Fort Scott brings together a historic downtown, the preserved fort grounds, a national cemetery, and a center devoted to overlooked heroes. The downtown grew from former fort buildings into a commercial district, added permanent stone and brick structures beginning in the early 1860s, expanded with the help of the rail line, became the fourth largest town in Kansas by 1887, prospered through the 1920s, and retained enough of its commercial history, architectural character, and association with Fort Scott that 28 acres were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2009 despite urban renewal losses in the 1970s. Fort Scott National Historic Site preserves the former fort grounds and interprets the role of mid-19th century military posts in western settlement through 11 original and nine reconstructed buildings designed and built by Captain Thomas Swords, whose Greek Revival elements on French Colonial architecture reflect how the fort looked during its use in the 1840s. Fort Scott National Cemetery replaced an earlier soldiers' cemetery after land was purchased in 1861, became one of the 14 original U.S. National Cemeteries in 1862 as Civil War deaths mounted, and contains reinterred soldiers from older military cemeteries as well as notable burials including 13 Confederate soldiers, 63 African American soldiers from the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry, 16 Native American troops from the Union Army's Indian Home Guard Regiments, Kansas poet Eugene Fitch Ware, unidentified World War II flight crews, and memorial markers for veterans whose remains were not recovered or identified. The Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes, opened in 2007, presents people whose positive influence long went unrecognized, including figures such as Irena Sendler and Therese Frare.