George Rogers Clark Memorial in Vincennes, Indiana

VISITING THE GEORGE ROGERS CLARK MEMORIAL

The George Rogers Clark Memorial is open daily from 9 AM until 4:45 PM. It is closed on all federal holidays EXCEPT Memorial Day, Independence Day, Juneteenth, and Labor Day. Keep in mind that times can always change, so be sure to get the current schedule on the National Park Service’s official Operating Hours and Seasons web page for the park.

To enter the George Rogers Clark Memorial, visitors must be accompanied by a park Ranger. When I visited, there was only one person working. I don’t know if this is normal or just a freak occurrence, but when staffing is this short, either the Visitor Center or the Memorial will be closed, and a sign will be on the door directing traffic to the other building. I first went to the Visitor Center, and it was open. When the Ranger took me to the Memorial, he locked the door behind him and put up a GO TO THE MEMORIAL sign. If the Memorial is closed, a GO TO THE VISITOR CENTER sign will be at the door. I assume if there is more than one Ranger on duty that there will be one in the Visitor Center and one at the Memorial.

All there is inside the memorial is a statue of Clark and seven murals depicting scenes from his life and important events in the settling of the northwestern frontier in the mid- to late 1700s. There are wayside exhibits explaining the murals. While a Ranger is present, there is no formal tour. You can ask questions and get answers. If you just want to take a look, you’ll be in and out in a few minutes. Even if you read the information about the murals, you won’t spend much more than fifteen minutes inside the memorial.

Clark statue and murals inside the George Rogers Clark Memorial

GEORGE ROGERS CLARK MEMORIAL HISTORY

As a result of England’s victory over the French in the French and Indian War (1754-1763), the boundaries of the original thirteen colonies were extended from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River (the Spanish owned the land west of the river as a result of the war). At the time, this was the western frontier of the British empire in North America.

England now feared that if colonists started moving into the new territory, they would stir up trouble with the French and the Indians, possibly starting another war. To prevent this, King George III issued the Proclamation Line of 1763 forbidding any such migration. However, this did little to stop the colonists, and as expected, attacks by the local Indians became commonplace.

During the American Revolution, even more colonists moved west to get away from the fighting. Since England was now at war with the colonists, and since it had very few soldiers (less than 500) in the west due to the main fighting being in the east, Harry Hamilton, the lieutenant governor of the Province of Quebec who was stationed at Fort Detroit, attempted to stem the flow of settlers into the area by supplying the Indian tribes with weapons and gifts in exchange for stepped-up attacks. Afterall, the Indians didn’t like the colonists any more than the British.

One colonist living in the western area known as Kentucky Country, where most of the attacks were being carried out, was George Rogers Clark. Feed up with the attacks, in late 1777 Clark traveled to Williamsburg, Virginia, to ask Governor Patrick Henry for permission to raise an army to attack former French villages along the Mississippi and Wabash rivers that were being used by the British to supply the Indians with weapons. With a very small army, he successfully captured multiple towns in what was called Illinois Country, with the most important being Kaskaskia and Cahokia on the Mississippi and Vincennes, home of Fort Sackville, on the Wabash. This severely weakened the British position in the west, leaving Detroit as their only stronghold. Clark never could assemble an army big enough to attack Fort Detroit, though he did continue fighting in the western frontier throughout the war, mainly battling Indian tribes.

George Rogers Clark Memorial sits along the Wabash River near or on the site of the former Fort Sackville in Vincennes, Indiana

After the war, Clark fought in the Northwest Indian War (1785-1795) as an officer, but he was discharged for being drunk on duty. He had financed much of the military campaign against the British himself or by borrowing money, and he was never fully repaid by the government due to what it claimed was a lack of accounting. He was eventually given a pension in 1812 by the Virginia General Assembly for his service during the war. He died in 1818, living alone near Louisville, Kentucky, broke and largely forgotten. His estate was paid $30,000 after his death for repayment of some of his claimed expenses during the war.

The importance of Clark’s success has been debated since the American Revolution ended, with a more recent assessment being that it wasn’t all that important to the outcome of the war. However, in the early 1920s, a few prominent citizens of Vincennes, Indiana, thought otherwise, and they came up with the idea of memorializing Clark in time for the upcoming 150-year anniversary of his capture of Fort Sackville in February 1779 (the anniversary would be 1929). They felt that Clark had fallen into obscurity, yet his accomplishments during the war were worthy of some sort of recognition. The original idea was simply a statue of Clark that would be erected near a new bridge that was scheduled to be built across the Wabash River at Vigo Street. The project was to be headed up by the Vincennes Historical Society and the Indiana Historical Society. In December 1925, the General Clark Sesquicentennial Committee was formed.

George Rogers Clark Memorial in Vincennes, Indiana

The plan was for the city of Vincennes to donate some of the land for the memorial, with the state of Indiana footing the bill for any additional acreage. The United States government was also asked to contribute to the construction costs. Members of the Indiana Republican Party, which was in power at the time, liked the idea, and soon the project expanded into including a museum, a boulevard along the river, and even George Rogers Clark commemorative coins and stamps. The general consensus of the Indiana politicians was that the memorial should be a national memorial funded with more Federal dollars.

The 1927, the Indiana General Assembly and the Senate passed legislation to create the George Rogers Clark Memorial Commission. The Commission was to acquire the land and start a memorial design competition. Costs were to be paid by an additional property tax, which was estimated to provide $450,000 for the project.

