The non-profit support group for Fort Massac State Park in Illinois is one step closer to purchasing a piece of property adjacent the fort on the Ohio River.
Friends of Fort Massac is looking to develop the former property of the Laidlaw coat hanger plant into a period village to accompany the colonial wooden fort.
Group president Mike Korteis now awaiting approval of a $116,000 state matching grant that will give volunteers enough to buy the half-a-million-dollar property from the city of Metropolis and demolish the old factory.
The group then plans to use additional grant funds to construct the village.
"We hope to construct a period village which will be called Massac Village, and it will correspond with eh fort next door, which will be period from around the 1790s," he said.
Korte says, although he anticipates Friends of Fort Massac will qualify for the grant, the purchase of the property has been a trying process because of environmental and historical society studies to determine its proper use.
