page_title: Jamestown Settlement
section_title: Jamestown Festival Park
hierarchical_section_title: Jamestown Settlement / Jamestown Festival Park
caption_attribution_description: Exposition Hall built for the 350th anniversary (1957) of the founding of Jamestown, Virginia. Part of what would become the Jamestown Settlement museum.
context_page_description: Jamestown Settlement is a living history museum operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia, created in 1957 as Jamestown Festival Park for the 350th anniversary celebration. Today it includes a recreation of the original James Fort, a Powhatan Native American Town, indoor and outdoor displays, and replicas of the original settlers' ships the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery.
  It is located adjacent to Historic Jamestowne, on Jamestown Island, which is run in partnership by the National Park Service and the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, a private nonprofit branch of Preservation Virginia dedicated to the archaeological mission. Historic Jamestowne is established in the original James Fort and Jamestown Colony, the first successful English settlement on the mainland of North America, founded on May 14, 1607. Colonial Williamsburg and The American Revolution Museum in Yorktown, additional living history sites, follow the next centennial of Virginian and American history up to the American Civil War. The Colonial Parkway connects all of these sites.
context_section_description: A return to Jamestown itself was considered feasible by 1957, in time for the 350th anniversary of the founding of the London Company settlement at Jamestown. Attractions were developed by the US National Park Service and the Commonwealth of Virginia which included the reconstructed Glasshouse, the Memorial Cross, and the visitors center. The National Park Service's Colonial Parkway was also completed in April, 1957 linking the Historic Triangle of Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown, including the construction of a land bridge to Jamestown Island.
  The 1957 celebrations continued from April 1 to November 30 with more than one million participants, including dignitaries and politicians such as the British Ambassador and U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon. Full-sized replicas were constructed of the three ships that brought the colonists: the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery. They were built at a shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia and relocated to nearby Glass House Point for the festival. There nearly 25,000 visitors at the Festival Park on October 16, 1957, and the highlight for many was the visit and speech of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Queen Elizabeth lent a copy of Magna Carta for the exhibition. Other events in 1957 included army and navy reviews, air force fly-overs, ship and aircraft christenings, and an outdoor drama at Cape Henry, site of the first landing of the settlers in April 1607.
caption: Exposition Hall built for the 350th anniversary in 1957 (since replaced for the 400th anniversary)
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