Notes from the road, August 15, 2016

Driven by History has a problem. Or to be more accurate, I have a problem. I visit a lot more places every week than I can blog about. So in addition to my weekly postings about several of the places that I have visited recently, I will also write a review to catch you up on where I’ve been and what I’ve done over the last week or so. Eventually, all these places will have their own history. In the meantime, here’s a short review.

At the end of July, I left New Mexico and drove east along Route 66. I already wrote about Washita Battlefield NHS and Route 66. I stopped off at the Oklahoma City Bombing site where 168 people lost their lives in this act of domestic terrorism on April 19, 1995. The NPS has a presence there at the reflecting pool with its stark monument of 168 chairs, one for each of the victims including nineteen small chairs for the children who were at the day care center. I talked with a NPS ranger who admitted that this is hard duty, interpreting the horror and death of the mass bombing that destroyed so much—so many lives, so much property, so many people’s belief in an innocence that was obliterated by this tragic event.

The empty chairs and reflecting pool at the Oklahoma City Bombing Site

From a conversation at Washita with Ranger Richard Zahm, I altered my route and went to Pea Ridge Battlefield National Military Park in northwest Arkansas. Called the Gettysburg of the West, 16,000 men fought here in 1863 as the south tried to invade Missouri and secure it for the Confederacy. Ranger Ashleigh called this a “pinkie-toe” park in that it was out of the way and didn’t attract the visitation of the big parks. As with many places that witnessed intense violence on a massive scale, Pea Ridge is now peaceful, while the visitors’ center and the panels on the driving tour evoke the chaos of battle.

As I drove east, I kept crossing the Trail of Tears where thousands of Native Americans trudged west to Indian Territory in the 1830s as they were forced from their ancestral lands in the Southeast. More about this story when I get North Carolina.

Above, a marker for the Trail of Tears at Pea Ridge Battlefield. Below, my rig overlooking one of the fields of battle at Pea Ridge. (Photos by Hunner)

After Pea Ridge, I jumped back on Route 66 at Joplin and headed to St. Louis and the Jefferson Expansion National Memorial. The iconic arch beckoned from afar as I drove into town but once I arrived under the shining symbol of westward expansion, I was disappointed that the museum was undergoing a renovation. I did spend time at the Old Courthouse where slaves Dred and Harriet Scott sued for their freedom in 1854 because they had traveled with their owner to several free states.

Above, a sculpture of Dred and Harriet Scott in front of the Old Courthouse in St. Louis. Below, the construction of a new visitors' center under the Arch. (Photos by Hunner) 

Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with slavery, denied the Scotts’ their freedom, and fueled the growing controversy that led to the Civil War. I also watched a documentary about the building of the Arch in the 1960s. As this engineering marvel rose above the Mississippi River, I marveled at the construction workers perched 600 feet above the ground without any safety ropes or harnesses, casually smoking cigarettes as they spun the multi-ton sections into place. No one died on the job.

Tour Guide Gary talking about Monk's Mound behind him (Photo by Hunner)

Just east of St. Louis are the Cahokia Mounds, the biggest pre-contact earthen structures in the Americas, made a thousand years ago by Native Americans. This massive municipal project illustrates the complex civilization that supported between 10,000 to 20,000 people, a population that was greater than London at the time. As I climbed the 100 foot tall Monk’s Mound in the early evening, I met a couple from Chicago who recommended that I return the next morning to go through the impressive museum run by the Illinois State Parks. I am glad I did since I saw artifacts from excavations, 

explanations of life at Cahokia, and then took a tour of the mounds with volunteer Gary. A retired IT guy, Gary became absorbed by researching the Cahokia culture. Now he leads tours of the mounds.

Lewis and Clark's keelboat at the Lewis and Clark State Park north of St. Louis (Photo by Hunner)

Another interesting Illinois State park just up the road from Cahokia is the Lewis and Clark Center. The winter before the Corps of Discovery left on their journey to the Pacific Ocean in 1804, they stayed at Camp Dubois near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Like at Cahokia, this state park’s museum ably told the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition across the continent, including a full scale replica of the keelboat they took up Missouri River.

National Road Marker along Route 40 (Photo by Hunner)

At St. Louis, Route 66 veered north while I went east on another historic road, Route 40—the National Road through Illinois and Indiana to Indianapolis. I teach living history at New Mexico State University and so am attracted to NPS sites and museums that offer this kind of interaction with visitors. North of Indianapolis lies Conner Prairie, the oldest living history park in the country, a place I have wanted to visit for decades. Dr. Catherine Hughes, their chief of interpretation, gave me a tour, and then I spent the rest of the day at Conner Prairie time traveling through Indiana in the 19^th century.

A family enjoying Conner Prairie (Photo by Hunner)

I continued along the remnants of the National Road to Dayton, where I visited the Wright Brothers bicycle shop and visitor’s center and then Huffman Prairie Field, the world’s first airport. There Wilbur and Orville figured out how to maneuver and control their flying machines at Huffman Field. On the day I stopped by, the NPS had a replica of one of the Wrights’ early planes on display.

