The Fort Walton Beach Heritage Park & Cultural Center is located on U.S. Highway 98 in the center of historic Fort Walton Beach, Florida. This archaeological site features multiple museums that showcase local history from 14,000 BCE through the 1950s. The cultural exhibits and landscape tell the story of 12,000 years of human occupation. Admission for all museums in the complex is taken at the Indian Temple Mound Museum building. Other museums and attractions on-site include the Indian Temple Mound Museum, Camp Walton Schoolhouse Museum, Garnier Post Office Museum, Civil War Exhibits Building, and Fort Walton Mound. All museums are located in close proximity to the base of the Fort Walton Mound.
The Indian Temple Mound Museum was opened in 1962 as “the first municipally owned and operated museum in the state of Florida." [1] According to the city's official website, “Over 1,000 artifacts of stone, bone, clay, and shell are here, as well as one of the finest collections of prehistoric ceramics in the Southeastern United States. Exhibits also include artifacts from the European Explorers, local pirates, and early settlers." [2] The “Fort Walton Culture” was named by American archaeologist Gordon Willey, based on his work at the Fort Walton Mound site near the Indian Temple Museum in the 1930s. [1] This term refers to a late prehistoric Native American people that flourished in southeastern North American from approximately 1200-1500 CE. Archaeologists have now come to believe that the Fort Walton site was actually built and used by people of the contemporaneous Pensacola culture. The Heritage Park & Cultural Center is currently classified as a Museum Assessment Program (MAP) Museum according to the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). [3] Today, the Heritage Park and Cultural Center is largely self-sufficient under the ownership of the City of Fort Walton Beach. Most of its funding comes from the city itself, the museum shop, donations, or fundraising events.
The mission of the Heritage Park & Cultural Center is outlined on the official city of Fort Walton Beach website:
We are an educational and cultural institution of long standing traditions. It is our mission to preserve, interpret and present the prehistory and history of the Fort Walton Beach community and the Northwest Florida area from 12,000 B.C. through the 1950’s. We serve students, citizens and visitors through exhibits, educational programs, publications and special events. [4]
As an educational and cultural site, this institution serves students, residents, and visitors through educational programs, publications, and special events. The Education Staff provides on-site educational programming for both school and community groups. Specifically, the staff works with local teachers and students on their social studies curriculum. For example, they offer educational field trips that serve as extensions of classroom activities through hands-on learning experiences. According to their website, “Interactive programs are specially geared for specific age groups and support the Florida Sunshine State Standards and serve to increase historical knowledge while stimulating student interest in social studies, local history and archaeology." [5] Reservations for field trips or group tours may be made on their website. Programs at the museum typically feature a presentation by a trained museum educator, a tour of the artifact gallery with hands-on history displays, and a tour of the grounds. Programming presentations vary depending on age groups or learning objectives. The website outlines different presentations already designed for students in preschool, kindergarten, first grade and second grade, and third to fifth grades. Specialized classes are also available for subjects of interest to older grades, mixed grades, or adult groups.
The city-owned and operated Indian Temple Mound Museum features pre-Columbian artifacts found on site and from other locations, as well as a variety of exhibits on later Native American and Floridian history including artifacts from the European Explorers, local pirates and early settlers. The address is 139 Miracle Strip Pkwy SE, near the intersection of State Road 85 and U.S. Route 98, in the Florida Panhandle. The museum was first opened in 1962 and the current location was opened in 1972.
The Camp Walton Schoolhouse Museum was the original one-room schoolhouse built in 1911. It opened for use for the community children from 1912 to 1936. Opened in 1976, the museum features early-20th-century desks and education items.
The Garnier Post Office Museum is an original small rural post office that displays the postal history of Camp Walton and Fort Walton with emphasis from 1900 to the 1950s. The site also served as a voting location. The museum opened in 1988.
Opened in 2010, the Civil War Exhibits Building features displays about Florida's history during the American Civil War.
The Fort Walton Mound (8OK6) is an archaeological site located in present-day Fort Walton Beach, Florida. The large platform mound was built about 850 CE by the Pensacola culture, a local form of the Mississippian culture. Because of its significance, the mound was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.
