Rebuilding History
Fort Meigs under renovation.
The Ohio Historical Society reconstructed Fort Meigs in the late 1960s and opened the museum to the public in 1974. The reconstruction of the fort on its original location was one of the Society's major projects to celebrate the nation's bicentennial. The archaeological excavations associated with the project uncovered significant artifacts that help scholars understand military life during the early republic. Many of these objects are still on display at the site.
The Society marked the completion of major restoration of the fort on Saturday May 3, 2003. The project was one of the largest of the many legacy projects the Society planned to commemorate the state's bicentennial year.
Beginning in 2000, the Society tore down the aging stockade and rebuilt it with new hand-hewn timbers. Workers also repaired the fort's seven blockhouses, five artillery batteries and a quartermaster's warehouse.
Blockhouse #1 gets a new roof.
The $6.2 million renovation included construction of a Museum & Education Center, new and renovated exhibits in the museum and four fort blockhouses, reconstruction of the stockade and outdoor interpretive signs and landscaping. The museum building is 14,000 square feet and cost $2.9 million.
Grand Battery after repairs are complete.
The Museum & Education Center features 3,000 square feet of exhibits on Ohio's role in the War of 1812, classrooms for student and adult workshops, and office and maintenance areas. The museum exhibit, Legacy of Freedom: Fort Meigs and the War of 1812, focuses on the themes of era, conflict, understanding and remembrance. These sections place the War of 1812 into the context of the times and explain Fort Meigs' role in this pivotal conflict. How historians and archaeologists learned what happened at the fort is explored as well as how soldiers and their descendants remembered the events of 1813.
Blockhouse #7 after the renovations.
New interactive exhibits in the fort's blockhouses portray the life of a soldier, the building of the fort and dramatic accounts of the sieges against the fort in 1813. In this latter exhibit, a graphic timeline places the War of 1812 in the context of the combative frontier-era Ohio that challenged the state's earliest settlers from 1750 - 1815, as France, England and the U.S. fought to gain control of the region from American Indians.
Future enhancement to the site's educational program will be made possible through the ongoing $1.5 million Campaign for Fort Meigs. The campaign will create the Society's first endowment dedicated to one of its historic sites and fund improvements for the museum, landscaping, outdoor recreation, educational programming and collections care and acquisition.
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