Fort Vancouver Cultural Landscape Report

Operations at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site

In 1910, interested citizens and local historians marked out the site of the former Hudson's Bay Company stockade, relying on the Bonneville 1854 plans and notes. Serious interest in protecting the site and eventually reconstructing the stockade dates from that time, although it was almost forty years before these goals were partially realized. In the ensuing decades, periodic attempts were made to legislatively protect and preserve the site, beginning with the designation of the site as a national monument in 1915 under the Antiquities Act of 1906, although the designation was apparently rescinded or withdrawn shortly thereafter. Although President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill authorizing the Secretary of War to permit reconstruction of the stockade in March of 1925, the locally-recognized centennial year of the stockade's foundation, no funds were appropriated.

In the early 1930s, two bills were introduced in Congress to appropriate funds for rebuilding or restoring the stockade, neither of which were successful. The Committee of the Old Fort Vancouver Restoration Association, under the auspices of the Vancouver Chamber of Commerce, met with Olaf Hager, acting chief o the National Park Service's Branch of Historic Sites and Buildings Western Division, in 1936 to survey the fort locations, and in 1938 Congress passed an act authorizing the City of Vancouver to build and maintain a historical monument on the Vancouver Barracks site--it was believed that any larger scheme would be opposed by the War Department. Simultaneously, the city made plans to purchase a portion of the Old Fort Hill site. The outbreak of World War II halted these projects.

After Vancouver Barracks was declared surplus, the Washington State Legislature passed a bill, in March, 1947, requesting the establishment of Fort Vancouver National Monument In June of 1947 Congress appropriated funds for exploratory excavations to determine the locations of the fort; by that fall a team headed by National Park Service archaeologist, Louis Caywood, had found corners of the stockade. At the same time, a historical investigation was began to assist in interpreting the physical structure found during excavations, conducted by historian John Hussey. [1219] After the Fort Vancouver National Monument was established in June of 1948, archaeological excavations continued, ultimately resulting in the location of most stockade walls and principal structures within the stockade. The first superintendent of the national monument arrived on site in January of 1951. After transfer of the remainder of the stockade site was effected in 1954, the national monument was formally dedicated by Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay.

In 1957 an additional six and one-half acres, situated on a narrow strip of land between the Columbia River and Columbia Way were transferred from the General Services Administration to the National Park Service. The city of Vancouver was granted a permit to use the property as a public park and boat launching ramp. The Park Service also acquired the land on which the railroad right-of-way is situated, about eight acres. In June of 1961 Presidential approval of another Act of Congress (75 Stat. 196) changed the name of the site to Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, and removed some restrictions on the Park Service in relationship to the site. That same year, the Historic Site's visitor center/administration building was built, near the east end of Vancouver Barrack's former parade grounds. In 1963 the Park Service acquired fourteen-and-one-half acres west and southwest of the Hudson's Bay Company stockade site, which included part of the Kanaka Village/Quartermaster's Depot area.

In February of 1962, the City of Vancouver and the Secretary of the Interior signed an agreement reducing the avigation easement; as a result, the Park Service was able to begin reconstruction of the north and east walls of the stockade, in 1966. In 1972 additional reconstruction work began on the remaining stockade walls and the bastion, and a program of reconstructing the stockade buildings extant in 1844-47 began. To date, the Chief Factor's house and kitchen, the 1844 bakehouse , the Indian trade shop and dispensary, a blacksmith's shop, the northwest bastion, stockade walls, the wash house, and the second fur store have been reconstructed, as funds have been made available.

In 1972 the city of Vancouver and the National Park Service, in consultation with the Burlington Northern Railroad, successor of the S.P. & S., and the Federal Aviation Agency, reached an agreement through which the city sold the National Park Service 72.57 acres of land it had received from the WAA, and then purchased 61.8 acres owned by the Burlington Northern to the east of its airport. The agreement allowed the city to lease back the 72.57 acres, which constituted the west half of the airport. It also required the city to eliminate the use of its sod runway and extended avigation easement over the stockade site. After this agreement was concluded, the Park Service was able to finish reconstruction of the stockade wall and open the site for public use.

In 1975, a little over two acres of Coast Guard station property adjacent to the strip of land along the river acquired in 1958 was deeded to the National Park Service by the General Services Administration. In 1974 the National Park Service traded a little over one-and-one-half acres of land needed by the Washington State Department of Highways for construction of an interchange south of the Park, for a strip of two-and-one-half acres south of Pearson Airpark.

Throughout this period, archaeological investigations on the Historic Monument's lands have continued, resulting in the recovery of prehistoric and ethnohistoric archaeological material; identification of the remains from Hudson's Bay Company and U.S. Army structures and building systems, including portions of roads and drainage systems, and the excavation of one million artifacts. Many portions of the site, even within the stockade area, have not, to date, been investigated.

Pearson Airpark

As noted earlier, aviation activity virtually ceased at Pearson Airpark during World War II. When the U.S. Army announced that Pearson Field would become surplus property in December of 1945, the City of Vancouver proceeded to link its municipal field with the army air field, and to operate them as one entity, although the City did not receive title tc the field until April of 1949. The combined fields were renamed Pearson Airpark.

On three separate occasions in the 1950s the Vancouver City Council considered closing the airpark: throughout most of the decade, the field had fiscal problems, and state law prohibited the city from issuing revenue bonds for airport improvements. [1220] In 1961 the airpark lost a major tenant, a Piper products distributor. In 1964 the city extended the lower turf runway an additional eight hundred feet to the west. In 1966 the lower runway was paved, in an attempt to improve the airpark's business.

Throughout most of the '60s negotiations between the City of Vancouver, owner of Pearson Airpark, and the National Park Service focused on the sale of the western portion of the airpark; the city needed the funds to purchase the eastern half of the site from the S P & S successor, the Burlington Northern Railroad, and the Park Service wished to complete reconstruction of the Hudson's Bay Company stockade. The latter effort had begun in 1966, but was stalled due to restrictions dating from the Park Service's acquisition of the site in the 1940s. In March of 1972, the National Park Service purchased the western half of Pearson Airpark; the statutory warranty deed included a reservation clause allowing the City to use the site for thirty years. At that time the City purchased the leased east half of the airpark from the Burlington Northern. From 1972 onward, then, the west half of Pearson Airpark, which extends almost to the east edge of the reconstructed stockade, has been operating on National Park Service land. From the 1960s onward, the Federal Aviation Administration has periodically advised Vancouver to search for a new site for a municipal airport, expressing concern regarding safety due to its proximity to Portland International Airport.