1. Home
  2. Travel
  3. US & Canadian Parks
 


TODAY IN PARK HISTORY

 
 

Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site
courtesy of the National Park Service

APRIL 5

1856
Booker T. Washington, famous black leader and educator, is born into slavery on the 207-acre tobacco plantation of James Burroughs of Virginia. In 1881 he would become the first principal at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, and in 1901 would write a bestseller called Up From Slavery - his autobiography. He also would become an advisor to the President Theodore Roosevelt and the first black ever to dine at the White House with the President. 

A century after his birth, the Booker T. Washington National Monument would be established in Franklin County, VA, as as a unit of the National Park Service. 

1941
Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is established near Manteo, North Carolina, to commemorate the first English attempts at colonization in the New World (1585-1587). The park includes a  reconstruction of an earthen fort built by the English. The site also is home to the outdoor symphonic drama, "The Lost Colony," performed since 1937. To this day, the fate of the "Lost Colony" of Sir Walter Raleigh remains a mystery.
1968
The Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site is established in Saugus, Massachusetts to commemorate the first integrated ironworks in North America (1646-1668). The site was intended to  illustrate the critical role of iron making to seventeenth-century settlement and its legacy in shaping the early history of the nation. 

Subscribe to the Newsletter
Name
Email

Explore US & Canadian Parks

More from About.com

  1. Home
  2. Travel
  3. US & Canadian Parks

©2008 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company.

All rights reserved.