Decoration Day

About This Event

Spend Memorial Day weekend at Historic Fort Snelling and experience how Minnesota celebrated “Decoration Day,” an early style of what we know as Memorial Day today.

Throughout the weekend the site will host programming on the entire 23 acre site from the new prairie landscape, inside the Plank Museum & Visitor Center and of course the historic reconstructed Fort Snelling.

On Saturday we will be rededicating the reconstructed 1820s fort flag pole. Historically the flag pole lasted about 10-15 years before the army had to replace it. A short ceremony on Saturday morning to put up the large garrison flag for the first time since 2021.

On Monday Historic Fort Snelling will host “Decoration Day.” Historic Fort Snelling staff will be dressed in 1890s military costuming to present “Decoration Day” speeches that reflected on past conflicts, especially the American Civil War, commonly heard during the late 1800s.

Schedule:

10:00 - Site opens
10:30 - Music performance
11:00 - Flagpole dedication
11:30 - Music performance
12:00 - Baseball demonstration
12:30 - Music performance
1:00 - Military demonstration
1:30 - Music performance
2:00 - Baseball demonstration
2:30 - Music performance
4:00 - Site closes

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