Fort Loudoun State Park to Host Living History Weekend August 6-8
Friday, July 30, 2010 | 07:51am
VONORE, Tenn. – Fort Loudoun State Historic Park will present “1760: Cherokee Victory at Fort Loudoun” August 6-8, 2010. The event will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the surrender of Fort Loudoun to the Cherokee in August 1760.
Free and open to the public, living history programs will be held from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, and from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Sunday (pre-registered guided tours will be held throughout the day on Friday).
Planned activities include guided tours of the Little Tennessee Valley and village sites significant in Cherokee history such as Tanasi, namesake of Tennessee; Chota, capital of the Cherokee Nation in 1760; Great Tellico, present-day Tellico Plains; and Cane Creek, site of a battle between British troops and the Cherokee. The Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee, North Carolina, will provide expert guides for these tours, which depart from the neighboring Sequoyah Birthplace Museum and last approximately 2.5 hours.
Special lectures are planned August 7-8 by notable speakers and authors, including topics such as the history of Fort Loudoun, the Cherokee people and the aftermath of the fort’s fall. Speakers include Dr. Barbara Duncan, education director of the Museum of the Cherokee Indian; Dr. Duane King, author of The Cherokee Indian Nation and director of the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Dr. Tom Hatley, author of The Dividing Paths; and Dr. Stephen Brumwell, author of Redcoats. Lectures will take place in the Fort Loudoun Visitor Center.
Living history presentations will be presented in the reconstructed Fort Loudoun on Saturday, recreating the events that led up to the surrender of the fort. Re-enactors will portray the troops that were stationed at Fort Loudoun from 1756 to 1760, along with the Cherokees who lived outside the fort. For more information about the event, please visit www.fortloudoun.com or call (423) 884-6217.
Fort Loudoun State Park is a 1,200-acre site on the location of one of the earliest British fortifications on the western frontier, built in 1756. Nearby were the principal towns of the Cherokee Nation including Tuskegee, birthplace of Sequoyah. Today the fort and the 1794 Tellico Blockhouse overlook TVA's Tellico Reservoir and the Appalachian Mountains. The park is located one mile off Highway 411 on Highway 360 in Vonore, Tennessee. Additional information about the park can be found at www.tnstateparks.com/FortLoudoun.
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