George Rogers Clark National Historical Park, located in

Vincennes Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Château de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attached ...

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

, on the banks of the

Wabash River The Wabash River ( French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows fro ...

at what is believed to be the site of

Fort Sackville During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the French, British and U.S. forces built and occupied a number of forts at Vincennes, Indiana. These outposts commanded a strategic position on the Wabash River. The names of the installations were change ...

, is a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

National Historical Park National Historic Site (NHS) is a designation for an officially recognized area of national historic significance in the United States. An NHS usually contains a single historical feature directly associated with its subject. The National Historic ...

. President

Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...

authorized a classical memorial and President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

dedicated the completed structure in 1936. On February 25, 1779, Lieutenant Colonel

George Rogers Clark George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American surveyor, soldier, and militia officer from Virginia who became the highest-ranking American patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the Ame ...

, older brother of

William Clark William Clark (August 1, 1770 – September 1, 1838) was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor. A native of Virginia, he grew up in pre-statehood Kentucky before later settling in what became the state of Misso ...

, led the capture of Fort Sackville and British Lt. Governor Henry Hamilton as part of the celebrated

Illinois Campaign The Illinois campaign, also known as Clark's Northwestern campaign (1778–1779), was a series of events during the American Revolutionary War in which a small force of Virginia militiamen, led by George Rogers Clark, seized control of several B ...

, which lasted from 1778 to 1779. The heroic march of Clark's men from

Kaskaskia The Kaskaskia were one of the indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. They were one of about a dozen cognate tribes that made up the Illiniwek Confederation, also called the Illinois Confederation. Their longstanding homeland was in t ...

on the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

in mid-winter and the subsequent victory over the British remains one of the most memorable feats of the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

. In 1966, Indiana transferred the site to the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

. Adjacent to the memorial is a visitor center which presents interpretive programs and displays. The center is situated on South 2nd Street in Vincennes. The site is located in the

Vincennes Historic District Vincennes Historic District is a national historic district located at Vincennes, Knox County, Indiana. The district encompasses 1,161 contributing buildings, 5 contributing sites, 9 contributing structures, and 37 contributing objects in the ...

History

The memorial is placed at the believed site of Fort Sackville; no archeological evidence has shown the exact location, but it is undoubtedly within the park's boundaries. The episode being commemorated marked the finest moment in General George Rogers Clark's career. He was sent by the state of

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

to protect its interest in the Old Northwest. His 1778-1779 campaign included the founding of

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

and the capture of British forts in the lower Ohio and Mississippi valleys. Forces under Clark's command had captured Fort Sackville months before, but when notified that British forces under Henry Hamilton had retaken the fort, Clark led a desperate march to retake the fort again for the American cause, succeeding on February 25, 1779. This led to the newly formed United States claiming control of what would become the states of

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, and

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. As Vincennes grew in the 1800s, it overran the site of Fort Sackville and its boundaries were lost. In 1905, the

Daughters of the American Revolution The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States' efforts towards independence. A non-profit group, they promote ...

placed a stone marker on what they believed was the location of the fort. In 1929, local residents made a major effort to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Clark's campaign. The state of Indiana chose to build a memorial to General Clark's triumph in the 1930s, with the assistance of the United States government; the various funds amounted to $2.5 million. The memorial was designed by New York architect

Frederic Charles Hirons Frederic Charles Hirons (March 28, 1882 - January 23, 1942) was an American architect, based in New York City, who designed the Classical George Rogers Clark National Memorial, in Vincennes, Indiana, among the last major Beaux-Arts style public ...

and dedicated June 14, 1936, by President Franklin Roosevelt. Though the

in 1976 called the finished memorial the "last major Classical style memorial" constructed in the United States, the New York State Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt at the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

John Russell Pope John Russell Pope (April 24, 1874 – August 27, 1937) was an American architect whose firm is widely known for designing major public buildings, including the National Archives and Records Administration building (completed in 1935), the Jeffe ...

was also completed in 1936, and Pope's

Jefferson Memorial The Jefferson Memorial is a presidential memorial built in Washington, D.C. between 1939 and 1943 in honor of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, a central intellectual force behind the Am ...

in Washington, D.C. was completed 1939-1943, are of the same era.

