George Rogers Clark National Historical Park - History

History

The memorial is placed where Fort Sackville is believed to have been established; 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 life. He was sent by the state of Virginia to protect their interest in the Old Northwest. His 1778-1779 campaign included the founding of Louisville, Kentucky 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 United States being able to claim control of what would become the modern day states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

During the 1800s the exact location of Fort Sackville became lost, as Vincennes grew. In 1905 the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a stone marker where they believed Fort Sackville was located. By the 1920s a major effort was made to remember 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 $2,500,000. The memorial was designed by New York architect Frederic Charles Hirons. and dedicated on June 14, 1936, by President Franklin Roosevelt. Though the National Park Service 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 by John Russell Pope was also completed in 1936, and Pope's Jefferson Memorial in Washington was completed during 1939-1943.