Minidoka

When we visited the Hagerman Fossil Beds, we got a two for one bonus!  Minidoka National Historic Site is located in Idaho, but there are no facilities on-site.  Therefore a temporary exhibit has been created inside the Hagerman visitor center.  So we technically didn't visit the actual site of the internment camp, but we saw the temporary visitor center.  Growing up in California I'd read about the internment camps of World War II, but I'm pretty sure that I never actually visited the site of one.  I do remember though seeing a sign in Canada once for an internment camp that had been used for people of Turkish descent during World War I (when the Ottoman Empire was one of the Central Powers fighting against the allies).  It is a complicated history and one that can seem easy to judge across the years, but it is definitely well worth studying and remembering.  It is a story of injustice, a story of fear, a story of patriotism (many Japanese-Americans enlisted in the US Military and fought very bravely in Europe, earning many medals), and more.

In the mid-1890s Toyo Kisen Kaisha (Oriental Steamship Company) was organized in Japan to enter the transpacific trade.  The Nippon Maru began its monthly voyage to Honolu and San Fransicso on January 1899. 

It had a yachtlike appearance, yet at 6,047 tons, it was one of the largest vessels to enter San Francisco.  Nippon Maru had accomodations for 98 first-class passengers, 40 second-class, and 1,000 Oriental steerage.
--caption for above picture

The exhibits were mainly comprised of a series of pictures and captions.  They started off talking about Japanese immigration into the US, exploring the attack on Pearl Harbor, the decision to create internment camps, and the reality of the movement to the camps and life in them.

I assume that whenever the visitor center is constructed on the site of the internment camp that there will be more artifacts, but there wasn't room for too many of them within the Hagerman visitor center.  And actually I thought that pictures and text communicated things rather clearly.

It all happened so quickly. The Japanese on the West Coast of the United States had made lives for themselves in spite of discrimination, but on December 7, 1941, everything changed. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, panicked people believed every Japanese person could be a potential spy, ready and willing to assist in an invasion that was expected at any moment. Many political leaders, army officers, newspaper reporters, and ordinary people came to believe that everyone of Japanese ancestry, including American citizens, needed to be removed from the West Coast.

In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that moved nearly 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans into 10 isolated relocation centers in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. These temporary, tar paper-covered barracks, the guard towers, and most of the barbed-wire fences are gone now, but the people who spent years of their lives in the centers will never forget them.  This is the story of one of those centers: Minidoka--from NPS website

Of course I love maps, so I made sure to grab a picture of this map.  I think that maps can really help you place things, especially in the context of the whole west coast of the United States.

I'm not sure what the Minidoka site will eventually end up looking like, because I don't think too many of the original structures are left.  But I do look forward to visiting when they have an official visitor center up and running at the main site.  I don't think these camps were anywhere near the same as Nazi concentration camps (though they were definitely not pleasant--an understatement I know) they are well worth remembering.  I recall the oft-quoted words "those that do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it."

~Matt

Sleeping in Fossils

Well I don't know of anyone who sleeps in fossils, but I think the title fits with a post about fossil beds in Idaho, ;-).  Before we arrived at my niece's graduation in western Idaho on June 4, Amy and I stopped by a couple National Park sites, the first of which was the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument.  We only went by the Visitor Center, but if we're back in the area in the future it might be a nice place to explore along with Craters of the Moon which is a bit to the north-west of Hagerman. Unfortunately it wasn't along our route for this trip.  Hagerman was a bit off the highway, but we were able to continue on back to the highway without backtracking--it wasn't a shortcut, but it wasn't drastically out of our way either.

The highlight of the area is the "Hagerman horse."  This display occupied the center of the visitor center area and was talked about in several other displays.

I'm not sure if this visitor center was permanent, or only something temporary.  It isn't located inside the park boundaries--but apparently there isn't much publicly accessible inside the park.  It was located inside a nearby town, which did make it easier to access, as it was along the main road.  We came into town from the south along that road and left via the north.  Out front I was pleased to notice a children's area where kids could "dig" fossils up.  Things like this aren't complicated, but they are nice for kids to be able to experience things on their level.

