New use for an old fort

12/29/2005

A $22.6 million museum has been proposed in hopes of reinvigorating historic Fort Snelling.

by BILL SALISBURY
Pioneer Press
December 29, 2005

“Fort Snelling loomed above the wilderness like a medieval fortress, its stone walls and massive towers a symbol of American strength and permanence in an area accustomed to but small and temporary fur posts.” — William Lass, “Minnesota: A History”

Fort Snelling is a cornerstone of Minnesota history. But while the fort has a powerful story to tell, it doesn’t tell it very well. It’s only open four months a year, its guides focus on just one period — the 1820s — and attendance has been steadily dropping.

To reverse the fort’s fortunes, the Minnesota Historical Society wants to convert it into a prime tourist attraction.

It will ask Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the 2006 Legislature for $22.6 million to renovate the fort’s historic but deteriorating cavalry barracks into a modern museum and visitor center in time to mark the 150th anniversary of Minnesota’s statehood in 2008.

“I think Fort Snelling is Minnesota’s preeminent historic site,” Nina Archabal, director of the Historical Society, said during a visit there last week. “It is probably the state’s best-known and best-loved historic site.”

The renovation would convert the fort into a year-round destination, instead of a seasonal one, said Bill Keyes, the society’s director of historic sites and museums. The museum would include modern exhibition galleries, a large auditorium, classrooms, event spaces, museum shops and an archaeology laboratory. Nearby cavalry stables would be revamped into a restaurant.

Now open from May to September, the fort and its costumed guides give visitors a taste of what life was like at the frontier outpost in 1827.

“While that’s a compelling story, there’s a lot more to be told here,” Archabal said.

The story of the fort, located on a commanding bluff overlooking the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, begins long before the Europeans arrived when it was home for Dakota people.

An Army infantry regiment arrived in 1819 to establish a fort to control traffic on the two rivers. After the fortress was completed in 1825, it became the center of frontier commerce and government administration in the U.S. Northwest for 30 years.

In 1836, Dred Scott was brought to the fort as a slave. Two decades later, he sued for his freedom, based on having lived in free states. The Supreme Court’s decision to deny him his freedom sparked a bitter debate that contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War.

From 1861 to 1865, thousands of Union Army volunteers trained at the fort. During World War II, 300,000 armed forces inductees were processed at the fort, which also served as a military training center and Japanese language school.

“This is the spot where, in many ways, Minnesota begins,” Keyes said. “To understand the consequences of what happened here is to understand what it is to be a Minnesotan.”

But fewer Minnesotans are going to the fort to learn about their history. Attendance has gradually slipped from more than 150,000 visitors annually in the 1970s and nearly 100,000 in 1998 to less than 75,000 this year.

Society officials said they believe the new museum would reverse that trend. It would house the society’s “Minnesota’s Greatest Generation” project that tells the stories of families that endured the Great Depression, helped win World War II and contributed to the post-war economic boom. Another exhibit would tell the story of Minnesota in the Civil War, enabling the society to display its rich collection of Civil War artifacts for the first time since the 1960s.

It’s economically feasible to turn the fort into a year-round attraction, Keyes said, because not only is it in the heart of the growing metro region, but it’s near the Mall of America, the expanded Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the new Hiawatha light-rail line.

While the society would ask the Legislature to continue providing $500,000 a year for the fort’s operation, it would not ask for more once the museum began operating, he said. The society projects that visits to the fort would nearly double, to 140,000, enabling it to raise the additional revenue needed to run the museum through admissions, renting space for events, retail sales and concessions.

All the society needs is the construction money. But that may be hard to get. “My guess is it’s going to be an uphill battle,” said House Capital Investment Committee Chairman Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea.

He and Sen. Keith Langseth, the Glyndon DFLer who chairs the Senate Capital Investment Committee, expect state agencies, local governments and lawmakers to request more than $2.5 billion for construction projects next year.

That’s nearly three times as much money as they will have available to spend. Dorman expects the Republican-controlled House to approve borrowing about $850 million for construction projects; Langseth predicted the DFL-run Senate would agree to spend up to $965 million.

With a lot of critical needs competing for the money, “it’s going to be difficult to say that a new museum is a priority,” Dorman said.

Langseth predicted most members of his Senate committee “would think it (the museum) is a good project that we should do eventually. It’s just a matter of timing.” He said one option is to give the society some “seed money” to start the project next year and pay for completion in subsequent years.

The cavalry barracks, built in 1904, have been vacant for 17 years and are decaying, but they remain structurally sound, said Fort Snelling site manager Stephen Osman. During a tour, he pointed to the thick stone walls and concrete floors and said, “The Army built them to last more than a century.”

At an upstairs window, Osman pointed to a dramatic view of the old fort and the Mississippi River below. A museum in the building would give everyone a chance to experience that view, he said.

Fort Snelling Facts

• After it opened in 1825, Fort Snelling was the center of settler life. The state’s first hospital, library and school were built there.

• Before becoming president, Zachary Taylor was commander of Fort Snelling in 1828-29. At the time, he called the region a “most miserable and uninteresting country.’’

• A U.S. Cavalry horse named Whiskey was buried on the fort grounds in 1943 after a long career of performing tricks at public events like the State Fair. In 2002, Whiskey’s remains had to be moved because they were in the path of the new light-rail system.

• In 2004, a local fisherman discovered rock carvings near the fort. They are believed to have been made by volunteers from the Eighth Minnesota Regiment in 1864.