The Spalding site is along U.S. Highway 95 approximately 10 miles east of Lewiston, Idaho, at the confluence of the Clearwater River and Lapwai Creek. This area contains several different historic resources, the park headquarters, museum, and visitor center. The land surrounding the Spalding Site is used for agriculture and residences.

THE SPALDING VISITOR CENTER

The Visitor Center, owned and operated by the National Park Service, sits on an old river terrace. The visitor center has many roles -- introducing the public to the entire park and park themes, housing park headquarters including the park support unit and the primary museum collection, serving as a community polling place, and the location of cultural events and demonstrations.

Cultural Resources. The park's primary museum collection, housed in the visitor center/headquarters building, consists of nearly 150,000 pieces. It is a primary cultural resource, used for research by many Nez Perce people and scholars from around the world. Climate control, security, and storage for the collection have been improved over the years. The greatest need at present is adequate space and staffing to facilitate maintaining and researching the collection.

Natural Resources. The level area now occupied by the parking lot and visitor center was cultivated at one time. The area has been intensely disturbed by development. Much of the landscape is groomed exotics.

Visitor Experience and Interpretation. The Spalding visitor center gives visitors the best opportunity to receive orientation to Nez Perce culture. There is an exhibit of Nez Perce artifacts, and the film shown in the auditorium gives a 20-minute introduction to the Nez Perce cultural continuum. Other exhibits explain elements of traditional Nez Perce culture.

Visitor information is confusing, and circulation through the primary space is not obvious. The lobby was designed with an expansive view toward the river that had the potential to draw visitors toward the countryside; this was never realized because the upper windows were blocked for energy efficiency. Visitors are not sure they are supposed to go through the doors to the separate museum area, where the selection of Nez Perce artifacts is displayed. The auditorium is awkwardly shaped and poorly sized.

Operations and Partnerships. The National Park Service has agreements with the Nez Perce Tribe and others to help preserve and maintain objects and documentation important in the Nez Perce culture.

THE SPALDING SITE

Besides the Visitor Center and Park Headquarters, the Spalding site also features:

• Watson's Store, which began as a trading post in 1911

• an Indian agency cabin, built in 1862 to implement the reservation system the Indian agent's residence, also from the reservation period

• archeological remains of the grist mill, sawmill, and associated mill-races, built in 1839 -- 1840

• remnants of the Spalding Mission, where Henry Harmon Spalding and his wife Eliza lived and worked after their move to this location in 1837

• the arboretum, which was established as part of Spalding Memorial State Park in the 1930s

• numerous archeological remains, dating from as long ago as 11,000 years, are found throughout the entire Lapwai Creek delta at its confluence with the Clearwater River

The Lapwai Mission cemetery is protected, maintained, and interpreted through a cooperative agreement among the National Park Service, the Nez Perce Tribe, and the Spalding Presbyterian Church Board of Trustees.

Wayside exhibits in the historic area along Lapwai Creek cover the early missionary and Indian Agency periods.

The special use zone will consist of the Spalding residential area, the Nez Perce Boom Grounds, the Spalding Presbyterian Church, active cemeteries, and the former Spalding post office. Most of these lands or structures are situated on other federal, private, or Nez Perce Reservation land.