Historic Stagville State Historic Site [NC]

Description

This site comprises the remains of North Carolina's largest pre-Civil War plantation and one of the South's largest. It once belonged to the Bennehan-Cameron family, whose combined holdings totaled approximately 900 slaves and almost 30,000 acres by 1860. Today, Stagville consists of 71 acres, on three tracts. On this land stand the late 18th-century Bennehan House, four rare slave houses, a pre-Revolutionary War farmer's house, a huge timber framed barn built by skilled slave craftsmen, and the Bennehan Family cemetery.

The site offers tours and occasional recreational and educational events.

Chief Plenty Coups State Park [MT]

Description

Situated within the Crow Reservation in south-central Montana, this park was the home of Plenty Coups, last chief of the Crow. This park preserves the log home, sacred spring, and farmstead of Chief Plenty Coups. The small visitor center that traces the story of Chief Plenty Coups's life, and of the chief's efforts to lead his people in adopting the lifestyle of the white man.

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

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

Somerset Place State Historic Site [NC]

Description

One of the upper South's largest antebellum plantations, Somerset Place was home from 1785–1865 to 850 enslaved people, three generations of owners, and around 50 white and two black employees. It once included more than 100,000 wooded, swampy acres bordering Lake Phelps, where such crops as rice were cultivated. Today, the 31-acre site offers a realistic view of 19th-century life on a large North Carolina plantation through seven original buildings and meshes the lifestyles of all of the plantation's residents in one concise chronological social history.

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

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.

Fort Ross State Historic Park [CA]

Description

Fort Ross was a thriving Russian-American Company settlement from 1812 to 1841. This commercial company chartered by Russia's tsarist government controlled all Russian exploration, trade, and settlement in the North Pacific, and established permanent settlements in Alaska and California. Fort Ross was the southernmost settlement in the Russian colonization of the North American continent, and was established as an agricultural base to supply Alaska. Fort Ross was a successfully functioning multicultural settlement for some 30 years. Settlers included Russians, Native Alaskans and Californians, and Creoles (individuals of mixed Russian and native ancestry.) Along with the chapel, the structure of most historical interest at Fort Ross is the Rotchev House, an existing building renovated about 1836 for Alexander Rotchev, the last manager of Ross. It is the only surviving structure. Several other buildings have been reconstructed: the first Russian Orthodox chapel south of Alaska; the stockade; and four other buildings called the Kuskov House, the Officials Barracks, and two corner blockhouses.

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

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.

Historic Charleston Foundation, Nathaniel Russell House, and Aiken-Rhett House [SC]

Description

The Foundation maintains two historic houses, the Nathaniel Russell House and the Aiken-Rhett House. Set amid spacious formal gardens, the 1808 Nathaniel Russell House is widely recognized as one of America's most important neoclassical dwellings. The house is furnished with period antiques and works of art that evoke the gracious lifestyle of the city's merchant elite. Today the Nathaniel Russell House interprets the lives of the Russell family, as well as the African-American slaves and artisans who were responsible for maintaining one of the South's grandest antebellum townhouses. The Aiken-Rhett House stands alone as the most intact townhouse complex showcasing urban life in antebellum Charleston. Built in 1818 and greatly expanded by Governor and Mrs. William Aiken, Jr. in the 1830s and 1850s, the house has survived virtually unaltered since 1858.

The foundation offers occasional recreational and educational events; the Nathaniel Russell House offers tours; the Aiken-Rhett House offers tours.

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.