Arbuckle’s Fort, constructed in 1774 in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, is part of a series of fortified sites in the area. Early Euro-American settlers built these forts as a system of defense to successfully take control of contested areas. Arbuckle’s Fort is a frontier site with high archaeological integrity, rich artifact assemblage, and offers tremendous potential for research and public interpretation. In this upcoming lecture, Dr. Kim A. McBride and Dr. W. Stephen McBride will outline the frontier defensive systems and the archaeological research at Arbuckle’s Fort with comparisons to other similar sites. Archaeology has been especially crucial to understanding the physical structures of these forts, since the historical documentation rarely includes drawings or detailed descriptions. The preservation of this valued cultural resource is now underway with a fundraising campaign for acquisition by The Archaeological Conservancy and the West Virginia Land Trust. Under their joint ownership and in partnership with local preservation groups, the important history of this site will be secured and shared with a broad audience.

Kim A. McBride and W. Stephen McBride are historical archaeologists who have worked mostly in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia for the last 40 years. They each have a B.A. in Anthropology from Beloit College, and M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Michigan State University. They came to Kentucky in 1987 on a one-year job to write a state plan for historical archaeology but the richness of historical archaeology in the region has kept them captive. Kim is recently retired from the University of Kentucky and Stephen is retired from many years directing archaeology and museum interpretation at the Camp Nelson Civil War site, which he helped transition to a National Monument. They remain active in one of their favorite archaeological research areas, frontier forts from the French and Indian War to the American Revolution, mainly in West Virginia and Virginia.