During studio travel week in October, a group of 10 historic preservation, architecture, and anthropology students and I packed up our hiking boots, bug spray, and sunscreen to make the long trek from Philadelphia to Albuquerque as part of Frank Matero's course Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites and Landscapes. Bleary-eyed and exhausted from travel, upon our landing we were struck by the beauty of New Mexico. With imposing skies and clouds and mesas straight out of a picture book, we were truly in for a treat.
The subject of our study and site visit was Fort Union National Monument, an adobe ruin that was once the most influential military fort in the West. From 1851-1891, the fort served as an American military stronghold in the Western territory and protected the Santa Fe trail- a lifeline for the dispersal of goods, settlers, and culture. The third iteration of the fort now stands as a series of adobe wall segments on the landscape. These structures were built with Victorian sensibilities in mind, as they were often filled with the wives and children of the soldiers. However, their construction was quick and shoddy, and typically completed by the lower-ranking soldiers, who had little building experience. Almost immediately after building, these structures began to fall into ruin. Today, the National Parks Service serves as steward of this ruin, trying to keep the ruins standing after each bout of rain or snow.
Professor Frank Matero has been involved with the site for over 20 years, and he was asked to return to the site to help create a risk analysis and assessment of the current condition. This is where the work of our class came into play. After a half-semester introduction to the conservation of ruins and archaeological sites and to Fort Union, we each proposed an area of research that would help to contribute to assessing the site as a whole. We each completed our individual documentation, assessments and research.
The projects vary greatly, from creating 3D models of the corral that allow you to see its destruction over time, to an effort to create a photographic system of documentation for the walls most at risk, to assessing the condition and interpretation of the historic, flagstone sidewalks. Some students focused on specific materials, adobe, stone or plaster, and others on the landscape or the documentation methodology. My project focuses on assessing the current condition, erosion risks, and interpretation of the second “star” fort which was built in a rushed, 2-week period in fear of the Confederate forces reaching Fort Union in 1851. The confederate forces were stopped at Glorieta Pass, about 70 miles from Fort Union and the fort never stood the test of battle. Today, it is a series of ridges and depressions, like a star-shaped stamp upon the landscape.
While our work on site was only a week long, our research and use of the data we collected continues in the form of our final research project, which will be given to the National Park Service to document current condition, suggest changes, and aid the Park in future conservation work. Our trip to Fort Union served many functions in our preservation educations, and by choosing our own research projects we were each given the opportunity to fit the course and the trip to inform our education in whatever way was most valuable to each of us.
Mikayla Raymond is a first-year student in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at PennDesign hailing from Sacramento, California. Her last 4 years were spent in Los Angeles and Paris studying Art Conservation and French with a focus in the history of French gardens. Her interests lie primarily in the preservation of historic landscapes, namely in the preservation of public parks. Completely new to the East Coast, she finds inspiration in the long history of public green spaces in Philadelphia.
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