Normally you can view an orientation video, and I would have jumped at the chance as I always enjoy learning more about areas that I visit.  However, on the day that we visited the theater was out of commission because they were using the area for the training of their seasonal staff.

In 1928, Dr. Harold T. Stearns, with the U.S. Geologic Survey, was studying the geology of the Snake River Plain.  While in the Hagerman area, a local resident, Elmer Cook, directed him to an area with a large number of bones.  a sample of the fossil bones was sent to Dr. James Gidley of the Smithsonian Institution in WAshington D.C., who identified them as those of an extinct horse now named Equus simplicidens and referred to as the Hagerman Horse.
The following year, the Smithsonian visited the site and started excavations.  The excavation proceeded over a period of four field seasons using shovels, trowels and a horse-pulled earth-moving tool called a Fresno. (from exhibit signage)

You can see all of the pictures I took in this slideshow (or click through to view the album on Picasa Web Albums:


~Matt

Ties in Utah

The day we camped in Utah (June 3) I set an early alarm as we wanted to drive north early the next morning.  We were heading to the Golden Spike National Historic Site and I wanted to be there when they opened--or actually a few before.  It was one of the many NPS sites I noticed were along our route during the trip.  I'm not sure if I'd ever been there before, but it is likely since my parents and I had driven through the area before.  I have quite a few scrapbooks that my mom made for me, but I haven't looked through most of them in several years, so I can't be sure if we went there or not (unless my mom reads this and comments).  To get to the site we had to drive on several back roads (but we didn't have to backtrack when we headed back towards Idaho.  On one road I was driving at the speed limit (55mph) when a bird ran across the road.  I was going fast enough that I couldn't really swerve and slamming on my brakes wouldn't do any good, so I ended up hitting the bird.  I looked into my rear view mirror and saw a plume of feathers spray upwards from the road.  I did hit my brakes, but didn't drive back.  I'm sure the bird was dead, and we didn't have any room to pack the bird to eat later like my nephew Mark would have done.

Joining the NationMay 10, 1869 the Union and Central Pacific Railroads joined their rails at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory and forged the destiny of a nation. Golden Spike National Historic Site shares the stories of the people and settings that define the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad.

--from NPS Golden Spike website

We actually did arrive before the site opened (at 9:00), but we made a stop at one location that was on the road in to the Visitor Center.  I can't find any pictures, but checking the map I can see it was the Big Fill/Big Trestle Viewpoint.  The crews actually graded past one another while the location of their meeting was being decided.  They never laid any track past each other, but there was plenty of parallel grading.

By mid-1868 Central Pacific crews had crossed the Sierra and laid 200 miles of track; Union Pacific had laid 700 miles over the plains.  As the two work forces neared each other in Utah, they raced to grade more miles and claim more land subsidies.  Both pushed so far beyond their railheads that they passed each other, and for over 200 miles competing graders advanced in opposite directions on parallel grades.

Congress finally declared the meeting place to be Promontory Summit.  On May 10, 1869, two locomotives--Central Pacific's Jupiter and Union Pacific's No. 119--pulled up to the one-rail gap left in the track...After a golden spike was symbolically tapped, a final iron spike was driven to connect the railroads.  Central Pacific had laid 690 miles of track, Union Pacific 1,086.  They had crossed 1,776 miles of desert, rivers, and mountains to bind together East and West.--from Golden Spike NPS brochure

In front of the building was a Southern Pacific monument.  The rail laid through Promontory Summit wasn't used for that many years.  The lines came uphill through mountains to this location and it wasn't very efficient.  Years later rail was laid to the south and a bridge built across the Great Salt Lake at Promontory Point.  The below below is the original line while the red and yellow shows the new line that made the original superfluous.

