Lake Roosevelt Administrative History

Building Restoration at Fort Spokane

Once the Park Service acquired the Fort Spokane grounds in May 1960, it immediately began to develop plans for the historic buildings. Regional Historian John Hussey visited the site and reported that even though only a few buildings remained, they gave the fort both the appearance and atmosphere of a frontier post. Restoration of the buildings was feasible, despite considerable cost. He stressed the need for immediate stabilization and protection prior to the arrival of an architectural team later in the summer. Preservation and restoration of the remaining buildings at Fort Spokane began in 1961 with some stabilization work. In 1962 LARO established maintenance accounts to retard deterioration of the buildings. The Mission 66 prospectus was revised to include funds for a visitor center at Fort Spokane plus money for research on stabilizing and restoring the standing buildings and to stabilize the foundations of the officers' quarters. [35]

Work in the early 1960s consisted of the various steps necessary to prepare the Historic Structures Report for Fort Spokane, which was written by Park Naturalist Paul McCrary. This report presented renovation and reconstruction priorities for the historic buildings. Restoration began in 1965 on the 1892 guardhouse, 1888 powder magazine, 1884 stable, 1883 reservoir building, and 1880s springhouse. Naturalist McCrary worked alongside the maintenance crew on the restoration; he was young, had diverse skills, and was willing to tackle large projects. The work was completed to acceptable levels, according to the standards of the day, by the early 1970s. The quartermaster storehouse was in very poor condition and was torn down by 1980. LARO staff learned in 1963 that the former post sutler's house was located in Miles, but the owner's asking price was too high and the Park Service did not purchase the building. [36]

The guardhouse was a priority for work in the early 1960s. It was rather extensively remodeled on the interior to serve as district offices and exhibit rooms. Structural timbers missing from the building were replaced, and "modern conveniences" were installed. The ceilings were lowered in some rooms, and doors and window sashes were constructed to match the originals. The interior rooms became the district ranger's office, exhibit room with central information desk, ranger work room, seasonal historian office, prison exhibit room, two cell exhibit rooms, audiovisual room, furnace room, employee restroom, storage room, and hallways. Rooms opening onto the veranda were converted to public restrooms. The work was completed in 1966. According to LARO Superintendent David Richie, writing in 1968, "Most of the historic atmosphere of [the guardhouse lobby] was lost during restoration." [37]

Fort Spokane guardhouse and quartermaster stable soon after restoration, 1966. Photo courtesy of Spokesman-Review archives.

One seasonal employee, Tom Teaford, was quite disturbed by an experience he had while working in the guardhouse in 1978 or 1979. Teaford was sitting behind the information desk late one night when he heard slow footsteps walking along the hallway. The door to the men's restroom (the access was from the hall at that time) swung open and closed. Next, he heard a group of children talking and laughing on the front porch. He called the night patrolman, but the two men found no evidence of intruders. In fact, there were no footprints in the sprinkler-moistened lawn surrounding the building. This story is still told to new LARO employees at Fort Spokane to share with them the past historic uses of the property as an Indian school and children's hospital. [38]

Around 1983, the district offices at Fort Spokane were removed from the guardhouse to a nearby new building. LARO began discussing changing the layout within the guardhouse, such as removing nonhistoric walls. The chrome and vinyl office furniture had been replaced with wooden furniture back in 1974, but modern lights, double doors, and modern flooring still detracted from the historic feel. The interior of the building had dark carpets and dark walls. In 1996, office partitions were removed, the brick walls were exposed, and a new information desk, sales area, and staff workspaces were provided. This was partly necessitated by changing exhibits and the addition of cooperating association sales fixtures. The lobby was made to look more like exhibit space than offices in order to make it more inviting to visitors. [39]

The quartermaster stable is a large frame building that Fort Spokane's caretaker was using for storage when the Park Service acquired the property. The 1962 Historic Structures Report for this building determined that LARO would "recreate the scene" to some extent with stable items and would refurnish the stable sergeant's room. The building was stabilized and leveled with new foundation beams in 1964. Park staff had no idea how heavy the cupola was until they tried to raise that section. They used surplus twenty-ton jacks, burying three jacks before the section even moved an inch. LARO's Maintenance Foreman Don Everts remembered that the park engineer often observed the work. "Of course, this was before OSHA, so he'd shake his head and turn around quite often." [40] In 1973, park personnel screened the north end of the stable so the public could view the interior. A 1975 paint job removed the white trim that had made it look like a New England barn. The following year, the flooring of the interior north half was replaced and that part of the stable was opened to the public. Other work in the 1970s, related to the living history program, included acquiring two mules, a freight wagon, and harness, as well as constructing a vertical-board corral next to the stable based on historic photographs and drawings. The final major work at the stable was done in 1985, when maintenance crews installed a new foundation, posts, flooring, and stall partitions in the south end of the stable. [41]

When the Park Service took over the upper bench of Fort Spokane, the powder magazine was the best preserved of the buildings that were still standing. The early 1960s work on this brick building consisted of realigning the foundation and stabilizing the building, plus installing new doors and windows to match the originals. In 1974, the front part was used for cataloging artifacts with room for public viewing. Exhibits were installed in the building in 1977, and the exhibit room was opened to the public in 1978. Today, a table from the post bakery and two cook stoves are on display in the room. [42]

The historic water system at Fort Spokane is a spring about four hundred feet above the other historic buildings on the site. In 1963, the springhouse and reservoir building were rehabilitated/rebuilt and new pipes were laid. The gravity-flow water system provided water to the employee residences, picnic area, and campground at Fort Spokane. The reservoir building was again stabilized in the mid-1980s. [43]

Beginning in fiscal year 1978, four buildings and numerous foundations at Fort Spokane were included in LARO's Historic Building Cyclic Maintenance Program (the springhouse is not a contributing element of the district). Most of the work consisted of painting and foundation stabilization. The Fort Spokane Military Reserve Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. [44]

In 1985, two landscape architects from the Pacific Northwest Regional Office (today's Columbia Cascades Support Office) prepared a preliminary historic landscape study of Fort Spokane. Recommended work on the buildings included expanding the corral east of the quartermaster stable and establishing a maintenance program with priorities and guidelines for maintenance and restoration planning. The Historic Structure Preservation Guide for Fort Spokane was prepared in 1985. [45]

Protection of the historic buildings at Fort Spokane from fire has long been a concern. In the early 1960s, hose boxes and fire hydrants provided minimal protection. In 1981, a fire truck with a five-to-ten-minute response time was considered only marginally effective, but foot patrols, hazard inspections, mowing around buildings, and fire prevention messages to visitors helped. LARO and the Denver Service Center agreed that a small sprinkler system designed to delay fire spread until a truck could arrive would be desirable. Currently, the Park Service maintains a fire truck on site at the adjacent South District office. [46]

Fort Spokane's buildings have been infested by various pests over the years, including termites, pigeons, bats, and marmots. The park launched an all-out war against Fort Spokane's marmots in 1991. After evaluating various options, the selected methods of control were "direct reduction with firearms" and live trapping. [47]