Effigy pipe excavated from the burial mounds at Hopewell Culture NHP (Photo by Hunner)

After this dose of early 20^th century aviation history, I ducked down into southern Ohio to Hopewell Culture NHP to explore more pre-contact mounds. One thousand earlier than Cahokia, the mounds at the five sites of Hopewell are more intimate and just as mysterious. The main museum for Hopewell showcases many of the artifacts found in the mounds, including hammered copper figures, effigy pipes, and a silhouette of a hand made out of Carolina mica.

Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania (Photo by Hunner)

Crossing the Ohio River, I then spent a morning at Fort Necessity where a young George Washington suffered a defeat in the French and Indian War in 1754. I drove an hour or so and came to the Flight 93 National Monument where I relived that awful day in 2001. The rangers and volunteers at this memorial all commented on how they are reclaiming both the sites natural beauty as well as reconciling the horrendous events that changed our country.

Looking through a gate to the sacred place of the Flight 93 crash site (Photo by Hunner) 

Heading north from Flight 93, I stopped at another site of tragedy at the Johnstown NM where a flood in 1889 killed over 2,000 people. I spent a couple of days with my step-brother Barry, his wife Shelly and kids Meredith and James in southwestern New York where I visited a counterpart to the Wright brothers at the Glenn Curtiss Museum. There I heard an alternative narrative to aviation history. Barry and I also took a quick swing through the Corning Glass Museum where we saw intricately designed vials from several thousand years ago, glass sculptures from today, as well as how fiber optics work. That day ended with Shelly’s dad Bob proudly showing me the old railroad cars and replica of a steam engine that he has helped restore over the last forty years.

Bob in front of the replica of a steam locomotive (Photo by Hunner)

This two week segment of Driven by History ended with a visit to the Women’s Rights National Historical Park at Seneca Falls, New York where the Declaration of Sentiments was signed in 1849, the start of the fight to gain the right to vote for women.

The restored church where the Declaration of Sentiments was signed in 1849 (Photo by Hunner)

I have yet to find the time to drive to history, visit the essential historic places, and write them all up for my weekly blog. I will eventually get to these individual sites and do them justice, but since I visit five or six places a week and write up at most half that many, I am accumulating quite a backlog.

Being driven by history means that I am visiting as many sites as I can for the rest of this year. It means absorbing as much of our nation’s past at individual places before I pop behind the wheel of my truck and head to the next site. And it means assembling a somewhat fragmented narrative about our country on the fly, as I sped down the road, listening to the latest news about our fractured politics while interacting with normal people along the way. I am witnessing historic sites in a land of plenty, of fields ripe with crops, of commerce and community, of industrious people with full families enjoying the summer on the front porches of Anytown USA. I am experiencing the best of our country. I am a lucky guy.

Dayton Aviation Heritage NHP, Dayton, Ohio

The most famous brothers in the 20^th century surely are Orville and Wilbur Wright. The NPS has two major units dedicated to their revolution in transportation—one at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina where they first accomplished powered flight and the other at Dayton, Ohio which contains five units across the city. Here’s their story.

Neither Wilbur (1867-1912) nor Orville (1871-1948) earned their high school diplomas, but instead invented from an early age. In 1889, they started a printing business, first as newspaper publishers and then as commercial printers. One of their early clients was Paul Laurence Dunbar, a celebrated African-American poet and writer.

Wright Brothers printers (from exhibit at visitors' center)

Looking for new business opportunities, in 1892 the brothers opened a repair shop to tap into the growing popularity of bicycles. By 1896, they were building small numbers of their own brand, called the Hercules. Their printing and bicycle businesses allowed them both the time and the machine shop to pursue another interest. Spurred on by news of experiments in flight, Wilbur in 1899 wrote the Smithsonian Institute and asked for any information about aeronautics. More about the Smithsonian later.

They flew kites around Dayton and asked the U.S. Weather Bureau where reliable winds blew. In 1900, Wilbur and Orville took their gliders and camped out at Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. From watching birds fly, they developed a concept called Wing Warping that torqued the wings to allow some control over flight. Nonetheless, progress was slow that year and the next and on the train home from the 1901 experiments at Kitty Hawk, Wilbur said to Orville that man would not fly for 1,000 years.

That winter, they built a wind tunnel at their bike shop and conducted over 200 experiments on the shape of wings. They also worked on creating a light weight engine for their plane. They returned to Kitty Hawk in 1902, set up shop in a tent on the wind swept dunes, and completed between 700 and 1,000 flights with their glider that fall. This plane “embodied their core invention, a complete system of flight control…. The 1902 glider represented a stunning breakthrough.” In fact, when they applied for a patent several years later, they submitted the plans for the glider and its controls instead of their powered plane.[1]

Replica of the 1902 glider (from exhibit at visitors' center

The Wrights returned to Kitty Hawk on September 26, 1903. On December 17th, Wilbur and Orville traded off climbing aboard their bi-plane for short powered flights. On his second flight, Wilbur traveled 852 feet and remained airborne for almost a minute of flight. The Wrights had attained the long sought dream of human flight. They returned to Dayton and decided to continue flight experiments closer to home. They had proved that humans could fly. They now needed to create a practical plane that could be controlled in the air.

