November 2010

The museum's exhibit halls include the following:

Early Aviation Exhibit: The Wright Flyer alongside the Curis Wright Pusher, the birth of one of the first aviation companies in the United States. The Huff Daland Puffer, the first crop sprayer in the world,designed and built in the South, and formerly owned and operated by what is now called Delta Airlines. The Alexander Eaglerock, which started the promising career of Albert Mooney. and was the largest manufacturer of aircraft in the USA in the 1930's. A WW1 display of artifacts of the Red Baron, and a Fokker DVII from the film "The Blue Max".

Experimental Exhibit: Dedicated to the backyard builders and homebuilts, the experimental displays show the wide range of homebuilt aircraft developed and produced under the watchful gaze of the Experimental Aviation Association (E.A.A.) See the Bede 5, a triumph of marketing over workable plans! An amphibian that took 10 years to build, a Glasair that had a whole 26 hours of flight ofter years of work, a helicopter whose main rotor, surprisingly, rotates the opposite way to convention, and the Mini-Mac, a Hueytown design of which only three were every produced.

The Delaware Agricultural Museum Association was formed by a group of people dedicated to preserving the agricultural heritage of Delaware and the Delmarva Peninsula. The Museum opened its doors to the public in August 1980. A main exhibit building and fifteen historic structures associated with a nineteenth century farming community bring the fascinating story of agriculture to life. More than 4,000 artifacts are displayed in the main exhibit building - from butter churns to threshers, from an eighteenth century log house to the first broiler chicken house.

Initially, the fort policed the surrounding reservation. The soldiers enforced the peace, guarded overland transportation routes, and aided Dakota (Sioux) who lived near Devils Lake after 1867. Fort Totten was decommissioned in 1890. On January 5th, 1891 the former post became the property of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The post served as an Indian boarding school until 1959. Academic and vocational training prepared Indian youth for life off the reservation. Enrollment sometimes topped 400. After independent tribal government was established, a community school operated in the buildings from 1940 to 1959.

It is considered the best preserved military post of the Dakota frontier era. Today you can visit the interpretive center, take a walking tour of 16 original buildings, vist the Pioneer Daughter's Museum, take in a show at the Fort Totten Little Theatre, and stay at the Totten Trail Historic Inn bed and breakfast. School children often attend the "Fort Totten Living History Field Day" in September.

An American architectural treasure, this house was built for newlyweds Stanley and Mildred Rosenbaum of Florence, Alabama, in 1939. The house is the only structure designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the state of Alabama, and the only such house in the southeast that is open to the public.

Wright’s Usonian style (named for the United State of America) was offered as a low-cost home for middle income families. With Wright’s plans, a young family could build their own home, fulfilling the American dream of home ownership. This house sits on a two-acre lot, very near downtown Florence and facing the Tennessee River.

In 1998, the Delaware History Museum opened Distinctively Delaware, the first comprehensive exhibit on the state's history. Artifacts for this exhibit cover all aspects of Delaware history - upstate, downstate, urban and rural from pre-historic to modern times. Other exhibits in this museum which opened in the 1990s are rotating, and into 2009 there will be one on firefighting in Delaware.

Out of one hunter's devotion to his faithful coonhound was born the "Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard," which has became a popular tourist attraction and is the only cemetery of its kind in the world. Other hunters started doing the same when their favorite coon dogs died. Today more than 185 coon dogs from all across the United States are buried in this spot in Northwest Alabama.

St. Paul's Church helps to tell the story of the development of colonial society and the road to the American Revolution. It consists of an 18th century stone church that was used as a Revolutionary War hospital, a cemetery with burial stones dating to 1704 and the remnant of a Village Green that was the scene of the famous Election of 1733 which raised issues of Freedom of Religion and the Press.

The first mill at Greenbank was reportedly called the Swede's Mill dating from 1677. Not much is known of this mill except a vague description and undeciphered archaeological remains. In the 1760's, the present gristmill was built as a merchant mill to export flour. Every Friday and Saturday visitors are invited to join the millers, textile workers, wives and children who live and work at Greenbank Mill. Tours include the gristmill restoration, the Madison Factory textile mill, the Philips House, and the 19th century farm with heritage livestock.

The winter of 1604-1605 on Saint Croix Island was a cruel one for Pierre Dugua’s French expedition. Iced in by freezing temperatures and cut off from fresh water and game, 35 of 79 men died. As spring arrived and native people traded game for bread, the health of those remaining improved. Although the expedition moved on by summer, the European presence in northern North America had begun.

The original, central section of the building was constructed in 1732 over the remains of Delaware's first court house (1689). In that same year, the building's cupola was designated as the center of a 12-mile radial circular boundary, creating Delaware's unique curved northern border. Additions and modifications were made to the building throughout the 18th and 19th centuries including the addition of the left and right wings.

Until the removal of the courts to Wilmington in 1881 as a result of the changing of the county seat, all jurisdictions of Delaware's courts, including federal court, had met, at one time or the other, in the New Castle Court House. In addition, the building served as Delaware's first state house and as the meeting place for Delaware's Colonial Assembly, and later, its first State Assembly.