National Park: George Rogers Clark National Historic Site

There is an understated (and seemingly infrequently visited) National Memorial in Vincennes, IN. This town is in Southwest Indiana near the Illinois border, and the National Historic site was dedicated by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 to the honor of Col. George Rogers Clark. Without George Rogers Clark, the United States would probably not have claimed America's Northwestern Frontier from the British during the Revolutionary War.  This geographic area includes what is now the states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Col. Clark is best celebrated for his role in leading a rag tag and weary group of troops at a reclaimed British Fort called Sackville.

 Col. George Rogers Clark is the brother of William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame) and had an illustrious military career in his own right, but he is most celebrated for this capture of Fort Sackville and British Lt. Governor Henry Hamilton in 1779. Capturing Fort Sackville certainly was an impressive feat, but the manner in which he (and his men) did it was remarkable. The men marched through blistering cold and some icy Midwestern floodplains to fight the British, and make them surrender the fort. This effort essentially doubled the size of the United States in the coming years.

 

The memorial is much larger than it appears at a distance, and it is positioned just along the Wabash River. The site of the monument is thought to be placed roughly in the same location as Fort Sackville. There is a 30 minute movie in the visitor's center and some artifacts like maps to look over. Inside the dome, there is a large statue of Col. Clark, and Ezra Winter painted several murals that tell the story of the frontier. You can listen to an audio describing each mural.

I came to Vincennes, IN on a cloudy Saturday in November. The town is very quaint with a cute downtown of mom and pop shops. This is also the land of Lincoln with a scenic route dedicated to one of the USA's Greatest Presidents cutting right through downtown. You can cross over into Illinois (the land of Lincoln) as pedestrian over the Lincoln Memorial Bridge which was built in the same aesthetic as the Clark Memorial.