WILTON, N.Y. (NEWS10) – U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant spent the last few weeks of his life in a cottage that now overlooks Route 9 and the SUNY Adirondack Wilton campus.

As of this week, a new sustainability project will help the historians keeping it up to keep the doors open for those interested in local history.

The New York Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation put one of the final panels on a $40,000 solar array Monday, moving to completion on a project that started last September.

A fleet of solar panels on Mt. McGregor will take the Grant Cottage Visitor’s Center completely off the grid, making it fully self-sustaining. That’s a good thing from both economic and safety standpoints, and part of a statewide effort to make state park grounds self-sustaining.

Concrete laid down last fall had snow scraped off it in March so laying down panels and wires could begin. The project also included a shed to house a battery to store large amounts of excess power.

The cottage and visitor’s center sit near Mt. McGregor Correctional Facility, which closed in 2014.