Big Hole National Battlefield Administrative History

Chapter Five:
Big Hole Battlefield National Monument: Mission 66 Prospectus for Development

On July 7, 1956, Historian Roy E. Appleman – a hard nosed, dedicated professional – inaugurated the Washington office's involvement in the Big Hole Mission 66 planning process when he toured the battlefield with seasonal ranger Michael Sedar and Assistant Yellowstone Superintendent Warren Hamilton. Neither Appleman nor Hamilton had been to the site before. The day was bright and warm, displaying the "gorgeous scenery" of the Big Hole Valley to full advantage. A steady trickle of visitors, drawn to the area (Sedar guessed) by the good fishing on the Big Hole River, walked the trails that criss-crossed the Siege Area. They seemed, to Appleman, to be interested in what they saw.

Despite Appleman's enthusiasm for the monument's setting and potential, he described the current condition as intolerable and could remember no other service area that showed "more neglect over a long period of years than Big Hole Battlefield." Visitor facilities were limited to pit toilets, a drinking fountain of good water, an incoherent collection of poorly displayed artifacts, and the old log museum that transgressed upon the Siege Area. A registration book rested on a shelf outside the museum. A "large number" of signs related to the soldiers of Gibbon's Command and to the Bitterroot Volunteers were incised with outdated text developed during the Forest Service's tenure. Markers related to the Nez Perce dated to McWhorter's investigations of the 1920s and 1930s. The signs and pedestrian trails were in good condition only if one considered the serious lack of help and funds availed the seasonal ranger. These developments neither adequately served visitors' needs nor adequately reflected the importance of the site. [5]

The draft Mission 66 prospectus or "master plan" submitted to Washington in late 1956 addressed these needs in gross abstractions. The Park Service promised to preserve battle remains for posterity and to interpret the battle and its relation to the broad sweep of western American history. To this end it promised construction of trails and walkways; water, sewer, power, and communication systems; a visitor center and administration building with exhibits; a residential and utility compound; new directional and informational signs and markers in the battlefield area and on the approach roads; and a boundary fence. These improvements would not include overnight accommodations or additional camping facilities: Big Hole Battlefield would remain primarily a day-use area, with recreational use encouraged on adjacent forest service land; the air of quiet dignity appropriate to a memorial would therefore be preserved. Details of design, resource placement, and interpretive focus would be resolved over the course of the next pivotal decade in Big Hole history. [6]

Park Service officials agreed that the success of this development scheme hinged on immediate road improvements to the monument site. In 1956 (and despite the improvements anticipated by Assistant Chief Ranger B. R. Finch in 1949), the 12 miles of State Highway 43 northwest of Wisdom to the battlefield remained unpaved, as did the 24 miles between the monument and the Bitterroot Valley. The road could not be fairly classified as all-weather. In encouraging Montana State Highway Commission support for highway reconstruction, the Park Service reminded the state of the economic advantages of increased tourism and promised a well-funded commitment to the development and improvement of the battlefield as part of Mission 66. The Park Service also negotiated with the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) for an alignment that would place the new road "as near the [historic] monument entrance as possible" and that "exploited the views" toward the monument. In deference to topography, curve slope, and the water rights associated with private ditches, however, BPR routed the highway approximately two-miles west of the historic alignment. In 1962, the state of Montana and the U.S. Forest Service completed improvements to Highway 43, linking U.S. Highways 91 and 93. Visitation increased dramatically, from 9,600 in 1961 to more than 20,000 in 1966. [7]

Park Service officials also insisted that proper development of Big Hole Battlefield National Monument depended on an extension of the boundaries. Overcoming two decades of ambivalence on this issue, the proposed master plan established that acquisition of the Twin Trees, the howitzer capture site, and the Nez Perce Encampment Area was essential if the monument was to be interpreted to Park Service standards and if significant resources were to be protected. Continued discussion of these acquisitions focused not on need or merit but on determination of the eastern and southern limits to the Encampment Area. This discussion was informed in part by a cursory metal detector survey of the area completed by Custer Battlefield

