Battle of Athens State Historic Site interprets the northernmost Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi River. Some of the land and buildings included in the site were part of the once-thriving town of Athens. Located on the Des Moines River, 19th-century Athens boasted about 50 businesses before the Civil War, including a large mill that produced flour, cornmeal, lumber, cotton, and woolen goods. A large brick hotel, the St. Louis Hotel, was one of many other buildings on the Athens waterfront. Today, only a few structures remain. The historic site administers the remaining buildings in the town of Athens, including the Thome-Benning House, which was pierced by a cannonball during the battle. Exhibits and tours interpret the battle and the history of the town.

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

One of America's highest ranked military officers, Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing, spent most of his childhood years in the small town of Laclede. Pershing was born Sept. 13, 1860, and moved into the Gothic nine-room house in Laclede with his family at age six. He taught at Prairie Mound School, and in 1886, graduated from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, thus beginning his military career. Between 1886 and his military retirement in 1924, Pershing fought his way up through the military ranks. In 1917, Pershing was sent to France as Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I and two years later was named General of the Armies of the United States by a special act of Congress. Today, visitors can tour Gen. Pershing's boyhood home. A statue of "Black Jack" stands next to the home surrounded by granite tablets naming war veterans. Inside Prairie Mound School, an exhibit gallery allows visitors to walk through the many doorways Gen. Pershing passed through during his childhood life, military career, and numerous accomplishments.

The site offers a short film, exhibits, and tours.

William Henry Harrison built Fort Meigs on the Maumee River in 1813 to protect northwest Ohio and Indiana from British invasion. Today's reconstruction is one of the largest log forts in America. British and Canadian troops, assisted by Indians under Tecumseh, besieged the fort twice. The 10-acre log enclosure with 7 blockhouses and 5 emplacements presented a formidable defense. The first assault was in May of 1813 and the second was in July. Both failed and the British retreated after the second. The Museum and Education Center has 3,000 square feet of exhibits and artifacts—including soldiers' letters and diaries, weapons, maps, and uniforms—that describe Fort Meigs's role during the War of 1812.

A second website covering the site can be found here.

The site offers exhibits; tours; educational programs; workshops and classes; and recreational and educational events, including living history events.

This large brick house is a memorial to the "Fighting McCooks," a nickname given to the family because of their military service during the Civil War. Daniel McCook built this home and his family lived here until 1853. During the Civil War, Daniel's family contributed nine soldiers to the Union cause including 5 generals. Brother John's family contributed 5 officers. Four of Daniel's family including Daniel himself died in the conflict. The restored house has several period rooms and a large room of exhibits on the McCook family and the Civil War.

The house offers exhibits and tours.

Indian Mill, built in 1861, is the nation's first educational museum of milling in its original structure. The restored three-story structure replaces the original one-story building that the U. S. government built in 1820 to reward the loyalty of local Wyandot Indians during the War of 1812. Many exhibits are placed around the original mill machinery. The restored miller's office displays the history of milling from prehistoric times to the present.

The mill offers exhibits and tours.

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is operated as an historical and cultural site, focusing on Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The site also includes a look into the family, friends, and colleagues of the Beecher-Stowe family; Lane Seminary; and the abolitionist, women's rights, and Underground Railroad movements in which these historical figures participated in the 1830s to 1860s, as well as African-American history related to these movements. The house was home to Harriet Beecher Stowe prior to her marriage and to her father, Rev. Lyman Beecher, and his large family, a prolific group of religious leaders, educators, writers, and antislavery and women's rights advocates. The Beecher family includes Harriet's sister, Catherine Beecher, an early female educator and writer who helped found numerous high schools and colleges for women; brother Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, a leader of the women's suffrage movement and considered by some to be the most eloquent minister of his time; General James Beecher, a Civil War general who commanded the first African-American troops in the Union Army recruited from the South; and sister Isabella Beecher Hooker, a women's rights advocate. The Beechers lived in Cincinnati for nearly 20 years, from 1832 to the early 1850s, before returning East.

The house offers exhibits, tours, and occasional recreational and educational programs and events.

The Moravian church founded Schoenbrunn ("beautiful spring") in 1772 as a mission to the Delaware Indians. The settlement grew to include sixty dwellings and more than 300 inhabitants who drew up Ohio's first civil code and built its first Christian church and schoolhouse. Problems associated with the American Revolution prompted Schoenbrunn's closing in 1777. Schoenbrunn's story features a rare meeting of Indian and European cultures and a fascinating perspective on the American Revolution. Today the reconstructed village includes 17 log buildings, gardens, the original mission cemetery, and a museum and visitor center.

The village offers a short film, exhibits, and tours.

It was once called "the largest and best arranged dwelling house west of St. Louis." Today Oliver Anderson's mansion is best known for the three bloody days in 1861 when it was a fiercely contested prize in a Civil War battle between the Union army and the Missouri State Guard. Today, it is restored and furnished in the mid-19th-century fashion, but it still displays damage from the shot and shell that hammered it during the Battle of Lexington. The house changed hands three times, and soldiers met their death in the downstairs hallway. The battlefield is quiet now, and restored gardens and orchards dot the landscape. But the remnants of the trenches can still be seen, and the graves of unknown Union dead echo a time less peaceful. In addition to tours of the 1853 Anderson House, visitors may explore the 100 acres of the battlefield preserved at the historic site. A visitor center with exhibits and audiovisual programs explains the stirring events of Sept. 18–20, 1861, and why the "Battle of the Hemp Bales" lifted Southern spirits and further dampened Northern hopes of an easy victory in the struggle for Missouri.

The site offers exhibits, tours, a short film, occasional living history events, and occasional recreational and educational events.

In 1864, the Arcadia Valley was the scene of one of the largest and most hard-fought battles waged on the state's soil: the Battle of Pilot Knob. Confederate Maj. Gen. Sterling Price invaded Missouri from Arkansas, leading an army of 12,000 men. On Sept. 26–27, 1864, while en route to the St. Louis area, Price attacked the weakly defended Union post of Fort Davidson at Pilot Knob. This proved to be a mistake. Fort Davidson was defended by a garrison of 1,450 men led by Gen. Thomas Ewing Jr., the brother-in-law of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. The Confederates lost nearly 1,000 men in attacking the small earthen fort and its 11 cannons. Today, the site preserves Fort Davidson and the Pilot Knob battlefield where so many Confederate and Union soldiers lost their lives. A visitor center interprets the battle and Maj. Gen. Price's raid. It features exhibits, a research library, an audiovisual presentation, and a fiber optics diorama of the battle.

The site offers a short films, exhibits, research library access, tours, occasional living history events, and occasional recreational and educational events.

The Grant Boyhood Home was the home of Ulysses S. Grant, 18th president of the United States, from 1823, when Grant was one year old, until 1839, when he left to attend West Point. Ulysses Grant lived in this home longer than any other during his lifetime. Jesse and Hanna Grant, the parents of young Hiram Ulysses Grant, built the original two-story brick section of the Grant Boyhood home in 1823, when they moved to Georgetown from Point Pleasant in Clermont County, where Ulysses had been born the year before. Grant attended the Schoolhouse from the ages of about six to 13. The building, built in 1829, consisted of only one room at that time.

The site offers tours.