Valley Forge National Historical Park is the site of the third winter encampment of the Continental Amy during the American Revolutionary War, taking place from December 19, 1777 to June 19, 1778. Valley Forge National Historical Park preserves the site and interprets the history of the Valley Forge encampment.
Valley Forge was established as the first state park of Pennsylvania in 1893 by the Valley Forge Park Commission (VFPC), to preserve, improve, and maintain as public park the site on which General George Washington's Amy encamped at Valley Forge. In 1923, the VFPC was brought under the Department of Forests and Waters and later incorporated into the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in 1971. In 1976, Pennsylvania gave the park as a gift to the nation for the Bicentennial. The U.S. Congress passed a law, signed by President Gerald Ford on July 4, 1976, authorizing the addition of Valley Forge National Historical Park as the 283rd Unit of the National Park System.
This digital archive collection encompasses maps and architectural drawings made for the Valley Forge Park Commission. The digital archive collection is organized by individual architect's works for the commission.
Additional architects collections will be added as processed.
The collection encompasses the work of Civil Engineer, Jacob Orie Clarke who mapped Valley Forge State Park from 1901 to 1930. This collection documents extant conidtions, historic structures, construction of park roadways and monuments, rail lines, archeological excavations, and encampment-period features furing this phase of park formation.
The collection encompasses the work of Paul P. Cret, architect commissioned by the Valley Forge Park Commission to design the National Memorial Arch 1910-1924. The collection consists of drawings pertaining to the design and construction of the arch. The collection also included drawings for the relocation of the Houdon Statue of George Washington in 1943. The work was not completed at that time.
The collection encompasses the work of Richard S. Burns, landscape architect commissioned by the Valley Forge Park Commission to design plantings, roadways and park improvements. The collection consists of drawings from 1926 to 1928.
Francis Brooke, a descendant of General Anthony Wayne, was a successful champion for the Valley Forge Park movement. Brooke was a state legislator and committee chairman.
In 1892, he began lobbying Harrisburg for legislation to establish a state at park at Valley Forge, which resulted in a bill signed by Governor Robert E. Pattison in 1893 creating the Valley Forge Park Commission.
The Valley Forge Park Commission was a ten-man committee whose members were directly appointed by the governor for five-year terms with no compensation. It met for the first time on June 17, 1893,
at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and elected Francis Brooke as their president.
The original task of the park commission was to establish the boundaries of this park by determining exactly where Washington had positioned his men and built his defensive earthworks.
Its ongoing tash was to preserve this land forever as nearly as possible in its “original condition as a military camp.”
Samuel M Garrigues was a Architect for the Valley Forge Park Commission.
Maps shows land ownership of at the time of the Encampment at Valley Forge and the Development of Valley Forge Park.