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On September 17, 2025, now less than a year ahead of America’s ‘Big Birthday’ next July 4, the American Revolution is coming to Lexington. Or rather, the vanguard of "America’s Evolution," as the national commission of the United States’ 250th Anniversary visits our historic area.

The media team from America250 will be spending the day here with their mobile recording studio, reaching out to capture your voice, on your own home turf. In their sophisticated and eye-catching Airstream trailer, they’ve just begun to "find our citizens where they live," and capture brief and diverse oral histories across all 50 states. This is your chance to be part of the community-sourced national efforts that aim to ground – in the ambitious words of America250 Chair and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Rose Rios – "a historic journey to build the largest oral and visual collection in our country’s history."

America250, the VA250 American Revolution Commission, and our regional Rockbridge-VA250 committee (co-chaired by Rockbridge Historical Society Executive Director Eric Wilson and Lexington Rockbridge Area Tourism Director Sheryl Wagner) are strategically partnering to arrange interviews that broadly share distinctive stories from our area. They seek to include community leaders and humbler neighbors who can speak to a diverse range of life experiences: varied by their heritage, professional work, and affinities; their legacies of service and sacrifice; their vital contributions to the arts, education, and entrepreneurship.

Visit Our American Story for a 2-minute overview of the once-in-a-lifetime initiative, framing its commemorative goals, and a sampling of both famous and humbler voices they’ve begun to record. Collectively, here and nationally, these interviews will score both spirited and serious chords in an inclusive "American Symphony." Digitally accessible through YouTube, the archive will provide a reference point to lastingly speak to our own moment in time and place, just as the 1976 bicentennial did for earlier generations, 50 years earlier.

Chaired by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Rosie Rios, America250 has chosen to represent Virginia through a tour of the Shenandoah Valley, from Winchester to Roanoke, with Lexington at the heart of its itinerary. On Wednesday, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM, they’ll set up right outside the RHS Museum and Visitor Center (106 Washington Street). Inside their mobile studio, they’ll engage conversations with our very own "everyday people" here: voices who feel called to purposefully or opportunistically share their ideas on American identity, to reflect on their own felt place in that still-developing narrative, and to pay tribute to some of the important moments or figures they look to, more broadly.

For the second half of the day, interviews will be conducted at Natural Bridge State Park, outside their own Visitors Center, and under the span of the iconic natural landmark that would become Rockbridge County’s revolutionary namesake after Thomas Jefferson, the Bridge’s first American owner, bought it from King George III on July 3, 1774. Check in at VA250.org/Rockbridge and facebook.com/rockbridgehistory for updates on these stops, and related local resources and events.

This one-day effort complements the long-term commitments of the Rockbridge Historical Society to interview people in this area, to enrich its local community archive, and ensure its preservation and accessibility to the greater Rockbridge Community. To arrange a recording with "Our American Story" – or with the RHS oral history project now spanning three years of revolutionary commemoration ahead – write to Eric Wilson at Director@RockbridgeHistory.org.