I went to the fair in neighboring Abilene , Kansas ( Dwight Eisenhower's hometown) this weekend and among other things saw that they had an M7 Preist, a M110, and a M60 tank in their city park. I am also close to Ft. Riley with it's many historical attractions and equipment ( like Custer's house which is said to be haunted by his wife waiting at the window for her husband to return) I was curious to see what historical things were located in your all's "backyard"?

There are a lot of military bases in town, and they've each got "gate guards." There is a B-52 up on a "Popsicle stick" at the Air Force Academy, a M60, a M113, and a Cobra, at Fort Carson, not to mention all the armor on display inside. There are a couple of Foreign Legion posts that have very large artillery pieces, I think from WW1, in front of their posts. Down south, outside Canyon City, there is a F4 Phantom on a stick, and another M113. Pueblo also has a great display of four statues of Medal of Honor winners downtown.

Across the Connecticut River and a mile or so south from home is the site of King Phillip's Stockade, a 17th century concentration camp for the native people, particularly members of the Agawam tribe.
At the south end of town, where a fair grounds and flood control dikes lie is what is believed to have been a seasonal encampment site for these same people.
To the east are Boston, Plymouth and Cape Cod. Most of you know the history involved with them.
About 30 miles to the north is Deerfield, site of a couple massacres of English settlers by the French and Indians in the 17th and early 18th centuries. (Turns out one of my grandmothers 8 or 9 generations back was one of the captives in the 1704 raid who chose to remain in New France (Canada) and a first cousing 10 generatiosn back was the leader of the French on that same raid.)

Oh god where to begin, well these are some just of the top of my head. We have the USS Little Rock, USS The Sullivan’s and the USS Croaker are some of the permanent exhibits here. We’ve had to US Presidents hail from here, ( Grover Cleveland and Millard Fillmore) also
(McKinley) was assassination here during the Pan-Am fair in 1901. President McKinley dies at John Milburn house, which is a museum today. Grover Cleveland was mayor of Buffalo, NY and a Sheriff who emerged from the political venue to become the President.

Air conditioning as it is known today was invented in Buffalo, NY. In 1902 by Willis Haviland Carrier.

Aerospace…

Larry Bell, Bell builds and flies the first American jet plane, the P-59 Airacomet. The P-59 is built in utmost secret on the upper floor of the old Ford plant on Main Street in the city and the 47B is the first Bell helicopter model in production.

Glenn Curtiss, the Curtiss "Jenny," America's most famous World War I airplane, is developed by combining the best features of the Curtiss "J" and "N" models. The JN-3 is modified in 1916 to improve its performance and redesignated the JN-4. With America's entry into WW1 on April 6, 1917, the Signal Corps began ordering large quantities of JN-4s, and by the time production is terminated after the Armistice, more than 6,000 have been delivered, the majority of them JN-4Ds.

Niagara Falls, Lake Erie and the Erie Canal. Fort Niagara, Niagara on the lake and the underground Rail Road which brought many slaves their freedom.


George Westinghouse, Westinghouse believed in Tesla's inventions, installed, them in the Adams Station and brought electricity to Buffalo. Westinghouse also invented the first electric chair (ouch)

Wells-Fargo, both men also mayors here, major ball played hailed here.

April 22, 1865 Abraham Lincoln lay in state in St. James Hall here in the city.

Man I can keep going on and on. These places and the many, many others are within a 15-40 minute ride from me, and I'm sure I'm missing plenty more.

Joe

Here in Dayton there is the Air Force Museum. There are also some Wright brothers "relics" around, such as the camera that they took the famous picture of their first flight with, Orville's medals that he won in bike racing, and, of course, their home and workshop.

Well, I am down here in North East Georgia and most of our history is local lore. There are a couple of areas where the Cherokee were gathered before they were taken on the Trail of Tears. William Bartram did take a walk through the area in the late 1770's. He was an English Naturalist. There are other areas of Native American importance in neighboring counties as well. Our local VFW doesn't even have an old tank or helo.

The biggest claim to fame for our county is the movie Deliverance was filmed here. And yes, Banjo boy does still live here. He works at our local Wal-Mart.

Prior to moving down here I lived in Northern Illinois. Close to my home town is the lone monument for the Blackhawk War. It is at the site of the Battle of Stillman's Run, currently Stillman Valley. There are some other Native American sites scattered across the area as well.