Catapult and track at Huffman Field (Photo by Hunner) 

Winds at Huffman Prairie Field north of Dayton did not blow as hard as at Kitty Hawk. To compensate, in 1904 they built a catapult to fling their planes into the air, much like aircraft carriers use today. The challenge in creating a practical plane entails finding ways to control the three directions that a plane must navigate—pitch or up and down, right and left, and yawl or roll. Small wings called elevators control the pitch, rudders point the plane right or left, and wing warping controls the roll of a plane.

The three directions that planes move (From exhibit at visitors' center)

Failures plagued the Wright Brothers, including accidents like the one when Orville lost control and crashed into the field at 30 mph.  Finally, on October 5, 1905, Wilbur took off in a plane of fabric and wood and stayed aloft for almost forty minutes covering twenty-three miles in circles around Huffman field. The brothers then they halted all of their flights since they feared that others would steal their invention and applied for patents to protect their invention. The U.S. granted them a patent in 1906 which lasted until 1923. Others challenged their monopoly as we shall see. The next time the brothers flew (and the first time as a public demonstration) was in France on August 8^th, 1908 when they kept their plane up for an hour and forty-five minutes. They became international heroes, feted at home and abroad.

Path of flight on October 5th (From exhibit at Huffman Field)

At Huffman Prairie Field on the day I visited, Robert Petersen stood next to a replica of an early Wright Brothers’ plane. A gifted story teller, Robert impressed on the visitors that the day of the importance of this field for the Wrights. It gave them a nearby place to test their models and so was the world’s first air port. The key successes came in 1905. The year before, they had flown 105 flights and were aloft for forty-nine minutes. In 1905, they conducted fifty flights and were in the air for 262 minutes. I asked Robert why Dayton was the right place at the right time for this invention. First, he said that few places in the U.S. had the ability to cast aluminum block engines, but Dayton did. He also stated that Dayton was Invention City—it had more patents per capita than anywhere else in the country. He reeled off some of the inventions that happened here—the electric starter for cars, air conditioning, fast drying paint, the bar code, the step ladder, pop top openers for cans, and the Yellow Pages. The National Cash Register (NCR) not only invented the mechanical cash register in Dayton but it also served as an incubator for people who later created Frigidaire, Delco, IBM, and Lear Jet. Looking out over Huffman Prairie Field, he concluded: “Kitty Hawk was the first powered flight. Here is the rest of the story. There are very few places where you can stand that transformed the world. This is one of those places. I can tell all of world history right here.”

NPS ranger Robert Petersen at Huffman Field (Photo by Hunner)

The Wright Brothers’ success lit a fire under aeronautic innovators around the world. Now that the Wrights had proved that human flight was possible, innovations burst into the air like a covey of quail spooked out of a bush. One of the most prolific innovators was motorcycle pioneer Glenn Curtiss. Here are some of his accomplishments on the heels of the Wrights. The most important was that Curtiss put ailerons on his planes which allowed for greater control of the flying machines. Using the ailerons, Curtiss racked up an impressive list of firsts in aviation history:  he flew the first public flight of a plane in the U.S. in 1908; he built the first commercially available airplane in 1909; he flew from Albany to New York City, a long distance record at the time, in 1910; he earned the first pilot’s license in 1911; he built the first plane that took off from water in 1911 and developed the first flying boat in 1912; he invented the first dual pilot control in 1911; he created the first retractable landing gear in 1911; he produced 6,000 Jenny airplanes for the Allies in World War I; and his Curtiss NC-4 was the first plane to fly across the Atlantic with stops in the Azores in 1919. The Glenn Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, N.Y. celebrates these accomplishments.

Glenn Curtiss at controls of his early plane (From exihibit at Curtiss Museum)

So why are there two National Park units dedicated to the Wrights, an Air Force Base named after them, and we all know about Wilbur and Orville but not about Glenn? I asked this to the people at the Curtiss Museum. The best answer came from the crew renovating a P-40, the Warhawk fighter, in a workshop behind the main building. Their theory is that the Wrights had deposited their Kitty Hawk plane on display in London. Samuel Pierpont Langley, the director of the Smithsonian Institution, and an aeronautics pioneer in his own right, wanted to secure the plane for the museum. The deal he brokered with the Wrights was that they would donate their plane but the Smithsonian would not mention the accomplishments of Curtiss. As one staff member said when I asked why the lack of recognition, “It’s political.”

