The site of Fort Laurens, long farmed after the fort's time, became a state memorial in 1917. State funds were appropriated in 1968 to build a museum, completed in 1971. In 1972, archaeologist R. Michael Gramly began excavating the site and discovered that the presumed location of the fort was wrong; it actually lay almost 200 feet south, perilously close to the museum already built. Two seasons of digging revealed the fort's location, marked by the bark outline on the ground, and uncovered many artifacts of the garrison's everyday life that are now displayed in the museum.