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YORKTOWN VICTORY CENTER INVITES COMMUNITY

April 17, 2015

YORKTOWN VICTORY CENTER INVITES COMMUNITY TO EXPERIENCE NEW MUSEUM BUILDING

 

A newly open building that will be the centerpiece of the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown – replacing the Yorktown Victory Center in late 2016 – will be showcased in a community open house on Sunday, April 19, with guided tours and light refreshments from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and free admission for residents of Gloucester, James City, Mathews and York counties and the cities of Hampton, Newport News, Poquoson and Williamsburg.

 

Yorktown Victory Center operations transitioned into the new 80,000-square-foot building in mid-March.  Museum visitors can watch films in a 170-seat theater that dramatize the final military campaign of the Revolution and explore the American ideal of liberty, and follow an American Revolution timeline that provides a visual journey from the 13 British colonies in the 1750s to westward expansion of the new United States in the 1790s.  While work continues on building permanent gallery exhibits to open in late 2016, participatory experiences are offered indoors and on an outdoor event lawn, with periodic topics including nationalities represented at the Siege of Yorktown and choosing sides during the Revolution.

 

A short video introduces visitors to the museum’s outdoor re-created Continental Army encampment and Revolution-era farm, where historical interpreters provide encounters with the daily lives of soldiers and civilians.  The farm and encampment, now located side-by-side next to the new museum building, will be expanded and reconstructed by late 2016.  Visitors on April 19 can delve into 18th-century foodways at 10 a.m., join an artillery crew at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. and a military drill at 1 p.m., learn about the tools of the farmer’s trade at noon and the tobacco economy at 2 p.m., tour the kitchen garden at 4 p.m., and master the art of espionage at 4:30 p.m.

 

Guided tours of the new building, including an education center that serves as a learning venue for student groups as well as the general public, will start every hour from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on April 19.  Complimentary light refreshments will be available in the new café, which features seasonal food service and seating indoors and on an outside patio.  The café is located across the entrance lobby from a large museum store. 

 

Open daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and located at Route 1020 and the Colonial Parkway (200 Water Street), the Yorktown Victory Center is administered by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, a Virginia state agency that also operates Jamestown Settlement, a museum of 17th-century Virginia.  For more information, visit www.historyisfun.org or call (888) 593-4682 toll-free or (757) 253-4838.