Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park [FL]

Description

In 1836, the Second Seminole War swept away the prosperous Bulow Plantation where the Bulow family grew sugar cane, cotton, rice, and indigo. Ruins of the former plantation—a sugar mill, a unique spring house, several wells, and the crumbling foundations of the plantation house and slave cabins—show how volatile the Florida frontier was in the early 19th century. Today, a scenic walking trail leads visitors to the sugar mill ruins, listed on the National Register of Historic Sites. The park has picnic facilities and an interpretive center that tells the plantation's history.

The park offers exhibits

San Juan Bautista State Historic Park [CA]

Description

This park is part of a nationally recognized historic landmark and can be found adjacent to the extant portion of one of California's 21 Spanish-era mission church sites. The park and its Plaza represent what was once the "town square" of the largest town in central California and a vital crossroad for travel between northern and southern California. In the park visitors can gain an appreciation of California peoples, from Native Americans, through the Spanish and Mexican cultural influences, right up to the American period in the late 19th century. The park site includes several structures built in the 1800s. These include the four main historic structures of the Plaza Hotel, the Zanetta House/Plaza Hall as well as Plaza Stables, and the newly reopened Castro-Breen Adobe with colorful and informative exhibits to help create a learning environment for people of all ages. Many of the interiors are arranged as furnished vignettes. The park also features a blacksmith shop, the historic jail, and an early American settler's cabin.

The park offers exhibits, tours, and occasional living history events.

Pond Spring: The General Joe Wheeler Home [AL]

Description

Once home to prehistoric Native Americans, Pond Spring is the post-Civil War home of General Joseph Wheeler, a Confederate major general, a U.S. congressman, and a Spanish-American War general. Following the Civil War, Wheeler became a national symbol for reunification and reconciliation. Wheeler's daughter, "Miss Annie Wheeler," served in three wars as a Red Cross nurse. The 50-acre site includes a dogtrot log house built around 1818, a circa-1830 Federal-style house, the 1880s Wheeler house, eight farm-related outbuildings, two family cemeteries, an African-American cemetery, a small Indian mound, a pond, a boxwood garden, and other garden areas.

The site offers tours by appointment.

Ute Indian Museum [CO]

Description

The Museum lies on the original 8.65-acre homestead owned by Chief Ouray and his wife, Chipeta. Migrating from the mountains in the summer to river valleys in the winter, the Utes used the abundant plants and animals of the Uncompahgre River valley for food, clothing, and shelter. Built in 1956 and expanded in 1998, the museum offers one of the most complete collections of the Ute people. The grounds include the Chief Ouray Memorial Park, Chipeta's Crypt, and a native plants garden. Recently renovated and expanded, the museum now includes the Montrose Visitor Information Center, gallery space, classrooms, and a museum store. The museum complex includes shady picnic areas, walking paths, and a memorial to the Spanish conquistadors who traveled through the area in 1776.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, and educational programs.

Toolesboro Indian Mounds [IA]

Description

The Hopewellian mounds at Toolesboro are among the best-preserved and accessible remnants of an ancient culture flourishing from around 200 B.C. to 300 A.D. The five-acre site includes several large surviving mounds, an education center, and a prairie demonstration plot.

The site offers exhibits.

Fort Humboldt State Historic Park [CA]

Description

This remote military post was established in 1853 to assist in conflict resolution between Native Americans and gold-seekers and settlers who had begun flooding into the area after the discovery of gold in the northern mines. Fort Humboldt was formally abandoned in 1870 and rapidly fell into decay. Today, only the hospital building remains out of the original fourteen structures. It is now a historical museum dedicated to telling the story of the Fort and the Native American groups, including the Wiyot, Hoopa and Yurok of this region. In the 1980s the Surgeon's Quarters was reconstructed and there are plans for its establishment as a period house museum. In 2001 an historic herb and vegetable garden was recreated adjacent to the Hospital. The park also includes a Logging Museum and open air displays of historic 19th- through mid-20th-century logging equipment including the Dolbeer Steam Donkey, "Lucy"; the Bear Harbor Lumber Company's Gypsy Locomotive #1; and the Elk River Mill and Lumber Company's #1 "Falk" locomotive.

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

Coronado State Monument [NM]

Description

Coronado State Monument where Francisco Vásquez de Coronado—with 300 soldiers and 800 Indian allies from New Spain—entered the valley while looking for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold. Instead he found villages inhabited by prosperous native people. Coronado's party camped near the Tiwa pueblo of Kuaua, one of the many villages encountered by the explorers. Kuaua, a Tiwa word for "evergreen," was first settled around AD 1300 by American Indians who had long known about the fertile land near the Rio Grand. Kuaua is an earthen pueblo excavated in the 1930s by WPA workers, who also reconstructed new ruin walls over the reburied original ruins. A square kiva, excavated in the south plaza of the community, contained many layers of mural paintings. These murals represent some of the finest examples of Pre-Columbian mural art in the United States. Both the kiva and one of the mural layers are reconstructed and open to visitors, while several of the preserved mural segments are open to viewing in the mural room of the visitor center. The visitor center, designed by noted architect John Gaw Meem, also contains prehistoric and historic Indian and Spanish colonial artifacts on exhibit with several hands-on components.

A second website, maintained by the Friends of Coronado, can be found here.

The site offers a short film, exhibits, lectures, workshops, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Fort Buford State Historic Site [ND]

Description

Fort Buford State Historic Site preserves remnants of a vital frontier plains military post. Fort Buford was built in 1866 near the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, and became a major supply depot for military field operations. Original features still existing on the site include a stone powder magazine, the post cemetery site, and a large officers' quarters building which now houses a museum. Fort Buford, located near present-day Williston, was one of a number of military posts established to protect overland and river routes used by immigrants settling the West. While it served an essential role as the sentinel on the northern plains for 19 years, it is probably best remembered as the place where the famous Hunkpapa Sioux leader, Sitting Bull, surrendered in 1881.

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