Structures

The memorial building is a circular

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

structure surrounded by sixteen granite fluted Greek Doric columns in a

peripteral A peripteros (a peripteral building, grc-gre, περίπτερος) is a type of ancient Greek or Roman temple surrounded by a portico with columns. It is surrounded by a colonnade ('' pteron'') on all four sides of the ''cella'' (''naos''), crea ...

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...

, capped with a

saucer dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

of glass panels and resting on a

stylobate In classical Greek architecture, a stylobate ( el, στυλοβάτης) is the top step of the crepidoma, the stepped platform upon which colonnades of temple columns are placed (it is the floor of the temple). The platform was built on a level ...

. The north and east corners have restrooms and various maintenance rooms. Except for the maintenance rooms, these feature plastered walls and ceilings,

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...

wainscoting Panelling (or paneling in the U.S.) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity to make roo ...

, and

terrazzo Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical bindi ...

flooring. Visitors enter the memorial by climbing thirty granite steps in the northwest corner. The

basement A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, ...

is unfinished, with fluorescent lighting revealing a ceiling and walls of exposed concrete, and a dirt floor. Other prominent features in the park include John Angel's granite statue of

Francis Vigo Francis may refer to: People *Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State and Bishop of Rome * Francis (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters *Francis (surname) Places * Rural ...

, a monument overlooking the Wabash River erected in 1934 that honors the Italian-American merchant who assisted General Clark. The adjacent grounds of the

Basilica of St. Francis Xavier The Basilica of St. Francis Xavier is a parish church in the Archdiocese of Dubuque located in Dyersville, Iowa, United States. The church was named in honor of the missionary Saint Francis Xavier. It was raised to the status of a Minor Basilica, m ...

hold a 1934 bronze statue by

Albin Polasek Albin Polasek (February 14, 1879 – May 19, 1965) was a Czech-American sculptor and educator. He created more than 400 works during his career, 200 of which are displayed in the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens in Winter Park, Flori ...

honoring Father

Pierre Gibault Father Pierre Gibault (7 April 1737 – 16 August 1802) was a Jesuit missionary and priest in the Northwest Territory in the 18th century, and an American Patriot during the American Revolution. Frontier Missionary Gibault was born 7 April 1737 ...

, another figure in the Revolutionary War.

Raoul Josset Raoul Jean Josset (9 December 1892 – 29 June 1957) was a French-born American sculptor. He was born in Tours. During the First World War, he worked as an interpreter for American forces in France. He was a pupil of Antoine Bourdelle between ...

designed the

Lincoln Memorial Bridge Lincoln Memorial Bridge is a deck arch bridge carrying U.S. Route 50 Business over the Wabash River between Vincennes, Indiana and Lawrence County, Illinois. It is said to mark the point where Abraham Lincoln crossed the Wabash River on his way ...

across the

to complement the memorial aesthetically. It includes relief carvings designed by a monument by Nellie Walker on the

side of the bridge and celebrates the migration of

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

. A concrete floodwall that protects the memorial and Vincennes from Wabash flooding is also designed in a complementary Classical style. The grounds also hold a memorial to the soldiers from Knox County who served in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, a marker denoting where Clark's headquarters probably stood during his siege of Fort Sackville, and the original

memorial, which has moved several times due to construction of the main memorial.Arbogast pp.4-5

Murals

Muralist

Ezra Winter Ezra Augustus Winter (March 10, 1886 – April 6, 1949) was a prominent American muralist. Biography Winter was born in Traverse City, Michigan, trained at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1908, and the American Academy in Rome in 1914. Wint ...

executed a series of seven murals for the building. File:George Rogers Clark Memorial - left murals.jpg, Murals to the left File:George Rogers Clark statue and murals.jpg, Statue and murals in the center File:George Rogers Clark Memorial - right murals.jpg, Murals to the right