An advertisement for Curtiss's school and pontoon plane (From exhibit at Curtiss Museum)

Tom Crouch in his First Flight book covers the controversy. In 1914, the Smithsonian had loaned Director Langley’s unsuccessful plane the Aerodrome to Curtiss who rebuilt and flew it. Then the Smithsonian displayed it as the first machine capable of flight. In 1928, Orville sent their 1903 plane to London’s Science Museum, vowing to keep it there until the Smithsonian acknowledged that the Wright plane was, well the right plane. Finally in 1942, the museum admitted that Langley’s plane was not the first, and the world’s first airplane was unveiled at the Smithsonian on Dec. 17, 1948.[2] Was there an agreement to downplay Curtiss’s innovations? I can’t say.

The Wright Brothers’ had little success in advancing aeronautics after they proved that human flight was possible. They fought with Curtiss and others over infringements on their invention, and some say that Wilbur died in 1919 stressed over these battles. Whatever the subsequent history of aviation, Wilbur and Orville opened the door for human flight and changed our world. Their invention ranks as one of the most revolutionary ones of all time. 

The Wright Brothers National Monument at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina was authorized as Kill Devil Hill Monument March 2, 1923, transferred from the War Department to NPS in 1933, and renamed on December 4, 1953.The Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park was created on Oct. 16, 1992 to preserve the sites in Dayton connected to the Wright Brothers and to honor Paul Laurence Dunbar, a renowned African-American poet and writer who had the Wrights print some of his books.

Next Monday evening, I will post a new blog on Hopewell Culture National Historical Park and the 2,000 year old mounds preserved at that site.

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[1] Tom D. Crouch, First Flight: The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Airplane (Division of Publications, NPS: Washington, D.C., nd). 56.

[2] Ibid, 100.

Conner Prairie Interactive Park at Indianapolis, Indiana

The outdoor living history museum at Conner Prairie is a real treat. At the park, visitors can travel through much of 19^th century Indiana history from a Lenape Indian village in 1816, to a small community in 1836, to the only Civil War action in the state in 1863. But this is not a place just for history fans. In fact, hundreds of families shared the park with me on the Thursday that I visited. It is great see kids running around high on history.

Conner Prairie is popular with families (Photo by Hunner)

I teach living history at New Mexico State University so I have wanted to visit Conner Prairie for years. It is one of the premier such places in the country. So after I got off Route 66 at St. Louis, I headed to Indianapolis. For those who are unfamiliar with living history, we immerse ourselves in past time periods and pretend that we don’t know anything after that targeted date. For example, at NMSU, we Time Travel to 1912 with local students. That means we do not know about World War I nor the Great Depression nor anything else after 1912. With our Time Travels, we invite local classes from 4^th to 12^th grades to role play with us, and they are ignorant of post-1912 events as well. We call this first person interpretation.

Back to Conner Prairie. Their chief of Interpretation, Dr. Catherine Hughes, gave me a tour of the park. It opened in 1974, which makes it the oldest living history museum in the country. Catherine talked about some of the themes that are important to the park and its interpreters—things like the intersection of history and science which is highlighted in the visitors’ center with interactive exhibits on patents, the electrification of Indiana farms, wind mills, and the importance of flight in the Hoosier state. Since this is the bicentennial of Indiana’s statehood, the celebration of that anniversary figures prominently. 

Dr. Campbell's wife and niece at Prairietown (Photo by Hunner)

Visitors are asked “What inspires a Hoosier artist?” That got me to thinking about what inspires me.

Catherine also mentioned a study that Conner Prairie began in the early 2000s where they put microphones on their visitors and recorded their comments as they interacted with the park’s interpreters.  From this visitor research, they concluded that they “do a lot more talking then listening. We shouldn’t do that.” A telling encounter was at the pottery studio where a mother and daughter were greeted by the interpreter saying “Let me know if you have any questions.” They didn’t stay long and after they left, the daughter asked: “Why are we leaving? You like pottery.” The Mom replied: “He’s busy.”

More listening to the visitors, less talking over them. Less data dump by the interpreters to show that they know their history, and more meaningful conversations with visitors. They dubbed this “Opening Doors.” Here's my observation: portraying someone from the past who doesn't know anything after that time period might hinder having a conversation, and might get in the way of providing context for modern visitors. So I agree that we need more conversations when we interact with visitors. I wonder if doing third person interpretation where one wears costumes from the time period, but talks to guests from today might create more meaningful exchanges than pretending to be living in the past. I must admit, I am surprised that I am saying this since I have taught first person interpretation since 2002. Let's see how I feel after I visit other first person living history parks.

Tethered balloon over the Covered Bridge  (Photo by Hunner)

The initial visual that caught my eye at Conner Prairie was the hot air balloon. To commemorate John Wise’s attempt in 1859 to launch a balloon that would inaugurate airmail service between Lafayette, Indiana and New York, a tethered balloon takes visitors some hundred feet or more above the park. Needless to say, Wise’s airmail service never got off the ground.

The four main attractions for me were the 1816 Lenape village, the 1820s Conner house, the 1836 Prairietown, and the Civil War attack on Dupont in 1863.

