Today was the 25th Annual Day At The Point. Free house tours, carriage rides, apple cider, live…read morefarm animals, demonstrations......and the weather was perfect. Great day.

I really had high hopes for this tour. Not sure if it was the tour guide or we were the first tour…read morebut we basically got an architectual tour of the hour. I am impressed after changing hands so many times that it has been restored to its former glory BUT I really wanted to know more about the original owners, their lives, etc. and it's time as the community center for the town. I would give it 2 but I am giving them the benefit of the doubt and upping my rating so more people will visit.

I just had the HONOR to tour this BEAUTIFUL Historical Park. I am an Army Combat Veteran and by me…read morehaving the Honor to walk where there were Thousands if NOT Hundreds of Thousands Soldiers who marched into the Heat of Battle to stop the clutch and horrors of Slavery. The Battle sites is what I first went to view and yeah it hits you hard at all of the losses we had. Then I went to the Appomattox Court House and toured the grounds. Amazing place to take your kids there and to hear all of the History that we don't want to lose. To me, it was an Honor to walk where Victory for our Soldiers and our Country. I would for sure drive another 15 hours from Louisiana to go and Tour the grounds again.

The Appomattox Court House NHP is a fraud! Ok here me out. I am somewhat of a history nerd but…read morethink broad strokes not necessarily on a micro level. Anyway, when I arrived, I went into the visitor's center like one always should when visiting a National Park. One of the Park Rangers started telling me about the property. "Currently you are standing in the Appomattox Court House......absolutely nothing happened in here! The surrender was just a football field's length away at the McLean House." What!? Why is it named after the courthouse then? Anyway, all jokes aside the place is great. As stated, the visitor's center is located inside the old courthouse and has the standard gift shop, museum, and movie theatre. Outside there are several buildings that include a bookstore, a Tavern, The Mclean House and several others. The Mclean House was actually torn down at one point and then rebuilt. The house is set up to look like it did then when Lee surrendered to Grant. While the Mclean house is the main attraction to the park, there are plenty of battlefields, markers and hiking trails around to explore. So why only 4 stars, well name it the Mclean House National Historic Park and I will give it another star.

According to local legend, Thomas Jefferson ate a tomato here to prove it wasn't poisonous. I'm a…read morehardcore history nerd, so of course, I had to check it out. I didn't take a tour (because of COVID-19), but the gardens were still open, so I enjoyed the tulips and peonies. The setting is beautiful, with plenty of large trees and flowering plants. This is the only house in the city from the 18th century, and it has been maintained wonderfully.

This historical marker and the very tall granite obelisk are dedicated to Confederate Lieutenant…read moreGeneral Jubal Early. It is located on a triangular corner of a mini-mart. The marker reads, "Fort Early. Named for Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early, this roughly square earthen redoubt served as a part of the outer line of defense for Lynchburg in June 1864. Fort Early and the outer fortifications were constructed to provide additional protection for the vital railroad facilities in Lynchburg threatened by Union Maj. Gen. David Hunter's troops after Early arrived on 17 June. On 18 June, Hunter advanced his troops towards Confederate positions, while Union artillery bombarded Fort Early and other Confederate fortifications. After a number of unsuccessful assaults during the day, Hunter ordered a retreat that night. His troops withdrew to the southwest toward present-day Roanoke." Online, there is a lot more information. Jubal Anderson Early was a Virginia lawyer and politician. He was trained at the United States Military Academy (aka West Point) and resigned his U.S. Army commission after the Second Seminole War and his Virginia military commission after the Mexican-American War, in both cases to practice law and participate in politics. Early accepted a Virginia and later Confederate military commission as the American Civil War began, Early fought in the Eastern Theater throughout the conflict. He commanded a division under Generals Stonewall Jackson and Richard Ewell, and later commanded a corps. A key Confederate defender of the Shenandoah Valley, during the Valley Campaigns of 1864, Early made daring raids to the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and as far as York, Pennsylvania. Particularly after the death of Gen. Robert E. Lee in 1870, Early delivered speeches establishing the Lost Cause position. Early helped found the Southern Historical Society and memorial associations. So while he was certainly a hero to Lynchburg and the Confederacy, he was clearly not willing to accept defeat. It's a very beautiful monument here and that's why I rate it four stars. [Review 15069 overall, 571 of 2021, number 1287 in Virginia.]

