Fort Stanwix National Monument is a United States National Historic Site in Rome, New York

Rome, New York

Rome is a city in Oneida County, New York, United States. It is located in north-central or "upstate" New York. The population was 44,797 at the 2010 census. It is in New York's 24th congressional district. In 1758, British forces began construction of Fort Stanwix at this strategic location, but...

 managed by the National Park Service

National Park Service

The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...

 (NPS). The current fort is a reconstruction of the historic Fort Stanwix

Fort Stanwix

Fort Stanwix was a colonial fort whose construction was started on August 26, 1758, by British General John Stanwix, at the location of present-day Rome, New York, but was not completed until about 1762. The fort guarded a portage known as the Oneida Carrying Place during the French and Indian War...

 occupying approximately sixteen acres of downtown Rome. The fort site—although not the reconstruction itself—is listed in the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

.

Fort Stanwix is historically significant for the successful American defense of the fortification in August 1777, a defense that proved a major factor in blunting a British invasion from Canada during the Saratoga campaign

Saratoga campaign

The Saratoga Campaign was an attempt by Great Britain to gain military control of the strategically important Hudson River valley in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War...

. The fort was also the site of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix

Treaty of Fort Stanwix

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was an important treaty between North American Indians and the British Empire. It was signed in 1768 at Fort Stanwix, located in present-day Rome, New York...

 (1768).

Besides the fort reconstruction itself, the national monument includes three short trails that encircle it, one of which follows a portion of the Oneida Carry

Oneida Carry

-Overview:The Oneida Carry was an important link in the trade route between Albany, New York, Oneida Lake, and Lake Ontario during the 18th Century...

. The Marinus Willett

Marinus Willett

Marinus Willett was an American soldier and political leader from New York. He was characterized by historian Mark M. Boatner as "one of the truly outstanding American leaders of the Revolution."...

 Collections Management and Education Center preserves the monument’s 485,000 artifacts and documents, displays exhibits about Fort Stanwix and the Mohawk Valley

Mohawk Valley

The Mohawk Valley region of the U.S. state of New York is the area surrounding the Mohawk River, sandwiched between the Adirondack Mountains and Catskill Mountains....

, and serves as a regional tourism center.

Administrative history

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

 signed enabling legislation that created the national monument on August 21, 1935. During the 1960s, Rome city leaders lobbied for a fort reconstruction as part of an urban renewal

Urban renewal

Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...

 program to help revitalize downtown Rome. Under political pressure from Senator Robert Kennedy (D-NY), who was seeking political support in upstate New York, the Park Service reluctantly agreed to build a reconstruction of the Revolutionary War-era fort.

The Park Service completed a master plan for Fort Stanwix in 1967, and in 1970, the NPS began a three-year archaeological investigation. Reconstruction of the fort began in 1974, and the partially completed structure was opened to the public in time for the United States Bicentennial

United States Bicentennial

The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to the historical events leading up to the creation of the United States as an independent republic...

 celebration in 1976. The current reconstruction—an earth-and-timber-clad, reinforced concrete structure surrounding three freestanding buildings—was completed in 1978.

From 1976 until the mid-1990s, the national monument explained the significance of the national monument to visitors using first-person interpretation to portray the fort immediately after the siege (1777–78), emphasizing life during the American Revolution. More recently, third-person interpretation has extended visitor understanding to the French and Indian War

French and Indian War

The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...

as well as the role played by the fort during the negotiation of a series of treaties with Native Americans.

Further reading

Fort Stanwix National Monument website

Executive Summary, “Reconstructing the Past, Partnering for the Future: An Administrative History of Fort Stanwix National Monument.”

Joan M. Zenzen, “Administrative Histories: Writing about Fort Stanwix National Monument,” The Public Historian, 31 (May 2009): 55-65.