The Lenape Village at Conner Prairie is lucky to have Michael Pace, an elder of the Lenape (aka Delaware) tribe from Oklahoma take up residence every summer at their park. He talks about the history of beads and makes a variety of beaded items from bracelets to belts to necklaces. And he talks about the history of his tribe. Originally, the Lenape resided in the eastern New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania area. After contact with Europeans, they moved fourteen times—the most of any tribe in the United States. Now they live in eastern Oklahoma and are the 25^th largest tribe in the country.

Michael Pace, a Lenape elder at the Lenape Village (Photo by Hunner)

While we were talking, a family came up and asked the Lenape name for their son and daughter—Hawk and Estella. After teaching them the names, he and I talked about preservation of native languages. He said of the 539 tribes in the U.S. before contact, only 120 still speak their language. Perhaps by the next generation, only sixty will remain. Without a language, a unique culture struggles to survive.

Michael broke for lunch and as I walked with him to the break room, a seven year old girl rushed out of the Café on the Common and gave him a big hug. He leaned over, taught her how to say hello in Lenape, and told her to go back to her family saying that. When I related this to Catherine, she admitted that Michael got a lot of love at the park.

The Conner House (Photo by Hunner)

William Conner built the house that still looks over the prairie in 1823. He was a fur trader, farmer, land speculator, miller, merchant, and politician. He married a Lenape woman, MeKinges, and had six children with her. In 1816, the state decided to move the Lenape to Missouri, and MeKinges went with her tribe. Other Europeans with Lenape wives went with them to the new reservation, but Conner remained, remarried, and had ten more children.

At the 1836 Prairietown, several houses are open for visitors. I met Elaine, Dr. Campbell’s niece who welcomed me by asking if I needed medical attention. I told her I had a headache and while Elaine admitted she was no doctor, told me I would probably need to get leeched when the doctor returned from his visit to a woman who just had a difficult childbirth. She dropped her character when no one else was around and talked about her background in theater and history. She said that some people try to trip her up. For example, a young boy showed her a cell phone and asked “Do you know what this is?” She replied “No, do you?” When he said of course, she responded, “Then why are you asking me?” First person interpreters find various ways to get around tricky situations like these. I never did see Dr. Campbell, perhaps for the best since I never have liked getting leeched.

Shelf full of  medicine, including leeches at Dr. Campbells' House (Photo by Hunner)

I also dropped by the carpenter’s shop and met Daniel McClure (aka Dennis Adams). He served twenty-six years as an economic analysis for the Army and then was a tech writer for fourteen years. But he has worked with wood since he was young and has always liked visiting living history parks. He makes his own tools and always has something that he is constructing. He admitted that working with tools and making things out of wood helped alleviate the challenges of interpreting for the 85,000 school kids that come through the park every year.

The Carpenter at Paririetown (Photo by Hunner)

The “1863 Civil War Journey: Raid on Indiana” depicts the only town in the state to suffer a Confederate attack. The scene here is the village of Dupont the day after a Confederate force of 2,500 cavalry led by General John Hunt Morgan raided that town in July 1863. I crossed through a covered bridge to get to the site and was directed to a store where Mrs. Gardner recounted the attack. The museum had installed multimedia so that we saw through the windows confederates charging across the bridge, entering the store, and then shooting up the place. Gunshots rang out, a lantern swayed as if hit by a bullet, and shelving collapsed with cans strewn about.

The General Store at the Civil War site (Photo by Hunner)

I then ambled over to First Sargent Josh McClain who put me and several other adults through a marching drill to make sure that we as new volunteers were properly trained to expel the Rebs from Indiana. I was able to talk to him out of character and asked why people should visit Conner Prairie and this Civil War recreation. He replied: “We offer a lot of things for different guests. We can learn a lot from history of where we’ve been and where we’re going. Conversations help build communities.”

Josh McClain, the drill instructor at Dupont (Photo by Hunner)

After the brief basic training, I met Private Allen (aka John) who ushered us into a building that also used multimedia to tell the story of the raid. With video and rotating tableaux, the story of the attack on Dupont, the repel of the Confederate raiders, and the ultimate victory of the Union were shown. 

Mulitmedia presentation at Civil War site (Photo by Hunner) 

Going through the Conner Prairie Interactive Park, I got a good lesson in 19^th century Indiana history. I also learned a lot about how they do living history. Most interpreters are theater people, some with history backgrounds. Opening doors strikes a chord with me and will influence how I do living history and how I teach historical interpretation in the future. Doing first person interpretation is difficult for the interpreters and also for the visitors. Done right, it gives us an experience of living in the past. Conner Prairie Interactive Park does it right.

Map of the park ar Conner Prairie 

From Indianapolis, I drove down the National Road to Dayton, Ohio. Next up on Driven by History—the Wright Brothers and the birth of human flight.

Washita Battlefield NHS, Cheyenne, Oklahoma

As with the post on the Sand Creek Massacre, this history contains accounts of graphic violence. Do not read any further if this will upset you.