At the corner Rivermont Avenue and Quinlan Street, this marker gives some history on the nearby…read moreMaier Museum of Art https://www.yelp.com/biz/maier-museum-of-art-at-randolph-college-lynchburg?hrid=QafNqhflPnewcdzHacJCig at Randolph College https://www.yelp.com/biz/randolph-college-lynchburg?uid=hWDybu_KvYLSdEFzGrniTw, code named Project Y. The marker reads, "In 1951, the National Gallery of Art established a secret emergency repository (Code named Project Y) for its distinguished collection of art on the campus of Randolph-Macon Woman's College. The specially designed reinforced concrete building, situated at the end of Quinlan Street, was built for use in the event of national crisis during the Cold War. In exchange for ownership and use of the facility, the college made it available to the National Gallery for 50 years for emergency purposes. The A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust financed its construction. The building is now the home of the college's Maier Museum of Art." There is some more information online. The structure was finished in the spring of 1952 costing under $250,000 to build and was simply called "the art gallery."[A pre-staged convoy of trucks in the National Gallery of Art's garage stood at the ready to evacuate its masterpieces to the facility which included a fully stocked, three-bedroom cottage for the gallery's curator. In the mid-1970s, the College was granted permission by the National Gallery of Art to renovate the space to make it more practical, attractive and comfortable for the students, faculty and the public. The renovations were funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. After subsequent renovations in 1981-82 and the established of an endowment in 1983, funded by the Sarah and Pauline Maier Scholarship Foundation, the name was changed from "the art gallery" to its present name, the Maier Museum of Art. [Review 15169 overall, 671 of 2021, number 1328 in Virginia.]

Along Court Street near Monument Terrace, this marker is tribute to a local citizen who went on to…read morerepresent Virginia locally and then nationally. I can't say that I'm a fan of the Federal Reserve Act but at least we know who wrote it now. The marker reads, "Born January 4, 1858, in a house which stood on this site. Newspaper publisher; member of the State Senate and Delegate to the State Constitutional Convention of 1901-1902; member of the United States House of Representatives, 1902-1918, and principal author of the Federal Reserve Act; Secretary of the Treasury, 1918-1920; member of the United States Senate from 1920 until his death in 1946." In the Senate, Glass was chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and served as president pro tempore from 1941 to 1945. He co-sponsored the 1933 Banking Act, also known as the Glass-Steagall Act, which created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and enforced the separation of investment banking firms and commercial banks. An ardent supporter of states' rights, Glass opposed much of the New Deal and clashed with President Franklin D. Roosevelt over the control of federal appointments in Virginia. [Review 15089 overall, 591 of 2021, number 1305 in Virginia.]

Lynchburg was a pivotal city and transportation hub in the Civil War and it avoided destruction by…read moreUnion Forces thanks to the efforts of General Jubal Early https://www.yelp.com/biz/jubal-early-monument-lynchburg?hrid=4aLY_bdVctUltYVhUDaU8A. This marker points out some of why that was. It reads, "Here, facing west, ran the inner defenses of the city, located by General D. H. Hill. They were constructed by convalescents and home guards. General Early, after an inspection of the system, moved most of the men to the outer works well to the westward." On June 18, 1864, in the Battle of Lynchburg, Early's combined forces, though outnumbered, repelled Union General Hunter's troops. [Review 15093 overall, 595 of 2021, number 1309 in Virginia.]

This marker alongside US11 (Lee Highway) would be missed if you were zipping by on the nearby…read moreInterstate. It recalls Colonial times and the days before steel and concrete bridges and superhighways. It reads, "Looney's Ferry, established in 1742, was the first crossing over James River in this region. On the other side of the river was Cherry Tree Bottom, home of Colonel John Buchanan, and above the mouth of this creek stood Fort Fauquier, 1758-1763." Back in 1742, this was the westernmost point on the frontier, located along the "Great Road" or the "Philadelphia Road" and was used by settlers traveling south from Lancaster through the Shenandoah Valley to settlements in Bristol VA, Knoxville TN and Charlotte NC. The James River and its ferries played a huge role in the establishment of the towns surrounding its waters, and without the ferries, the Town of Buchanan would not exist as we know it today. [Review 13775 overall, 1096 of 2020, number 1210 in Virginia.]