Fort Walton Beach, often referred to by the initialism FWB, a city in southern Okaloosa County, Florida. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 20,922, up from 19,507 in 2010. It is the principal city of the Fort Walton Beach−Crestview−Destin Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park (8LE1) is one of the most important archaeological sites in Florida, the capital of chiefdom and ceremonial center of the Fort Walton Culture inhabited from 1050–1500. The complex originally included seven earthwork mounds, a public plaza and numerous individual village residences.
Letchworth Mounds Archaeological State Park is a 188.2 acre Florida State Park that preserves the state's tallest prehistoric, Native American ceremonial earthwork mound, which is 46 feet (14 m) high. It is estimated to have been built 1100 to 1800 years ago. This is one of three major surviving mound complexes in the Florida Panhandle. It is believed to have been built by the Weedon Island Culture, Native Americans who lived in North Florida. The hierarchical society planned and constructed massive earthwork mounds as expression of its religious and political system.
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Crystal River State Archaeological Site is a 61-acre (250,000 m2) Florida State Park located on the Crystal River and within the Crystal River Preserve State Park. The park is located two miles (3 km) northwest of the city of Crystal River, on Museum Point off U.S. 19/98.
The Kolomoki Mounds is one of the largest and earliest Woodland period earthwork mound complexes in the Southeastern United States and is the largest in Georgia. Constructed from 350CE to 600CE, the mound complex is located in southwest Georgia, in present-day Early County near the Chattahoochee River.
The Fort Walton culture is the term used by archaeologists for a late prehistoric Native American archaeological culture that flourished in southeastern North America from approximately 1200~1500 CE and is associated with the historic Apalachee people.
Mound Key Archaeological State Park is a Florida State Park, located in Estero Bay, near the mouth of the Estero River. One hundred and thirteen of the island's one hundred and twenty-five acres are managed by the park system. It is a complex of mounds and accumulated shell, fish bone, and pottery middens that rises more than 30 feet above the waters of the bay.
The Fort Walton Mound (8OK6) is an archaeological site located in present-day Fort Walton Beach, Florida, United States. The large platform mound was built about 850 CE by the Pensacola culture, a local form of the Mississippian culture. Because of its significance, the mound was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.
The Safety Harbor site is an archaeological site in Philippe Park at 2525 Philippe Parkway in Safety Harbor, Florida, United States. It is the type site for the Safety Harbor culture, and includes the largest remaining mound in the Tampa Bay area. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.
The term Indian Mounds Park may refer to:
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Town Creek Indian Mound is a prehistoric Native American archaeological site located near present-day Mount Gilead, Montgomery County, North Carolina, in the United States. The site, whose main features are a platform mound with a surrounding village and wooden defensive palisade, was built by the Pee Dee, a South Appalachian Mississippian culture people that developed in the region as early as 980 CE. They thrived in the Pee Dee River region of North and South Carolina during the Pre-Columbian era. The Town Creek site was an important ceremonial site occupied from about 1150—1400 CE. It was abandoned for unknown reasons. It is the only ceremonial mound and village center of the Pee Dee located within North Carolina.
The Museum of Florida History is the U.S. state of Florida's history museum, housing exhibits and artifacts covering its history and prehistory. It is located in the state capital, Tallahassee, Florida, at the R. A. Gray Building, 500 South Bronough Street, named for Robert Andrew Gray.
The Safety Harbor culture was an archaeological culture practiced by Native Americans living on the central Gulf coast of the Florida peninsula, from about 900 CE until after 1700. The Safety Harbor culture is defined by the presence of Safety Harbor ceramics in burial mounds. The culture is named after the Safety Harbor site, which is close to the center of the culture area. The Safety Harbor site is the probable location of the chief town of the Tocobaga, the best known of the groups practicing the Safety Harbor culture.
Ohio History Connection, formerly The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society and Ohio Historical Society, is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1885. Headquartered at the Ohio History Center in Columbus, Ohio, Ohio History Connection provides services to both preserve and share Ohio's history, including its prehistory, and manages over 50 museums and sites across the state. An early iteration of the organization was founded by Brigadier General Roeliff Brinkerhoff in 1875. Over its history, the organization changed its name twice, with the first occurring in 1954 when the name was shortened to Ohio Historical Society. In 2014, it was changed again to Ohio History Connection, in what members believed was a more modern and welcoming representation of the organization's image.
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