When metal was needed all of the rail at the summit was actually pulled up.  This monument was placed at the site long before it was an NPS site and the some of the rail was relaid.

 We weren't planning on sending the whole day at the site, but I did want to catch the arrival of both steam engines.  The first thing I had to was to show my pass--I was really starting to enjoy showing that instead of paying at each site we visited.  I was excited to see a penny smashing machine and smashed a couple coins.  There weren't too many exhibits, but they were interesting to look at.  I didn't realize it, but there were four special spikes driven in right at the end (all of which were of course removed and replaced with regular spikes before they could be stolen).  You can read more about all four of these spikes by viewing this pdf on the NPS website, but here is a sample:

San Francisco contractor David Hewes, friend of Central Pacific President Leland Stanford, was disappointed to discover no one had prepared a commemorative item for the completion of the transcontinental railroad, which was scheduled to be finished on May 8, 1869. Unable to persuade anyone to finance the casting of a solid gold or silver section of rail, Hewes decided upon a more practical token. Using about $400 of his own gold, he had the William T. Garatt Foundry of San Francisco cast a golden spike.  The spike was 5 5/8 inches long, weighed 14.03 ounces and was made of 17.6 carat gold. Only about $350 worth of gold, however, was used to make the actual spike. The remainder was left attached to the spike in a large sprue. 

After casting, the golden spike was engraved on all four sides and the top. Two sides bore the names of railroad officers and directors.  Another side was engraved, “The Pacific Railroad ground broken Jany [sic] 8th 1863 and completed May 8th 1869.” The fourth side was engraved, “May God continue the unity of our country as the railroad unites the two great Oceans of the world. Presented David Hewes San Francisco.” The top of the spike was simply engraved, “The Last Spike.”

The rest of the exhibits covered details of construction of the railroad lines.

There were also a good number of artifacts from the camps that illustrated the different cultures involved.  Many Chinese laborers worked for Central Pacific.

Of course I also really enjoyed the model of the ceremony.

In the bookstore I even found a knock-off "Lego" train set for sale.  It was virtually identical to a set that Lego sold a few years ago--I actually have one, but they were very clearly NOT Lego bricks.

Directly outside the back door was a section of rail like that which was laid down during the original construction.  Two pictures of accompanying signs are below, on the bottom one you can see how the shape of rail lines have changed over the years.

The section of rail before you is original to the transcontinental railroad.  This type of rail is called "pear head" because a cross section of it resembles an upside-down pear.  Its unique shape was the result of heating and rolling together several bars of wrought iron.  Because of this rolling process, iron rail was comprised of many layers which made the rail much weaker than if it had been made out of one solid piece of iron.  Despite the pear shape design that was intended to help counter thsi weakness, the layers of iron made rail vulnerable to splintering under heavy weight.  For this reason iron rail was not very durable and required frequent replacement.
--from NPS signage (see picture below)

After taking a couple pictures I finally let Amy drag me towards the rail line.  It was here that the first engine would be arriving shortly.

After a short time a ranger began explaining about the trains that would arrive shortly--well train at first.


The replica of the Central Pacific's Jupiter would be the first engine to arrive on-site.


After the engine arrived and had backed up we were allowed to go over the track and walk up a platform behind the engine to get a close look at it.  Since both engines came from the same direction, unlike the original ceremony, the Jupiter had to back up to its site.

At this point I realized that my memory card was nearly full as I'd forgotten to take pictures off of it, and the video I'd just taken had filled it.  As I knew the next train would be arriving in not too long I snapped a few pictures of the Jupiter and then headed out to our car.  I booted up Amy's computer and pulled files off of my camera memory card so that I could delete several large files and be ready to take more video.  The arrival of Engine 119 did not disappoint.

I had more time and more space on my memory card after 119 arrived, so I took several shots of the engine's amazing details.

Looking around I had fun with a few shots like this one of the rails disappearing into the distance.

The flagpole line was held on by two railroad spikes driven into the wood.

