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$1M funding will restore Fort Gibson Military Park

Work on a $1 million renovation of the Fort Gibson Historic Site should be complete by the spring of 2012, said Dr. Bob Blackburn, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Blackburn made the announcement standing beneath the deteriorating canopy in the center of the re-created historic fort of the 1800s.

OHS has been able to parlay a $200,000 appropriation into $1 million with the help of a number of state officials, Blackburn said. The state money was matched with a grant from the National Park Service’s Save America’s Treasures program. It was supplemented with $645,000 obtained through the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The compilation of funds will make it possible to fully restore all the buildings of the fort re-created by the Works Progress Administration, Blackburn said. Some of the WPA work that has been hidden by time, such as some of the walks they built, also will be restored in the project....
Read entire article at Muskogee Phoenix (OK)