1. James A. Garfield National Historic Site, Ohio

For my first post dedicated to a National Park Unit, I’ll be starting off at my “Home Base,” so to speak: James A. Garfield National Historic Site.

Entrance Sign

This unit of the National Park Service is located in Mentor, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, and was once the residence of the 20^th President of the United States, James A. Garfield.  Known locally as ‘Lawnfield,’ a nickname conceived by reporters covering the 1880 Presidential campaign, the 8-acre property was acquired by the NPS in 1980 and contains the President’s home and other buildings remaining from the time it had once been a family farm.  With Ohio being the ‘Mother of Presidents,’ this site is the perfect starting point for a statewide tour of Presidential locales.

BACKGROUND:

Purchased in 1876 by the future President James A. Garfield when he was a member of the House of Representatives, Garfield himself only lived at ‘Lawnfield’ for a brief four years before being tragically assassinated in 1881.  Prior to this, the house had served as Garfield’s platform from which he launched his successful 1880 Presidential run, dubbed the ‘Front Porch Campaign’ due to the, at the time, revolutionary practice of addressing crowds assembled on his front lawn.  After the President’s death, the house remained in the hands of the Garfield family for over fifty years before being turned into a museum in 1936.



The Lawnfield mansion and the eponymous Front Porch 

THE SITE:

After driving through the front gate, you will begin your tour at the visitor center, which was once the estate’s carriage house.  The visitor center, like most units in the NPS, has a short orientation video on the life of President Garfield, and a gallery with many family artifacts, including the Bible Garfield used for his inauguration.  Tours of the Garfield house are scheduled roughly every forty-five minutes to an hour between 10:00am and 5:00pm.  Visitors are welcome to walk the grounds which have interpretive signs placed at significant areas, and a new self-guided cell phone tour has been added with markers set up around the property.

The Carriage House Visitor Center (left) and Windmill Tower (right) on the Lawnfield grounds

The standard guided tour, led by a Park Ranger or volunteer, will take you through the house while providing information on Garfield and his family.  Along the tour, you will get to stand on the very same front porch where Garfield spoke to visitors during the campaign, and view the Memorial Library, an addition to the house built by First Lady Lucretia Garfield which housed the President’s personal papers, thus setting the precedent for Presidential Libraries.

The Memorial Library

TRAVEL TIPS:

               James A. Garfield National Historic Site is open to the public from 10:00am-5:00pm on weekends during the winter months and every day during the summer months.  Reservations for a standard tour are not required.  The site also has two specialty tours, the “Behind the Scenes” tour where visitors are taken to restricted access areas of the property, and the “Behind the Ropes” tour where guests may go into the rooms in the house to examine artifacts up close.  These tours are held on the first and second Saturdays of each month respectively, and require advance booking.  It is recommended that visitors view the orientation video prior to going on your tour and to save exploring the grounds for once your tour has been completed.  The visitor facilities and the areas of the Garfield house open to the standard tour are also handicap accessible.  If you participate in collecting cancellation stamps for the ‘Passport to Your National Parks,’ you will find the stamps just inside the door to the visitor center in the gift shop area.

 

Interior of the Visitor Center

I hope you have enjoyed this brief summary to James A. Garfield National Historic Site and that it has given you the inspiration to visit this site in person and begin your own adventure traveling through the National Parks.  Our next post will be in two weeks’ time focusing on the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  Afterwards,  I will be updating the blog with a new Parks unit once a month.  Until then, safe travels!

Additional Photos:


President Garfield's office, dubbed "The General's Snuggery" by the First Lady, along with one of her dresses on temporary display from April through July 2017.

The front parlor of the Lawnfield mansion



Garfield's 1880 Presidential campaign office located behind the mansion