Daily Experience

The visitor center is open all spring, Thursday through Saturday, and admission includes the newly opened Many Voices, Many Stories, One Place exhibit, orientation film, with make-it-take-it activities for families (Saturdays only), and more!

Walk & Talk guided tours of the fort are also included with admission and take place three times daily on Thursdays and Fridays at 10:30 am, 12:30 pm, and 2:30 pm; and five times daily on Saturdays at 10:30 am, 11:30 am, 12:30 pm, 1:30 pm, and 2:30 pm.

Outside access to the historic fort is dependent upon the weather and a tour from the comfort of our visitor center will be offered as needed.

Make sure to wear appropriate footwear and dress for the weather for outdoor tours.

Check the calendar for other scheduled events including family days and more.

The visitor center is open year round, Wednesday through Sunday in the summer. Admission includes the newly opened Many Voices, Many Stories, One Place exhibit and the orientation film, with a restored prairie and landscape accessible during your visit. The historic fort has demonstrations throughout the day and staff for you to engage with in the various buildings of the fort. 

Short “101 Fort Snelling History” guided tours of the fort are also included with admission and take place five times daily at 10:30 am, 11:30 am, 12:30 pm, 1:30 pm, and 2:30 pm.

Check the calendar for other scheduled events including family days, bicycle tours, coffee chats, and more.

Daily schedule

10:00 am – Open

11:00 am – Flag Communications Demonstration

12:00 pm – Baseball game

1:00 pm – Rifle demonstration

2:00 pm – How artillery defends a fort

3:00 pm – Laundry demonstration

4:00 pm – Close

Family Tour: A Child’s Eye View of History
Daily at 10:30 am, $6 add on
Bring the whole family to Historic Fort Snelling for our new family and children’s focused tour. Participate in a bucket brigade as part of the fort's first fire department. Learn how to make change with a chisel. Run an elevator in the commissary, moving supplies from floor to floor. And be part of a cannon crew and learn how the fort could be defended if it had ever been attacked (it never was).

Garrison Life Tour: How an Isolated Fort Functioned
Daily at 12:30 pm, $6 add on
Come on a tour of the fort through the eyes of the soldiers that built it. Learn about the red tape of Headquarters (what is red tape anyway?). Hear & see how a garrison of up to 500 people was fed and clothed. Understand how a post could be self sufficient when the nearest city was over 700 miles away and steam power was the newest in transportation technology. Take a deep dive into the hows and whys of early 19th century military infrastructure.

Commanding Officer's House Tour: Upstairs & Downstairs of a Fort’s Big House
Daily at 2:30 pm, $6 add on
Join a special tour of one of the oldest family homes on the Upper Mississippi. Built for the commanding officer of Fort Snelling, this house was lived in from the 1820s right to the 1970s. It housed its namesake Colonel Snelling and even an eventual President of the United States, Zachary Taylor. Learn about the restoration of the house, its technology and the families who lived there as well as those who took care of them, both enslaved and free servants.

Open days during summer program; June 9 to September 1, 2024. Wednesdays through Sundays, with the exceptions of (6/8) 6/19, 6/22, 7/4, 7/6, & 8/3.