Historian Don Rickey in July 1959 and by the battle-related details provided in a historical research report completed by Dr. Merrill D. Beal (see Research and Interpretation). [8] In large part, however, the Park Service based its boundary expansion objectives on the staking completed by McWhorter and Yellow Wolf in 1937; "we seriously question whether any evidence could be more precise or authoritative." [9] Ultimately, the service acquired the W˝ NEĽ of Section 24, Township 2S, Range 17W. Historians from Region II and Yellowstone National Park voiced confidence that those 80 acres encompassed the camp and initial-attack area. [10]

Finally, there was little discussion as to the need for additional administrative staff at the park. In 1959, Robert L. Burns was appointed "Management Assistant, Big Hole Battlefield National Monument," assigned to the Yellowstone Superintendent yet responsible for the day-to-day administration of the battlefield. Following Burns' transfer to Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial National Monument in October 1960, the post was filled briefly by Yellowstone Park Ranger Lloyd R. Hoener and then by Yellowstone Law Enforcement Officer Howard Chapman. There is no evidence that either Hoener or Chapman were actively involved in monument administration during their brief tenures. In April 1961, Yellowstone Ranger Jack R. Williams assumed the management assistant position. Williams was followed by Clyde Maxey, Aubrey Haines, Elroy Bohlin, David Stimpson, and Al Schulmeyer. In June 1961, staff was further expanded with appointment of a seasonal maintenance man, a first in the history of the site. The seasonal ranger position was redesignated "Seasonal Interpreter/Historian" and two interpreters were assigned to the site each summer season. Together this team was responsible for site administration, interpretation, research, and protection. ("Complete separation of functions," Williams wrote, "[was] difficult in a small area.") These tasks were designed to meet two overriding goals: first, to tell the story of "those dreadful days in August of 1877" without bias and second, to "channel and control" visitor use in a manner that minimized physical impact. [11]

The relative equanimity of the Mission 66 planning process ended when officials debated the location and extent of visitor services. [12] In 1957, landscape architects Sanford "Red" Hill and Frank Mattson of the Branch of Plans and Design proposed to locate park headquarters and a visitor center one-half mile south of the estimated southern end of the Encampment Area, on a flat bench that provided a panoramic view of all phases of the conflict without intruding on the battlefield. This "Ruby Bench" site was also, Appleman criticized, "more than ˝ mile from any point of interest" (demanding that visitors make two stops or hike a substantial distance) and was on private land (necessitating costly purchase of an estimated 143 acres). Appleman proposed a sagebrush slope 200 yards northwest of the Siege Area as an alternative. It provided immediate visitor access to the battlefield and could be acquired from the Forest Service at no cost. Like Ruby Bench, the north slope offered a view of the army's initial approach route, the Nez Perce Encampment Area, and the Siege Area. Unlike the bench, Appleman and others argued, this view was more "intimately" associated with the battlefield proper and its construction would not disrupt the middle-distance view from the river bottom toward the crest of the hill. Staff residences could be located in the forested swale west of the proposed visitor center, where they would be sheltered from public view. Park Service officials debated these two sites for the next five years, weighing the "economy and efficiency" of the north-slope site against the panoramic view of the bench. [13]

Ultimately, Park Service officials determined that neither the howitzer site nor the Twin Trees could be easily seen from the north-slope site. The Siege Area "showed as tree tops." Inadequate level land was available for parking and building construction and, finally, the access road would require construction of a visually intrusive hillside cut. The final Mission 66 master plan and associated boundary status report recommended purchase of the Ruby Bench building location. The plan identified the bench as the site that best conformed to Park Service goals not to infringe upon the battlefield, as the site most "handy" to the revised alignment of State Highway 43, as the site that best facilitated interpretation, and as the site most vulnerable to "adverse use" if left in private ownership. [14]

Administrative tasks outlined in the master plan included construction of housing for all uniformed permanent and seasonal personnel; maintenance of the fire-fighting agreement with the Beaverhead National Forest; [15] "cooperation" with the state of Montana in the management of fishing; and inclusion in the NPS omnibus bill of the $664,895 required to complete the monument development plan in one package unit. [16]

For the immediate future, the battlefield was to be managed within the framework of this master plan and under the supervision of the Yellowstone National Park superintendent. As early as 1962, however, the Park Service foresaw a time when the monument would be sufficiently developed and would attract sufficient visitation to be established as an autonomous unit, without the constraints imposed by a "coordinating" superintendency. [17]

Initiation of the plan required only congressional approval of the boundary modifications and land purchase.