The 7th Cavalry attacking Black Kettle's camp on the Washita River
(From the exhibit at the Washita Battlefield NHS)

On November 26, 1868, the Peace Chief Black Kettle had just returned to his Washita River camp from a strenuous 100 mile mission through the snow to request permission to move his camp closer to Arapaho, Kiowa, and other Cheyenne tribes downriver. Permission was denied. His wife, Medicine Woman Later, uneasy with the rumors of U.S. troops in the area, wanted to move that night. She had good reason to feel uneasy. In 1864, at Sand Creek in Colorado, U.S. troops had attacked their peaceful camp, killed 125, and shot her nine times. She survived, but now at their winter camp, she had a premonition. The council of elders decided to wait until the next morning to move.

The Army was indeed nearby. The Osage and Lenape scouts had found tracks through the snow, possibly Black Kettle’s party returning to camp. The Army decided it led to a hostile encampment. That next morning, as dawn broke, Lt. Col. George Custer and some 700 soldiers of the 7^th U.S. Cavalry stormed into the campsite and shot the Indians as they struggled out of their teepees. Warriors desperately fought to cover the retreat of the elderly, women, and children. Medicine Woman Later and Black Kettle hopped on a horse and then were killed as they crossed the Washita River.

Map of Battle (From Washita Battlefield NHS web site)

Looking at the hills to the northwest over which Custer and his troops rode to attack the camp among the trees in the middle of the picture (Photo by Hunner)

At one point, Ben Clark, Custer’s Chief of Scouts, rushed in and told him that soldiers were killing women and children “without mercy.” Custer ordered his soldiers to stop shooting and instead take prisoners. The attack lasted only thirty minutes with estimates of forty to a hundred men, women, and children killed. Twenty-two soldiers lost their lives, seventeen of them from Major Joel Elliot’s attempt to chase down those trying to escape. He and his men ran into warriors from the Cheyenne and Arapaho camps downriver riding to the sound of battle. Custer had attacked the weakest camp, and now several thousand warriors started to surround the 7^th Cavalry.

Some Cheyenne hid in the tall grass to escape the soldiers (Photo by Hunner)

The soldiers had orders to destroy the camp – burn the lodges and all the blankets, food, and supplies in them to deprive the Cheyenne of sustenance at the beginning of winter. Custer also ordered his troops to kill the Cheyenne horse herd so they sliced the throats and then when that proved too difficult, shot over 800 animals. Warriors from the other camps watched in horror from the nearby hills, afraid to attack since the soldiers had taken some fifty elders, women, and children captive.

Place where horses and mules were slaughtered (Photo by Hunner)

With ammunition running low and a growing force of enraged warriors nearby, Custer feinted a move to go downriver which sent the warriors retreating to protect their own camps. Relieved of a possible counterattack, the 7^th Cavalry and their prisoners stole away into the fading light.

This is the second act in the tragedy of the southern plains Indian War. As Ranger Joel Shockley recounted, the first act happened at Sand Creek. When Col. Chivington and his soldiers attacked Black Kettle’s camp of peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho in 1864 at Sand Creek, a Plains War erupted that lasted for years, culminating in the Battle at Little Big Horn (Joel’s third act). In response of the Sand Creek Massacre, warriors from the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers rampaged across the southern Plains to avenge their fallen comrades and family members. Peace treaties came and went, and Black Kettle signed some of them, but he had little control over the attacks by the warriors.

Francis Gibson, a lieutenant in the 7^th Cavalry, later estimated that between August and November in 1868, 117 people were killed in the southern plains by the Dog Soldiers, with others scalped or captured, and almost 1,000 horses and mules stolen. As Western historian Paul Hutton said in the movie at the Washita visitors’ center: “The Army was humiliated. This was the Army that had defeated Robert E. Lee.” Something had to be done.

The Commander in charge of the Department of the Missouri, Major General Philip Sheridan, called for total war against the Indians. His aide-de-camp, Schuyler Crosby wrote: “The General’s policy is to attack and kill all Indians wherever met and to carry war into their own villages so that they will have to withdraw their marauding bands for the protection of their own families.”[1]

Lt. Col George Custer as he looked during the winter campaign at Washita (https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/photogallery/imr/park/waba/)

Total war and winter campaigns were not new. Union troops scoured the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War to remove the Confederates’ source of food. Kit Carson had conquered the Navajo in 1863 with a summer campaign of destroying crops and homes followed up with a winter attack. The massacre at Sand Creek also occurred as winter set in in November 1864. In regards to Washita, Paul Hutton concluded: “This was total warfare at its worst. With the dawn attack, they were the most vulnerable…. Total war against the Cheyenne was absolutely effective and forced them onto the reservation.” But he added that the Cheyenne “would have their revenge on Custer and the 7^th Cavalry at Little Big Horn.”[2]

As I left the film about the massacre, I noticed that the other guy in the room had a t-shirt from Fort Pulaski. I struck up a conversation with Tim Sprano from Lynchburg, Virginia. He is a veteran park goer, having visited 371 of the 412 in the system over the last fifteen years. He teaches mathematics at Liberty University, but his other passion is our national parks. He remarked that every park has its own reason to exist, so take what it gives you. Here at Washita, he commented: “Obviously, we wouldn’t do stuff now that they did 100 years ago. We have different values today than of the past so it’s important to see and hear the whole story.”