United States congressmen and senators from Indiana then introduced legislation to establish the George Rogers Clark Sesquicentennial Commission and to provide funds for the memorial. However, Congress adjourned before anything was done. This prompted members of the Indiana Clark commission to travel directly to the White House that November to meet with President Calvin Coolidge, who promised to endorse the project when Congress reconvened in December.

Legislation to establish a federal commission was reintroduced, which also included $1.75 million for the project. The resolution passed both the House and Senate and was signed into law by Coolidge on May 23, 1928. The only changes were that the memorial budget was reduced to $1 million and that the State of Indiana had to provide the land and perpetual maintenance for the park. Of course Indiana politicians had no problem making a promise they never planned on keeping.

Fighting among committee members, escalating land prices in anticipation of government purchases, expiration of the property tax to fund the project (it was only a temporary tax, and it was eventually brought back in 1931), and other troubles all caused the Clark Memorial to be delayed beyond the 150th anniversary of the capture of Fort Sackville. By this time the Great Depression had started, and Herbert Hoover was now president. However, despite hard times, Hoover authorized another $500,000 for the project in March 1931. Money was still being doled out by the Roosevelt Administration for landscaping and other completion projects as late as February 1936. What began as a local idea for a statue near a new bridge eventually ballooned into the $2 million classical Greek-style memorial standing today at George Rogers Clark National Historical Park. This may be the largest memorial structure for a person in the United States other than those for presidents, and Clark is pretty much a minor historical figure.

A design contest was held in 1929. The requirements were that the memorial be a building, that there be murals and a sculpture of Clark, and on the grounds that there be sculptures of the men instrumental in Clark’s success, Francis Vigo, Oliver Pollack, and Father Gibault (no statue of Pollack was produced). The winning design was announced in February 1930. Architect Frederick Hirons was the winner. W. E. Heath Construction Company was awarded the contract to build the monument based on its $775,000 proposal.

Construction began in October 1930 and continued until May 1933, but it wasn’t until June 14, 1936, that the George Rogers Clark Memorial was finally dedicated by President Franklin Roosevelt. The stone on the outside of the memorial is granite while the inside is Indiana limestone. The finished structure is 80 feet tall and 90 feet wide at the base.

George Rogers Clark Memorial in Vincennes, Indiana

The interior rotunda features a statue of Clark in the center (installed in December 1934) surrounded by seven painted murals on canvas, each 16 feet wide and 28 feet tall. The paintings, which took two and a half years to produce, were done by Ezra Winter. They depict key moments in Clark’s life and historic moments in the settling of the western frontier.

Clark statue and murals inside the George Rogers Clark Memorial

Clark statue and murals inside the George Rogers Clark Memorial

The George Rogers Clark Memorial was signed off on by the Executive Committee when completed, but within six weeks water started leaking into the basement. The leaks progressively got worse, and by 1937 water was even pouring into the rotunda. For whatever reason, Heath Construction was never held responsible, and repair after repair was funded with taxpayer money. Nothing could stop the leaks. Water stained the granite and limestone walls and ceiling. Stalactites up to four feet long hung from the ceiling of the basement. Granite blocks on the outside had actually been moved by the freezing and thawing of water that had seeped into the joints between the blocks. The only solution was to tear down the upper part of the structure and rebuild it, but that was not feasible due to cost. Waterproofing projects were carried out on a regular basis and always failed. In 2008 the roof / terrace was finally dismantled as suggested back in the 1940s at a cost of over $3 million.

Indiana’s promise to maintain the Clark Memorial in perpetuity didn’t last long. Efforts to turn it over to the Federal government started in February 1935, before the memorial was even dedicated. Legislation was proposed in the Indiana General Assembly to pawn it off on the American taxpayers, and it passed without opposition. Indiana governor Paul McNutt signed it into law in March 1935. Of course, this didn’t mean the Federal government had to accept the memorial, just that Indiana was willing to get rid of it.

George Rogers Clark Memorial in Vincennes, Indiana

In 1938, members of the National Park Service came to Vincennes to take a look around, noting that the memorial was already deteriorating. In 1939, bills were introduced in the House and Senate to create the George Rogers Clark National Memorial, and while the bill passed, Roosevelt vetoed it in August. He sited Indiana’s promise to maintain the structure as his reason for the veto. The memorial eventually fell under the jurisdiction of the Indiana Conservation Department and had an annual maintenance budget of $7,500.

There were a few problems with the deeds, so maintenance money was withheld. By 1940 the park had become home to vagrants who tossed trash everywhere. Local residents began mowing the knee-high grass and cleaning up the park for Memorial Day celebrations. The local paper and then the larger state-wide papers picked up the story, which eventually shamed the government into doing something. And what did it do? Not much other than wasting money on waterproofing projects.

By 1965 the memorial was in shambles. U. S. Representative from Indiana, Winfield Denton, visited Vincennes in the spring. Upon learning that the State of Indiana had voted to turn the Clark Memorial over to the Federal government back in 1935, Denton introduced a bill in the House to create a new national park. The National Park Service then came up with an even better idea. Why not add President William Harrison’s home, Grouseland, and the Territorial Capitol (both in Vincennes) and make it a national historical park? Language adding these properties as part of the park by cooperative agreement—meaning the National Park Service would not own the properties, but it would now promote them, and they would be eligible to receive federal funds—became part of Denton’s bill. It was passed by the House and Senate and signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 23, 1966. After all, it’s not their money. George Rogers Clark National Historical Park was now a reality.

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