline gold from 19th-century California, when these finds were more common but usually were simply melted down. Visitors can also take a trip back in time as they walk through a mine tunnel and see how gold was mined in the mid-1800s, when California was a wilderness, being transformed by rapid development. The museum's assay office and working scale model of a stamp mill will help visitors discover how gold was found and extracted from the rocks.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, educational programs, and educational and recreational events.

Bothe-Napa Valley State Park [CA]

Description

Located in the heart of the Napa Valley wine country, the Park offers camping, picnicking, swimming, and hiking trails that go through stands of coastal redwoods as well as forests of Douglas-fir, tanoak, and madrone. Next to the park's visitor center is the Native American Garden which displays some of the plants important to the first people of this area. Today, many of the same plants are used by the Wappo people. A guide for the garden is available by mail or in the visitor center to broaden one's understanding of the first people. Near the day use/picnic area is the Pioneer Cemetery, resting-place of some of the original settlers of the Napa Valley. The cemetery is currently under restoration to return it to its original, mid-1800s appearance.

The site offers exhibits and occasional recreational and educational programs.

Año Nuevo State Park [CA]

Description

The purpose of Año Nuevo State Park is to preserve and protect a substantial area on the western slope of the central Coast Range inland from Año Nuevo Point. Cultural resources include the remnants of a prehistoric Native American village site and a number of structures from the 19th-century Cascade Ranch.

The park offers exhibits and tours.

Anderson Marsh State Historic Park [CA]

Description

Anderson Marsh State Historic Park contains oak woodlands, grass-covered hills, and tule marsh. One of the largest groups of people in prehistoric California, the Southeastern Pomo, knew this land as home. Today, descendants of those people still live nearby. Anderson Marsh's archaeological sites hold clues to the lives of the Pomo. Some sites are over 10,000 years old, making them among the oldest in California. Visitors can also explore the past at the historic Anderson Ranch, with its 19th-century structures.

The parks offers exhibits, tours, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Cole Digges House [VA]

Description

Cole Digges, a Revolutionary War hero, built his house in Richmond in 1805. Renovated in 1995, the building now houses the statewide offices of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (AVPA), including a library and archives which are open by appointment.

The house offers research library access by appointment.