It is always hard to get a good shot of a flag fluttering in the breeze.

One of the engines burned wood and the other burned coal--they left quite a bit of smoke in the air.

I'm not sure what plants these were, but they looked quite interesting.

~Matt

PS Did you know that our current time zones are due to railroad travel?

PPS Look at all of the album's nearly one hundred images in the slideshow below, or click on it to be taken to the entire album.  I just couldn't talk about each photo, or if I had I'd have needed quite a bit more time to write this blog, or would have had to split this into several entries.  It has already been nearly two months since the trip in question and I want to get these blogs written before I forget more about the trip than I already have.

Surrender at Appomattox

On our last trip to Virginia Amy and I had an extra day, so we went with her folks and sister to Appomattox Court House.  I don't think I'd ever been there, but I'd heard about it quite a bit as I've enjoyed studying the history of the Civil War for many years.

If you don't recognize the name then you should know that this is where General Lee surrendered the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant.  The most interesting thing I learned was where the village got its name.  County seats in Virginia were always named Court House.  The town of Clover Hill became Appomattox Court House in 1845 when Appomattox County was created.

Appomattox Court House National Historical Park is located in south central Virginia, 92 miles west of Richmond and 18 miles east of Lynchburg.  It is on Va. 24, three miles northeast of the town of Appomattox, where motel accommodations, restaurants, and stores are located....  Park programs show how the war affected the people of the village and how they lived from day to day.
--from Appomattox Court House NPS brochure

You'll see a picture later, but the village of Appomattox Court House was located on the Richmond-Lynchburg stage road.  Part of that route is now a local highway.  I think it is interesting, but makes quite a bit of sense, how road routes and buildings get reused over the years.  One of the reasons that Appomattox Court House has been preserved is that the town itself moved south.  Starting in the 50s (the 1850s that is) the population really started to move towards Appomattox Station three miles away because that is where the railroad line was built.  Additionally several buildings in the town were rebuilt when the National Park Service took over in the 40s.

After the surrender ceremony the troops went away and the war ended, but Appomattox Court House had been changed.  In many ways the village was worse off.  No large battle had taken place here; neither side rushed in to erect monuments as they did on many other battlefields of the war....  In the late 1880s Union veterans formed the Appomattox Land Company.  They hoped to develop the area by selling lots and building houses, but their plans never really left the drawing board.  In 1892 the courthouse burned...and the county seat was moved to Appomattox, formerly Appomattox Station.  And in an early 1893 a Niagara Falls, N.Y., company had the McLean House dismantled with the hope of taking it to Washington, D.C., as a war museum.  But the piles of bricks and lumber were never moved.  exposed to the elements, they eventually disappeared.  The little village was either going up in smoke or crumbling into dust. 

In 1930, Congress passed a bill that provided for building a monument at the site of the old courthouse. The monument was never built, but the idea of memorializing the event stayed alive.... 

Legislation creating the park as a national historical monument was signed in 1935, and work began on acquiring land and researching the records.  The project resumed at the end of World War II; in 1954, the area was redesignated Appomattox Court House National Historical Park.  Today the village looks much as it did in April 1865. 

--from Appomattox Court House NPS brochure

Before we drove to the park I discovered the podcasts available on the Civil War Traveler website.  Most of the podcasts were developed in association with the National Park Service and you can find downloads for many sites throughout the South.  You can listen to the Appomattox audio here.  I downloaded it to my iPhone so I could listen to it on-site.  Once we arrived and I started picking up brochures (yes I'm one of those people) I discovered that they also had a cell phone audio tour.  If you'd like to listen to some of it you can call 434-352-6027.  There are nine sites including four in the old village that I listened to.  We didn't tour the entire area so there were some parts of the site that we skipped.  Of course that just gives me a reason to go back in the future, ;-).

Since the original courthouse burned down at the end of the century--no, not the last one, the previous one--the building had to be completely rebuilt.  It now incorporates restrooms, a theater, and a number of exhibits (as well as offices I'm sure).  I imagine that only the exterior is the same as the original building.  It still is a very nice looking building.

