Point Lookout Is Getting Museum Ready To Reopen
July 2004 SCOTLAND, Md.

Point Lookout State Park, which was battered by Hurricane Isabel last September, is open for visitors. Acting Park Manager Robin Melton says they hope to have the Civil War Museum and Marshland Nature Center reopened by Labor Day weekend.

The museum was being redesigned and new displays has not been installed when the hurricane hit. "It will basically be a brand new museum," says Melton.

Co. E, 20th Maine, the park's designated friends group, is working with the park on the new Civil War hospital scene that will depict a Sister of Charity caring for a soldier. The museum will also show military hardware, photos, letters and other artifacts.

Water damage from the hurricane was anticipated and park staff had moved artifacts, paper items and items of historic significance off site before it hit. What wasn't moved then was put into museum-type storage within a couple of days.

Melton says the park sustained a lot of building damage and mold problems.

Park visitors can see Fort Lincoln and the prison pen. Weekend nature and historical programs are ongoing. The 20th Maine gives candlelight tours and continues its support of the park where they rebuilt the barracks, officers quarters and part of the prison pen.

Point Lookout is a peninsula at the confluence of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. It became a prison after the Battle of Gettysburg and housed 50,000 men by the time it closed.

For information about the park call (301) 872-5389.