George Rogers Clark America the Beautiful Quarter

The final 2017 strike of the United States Mint America the Beautiful Quarters™ Program will be the 2017 George Rogers Clark America the Beautiful Quarter. It will also be the fortieth quarter in the 56-strike series which launched in 2010 and ends in 2021.

Design candidates for the George Rogers Clark strike should be released in early 2016 along with the candidates for the other 2017 coins. These will be reviewed by the Citizen’s Coinage Advisory Committee and the Commission of Fine Arts that same year. Then, sometime in the first part of 2017, the final design should be made public.

Coins honoring Effigy Mounds National Monument of Iowa, the Frederic Douglas National Historic Site in the District of Columbia, Ozark National Scenic Riverways of Missouri and Ellis Island National Monument (Statue of Liberty) of New Jersey will precede the George Rogers Clark strike in 2017.

George Rogers Clark National Historical Park of Indiana

Celebrating a victory for the young United States over British forces, the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park in Indiana is located at the site of where Fort Sackville was believed to be.

Fort Sackville was under British control in 1779 when a group of frontiersmen led by George Rogers Clark (older brother of William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame) successfully defeated the British resulting in their capture. This defeat insured American control of the frontier area almost equal in size to the original thirteen colonies.

The Sackville victory was not the first achievement of the great general Clark. He was sent by the state of Virginia a few years earlier to protect that state’s interest in the Northwest Territory. While doing this he founded Louisville, Kentucky and captured several other British forts in the area.

The George Rogers Clark Memorial was built in the 1930’s to commemorate the famous general’s victory. It closed in 2008 for one year to allow a refurbishment which included fixing the drainage of the terrace that had been a constant issue for decades.