Lake Roosevelt Administrative History

Museum Collection Management

Park Service museums use artifacts to illustrate interpretive themes. Museum collections at park units generally contain a number of artifacts suitable for exhibit, along with many others appropriate for study. Many of these artifacts are acquired through archaeological surveys, testing, and excavations.

LARO's 1958 Museum Prospectus identified the Fort Spokane visitor center as both the repository for the park's artifacts and a place for collection studies. Because the recreation area owned no artifacts at the time, staff recommended contacting various organizations to locate objects considered desirable for exhibit and study purposes. The first priority was objects that would help with the study and interpretation of the area. [55]

Because LARO was not established until after the completion of major archaeological work along the upper Columbia River in 1939-1940, the recreation area had no American Indian artifacts in its museum collection when it turned to the task of planning exhibits in the 1960s. When the interpretive program began in 1962, park staff visited repositories with objects related to the park. These included the Eastern Washington State Historical Society in Spokane, the University of Idaho, and WSU; the last housed artifacts from early 1960s excavations at Fort Spokane. LARO staff believed that the best historic objects were held privately and that eventually they would be donated to the Park Service. Park Naturalist Arthur Hathaway located and obtained many items for the recreation area in the 1960s, but he was unable to obtain funding for storage from the regional office. Instead, he locked some of the items in a jail cell at the Fort Spokane guardhouse and commented, "Now all I have to do is find some help in cataloging the mess." [56]

In 1967, LARO's museum collection consisted of seventy-three catalogued objects related to local history. The artifacts were stored until 1974, when staff began sorting and cataloguing. Most of the historic materials were small metal and stone objects related to the military at Fort Spokane. In 1977, a seasonal museologist completed cataloging the collection, which had grown to 1,077 objects, and designed a display of artifacts in the powder magazine. Four years later, however, some of the accessioned items were removed since they did not fit accessioning criteria. Because a new storage facility was being planned at Fort Spokane, LARO decided that a collection preservation guide would be helpful in planning for long-term conservation and preservation needs. This occurred at a time when Park Service management in general was becoming more supportive of efforts to assess, protect, and care for park museum collections. [57]

To further the effort to bring the park's museum collection management into full compliance, LARO added a new position to Fort Spokane in 1985 that included curatorial responsibilities as a collateral duty; until that time, curation had been a secondary responsibility of the Chief Park Interpreter. The park also built an artifact storage room and work space in the maintenance area of the new Fort Spokane district offices to hold artifacts that were not on display. The LARO collection had been scattered previously throughout the three districts. LARO also shared responsibility with Reclamation for a collection of artifacts from Fort Colvile excavations housed at the University of Idaho, and for a smaller collection from excavations of Fort Spokane grounds housed at WSU. [58]

The Park Service secured additional funding in 1987 to increase its efforts to catalog artifacts and to address concerns about storage and display conditions. At the same time, LARO worked to address collection security through proper storage as well as display conditions (climate control and security) in the Fort Spokane guardhouse. In 1988, contractors completed cataloguing the park's museum collection, which by then had increased to 2,152 items (separate from the much larger archaeological collections). The catalog records were entered on the Automated National Catalog System. [59]

The University of Idaho housed the artifacts and records for the archaeological surveys of Lake Roosevelt done for Reclamation and the Park Service in the 1960s and 1970s. By 1986, the collection totaled close to seven hundred cubic feet, with the Kettle Falls portion alone including about 200,000 American Indian artifacts and 50,000 Euroamerican artifacts. Federal ownership mandated that the repository follow the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for curation. During the mid-1980s, the Colville Confederated Tribes (CCT) requested curation responsibilities for artifacts excavated from Kettle Falls, contingent on completion of a tribal museum planned for the Coulee Dam area. Both the CCT and STI felt strongly that all local Native American artifacts recovered from Reclamation lands should be returned to the tribes. [60]

Archaeologists excavating site of powder magazine at Fort Colvile, May 1970. Photo courtesy of National Park Service, Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area (LARO 3043).

The Park Service, however, was concerned about any transfer of artifacts to the tribes because it believed that neither the CCT nor STI museum facilities could meet the existing standards. Transfer of Native American artifacts was potentially complicated since many tribes were represented at the Kettle Falls fishery sites and thus would need to be consulted. The Park Service also insisted that any agreement dealing with repatriation of the collection needed to include provisions allowing qualified researchers access to the materials. The agency recommended that all historic artifacts remain government property in a federal repository. Following protracted negotiations between the CCT and Reclamation to transfer the collection, the tribes essentially quit-claimed the historic materials from Fort Colvile to Reclamation for curation at the Park Service facility at Fort Vancouver; the transfer occurred in July 1996. At about the same time, the CCT took over curatorial responsibilities for the rest of the Kettle Falls collection, which remains stored with Reclamation at Coulee Dam until the CCT completes its new repository. [61]