Purpose and significance

The park was authorized by the Act of July 23, 1966 (PL 89-517). This law (Appendix A) contains three provisions. The first authorized the Secretary of the Interior to accept from the State of Indiana, the donation of the Clark Memorial and surrounding grounds for a national park. This was accomplished within one year of the law's enactment. The second provision permits the Secretary to enter into cooperative agreements with the owners of other historic properties in Vincennes which are associated with George Rogers Clark and the Northwest Territory. Such properties would become part of the park, and the Secretary could assist in their preservation, renewal and interpretation. The third provision requires the Secretary to administer, protect, develop and maintain the park in accordance with the provisions of the act of August 25, 1916, which established the National Park Service. George Rogers Clark NHP was established to commemorate the accomplishments of George Rogers Clark and the expansion of the United States into the Northwest Territory; to commemorate this story and its significance to the American people; and to cooperate in the preservation, renewal and interpretation of the sites and structures in Vincennes associated with this story. The park also commemorates the actions of Father Pierre Gibault and Francis Vigo who sided with Clark against the British. The park is located on the site of Fort Sackville which Clark captured from the British during the American Revolution on February 25, 1779. The victory extended American land claims in the Ohio Valley and contributed to the United States acquisition of the Northwest Territory in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. No structures dating from the Revolution exist in the park today. The historical theme represented by George Rogers Clark NHP is the "Revolution, War in the Frontier," according to 1987 History and Prehistory in the National Park System and the National Historic Landmarks Program.

Restoration

August 9, 2008, George Rogers Clark National Historical Park closed for 13 months to complete a three-million-dollar renovation by Frontier Waterproofing, Inc out of Denton, Texas. Park Superintendent Dale Phillips said, "This is a once-in-a-lifetime restoration project, and is critically needed for the long-term preservation of the Clark Memorial". The main goal was to fix the drainage of the terrace, which has leaked since the 1930s, and renovate the access steps. The monument reopened September 24, 2009, and was rededicated on October 3, 2009. The 2009 Spirit of Vincennes Rendezvous was not impacted by the renovation. Work during the renovation included demolition and installation of new parapets and rustications; repair of wall cracks; removal, temporary storage, and numbering of approximately 1,000 large granite paving stones; installation of new waterproofing on the existing concrete structural deck of the plaza and the monuments stylobate; cleaning and repair of the granite stone, steps, and veneer; installation of a new exposed aggregate concrete walking surface around the Monument plaza; and replacing the existing sprinkler system and landscaping elements. This repaired problems first identified in a 1939 structural inspection. George Rogers Clark National Historical Park was honored on an America the Beautiful Quarter representing Indiana in 2017.

Gallery

Image:Clark flag-NPS.jpg, Flag display in the monument Image:Gibault statue.jpg, Statue of Father Pierre Gibault Image:HMcNeil-GRClark.jpg, McNeil's Clark Image:Native American themed door - George Rogers Clark National Historical Park - Vincennes, Indiana - Stierch.jpg, Bronze doors with Native American detail Image:George Rogers Clark Memorial Rotunda.jpg, The rotunda ceiling Image:Vincennes, Ind., parade and review, graduating class 43-I cadets from AAF Training Command Pilot School, George Field, Ill., nationally famed George Rogers Clark Memorial in the background.jpg, Postcard showing the memorial and a graduating class from the Army Air Field at George Field File:George Rogers Clark statue.jpg, Statue of Clark File:George Rogers Clark Memorial.JPG, Outside of the building Image:Francevigovincennes.jpg, Francis Vigo statue by John Angel File:GRC P8290030 Memorial.JPG, George Rogers Clark Memorial Rotunda from across the Wabash River (Illinois view), Vincennes, Indiana

References

External links

National Park Service: George Rogers Clark National Historical ParkText of 1966 speech
by President

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

at the park, commemorating its establishment as a National Historical Park {{authority control American Revolutionary War sites National Historical Parks of the United States National Register of Historic Places in Knox County, Indiana Clark, George Museums in Knox County, Indiana Military and war museums in Indiana Protected areas established in 1966 American Revolutionary War museums Monuments and memorials in Indiana National Park Service areas in Indiana Vincennes, Indiana Protected areas of Knox County, Indiana 1966 establishments in Indiana Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana Monuments and memorials on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana Conflict sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana American Revolution on the National Register of Historic Places Parks on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana