Tag Archives: National Historic Site

Tennessee

Andrew Johnson National Historic Site

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Overview

At age 15, Andrew Johnson fled his apprenticeship in Raleigh,North Carolina and eventually started a tailor shop in Greeneville, Tennessee.  In 1829, he began his political career, ultimately serving as a U.S. Representative, Governor of Tennessee, U.S. Senator, Vice President, and President upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865.  He was the first President to be impeached after vetoing the Tenure of Office Act (later found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court) and was acquitted by the margin of one vote.

Highlights

House tour, tailor shop, museum, film, National Cemetery

Must-Do Activity

Start at the visitor center, which offers a film, a small museum, and the enclosed tailor shop where Andrew Johnson worked before going into politics.  Dress-up clothes are available if you want to take a photo straight out of the mid-1800s (no smiling for authenticity).  There you can also pick up a free timed ticket for the homestead tour and a ticket to vote in Johnson’s impeachment trial. 

Best Trail

None

Instagram-worthy Photo

The small National Cemetery atop a hill in Greeneville, Tennessee contains the graves of Andrew Johnson, his wife, and about 200 soldiers.

Peak Season

Open year round

Hours

https://www.nps.gov/anjo/planyourvisit/hours.htm

Fees

None

Road Conditions

All roads paved with designated parking lots at the visitor center, homestead, and cemetery.

Camping

Cherokee National Forest offers campgrounds southeast of Greeneville.

  • Original Johnson home and Visitor Center
  • Tiff and her mother waiting for the homestead tour
  • Many of the artifacts were original
  • Johnson family homestead
  • Playing dress-up in front of the tailor shop
  • Tiff casting her ballot in the Senate Trial for Impeachment
  • Tiff and her father at the Johnson grave and National Cemetery

Explore More – Why did young Andrew Johnson flee North Carolina six years before his apprenticeship contract expired?


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District of Columbia

Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site

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Overview

On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln attended a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., which General U.S. Grant was also expected to attend.  It is common knowledge that Lincoln was shot by an actor (John Wilkes Booth) not performing in the play and died the next morning of his wounds.  What is less well known is that the assassination plot also targeted the Secretary of State William Seward(critically injuring six men and one woman) and Vice President Andrew Johnson (which was never attempted).  Since 1933,the National Park Service has run the site and the neighboring Petersen house where Lincoln died, which are open to tourists with timed tickets except when rehearsals are underway in the still-active theatre.

Highlights

Museum, Booth’s gun, ranger program, live theatre

Must-Do Activity

You can get a ticket to the free ranger talk that does not include the National Park Service’s excellent museum downstairs from the theatre, but this should not be skipped by visitors.  It contains thought-provoking interpretative material and the original gun used by Booth to shoot Lincoln.

Best Trail

Take a walk to the boarding house where the conspirators met, which is now a restaurant in D.C.’s Chinatown.  Mary Surratt, who ran the boarding house, became the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government on July 7, 1865.

Instagram-worthy Photo

There are still plays performed at Ford’s Theatre, but your timed ticket will only get you in to listen to a ranger talk about the assassination without any singing or acting.  Either way, the stage right balcony provides the best view of the President’s box seats.

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Peak Season

Summer, but it is open year round.

Hours

https://www.nps.gov/foth/planyourvisit/basicinfo.htm

Fees

A timed ticket is available online (with a reservation fee) and in person (free).  Theatre performances charge an admission fee.

Road Conditions

All roads paved, but parking can be a challenge in Washington, D.C., though it is easier on weekends.

Camping

None

  • The boarding house where the conspirators met is now a restaurant in D.C.’s Chinatown
  • Tiff in front ofthe neighboring Petersen house where Lincoln died
  • Scott with Booth’s assassination weapon.
  • Tiff with John Wilkes Booth
  • Scott with Abraham Lincoln
  • Tiff at the Presidential Box

Explore More – Are theatre-goers allowed to sit in the presidential box during performances?

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Kansas

Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park

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Overview

This is the only National Park Service (NPS) site named for a court case.  The one named started here in Topeka in 1951 when segregation was the law of the land.  Five cases were consolidated when the issue escalated to the Supreme Court by 1954, when they finally overturned the 1896 ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson.  In his decision, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, “Separate education facilities are inherently unequal.”  In 2022, it was changed from a National Historic Site to a National Historical Park with addition of units at two high schools in Summerton, South Carolina.

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Highlights

Monroe Elementary School, Hall of Courage

Must-Do Activity

Tour the former African-American-only Monroe Elementary School, restored to its 1950s appearance with some classrooms turned into exhibits on the civil rights movement worldwide.  If you visit on a weekday, you might hear the halls filled with the sounds of children again, since it is a frequent fieldtrip destination.

Best Trail

None

Instagram-worthy Photo

Walking the Hall of Courage gives some idea of what it would have been like as an African-American student attending a desegregated school in the 1950s.

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Peak Season

Spring seems to be popular for school fieldtrips.

Hours

https://www.nps.gov/brvb/planyourvisit/basicinfo.htm

Fees

None

Road Conditions

All paved with a designated NPS parking lot.  Check the address (1515 SE Monroe St.) for Monroe Elementary School on the NPS website as our GPS sent us to the park headquarters inside Topeka’s main post office.

Camping

None at the site, but nearby Lake Shawnee Campground is run by the county.

Scott in a kindergarden classroom
This is how a classroom at Monroe Elementary School would have looked in the 1950s (note the fireplace for heat).
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There is plenty to see and read in the visitor center, including the story of Nelson Mandela.

Explore More – Which future Supreme Court Justice headed the legal team for the Browns?

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Georgia

Andersonville National Historic Site

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Overview

During the Civil War, Andersonville Prison in central Georgia held approximately 32,000 Union prisoners in a compound designed for only 10,000.  As the tide turned against the Confederacy in 1864, the prisoners were not adequately cared for and thousands perished.  Following the war, Clara Barton helped lead the effort to identify the 12,920 men buried here and place a gravestone for each of them.  In addition to being a National Park Service (NPS) site, it remains an active military cemetery and is also home to the National Prisoner of War Museum.

Andersonville

Highlights

National Prisoner of War Museum, monuments in Andersonville National Cemetery, prison site

Must-Do Activity

This may not be the best NPS site to bring children to, given the exhibits in the National Prisoner of War Museum do not pull punches in their depictions of the brutality endured by captured combatants throughout the ages.  That said, it is very well-done and a powerful experience.  We can promise that you will not leave this small Georgia town harboring the same feelings about war with which you arrived.

Best Trail

Walk (or drive) around the Civil War prison site to read interpretive panels and see the reconstruction of the North Gate and Northeast Corner of the stockade.

Instagram-worthy Photo

You thought your deadlines were tough, but if an Andersonville prisoner crossed this “dead line” he was immediately shot.

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Peak Season

Year round, though it can get hot and humid in the summer.

Hours

https://www.nps.gov/ande/planyourvisit/basicinfo.htm

Fees

None

Road Conditions

All roads are paved.

Camping

None in the park, but several campgrounds nearby including one across the road from the cemetery and Georgia Veterans Memorial State Park near Americus.

In the National Cemetery at Andersonville

Reflection of the American flag on the tomb of the unknown

Tiff outside the main gate at Andersonville

The memorial outside of the museum

Tiff in the POW museum (those are all guns trained on her)
Tiff inside the National Prisoner of War Museum.

Inside the POW museum

Explore More – What was the fate after the Civil War of Confederate camp commander Henry Wirz?

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Alabama

Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site

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Overview

Aircraft developed at an incredible rate between the Wright Brothers’ first flight in 1903 and the 1940s.  Yet at the outset of World War II, African-American men were not allowed to be pilots in the Army Air Corps (before the 1947 creation of the Air Force).  In 1941, an experimental program was started at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to train hundreds of pilots, bombardiers, and navigators for the looming war.  The site is housed in the old hangars at Moton Field airport where historic airplanes and excellent interpretive panels  tell the story of the group of African-American men that came to be known as the Tuskegee Airmen.

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Highlights

P-51 Mustang airplane, interpretive film

Must-Do Activity

Start your tour inside Hanger No. 1 then watch the film inside Hanger No. 2, where you will learn about the Tuskegee Airmen’s goal of Double-V, victory over the enemy abroad and victory over racism at home.  After the war, in 1948, President Harry S Truman signed an order calling for “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services.”

Best Trail

No trails

Instagram-worthy Photo

Get a shot in front of the P-51 “Red Tail” hanging from the ceiling inside Hanger No. 2.

Tuskegee

Peak Season

The site is open year round, but every Memorial Day weekend there is a big celebration at Moton Field and many of the surviving Tuskegee Airmen visit the site.

Hours

https://www.nps.gov/tuai/planyourvisit/hours.htm

Fees

None

Road Conditions

The site is handicap accessible, and if you contact the NPS before your visit they can arrange parking closer than the main visitor lot on the hill above Moton Field.

Camping

Dispersed camping is allowed at nearby Tuskegee National Forest.

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Jump at any chance to meet some surviving Tuskegee Airmen.  This event was in Cheyenne, WY.

Explore More – The 72 Tuskegee Airmen combat pilots shot down how many enemy aircraft during World War II?

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WONDON WAS HERE

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