By 1993, LARO curated a museum collection that had grown to include almost fifty-eight hundred archaeological and more than twenty-one hundred historical artifacts; of these, only sixty-eight were displayed in park exhibits. In addition, the park planned to add artifacts from the 1962-1963 excavations, stored at WSU, to the collection. A Collection Storage Plan for LARO, prepared in 1994, recommended enlarging the storage space at Fort Spokane to house the entire collection. This was completed in 1995. The plan also recommended relocating the flammable liquids stored beneath the collection storage room, and this was soon accomplished. In addition, the park installed an environmental monitoring system in the collection storage room. [62]

A Museum Management Plan for LARO, completed in 1997, made recommendations for the museum program for the next five-year period. The report noted the potential for growth in both the archaeological and archival collections and mentioned that the park was not interested in having an on-site natural history collection because good collections were already available at area universities. The fragmentation of responsibilities for cultural resources management between resources management, visitor services, and park management was noted, along with the lack of professional oversight and management of the museum collection. To solve this, the report recommended creating a Branch of Museum Services supervised by a curator, archivist, or librarian. This has not yet been done. [63]

In 1967, LARO had fifty bound volumes, plus a few reports and papers, in its library collection for staff use. The subjects were mostly natural history, with some historical references. Management of the expanding library was simplified in 1989 when all the library books were catalogued in the Park Service regional computerized library system. By 1997, the library had grown to some twenty-eight hundred titles. About that time, LARO awarded a contract to have archivists locate, inventory, accession, and catalog the park's archival materials as a first step in preparing an administrative history of the park. The contractors also listed relevant documents found at other repositories. The 1997 Museum Management Plan provided recommendations on improving access for the staff to the park's information resources. [64]

LARO hired contractors to accession and catalogue some twenty-two hundred historic photographs in 1988 and 1989. These photographs were mostly duplicates from other collections. The slide collection was organized in 1991. Three years later, the park printed positives and negatives for its historic photographs and stored them separately. [65]

Security for the park's museum collection has improved greatly over the years. In the 1970s, the exhibit security alarm at the guardhouse was photoelectric, but it apparently never worked well. After the Park Service revised its security standards for museum collections, LARO assessed its conditions and found that the park needed security and fire alarm systems for the visitor center exhibits and the museum collection storage room at Fort Spokane. Several items were stolen in the 1980s. A security and fire protection survey for Fort Spokane made detailed recommendations for improvement, and the critical elements were implemented within the next few years. Currently, Fort Spokane is protected by a fire detection system and a fire truck on site. [66]

LARO has recently obtained funding to move its artifact collection to better storage facilities available at Nez Perce National Historical Park, approximately a four-hour drive from Lake Roosevelt. The park will retain its archival materials, including photographs. [67]

Compliance Guidelines

In response to the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966 and the subsequent issuance of Executive Order 11593 in May 1971, the Park Service developed protocols for dealing with archaeological and historical sites affected by park development. NPS-28, "Cultural Resources Management Guideline," first published in the early 1970s, directed agency managers to "locate, identify, evaluate, preserve, manage, and interpret qualified cultural resources in every park in such a way that they may be handed on to future generations unimpaired." [68]

In the late 1980s, before the arrival of a park archaeologist, LARO personnel developed special checklists and forms to assess the effect of park actions on cultural resources. The district maintenance foreman, district ranger, chief of maintenance, chief ranger, chief of interpretation, and assistant superintendent all reviewed these forms to see if the proposed undertaking had potential to affect resources eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and thus require compliance with Section 106 of the NHPA. Following the provisions of the Servicewide Programmatic Agreement for complying with Section 106, LARO staff used an Assessment of Effect (106) form to document the park action and the resources involved. Regional cultural resource staff then reviewed these forms and recommended any actions needed to mitigate potential effects on eligible properties. Under the 1991 Programmatic Agreement, proposed actions still were documented on the 106 form and reviewed by the cultural resource staff at the regional office in Seattle. The Regional Director was the responsible official under the implementing regulations for Section 106 until 1995, and the regional cultural resource staff provided recommendations to the Regional Director on the level of effect, mitigation options, and the level of Section 106 review required. After 1995, the Superintendent became the responsible official for Section 106. [69]

Because so many projects involved archaeological clearance, park staff hoped that an on-site park archaeologist would speed clearance, particularly for projects developed with short notice that involved ground disturbance. The first park archaeologist, Paula Hartzell-Scott, was stationed at LARO in 1993 and funded as a term position under the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the BPA. In addition to having field responsibilities for the conduct of inventories completed under the BPA agreement, she also undertook park project clearances. In 1995, Ray DePuydt succeeded Hartzell-Scott in the term archaeologist position. This job has been partially covered under park base funding since 1996, with additional monies from other park funds, soft project money, and regional office funds. The hopes of the park maintenance staff that the park archaeologist would facilitate project clearances have been realized. The archaeologist, however, has suggested that some longer-term coordination and planning would result in better consideration and mitigation of the effects of their projects. [70]