Up here on Washington's Olympic Peninsula we have a complex of coastal defense forts, Forts Casey, Flagler, and Warden. The film "An Officer And A Gentleman" was filmed at Fort Warden, and the local IPMS chapter holds it's annual show in the same building used as the barracks in the film. Fort casey has several preserved artillery pieces mounted in preserved casemates, Fort Warden has a very nice coastal artillery museum, and all of them have old bunker complexes to explore.
Closer to my home in Port Angeles there are several observation bunkers on Striped peak, which is only a short drive up in the hills a short distance down the coast. They aren't as well known or marked as the forts, so you need to know where to look for them. There's also an underground city along the waterfront from around the turn of the 20th Century before the downtown was rebuilt on elevated pilings.

Hi...

I am stuck here in southcentral Pennsylvania...absolutely nothing of historical value anywhere near here...except for Philadelphia, where a bunch of malcontents wrote the Declaration of Independence...Oh, and Valley Forge where some guy named George managed to hold a ragtag, starving, freezing army together long enough to win the Battle of Trenton and save the fledling USA.

I also heard a rumor that during the Civil War there was some kind of little skirmish just down the road about 30 miles from my house. I understand they have some monuments over there...a little town called, I believe...Gettysburg, or something like that. I understand that one of our former Presidents gave a speech there once...I think his name might have been Lincoln.

Other than those couple of things, absolutely nothing of interest around here...

Oh...I forgot...if I walk up the hill to the state park, I can see the cooling towers of some place called Three Mile Island...I understand there was some kind of a problem with a nuclear reactor there once upon a time.

I tell you...there ain't nothing ever happens around here

I totally forgot one thing in my back yard. Camp Toccoa is just a few minutes away. For those who saw Band of Brothers, it was in the first episode.

http://www.506infantry.org/toccoamemorial.html

Within a 15-minute bike ride I have Historic Fort Snelling. Also on the ANG/Reserve base next door there is an aviation museum which until recently included an A-12 (similar to the SR-71) and an armor museum which has among other things a Sgt York DIVAD (not many of those around anymore). The Veterans Home a few minutes closer by has a number of gate-guard cannon captured during the Spanish-American war while a deck gun from the USS Ward (first U.S. ship to fire shots in anger in WWII) is in front of the state capitol building on the other side of town.

We have a narrow gage logging railroad across the street from us.
When you get up into the bay area/SF there are numerous interesting military /historical sites including the Littlefield Military Vehicle Collection

Cheers,
Charles

Hi again...

One little item of historical interest I forgot to mention is that the Articles of Confederation were adopted here in York, Pennsylvania.

That makes York the first capital of the United States of America, according to some (most?) historians.

The local American Legion post has two m113 with I think flamethrowers mounted. A construction company just down the road from my house likes to use military vehicles to hual supplies to the job site. Local VFW has some sort of AAA. Bout thrity minutes away is a park with a huey and other items, never had a chance to see what else.

I can't believe i forgot what I did.

We have tva all around us. Fontana dam is two hours away. It's the tallest dam on the right side of the country. Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant (less than three hours away,) is about to be the first Nuke plant in the US to start a reactor in service in I think twenty years.


The civil war is reresented well too with Chickamauga Battlefield, Battle above the Clouds, (Lookout Mountain,) Missionary Ridge, and scattered camps all over the area.


The '96 Olympics white water events were held within an hour of my house.

Less than two hours away is the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville Alabama

Less than two hours away, the other way, is Oak Ridge Tenessee where work on the atomic bomb was done.

I'm sure there are more but I cnat remember them

I live in Baltmore, MD, USA. So there's Fort McHenry, there's the Army Ordnance Museum up the road in Aberdeen. My parents live in Gettysburg, PA, and all that entails. In addition to all the battlefield stuff, there is also Eisenhower's home away from home, which is nice to visit. Plus, each year at his farm, they have a WW2 living history day. I've gone twice and hung out on a restored M4A3E8, various Jeeps, M18 hellcat, M36 and M10 tank destroyers, an M8 greyhound, and an M2 Halftrack. Fun stuff.

