All Virginia residents can now visit Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Victory Center, state-operated living-history museums that tell the story of the nation’s beginnings, an unlimited number of times during an entire year for the cost of a single-day ticket. Available to residents of the Hampton Roads and Richmond regions for the past two years, the offer has been extended statewide.

The museums’ American Heritage Annual Pass is available online to Virginia residents at the same price as one-time admission to both museums – $20.50 per adult and $10.25 for ages 6 through 12, a savings of more than 40 percent. The annual pass retails at $35 for adults and $17.50 for ages 6 through 12.

The online-only offer is at historyisfun.org. A personal pass, valid for 12 months, will be issued at the initial museum visit, when showing proof of residency will be required.

Jamestown Settlement chronicles 17th-century Virginia and convergence of Powhatan Indian, English and west central African cultures through an introductory film and expansive gallery exhibits. Outdoors, at historically based re-creations of a Powhatan village, the three ships that brought America’s first permanent English colonists to Virginia in 1607, and a colonial fort, historical interpreters demonstrate daily activities and technology of the 1600s. Seasonally, a riverfront discovery area highlights 17th-century water travel, commerce and cultural exchange.

At the Yorktown Victory Center, a museum of the American Revolution, gallery exhibits trace events that led from colonial unrest to the formation of a new nation. In an outdoor re-created Continental Army encampment, historical interpreters describe and depict the daily life of American soldiers during the last year of the war. A re-created 1780s farm shows how many Americans lived at the time of the Revolution.

Daily demonstrations and participatory activities, from military drills to tending crops, engage visitors of all ages at both museums. “Jamestown’s Legacy to the American Revolution,” a special exhibition at Jamestown Settlement through January 20, 2014, tells the stories of Revolutionary War-era descendants of people associated with 17th-century Jamestown, the first capital of colonial Virginia, and showcases artifacts destined for exhibit at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, planned to replace the Yorktown Victory Center by late 2016.

Annual passes and general admission tickets include admission to museum special events and exhibitions and free parking.

Jamestown Settlement is located on Route 31 South at the Colonial Parkway next to Historic Jamestowne, administered by the National Park Service and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (on behalf of Preservation Virginia). The Yorktown Victory Center is located on Route 1020 in Yorktown near Yorktown Battlefield, administered by the National Park Service.

For more information, call (888) 593-4682 toll-free or (757) 253-4838 or visit historyisfun.org.

By: Contributing Author

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