November 2010

A trip to Grinter Place isn’t just a look inside the oldest home in Wyandotte County, it’s a step back to the days of frontier life along the Kansas and Missouri border. Overlooking the historic Delaware Crossing on the Kansas River, Grinter Place was the home to Annie and Moses Grinter. Annie, a Lenape (Delaware) Indian, helped to farm, raise poultry and livestock, and planted an apple orchard. Moses operated a ferry and a trading post, where he traded with the Lenape Indians. Learn how life in Kansas changed dramatically through the stories of Annie and Moses when you visit the stately Grinter Place.

New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park is the only national park site dedicated to preserving and interpreting America's nineteenth century whaling story. In Herman Melville's epic novel Moby-Dick he describes New Bedford as "perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England." He would certainly recognize many of the 19th century buildings and sites that make up the park today. Start your visit at the national park visitor center to get a brief orientation, pick up maps and brochures, view exhibits and plan your day. Take a guided or self-guided tour to learn more about New Bedford's fascinating history, visit our partner institutions, attend special programs and events that take place in the park year round and explore the many shops, restaurants and galleries located in and around the park.

Visit the showplace home of William Allen White, nationally known newspaperman and author. From the 1890s through World War II, White influenced state and national politics through his writings from the heartland town of Emporia. White looms particularly large in the colorful politics of his home state, debating the Populists of the 1890s and battling against the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Tour his home and gardens and come to know William Allen White, his family, and their stories.

The Salisbury House is meant to preserve, interpret, and share the international significance and its collections as a historic house museum for the educational and cultural benefit and enjoyment of the public. Today, great progress has made based on a master plan for extensive renovation and repair of the house for the better enjoyment of the guests. Visitors come to explore the remarkable craftsmanship of the home, as well as the extensive history of the Weeks family.

The new National Aviation Heritage Area (NAHA) joins 26 other heritage areas in existence around the country. Like the Motor City Heritage Area in Detroit, NAHA is one of the few that represents more than a bygone era of heritage; it embodies an industry that is alive and well, but which is chock full of great history and stories that can only be called the "purest slices of Americana."

NAHA consists of 10 historical sites and two other member organizations. The sites are the National Museum of the United States Air Force, the National Aviation Hall of Fame, the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park (which includes four sites: Carillon Historical Park, Huffman Prairie Flying Field and Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center, Wright-Dunbar Interpretive Center and the Paul Laurence Dunbar State Memorial), The Wright B Flyer, Grimes Flying Lab Foundation, Armstrong Air & Space Museum, WACO Museum & Airfield, and the two organization members, Aviation Trail, Inc. and the Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company (makers of Wright replica aircraft and a host of other interactive displays and tools for education).

The construction of the Trans Continental Union Pacific Railroad across southern Wyoming 1867-1869, in turn, brought the cattlement, sheepherders, loggers, tie hacks, miners and merchants who changed the wasteland into Wyoming Territory. Fort Steele served as a frontier base.

As an outpost of civilization on the Western frontier, the fort represented protection and a haven to travelers. During the mid-1870s, Fort Fetterman reached its pinnacle of importance when it became the jumping-off place for several major military expeditions. It was the base for three of General George Crook's Powder River Expeditions and Colonel Randall Mackenzie's campaign against Dull Knife and the Cheyenne Indians. These events contributed to the end of the resistance by the Plains Indians who shortly after were confined to reservations. With the passing of Indians from the scene, the fort had outlived its usefulness.

Visiting the Natchez National Historical Park will give visitors a chance to observe and experience life in the 19th Century homes. The park offers tours of the houses of prominent Natchez figures, William Johnson and John McMurran. Located in downtown Natchez, the William Johnson House complex consists of the actual Johnson home and the adjoining McCallum House. William Johnson, a free black barber in Natchez, used bricks from buildings destroyed in the infamous tornado of 1840 to construct the State Street estate and commercial business area. McMurran’s home, a nineteenth century Greek revival-style mansion represents the height of Southern prosperity and the "Cotton Kingdom." Built by the John T. McMurran family beginning in 1841, Melrose was, according to McMurran daughter-in-law Alice Austen, "very elegant; one of the handsomest places I have seen North or South."

Visitors can tour the nineteenth-century wood-frame house, located on its original site, where the Eisenhower's lived from 1898 until the death of the President's mother Ida in 1946. The Place of Meditation is the final resting place of the President, his wife Mamie, and their first-born son, Doud Dwight.

 With a seating capacity of 1,100, St. Fidelis was the largest church west of the Mississippi when it was completed in 1911. Its beauty and size inspired William Jennings Bryan (visiting the area in 1912 on a presidential campaign) to dub it the "Cathedral of the Plains."

The stone for this massive Romanesque structure came from a quarry seven miles south. The extracting of the stone, loading it, hauling it, and then dressing it was a gigantic task and an amazing feat considering that it was accomplished without automatic lifts and power tools.

The church structure is a cruciform, or built in the shape of a cross 220 feet long and 110 feet wide at the transepts and 75 feet at the nave. The massive twin bell towers are 141 feet tall and dominate the prairie landscape.

The granite pillars that support the church were shipped in from Vermont.