Rob

Maybe I should talk more about my hometown in New Jersey than where I live now. Teterboro Airport was an important location for pioneer aviators. George Washington's retreat from New York passed through the area using the crossing at Little Ferry then down into the Passaic Valley.
We had a story about the Hessians raiding for cattle in the Hackensack Meadowlands. This area was settled by the Dutch and still retains many of their descendants. The Hessians came up the Hackensack River for their raid in barges. After they gathered up what livestock they could, they loaded the barges for the return. They did forget something. The Hackensack River and Meadowlands are heavily influenced by the tides. Their barges had no problem at high tide coming in, but as the tide ebbed away, the barges became stuck in the mud and a now organized group of angry Dutch farmers started shooting down the Hessian soldiers. This is the type of silty mud that when you lift your feet out of it you get a strong sucking sound if you don't leave your boot behind! Unable to move in the mud, the Hessians began to try to swim across the river from the angry farmeers who reclaimed their purloined livestock. Needless to say, this is supposed to have been one of the last foraging forays by the Hessians in that area.
Mike T.

hi here in dublin we have collin's barracks museum it has a huge collection of military uniforms and equipment from michael collins bloods stained uniform to uniforms that every war irish soldiers fought including the american civil war it also has a viking ship from denmark it can be found at this address www.museum.ie cheers

i live in a very very old part of england, we have a few roman ruins under our feet, iron age forts, a 12th century motte and bailey castle, a 15th century pottery, in our high street a building form the 1500s stands, its now a pizza palace place. at the back of that place (formerly a pub) a world famous smuggler was shot with pistoll and ball by the town sheriff. we have a museum ( a small one) a ancient port(now a cafe over the top)
lots of old people (Lol) and an 11th century church

Got you all beat. I live only a few miles from an actual historial marker showing the site of "The First Plastic". I am not making this up.

C'Mon, where would we all be without our little plastic tanks ?????

I work on the site of the old Donibristle RNAS. In fact the room I'm sitting in was the officer's mess. Almost every RNAS plane in WWII has been here for repair at one stage or another. There is an old pillbox at the bottom of the car park. But most of the old base is housing now. It went all the way down to the sea about half a mile from here.
My neighbour was stationed here and pinched the crest from the cinema when he demobbed.
There is graffiti from a Polish or other Eastern European squadron in round the back. If think they were the air cover for the base and the Forth Bridge (only the rail one at that time). Would be good to find out more esp as the site will probably be flattened in the next year or so.

A very short walk from my house lays the Wehrmacht HQ for the german land forces in Denmark during the occupation.

It was supposed to be the HQ in case of an invasion taking place in Denmark and the commanding general the Wehrmacht von Hanneken had a residence out there.

There allso is in exces of 20 bunkers - some rather large - and foundation for a elevated FLAK position and a quite nice little bunker museum.

Its fortunate that the alliedes newer bombed the place, since the accuracy back the propably would have flattend my house

Link to museum: http://www.bumus.dk - only in danish im afraid.

out at the old boise idaho penitentiary is a small museum with a really unique car/airplane hybrid from the 1950s, there is a B17 wreck out at Loon lake near Mccall (Idaho) it was nearly intact until a fed museum had some guys come out and pick parts off it for a restoration back in DC. this wreck is in a remote mountain area many interesting historical sights related to the Nez Perce war and other native american conflicts.

Close to home(Baker City,OR) is the Oregon trail(about 5 miles out of town) and 25 miles toward Sumpter is a restored and working narrow gauge train, the Stumpdodger. It used to haul logs and now hauls tourists. Lots of old gold mines(including the lost Blue Bucket mine) and the deepest canyon in the US(Does anyone know it's name?) Chief Joseph is buried about 100 miles to the NE. Over on the coast is Ft, Stevens which in WW2 housed batteries of disappearing coastal artillary. The guns are gone but the massive bunkers remain.Just south of the fort is the wreck of the Peter Iredale which you can explore at low tide. The area where the Iredale went down is known as the graveyard of the Pacific. North of the fort is where Lewis&Clark finally found the Pacific.

I forgot to mention the wreckage of a B-24 which failed to clear a mountan south of here.

About a 20-min ride from me is the 1St Inf. Div. Museum at Cantigny. Located in Wheaton, IL, on the old Robert McCormick estate. They have a nice collection of armored vehicles outside the museum, but inside is a real treasure trove. Dioramas, artifacts, you name it. Anything having to do with the Big Red One from its earliest history to today.

Mike