Submitted by Fort Scott National Historic Site

This Memorial Day weekend, you and your family are invited to visit Fort Scott National Historic Site as we honor our nation’s fallen heroes. Experience the sights, sounds and smells of a frontier military fort. Celebrate the weekend with traditional living history programs, cooking demonstrations and artillery firings. A guided tour will be offered at 1 p.m. each day and a National Moment of Remembrance honoring American Soldiers who died in the line of duty will be held Monday at 3 p.m.

On Saturday, programs will focus on community life at Fort Scott in the 1840s, with special presentations from our site volunteers on cooking, baking and washing clothes. Come join the post laundress as she demonstrates washing Soldiers’ clothes, 1840s style. Smell the aroma of freshly baked bread from the fort bake house. Watch as the Soldiers and women of the fort go about their daily routines. Living history stations will also include officers’ wives demonstrating needlework, an Infantry Soldier discussing camp life and the post sutler hawking his wares.

Small arms demonstrations are scheduled Saturday and Monday and the roar of artillery will be heard on Sunday. Special programs on Saturday will include a reading of Fort Scott officers who died in the line of duty, a tribute to American Soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice in all wars, and a reading of letters written by Captain Thomas Swords and his wife, Charlotte. The couple was stationed at Fort Scott in the 1840s; Captain Swords served as the post quartermaster at Fort Scott and oversaw its construction.

The schedule of activities is listed below:

Saturday, May 27

10:00 a.m.            Flour, Sweat, and Tears: Bake House Talk

11:00 a.m.            “Ready, Aim, Fire”: Weapons Demonstration

1:00 p.m.            Guided Tour

2:00 p.m.            “Ready, Aim, Fire”: Weapons Demo /Honoring Fort Scott’s Fallen Officers

3:00 p.m.            “The Tongue is More Useful than the Arrow” Letters of Thomas and Charlotte Sword

3:30 p.m.            “So Nobly Advanced”: Memorial Day Tribute to Soldiers

4:00 p.m.            Flag Retreat

Sunday, May 28

1:00 p.m.            Guided Tour

3:00 p.m.            “Thunder Wagon”: Artillery Demonstration

4:00 p.m.            Flag Retreat

Monday, May 29

11:00 a.m.           “Ready, Aim, Fire”: Weapons Demo

1:00 p.m.           Guided Tour

3:00 p.m.           Moment of Silence/Artillery Salute