After the movie, Park Rangers Joel Shockley and Richard Zahm spent over an hour chatting with me about what happened at Washita. Richard said this was an important site because people truly learn about our past here-- people who just stop by to stamp their NPS passports end up staying here all day. He said: “It’s so much more complicated than just cowboys and Indians…. I thought when I came out here, it would be a lot of black and white and it’s not. There are good guys and bad guys on all sides.”

NPS Ranger Richard Zahm (Photo by Hunner)

Joel agreed: “This is one of the best kept secrets in American history. It is far more complicated. This was like the Oklahoma City bombing for the tribes or like 9/11. There were not just Cheyenne here, there were a lot of Indians involved, and Mexicans too. Half of Custer’s command were immigrants from Ireland and Germany, a way to become citizens. All these cultures came together by happenstance…. This is part of your heritage, whether you have Indian in you, have soldier in you. It’s part of our heritage – all our warts and blemishes.”

After the Indians were forced onto reservations, many of their children were taken to boarding schools to further remove them from their tribe and culture (Photo from exhibit at Washita Battlefield NHS)

The Plains tribes lived on land that was a route to the gold and silver mines in Colorado. The Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and other tribes had roamed and fought over the Great Plains for thousands of years but then got in the way of Westward Expansion. As they protected their land, their families, and their cultures, they clashed first with the pioneers and miners moving in or through their homelands, and then with the U.S. Army. A Cheyenne Chief, Leg in Water, in 1864 said: “We loved the whites until we found out they lied to us and robbed us of what we had. We have raised the battle axe until death.”[3] After the Civil War, the Army used the tactics and weapons to wage total war to force Indians to move to reservations and kill those who refused to go. This last chapter of the Indian Wars in North America played out over the decade or so right after the Civil War. The legacy of conquest lives with us today, and as Richard, Joel, and Tim note, it is a complicated story viewed from our 21^st century eyes.

Everywhere I have traveled in Driven by History, I have run into the deep heritage of our land, which starts with Native American peoples. They had rich and complex civilizations before Europeans arrived, they lost much of their ancestral lands and their culture, and they are still here.  

The Washita Battlefield became an Oklahoman state park in October 1966 and a National Historic Site on November 12, 1996.

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[1] Mark Gardner, Washita Battlefield National Historic Site (Western National Parks Association: 2002), 8.

[2] “Destiny at Dawn,” documentary film shown at the Washita Battlefield NHS.

[3] From exhibit text at visitors’ center for the Washita Battlefield NHS.

Route 66 National Historic Trail from Illinois to California

Route 66 sculpture on Central Avenue in Albuquerque (Photo by Hunner)

At the end of July, I kicked off the East Coast leg of my Driven by History road trip driving on Route 66. I headed east from Albuquerque, New Mexico on Interstate 40 and hopped off at times to follow the two lane remnants of the Mother Road. It’s a story of multiple narratives, some faded, much like history in general. What’s left of Route 66 sometimes serves as a frontage road for the Interstate, and at other times, it winds through the countryside and small towns. To see the changes in our country since the 1950s, all you have to do is pull off the superhighway and drive the old route.

The United States has a long history of roads connecting our nation. In 1806, President Jefferson signed an act to create the National Road to connect the mid-Atlantic coast of Maryland and Washington D.C. with Illinois. Even during the late 19^th century, as railroads spread across the continent and sped people and goods around, roads continued to serve vital routes for wagons, buggies, and bicycles. The safety bike came over from England and by the 1890s, 1,000,000 had been sold in the U.S. The suffragette Susan B. Anthony claimed “Bicycles did more to emancipate women than anything else.” The rage for bicycles also spawned a Good Roads movement.

At the turn of the 20^th century, automobiles entered the scene. At first, cars served only the rich. Their price, their unreliability as they tended to break down, and the lack of good roads all made them more playthings than reliable transportation like horses or bicycles. Then in 1913, Henry Ford pioneered the automobile assembly line which radically reduced their cost. With the assembly line, a Ford car took only ninety-three minutes to make. Working people now could afford a Model T and for some, such a vehicle became essential for getting their produce to market or delivering goods to clients. Needless to say, cars revolutionized many aspects of 20^th century living. We are all descendants of Ford, Dodge, and the other many automobile innovators.

Model T (From exhibit at National Route 66 Museum, Elk City, Ok.)

Cars required different roads than wagons. Steep hills and mountains, deep rivers, and muddy routes all impeded the horseless carriages. A demand for good roads grew as cars proliferated, and as adventurous souls began to drive across the country. As a result, a federal highway system began to unify the various routes and standardize the numbers for roads—odd numbered roads went north and south while even number ones went east and west.

