Begin your battlefield tour at the visitor center. The visitor center, located on Highway 79, is open daily, 8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. and is only closed on Thanksgiving Day, December 25th and January 1. All visitor center facilities are handicapped accessible. The visitor center contains an Eastern National bookstore, a museum with Civil War artifacts, an exhibit about the Underground Railroad in America, and new exhibits, installed in December of 2010, exploring the legacy of the Civil War in anticipation of the upcoming 150th anniversary of the war. The park's orientation film  Fort Donelson: Gateway to the Confederate Heartland engages visitors with a storyline that draws on the lifelong friendship between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Simon B. Buckner. Park visitors also learn a couple of new facts: Confederates actually built three earthen forts near here, including  Fort Heiman (located in Calloway County, Kentucky), as well as Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, all of which were eventually used as refuge sites by freedom-seeking slaves.


And our updated calendar of events can be found here.