Inside I was immediately drawn to the map of the park.  I suppose things like that are fairly easy to make in a park where you know the names won't change.  I can't imagine something that permanent in my job because things change all the time.

There wasn't too much going on downstairs, but there were a couple brochures and some donation boxes.  The donations were tracked by state and unsurprisingly Virginia was at the top--but California was #3!

I really enjoyed a small sign that told what happened during the war on the day you visit.

Upstairs though there some good exhibits and I spent a few minutes looking around.  One display that was nice was likely older, but I think it holds up well against more modern equipment.  This display would still be valuable if the interactive portion were inoperable.  Here you can see a short segment of the display as the narrator talks about the Confederate retreat towards Appomattox as Grant's forces cut off Lee's intended movement towards North Carolina (where he could have joined up with other Confederate forces).


After watching this my in-laws let me know that the theater was ready to play, so I headed that way with Amy.  The room was interesting as it had obviously been built with a projector in mind (there was a projector room in the back above the entrance) but the screen had been replaced by a large screen TV that appeared to be playing a DVD.  There were a good number of artifacts on display, including several pieces used by individua soldiers.

The most memorable was the surrender table, which had obviously been preserved many years earlier as it was stamped with the fact that it was the table in question, whereas a modern preservation effort would leave it in original condition if at all possible.

And lest you think that only modern people are obsessed with souvenirs then you should read about the "apple tree myth" at Appomattox.

The story got around that Lee and Grant had met under an apple tree to discuss the surrender.  After the conclusion of the event soldiers descended on the orchard and demolished its trees on the hunt for souvenirs.

Did you realize that the popular "Confederate flag" that you see was actually the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (Lee's Army) and was not the Confederate national flag?

The flag hanging in the picture at left was actually the third national flag adopted in early 1865, just shortly before the end of the war.  The previous version was virtually identical, but there was no red bar across the white portion of the flag.

Once we were finished looking around at the visitor center exhibits we headed outside.  I split apart from others and listened to the podcast that I'd downloaded.  First I headed over to the McLean house (where the surrender documents were signed) then to the Clover Hill Tavern and finally to the review area where the surrendering Confederates marched past Union soldiers.  I didn't go inside many of the buildings though, as I was waiting for everyone else before I looked at any of those sites in detail.  There was a living history presentation on the front porch of the tavern.  Next time we visit I want to listen to (and perhaps record) one of these talks.  I really enjoy things like this (Colonial Williamsburg for example is amazing!).



I walked past the jails, both the ruins of the old jail on the left and the new jail on the right--I forgot to go inside the new jail, though my sister-in-law texted me a picture of Amy behind bars.

The next place I came to was the Jones Law Office.  According to the NPS brochure this original building was the "[o]ffice and town home of Crawford Jones, Appomattox County farmer, lawyer, and local secessionist leader."  There wasn't very much signage around the building, but I could walk in the door, stand behind a railing, and look around.  I really enjoy the fact that while some buildings had to be reconstructed there were buildings like this that have survived the many years.



The walls of the building appeared to be fitted together rather well.

Framing shots can be quite fun.

Several signs are located in front of the Peers House, and a canon rests on the lawn.

George Peers, clerk of the Appomattox County court for 40 years, lived in this frame house, which was built in the early 1850s.  Not open to the public.  (Original)--from Appomattox Court House NPS brochure

Stacking of ArmsOn the morning of April 12, 1865, about 5,000 Federal troops lined the Richmond-Lynchburg Stage Road from just east of the Peers House to a point near the McLean House to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.  The weapons, flags, and accoutrements of Lee's infantry were stacked before the Federals in a formal surrender ceremony that Brig. Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain dubbed "Honor answering honor."--from Appomattox Court House NPS brochure

I spotted a few of the modern support staff before I saw several signs sitting together at the end of a path.

