The
Beaver Area Heritage Foundation oversees three major historical
sites in Beaver that are a “must-see” for history-lovers
and as an educational experience for children. They include:
Beaver
Area Heritage Museum – The museum features
important exhibits on the people, objects and events that
have shaped our community’s history, and continues to
grow and expand in its vision and scope. Created by the renovation
of a 90-year-old freight station formerly owned by the Pittsburgh
& Lake Erie Railroad, it opened in 1998 and received “Best
Local History Museum” Award from the American Association
of State and Local History. The museum houses an extensive
collection of thousands of rare artifacts unique to the
Beaver Area. The facility served as the site of a “whistle-stop”
campaign visit by President George W. Bush and Vice President
Dick Cheney in 2000. See our current
exhibit.
Log
House – Opened in 2002 as a project of
the Museum, the log house is reconstructed of timbers found
in an old log building in Beaver that may have been salvaged
from Fort McIntosh. It has received a Certificate of Achievement
Award from the Pennsylvania Federation of Museums. In partnerships
with local schools, the house is a center for educating
hundreds of elementary students, as part of their social studies
curriculum, teaching them that history is "in their own
backyard." It also is an excellent venue for adult education
and corporate entertainment. The interior features cured furs,
dried herbs, a spinning wheel and scores household objects
that would have been found in a typical Beaver home circa
1802, as well as landscaping
and plantings of flowers
and herbs native to Beaver frontier homes 200 years ago.
Fort
McIntosh Site – Built by Gen. Lachlan McIntosh
in 1778, the fort was in service during the American Revolution,
and later was home of the First American
Regiment, the first standing U.S. Army in peacetime. The
site underwent an extensive archaeological excavation in 1970s,
with the restored historical park dedicated by General William
Westmoreland in 1978, and rededicated again in 2006 following
renovation.
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