American Revolution history taught by cell phone

CONCORD, Mass. -- Strolling on ground where Minutemen and British regulars once skirmished, modern-day visitors to Minute Man National Historical Park no longer have to depend on the occasional mounted sign to imagine Paul Revere's ride or "the shot heard 'round the world."

Now, visitors can dial up the past on their cell phones and hear the American Revolution unfolding in their ears.

National Park Service officials hope a new self-guided audio tour, recently launched at Minute Man National Historical Park, will allow visitors to better understand their surroundings while allowing them to stroll the grounds at their own pace.

The Minute Man National Historical Park is the first in the National Park Service to use cell phones to guide a tour. The technology, developed by Spatial Adventures, based in Ashburn, Va., was first used at Historic St. Mary's City, a Baltimore museum of history and archaeology, starting in March. It has been used for tours of downtown Denver since April, said Scott Hilton, the company's chief executive. The concept is growing elsewhere as well; a company called Talking Street offers cell phone tours of Manhattan's Lower East Side and plans to introduce other locations this summer.

Park officials say the cell phone concept was appealing because it didn't require the purchase of equipment, or tracking down audio machines that wander off with visitors leaving the 970-acre park. And cell phone tours also allow visitors to take a guided tour even when the park's two visitor's centers are closed.

The tour, three-quarters of a mile long, is divided into three parts.

In the first section, visitors can learn about the place where Paul Revere was captured and the "politics and economics that led us to start a revolution," said Lou Sideris, a park ranger for Minute Man National Historical Park.

At the Hartwell Tavern, a homestead and farm where people traveling to and from Boston stopped to share news, visitors learn the role the landscape played in the course of the war and the story of the people who lived along Battle Road, the route the British took when they retreated back to Boston.

The third part of the tour takes visitors to the North Bridge and the Minute Man statue, describing the "shot heard 'round the world," and how those events are part of the American identity.

The audio presentation includes music, narration, expert descriptions and re-created eyewitness accounts of the circumstances and events of April 19, 1775, when the Colonials fought the Redcoats at the North Bridge, killing four and wounding several others.

It was at the bridge that Americans for the first time killed British soldiers, and where a statue commemorates Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The Shot Heard 'Round the World," the poetic tribute to militiamen including Emerson's grandfather.

Two of the dead lie buried next to the bridge. Though the battle was merely a skirmish, it was a turning point in the rebellion. For many, the North Bridge is where the Revolutionary War and America began.

The fee for the tour is $5.99 for the first 60 minutes, which includes the first two sections, then $3.99 for the next 25 minutes, which is enough time for the third.

About 20 percent of the proceeds will benefit the Minute Man National Park Association .