O say can you see?
Hundreds of thousands of visitors will soon get a greatly improved introduction to one of America's most venerated historical sites -- Baltimore's Fort McHenry. During the War of 1812, the fort defended Baltimore harbor and stopped a British advance into the city. The battle inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem that became the national anthem.
Ground was broken Monday on a new visitors center at the fort.
The current, 5,700-square-foot center was designed to accommodate 125,000 to 150,000 visitors a year and was declared obsolete from the day it opened in 1964. The new center will be three times as large (17,200 square feet) and was designed to handle 758,000 visitors a year -- testimony to Baltimore's growing appeal as a tourist destination.
The new center is expected to open in fall of 2010. Congress allocated more than $11 million in 2005 for the construction of the facility, and the city and state also combined to contribute about $3 million for the project.
The center will make a major contribution to helping visitors appreciate the importance of the War of 1812, called by some historians America's second revolutionary war, and of the eloquent poem that became our national anthem. Both worthy goals.
Artist's drawing of new visitors center