Standard federal highway sign as the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City, Ok (Photo by Hunner)

One of the first of the unified federal road system, Route 66 came into being on November 11, 1926. It ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and ended at Santa Monica, California. Its total length was 2,448 miles (3,940 km). From the beginning, Route 66 sought to connect small towns and villages to the rest of the country.

The Mother Road transported Great Depression refugees fleeing the Dust Bowl like the fictional Joad family in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and played a vital role in rushing people West during World War II as the government chose many places along the route for military facilities and war industries. It helped facilitate the greatest mobilization of workers and material in U.S. history as people flocked to Southern California for jobs. After the war, the road inspired both the TV show Route 66 which ran on CBS from 1960 to 1964 and Bobby Troup, Jr. who penned the hit song about getting your kicks on Route 66. Postwar popular culture embraced the Mother Road as an icon for the mobile American Dream.

Route 66 and Main Street (Photo in the National Route 66 Museum)

 Today, there is little historic fabric left of the Mother Road. Some segments still exist, and a few motor courts and buildings survive along the route. For those seeking Route 66, they must use their imagination and memories. Local efforts to preserve the route like the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City, Oklahoma, and the restored Conoco station in Shamrock, Texas are interesting parts of the great road. Car clubs and booster organizations work to preserve and publicize what is left to attract tourists. And it works. I heard of a group of Norwegians who flew into Chicago, rented Harley-Davidsons, drove the route, and then shipped the bikes back as they returned to Oslo. I also saw a Route 66 Diner on a highway in Sweden years ago. The Mother Road still attracts die-hard fans from around the world.

Restored Conoco gas station in Shamrock, Texas (Photo by Hunner)

The decline of Route 66 came about with the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. President Eisenhower experienced both the frustration of traveling cross country in pre-war U.S. as well as the ease of using Germany’s Autobahn highways. Using the German model, he helped pass this act to fund the building of limited access superhighways, partially justified as a way to get people out of big cities in case of a nuclear attack by the Soviets. By 1970, almost all segments of Route 66 were replaced by the interstate highways. The final patch of the Mother Road was bypassed by Interstate 40 at Williams, Arizona in October 1984.

Abandoned Esso Station on the Mother Road (Photo by Hunner)

As I drive to history, I see layers of the past side by side with the modern. Two lanes black-tops hugging the contour of the landscape next to broad ribbons of grey cement slicing through hills and leaping over valleys. I witness vehicles rocketing along at 80 and 90 miles an hour, and giant trucks pulling two, even three trailers charging down the highway. For the most part, interstates efficiently move vehicles, people, and goods across our vast country. I admit, when I have to make good time, I often jump on an interstate to make it to the next historic destination.

To be sure, interstates are engineering marvels. Overpasses soar through the air like ribbons of concrete. Interchanges weave cars and trucks at high speeds in an intricate dance to connecting routes. And people fly down the highways at breakneck velocities, far exceeding the speed limit and still arriving safely. It is a wondrous road system essential to the wellbeing of our county.

So here’s my concern. In the 1980s, I drove trucks full of art around the country. Back then, I enjoyed country cafes, often on main streets in the small communities. Today, I vainly search for small locally owned restaurants in these small towns. To find a meal or even a cup of coffee, one must often go out to the interstate exits and have a franchised meal.  The blur of speeding along at 75 miles per hour, the homogenization of the franchises on interstate highway system dull us to the rich diversity of our country.

Traffic jam at rush hour in Indianapolis on I-470 bypass (Photo by Hunner)

William Least Heat Moon published Blue Highways in the 1982 about his road trip on the country byways off of the interstates. He is an elegiac writer with a great eye for the life in people and landscapes. He advocated for slowing down and enjoying the trip as opposed to rushing to our destinations. In Blue Highways, he taps into who we are as a country as he interacts with the people of America. It serves as a counter-narrative to our fast paced lives and perhaps evokes what Route 66 fans seek when they travel the Mother Road.

Classic gas pumps at the Conoco station in Shamrock, Texas (Photo by Hunner)

In a land as big as ours, we need roads to connect us. Thomas Jefferson knew as much when he signed a law creating a National Road. Dwight Eisenhower also knew this when he advocated for the interstate highway system. But roads don’t just get us to where we are going. They take us through the vast cornfields of the Midwest and wheat fields of the Great Plains, through the hot deserts of the Southwest, through the dense cities of the Atlantic seaboard, and through the thick forests of the South. Underneath our modern highways lay two lane roads, under those lay pioneer tracks, and under those lay Native American trails. Our transportation network is built upon more ancient routes and shows us that humans embrace mobility, that from our first steps on this continent we immigrated, we traveled for trade and for adventure, and we pursued a dream of finding a better place for ourselves and our families.

The Mother Road in Missouri with Interstate 40 in the background (Photo by Hunner)

My next blog which I also post tonight is a short detour off of Route 66. I visited the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site in western Oklahoma. We see Cheyenne Peace Chief Black Kettle again as well as George Custer.

The Wagon Wheel Motor Court in Missouri on Route 66 (Photo by Hunner)