Video
Fort Union National Monument
Transcript
FORT UNION NATIONAL MONUMENT PART 2 OF A SERIES LOOKING AT THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN HUMANS AND NATURE ALONG THE SANTA FE TRAIL
Cori Knudten Research Associate, Colorado State University The environment often kind of just serves as the backdrop or the stage on which historical events take place when in actuality the environment is really very critical to how those events unfolded.
Tomye Folts-Zettner Ecologist, Southern Plains Network, NPS Natural resources are the reasons a place is chosen to build on. You need clear viewshed, good water, plenty of game and good forage for your animals. Building materials are needed too, so a nearby source of timber, stone, or in the case of Fort Union, clay and straw for adobe, those are also considerations.
Lynne Mager Interpretive Specialist, National Trails Intermountain Region, NPS Fort Union was established in 1851. It was a big deal. It’s on the Santa Fe Trail where you’ve got commerce coming and going, and the trade from Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico, 900 miles by wagon, five to six months in the beginning, was incredible.
Lorenzo Vigil Chief of Interpretation, Fort Union National Monument In the 1860s, and 1870s and 1880s when Fort Union was running full steam, this place was a miniature city. Over 2000 people were here on any given day, and as wagon trains pulled through, this was their first sight of civilization. And what’s incredible about it is, you know, it does tie in directly to the natural resources in the region because it’s built out of the earth right from here.
Teddy Garcia Preservations Crew, Fort Union National Monument What we do is mud plaster our adobe walls. We usually go through all the walls once during the summertime. We get people, outside people, to help us out. They come and help us for a couple of months. We make our own adobes. We get our soil from the surrounding area, soil and sand, mix it together, and that’s what we use to preserve our walls. Ryan right now, this is one of the areas that was pretty much built off, yeah; he’s doing a third coat on this wall right here. And it’s not a solid coat all through the wall; we’re just doing patches right now.
Marie Frias Sauter Superintendent, Fort Union National Monument Preserving the monument, it’s an all hands, on deck, year round project. If you look around the ruins are what they are. They’re adobe ruins, they are very fragile, and they’re very subject to the weather, the wind, the rain, the hail.
Fort Union Junior Ranger Camp Park Ranger There’s plenty, there’s one for everyone. You guys work with our preservation crew and actually apply the adobe to the walls so that when you come back with your parents you can look at this building and say, yes, that building stands because I helped make it stand. And it is protected and preserved so that other people can come in and see it.
Marie Frias Sauter Small mammals and birds do like our adobes and wherever they find an opening, either at ground level, or up in the adobe, such as a chimney port where the stove might’ve exited out and up to the chimney, we found that birds and small mammals really like those areas, they’re protected, they’re sheltered from the weather all year round. So we do have to manage the adobe structures and make sure that we are closing off the entrances as we learn that an animal has made a nesting cavity back down in there, whether it’s in the ground, or inside the adobe wall.
Tomye Folts-Zettner People living on the land shape the natural resources around them. During the fort period, these grasslands were pretty depleted, but they’ve recovered well in the absence of activity. But remnants of the fort period are still seen in plant communities. The depressions left from the Santa Fe Trail and utility trails provide unique microhabitats to catch moisture, and the ground stays moist longer because there’s a bit of shade early and late in the day. Some species here at Fort Union are only found growing in the ruts. Places where there were outbuildings, or holding pens, still show the outlines of these areas in the types of plants that grow there today. It is noticeably different from the surrounding prairies.
Marie Frias Sauter The Santa Fe Trail comes from this direction and comes right through the forts. It’s drama just standing out here, you can see I’m being buffeted by the wind. It’s all about the landscape and the drama. The monument is a place that people can come; visitors can come to this particular park and learn all the stories about how Fort Union and the Santa Fe Trail come together here and why they’re important to the American public.
Description
Fort Union was a miniature city of 2,000 during the height of its existence along the Santa Fe Trail. It was built from the earth and surrounding natural resources. Can you name two?
Duration
6 minutes, 58 seconds
Credit
Donald J. O'Brien
Date Created
01/24/2012
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