Northwest Ohio is dotted with fascinating and historic spaces. Some immense and famous, some hidden in plain sight. Towering on the banks of the Maumee River in Perrysburg, Fort Meigs is one of the most extensive wooden walled fortifications in North America—it exemplifies the big and celebrated with its unique size, design, and history. Now visitors can take a self-guided GPS audio tour and discover Fort Meigs in a new and exciting way: through the eyes of the soldiers who fought there over 200 years ago! As they are guided on a walk that explores the entire fort, tour users will be fascinated by listening to breathtaking stories told by voice actors reading from historical journals. They'll learn how the fort was built, how it was defended, and how the men lived and died here during the War of 1812.
The smartphone tour is guided by Tedd Long, a local history author, storyteller, and curator of www.HolyToledoHistory.com. "I've developed several of these location-aware smartphone tours, but I'm thrilled to host this new one in cooperation with the Fort Meigs Association, the non-profit group that manages the daily operations of the fort," Long said during the tour launch at Fort Meigs on May 7. "This group works so hard to manage and maintain this historic venue. Now we can all help support them this summer by taking this tour—all profits are being donated to the association by Holy Toledo Tours," he added.
Long didn't want to give too much away, but the 90-minute walking tour covers 17 stops inside the 10-acre fort. The smartphone tour is available for $11.99 at the Fort Meigs Museum Store, or it can be purchased online at www.holytoledohistory.com/tours. The tour's immersive audio narration plays automatically at precisely the right time and place using the user's smartphone GPS and the VoiceMap mobile app, which also works offline.