One of these signs described one of the meetings between Generals Grant and Lee.

But the other one covers the ceremony at the end of the proceedings (described in the quote above):

Better than that was an interactive display--well a button that when pressed triggered an audio recording about the ceremony.  Of course I had to take a video.

After this I walked back to meet everyone else.  We spent some time in the bookstore (located in the tavern kitchen building).  I picked up some postcards, a book, and my mother-in-law bought me a shirt.  After this we went through the tavern.  We entered and left via the back door since a program was being conducted on the front porch (see the video above).  This building was where all of the Confederate paroles were printed.

The surrender terms were quite generous, as befitting the start of the reconciliation process at the end of the war.  Soldiers were allowed to return home.  The printed paroles identified them as a surrendered soldier (instead of a deserter), allowed them free transport on railroads and ships controlled by the Federal Government, and allowed them to receive needed supplies from government depots as well.  Several portable presses were brought in to quickly print the thousands of paroles that were needed in rather short order.

 The other half of the building featured a display that included several parole examples.

Across the way an attorney's office was fairly normal, but one of the candles inside was rather amusing.  It obviously hadn't reacted to the heat very well.

The next place we explored was the Meeks Store (which also served as the post office).  The building is original and was constructed in 1852.  One half of the building had a door which closed by a spring and the reason was obvious once I entered--there was an air conditioning unit operating.

Lafayette Meeks is buried in a field behind the store.  At first I just took a picture from a distance, then I realized that we could cross the fence and go closer to the grave.  So Amy and I headed that direction.

When we got to the grave we noticed a small stone at the far end of the grave area, directly next to the fence.  We later discovered that it was a footstone, used to mark that end of the grave.  I don't remember if I've ever heard of those before, but I thought it was quite interesting.  The headstone is remarkable as far as how legible it is, even with several cracks going right through the stone.  Lafayette died during the war, but on another battlefield, and his body was brought home to be buried.

The last building we visited was the McLean house, where the actual surrender took place.  One of the things you learn there was something I already knew.  When the war started McLean was actually living in the northern part of Virginia, right near Manassas (where the Battle of Bull Run, or First Manassas took place).  He reportedly moved to Appomattox to get away from the war, something that worked quite well until what was very close to the end of the war fell on his doorstep.

A rather vocal (but quite informative) ranger waited inside the McLean house.  One of the first things I saw was a map detailing what happened after Appomattox.

One of the most interesting things I noted was the CSS Shenandoah.  The ship was a Confederate commerce raider built in England.  The crew kept attacking ships after the end of the war because they didn't know that all other Confederate forces had surrendered.  Finally they captured a ship whose captain told them that the war was over.  If I remember correctly (what I've read and what the ranger said) they didn't believe the news until they got it from a British source.  At that point they sailed to England, turned the ship over to British authorities, and fled.  They had letters of marque, but were afraid of being called pirates by the North.

The McLean house was reconstructed, but the center portion of the front wall consists of reclaimed original bricks.  Inside I'm not certain how much furniture is original, but I assume that at least some of it is, if not a bit more.

I have to admit that one of the things I enjoyed was the fake food used to decorate the tables in the house and the kitchen.

There were a couple more rooms upstairs.

Behind the house was the kitchen, constructed as a separate building, not only to separate the slaves from the main house, but to keep the heat of cooking outside also.

There was also a cradle in the back room of the kitchen building that contained a rather interesting pillow.  From what Amy remembers it looks as though the pillow is indeed an original artifact.

The slave quarters were in yet another, simpler building.

Finally I looked in the outhouse, but sadly it wasn't real (or at least there was no actual pit).

~Matt

PS All of the above pictures, and actually quite a few more that I didn't take time to write about (or perhaps forgot about) are in the complete album which plays as a slideshow below.  I hope that you'll take a couple minutes to check it out.  Feel free (i.e. please do) leave any pertinent comments on this post, or even on the pictures if any of them are particularly interesting to you.  Thanks!