Audubon State Historic Site [LA]

Description

The Audubon State Historic Site is located in St. Francisville, LA, and is the site where noted artist John Audubon stayed for four months while teaching art to Eliza Pirrie. The Pirries lived in the Oakley House, which is a fabulous example of colonial architecture in the deep south. The Oakley House is listed on the national register of historic places.

The site offers guided tours of the Oakley House, galleries of Audubon's art, and exhibits regarding Audubon's stay. The website offers a brief history of the site and visitor information.

Chippokes Plantation State Park and Museum [VA]

Description

The 1,683-acre Chippokes Plantation State Park contains a working plantation site, founded circa 1619. The site's main residence is known as the Jones-Stewart Mansion. The plantation grounds house gardens and the Chippokes Farm and Forestry Museum, which presents circa 1850 Virginian farming life. Exhibits include farm building, soil preparation, planting, cultivating, harvesting, blacksmiths' tools, wheelwrights' tools, cobblers' tools, coopers' tools, farm animals, processing, preserving, small tools, and house ware. Many exhibits depict the evolution of tools used for a particular task. Collection highlights include a wooden tooth cultivator and a plow, designed to be pulled by oxen.

The park offers exhibits, mansion tours, an interpretive forestry trail, guided group museum tours, curriculum-based museum educational programs, recreational trails, outdoor activities, overnight facilities, a snack bar, and a picnic complex. Mansion tours and museum access are available April through October. Picnic shelters can be reserved. The snack bar operates Memorial Day through Labor Day. The museum can customize educational programs.

Fort Toulouse / Fort Jackson State Historic Site [AL]

Description

History is alive and outside at Fort Toulouse-Fort Jackson. Here Native Americans, Spanish explorers, French soldiers, English and Scottish traders, American settlers, and modern archaeologists have all left their mark. Frequent living history events showcase a recreated 1751 French fort, recreated Creek Indian houses, and the partially restored 1814 American Fort Jackson. A 3,000-year-old Mississipian Indian mound, the William Bartram Nature Trail, and an early 19th-century house weave even more strands into this colorful tapestry of Alabama's earliest days.

Two other websites for the site exist: a second general website here and a website for the site's living history programs here.

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

Polk County Historical Society and Museum [GA]

Description

The Society is headquartered in a building designed by noted Georgia architect Neel Reid. Erected in 1921, it was originally the Hawkes Children's Library. In 1980 the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the first structure in Polk County to receive this honor. The Society also operates a museum in the building. Of special interest is the Palladian window, a Neel Reid hallmark. Each year the collection of photographs, newspapers, documents, and artifacts on display has grown.

The museum offers exhibits.

Old State House Museum [AR] Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/08/2008 - 13:38
Description

The Old State House Museum, housed within the 1842 Greek Revival former state capitol building, presents the history of the state of Arkansas and its residents. The structure served as the state capitol until 1911; both a Confederate and Union capitol; a medical school and research site; and a popular campaign site of Bill Clinton (born 1946), 42nd President of the United States. Period rooms include a 1901 through 1906 parlor, 1870 through 1900 parlor, a 1750 through 1800 library, an 1860 through 1870 Rococo Revival parlor, an 1836 through 1860 library, and 1836 through 1885 House of Representatives chamber. Permanent exhibits address 19th- and 20th-century women's lives, the building's construction, Bill Clinton, hands-on 1930s artifacts, early 19th-century life, Arkansas governors and their families, and 1819 through 1919 Arkansas political history.

The museum offers exhibits, period rooms, hourly guided tours, self-guided tours, eight thematic tours for students, outreach programs for students and adults, educational programs for students or adults, living history characters, a summer camp, teacher's workshops, and traveling trunks. Groups of 12 or more must make reservations for guided tours. Living history characters can be scheduled into tours with advance notice. The website offers virtual exhibits, lesson plans, activities, games, and crosswords.

Old Island Restoration Foundation and the Oldest House [FL]

Description

The Old Island Restoration Foundation is primarily concerned with architectural preservation within Key West, Florida. However, the organization also operates the 1829 Oldest House museum. The residence was once home to a customs inspector, lightship captain, and wrecker. Wreckers were men who would race to shipwrecks in order to save the crews and to collect a portion of the cargo as their own. The museum holds furnishings, maritime artifacts, wrecker artifacts, ship models, and items once lost at sea. The structure itself is the oldest in South Florida, hence the name.

The museum offers exhibits and gardens.

Mosby Heritage Area Association [VA]

Description

The Mosby Heritage Area Association seeks to preserve and share the history, culture, and environment of the Northern Virginia Piedmont. The association places particular emphasis on the life and travels of Confederate soldier John Singleton Mosby.

The association offers a outreach programs for students, a monthly two-hour family program, and outreach speakers.
The website offers a virtual tour, a recommended reading list for students, suggested post-visit activities, and area scavenger hunts.

Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation and the Hunt-Morgan House [KY]

Description

The Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation advocates preservation of historic architecture within Lexington, Kentucky. The trust operates the 1815 Federal-style Hunt-Morgan House, restored to period appearance. The upper floor contains the The Alexander T. Hunt Civil War Museum.

The trust offers exhibits, period rooms, tours of the Hunt-Morgan House, traveling exhibits for rental, monthly brown bag lectures, preservation resources, a local history curriculum, walking tours of Gratz Park, and self-guided walking tours.

Fort Delaware Society and Museum [DE]

Description

The Fort Delaware Society operates the Fort Delaware Museum, Sutler Shop, and W. Emerson Wilson Research Library. Fort Delaware protected the Delaware River area between the War of 1812 and World War II. It is best known for its stint as a Civil War prison.

The society offers exhibits and archive and reading library access. The archives and library are open to the public between October and April.