Federal grant money will be used to preserve a site used by Native Americans during their attack on Old Fort Madison.
The $51,000 award comes from the National Park Service. The money will be used for design and planning efforts.
Fort Madison plans to work on the project with the Walker Collaborative out of Nashville, TN.
Today, the site sits beneath a giant downtown parking lot next to the future home of a Dollar General store. An excavation of the lot in 2009 revealed a ravine.
“So the idea would be to kind of return that ravine to the way it was," said Dr. Eugene Watkins, manager of Old Fort Madison. "You know, put out interpretive signs in that field and kind of show where the contracting settlement would have been and where some of the fighting took place."
Watkins said the goal is to eventually build an interpretive center to house interactive museum displays and artifacts.
He said they're still unsure what the project could turn up. There's a chance the area was also used as a burial site for the soldiers.
