Two world-changing moments in American history share one Virginia park

America’s story starts and ends here

Virginia’s Colonial National Historical Park holds 174 years of American history in one place.

Jamestown, where the English planted their first permanent roots in 1607, sits on the same peninsula as Yorktown, where the British gave up the fight in 1781.

A 23-mile parkway threads the two sites together through the Historic Triangle. Most people know one or the other.

Far fewer realize you can walk both in a single day.

The park took decades to take shape

Congress created Colonial National Monument on July 3, 1930, just ahead of the 150th anniversary of the Yorktown victory. Six years later, in 1936, it became a National Historical Park.

The Civilian Conservation Corps spent the 1930s rebuilding siege lines and earthworks at Yorktown.

The park also takes in the Cape Henry Memorial in Virginia Beach, inside an active military base, marking the spot where the Jamestown colonists first touched land on April 26, 1607, before pushing west to settle the island.

Stand on the ground where James Fort once stood

On May 13, 1607, English colonists drove stakes into a triangle of swampy Virginia ground and called it James Fort. For centuries, people assumed the river had swallowed it whole.

Then, in 1996, archaeologists found the foundations right where the colonists left them. The Jamestown Rediscovery project started in 1994 and has pulled millions of artifacts from the soil since.

The dig never stopped.

Archaeologists are still out there now, turning up new burials, building foundations, and objects from 400 years ago.

Walk through a museum built on top of the fort

The Voorhees Archaearium sits directly over the remains of fort-era buildings, which means the floor beneath your feet is the history.

More than 4,000 artifacts from the James Fort excavations fill the cases: a 400-year-old writing slate covered in words and drawings, early colonial tobacco pipes, and the largest collection of colonial-period Virginia Indian artifacts in the state.

Forensic displays examine the remains of early colonists, including hard evidence of the starving time winter of 1609 to 1610, when the settlement nearly collapsed. The exhibits update as new discoveries come in.

The 1680s church tower is still standing

One structure from the 17th century survived above ground at Jamestown, and you can walk right up to it.

The Church Tower from the 1680s rises near the site of a 1617 church where the first representative assembly in English America gathered in 1619.

The ground around it has given up significant finds, including a black limestone tombstone thought to belong to an early colonial knight.

FEMA-funded research is now working on drainage systems to protect the tower and the nearby Memorial Church from the encroaching water table.

Watch glassblowers work the way they did in 1608

The Virginia Company brought German and Polish glassmakers to Jamestown in 1608 to start one of the first industries in English America.

The original glasshouse ruins turned up in the 1930s, and in 1948, the National Park Service excavated four furnaces, a well, and a clay pit on the site.

A reconstructed glasshouse went up in 1957 and runs daily demonstrations today.

Costumed interpreters use tools and methods close to what those first craftsmen used, producing wine bottles, pitchers, and candleholders. The original 1608 furnace ruins sit right next to the working area.

Drive or walk the island loop through marshes and woods

Paved loops of three and five miles circle Jamestown Island, and the landscape along both routes looks much as it would have when colonists first stepped ashore. Bald eagles live on the island year-round.

Deer, herons, and turtles move through the marshes and woods.

Pull-offs along the way hold interpretive paintings showing the earliest industries the settlers tried to establish. At Black Point on the island’s eastern tip, a footpath leads out to open views of the James River.

Each spring, the road closes to vehicles for a few weeks to protect nesting turtles, but walkers and cyclists can still use it.

Drive 23 miles through colonial-era landscape for free

The Colonial Parkway costs nothing to drive and connects Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown without a stoplight or a strip mall in sight.

Congress designated it an All-American Road, and it was built from the start to keep commercial development out of the driver’s view.

Construction ran from 1931 to 1957, stretched across 26 years by the Depression, World War II, and tight budgets.

The brick underpasses and overpasses were laid in English and Flemish bond patterns to match Colonial Williamsburg’s architecture. A 1,190-foot tunnel completed in 1942 runs beneath the Williamsburg historic district.

Pull-offs along the route look out over the James River, the York River, and tidal marshes.

Walk the field where the Revolution ended

In the fall of 1781, George Washington and combined American and French forces boxed in General Cornwallis’s army at Yorktown.

On Oct. 14, 1781, Alexander Hamilton led 400 American light infantry in a bayonet charge on Redoubt No. 10 while French troops hit Redoubt No. 9 at the same time. Five days later, Cornwallis surrendered.

The battlefield visitor center displays a reproduction of Washington’s command tent alongside weapons and artillery from the siege.

Two self-guided driving tours, red and yellow routes, each cover about seven miles across the field.

The houses that shaped the surrender

The Nelson House went up around 1724 and later served as Cornwallis’s headquarters during the siege. Its owner, Thomas Nelson Jr., signed the Declaration of Independence and governed Virginia during the battle.

A short distance away, the Moore House is where British and American officers sat down on Oct. 18, 1781, and worked out the terms of surrender.

The cornerstone of the Yorktown Victory Monument went in exactly 100 years later, on Oct. 18, 1881, though Congress had called for a monument just days after Cornwallis walked out.

Ranger-led tours of the battlefield and village depart from the visitor center.

Yorktown’s waterfront still carries the weight of 1781

Historic Yorktown runs along a main street lined with original and restored 18th-century buildings. Grace Episcopal Church and the Dudley Digges House are both along the route.

The Poor Potter site preserves what remains of one of the largest colonial-era potteries in the region, run by William Rogers from the 1720s to 1745.

Down at the waterfront, you can look out over the York River where the French naval blockade cut off Cornwallis’s escape and forced his hand.

On certain Saturdays, the Fifes and Drums of Yorktown perform at the Victory Monument.

History here isn’t over. It’s still coming out of the ground

In 2024, archaeologists at Jamestown excavated the remains of four colonists from the park’s early burial ground. Ground-penetrating radar keeps turning up structures, cellars, and ditches no one knew were there.

Climate change and flooding now threaten the low-lying parts of Jamestown Island, putting pressure on resources that took centuries to preserve. Most historic parks show you what happened.

This one shows you what happened and what’s still being found. That’s a different kind of visit, and it stays with you.

Visit Colonial National Historical Park in Virginia

Colonial National Historical Park sits on Virginia’s peninsula between the James and York Rivers, about an hour southeast of Richmond.

The park covers Historic Jamestowne, Yorktown Battlefield, the Colonial Parkway, and the Cape Henry Memorial. Admission to Historic Jamestowne runs $20 per adult.

Yorktown Battlefield charges $15 per adult. The Colonial Parkway is free.

The park sits inside Virginia’s Historic Triangle, with Colonial Williamsburg nearby. Check the official website for current hours, tour schedules, and seasonal road closures on Jamestown Island.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• You can stand on the ground where America’s first English settlers built their fort
• The colony that started America is still being unearthed on the banks of Virginia’s James River
• This 23-Mile Scenic Drive Holds the Entire Birth Story of America