The George Rogers Clark Memorial was dedicated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on June 14, 1936 and became part of the National Park Service in 1966. The memorial honors the capture of Fort Sackville to Clark on February 25, 1779. The fort was on or near this site. It is located on the banks of the Wabash River. George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American surveyor, soldier, and militia officer from Virginia who became the highest-ranking American patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the militia in Kentucky (then part of Virginia) throughout much of the war. He is best known for his captures of Kaskaskia (1778) and Vincennes (1779) during the Illinois Campaign, which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory. The British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and Clark has often been hailed as the Conqueror of the Old Northwest.