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Contact: Mark Spier, 9565412785
Moving On
On June 15, 2019, Palo Alto Battlefield NHP and the National Park Service bid farewell to Ranger Douglas Murphy. Ranger Murphy served at Palo Alto Battlefield for the past 26 years, originally as Chief of Interpretation, later as Chief of Resource Management and Visitor Service, and finally taking on the role of Chief of Operations for the park. He will be pursing a new opportunity with the Office of Army Reserve History at Fort Bragg, NC.
The last member of the original park staff, he has helped the park grow from a fledgling National Historic Site into a fully operational multi-unit National Historical Park. His greatest contributions have been in the establishment of visitor services and infrastructure and the design and development of interpretive exhibits and media.
Early Life
Doug grew up in Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. He went on to graduate from the College of William and Mary with a B.S. in Biology before obtaining a M.A. and PhD in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Prior to joining the Park and NPS in 1993, Doug worked for the University of North Carolina and with the Ruta Maya Foundation and Proyecto Arqueológico Izabal in Guatemala, Central America.
Palo Alto Battlefield NHP
Ranger Murphy has been an integral part of Palo Alto Battlefield over the past 26 years. His contributions to the development of the park are almost too numerous to list. He assisted with development of a General Management Plan for the park and played a significant role in the construction, groundbreaking, and grand opening of the park’s Visitor Center. He served as organizer, speaker, and book editor of the bi-national Palo Alto Conferences (1994 & 1997).
As Chief of Interpretation, he created three generations of park museum exhibits and designed and created content for all park waysides. He gave countless presentations in the local area to clubs and organizations. Doug facilitated multiple Eagle Scouts and Gold Award Scouts on projects that served to enhance park facilities. In addition, he worked with park staff to develop and provide school field trips at Palo Alto for tens of thousands of Brownsville school children, over the past 26 years.
Partnerships
Ranger Murphy worked to forge a strong bond between the park and Brownsville. He assisted the City of Brownsville and the Brownsville Community Foundation with efforts to preserve the Resaca de la Palma battlefield in the late 1990's. He partnered with the city on the Historic Battlefield Hike Bike Trail project including construction, signage, waysides, and brochures. Doug worked with the Brownsville Convention and Visitors Bureau on countless projects and promotions of tourism in Brownsville and assisted the city and many other entities to secure grants for historic or educational programs.
Ranger Murphy was a contributor and collaborator on the interpretive plan for Los Caminos del Rio heritage corridor project. In addition, he served as lead advisor for Cameron County on the Civil War Trail run by CHAPS (Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools) at UTRGV. Doug actively supported and participated in the development of the Active Plan for the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
During his time with Palo Alto Battlefield, Doug worked with UT-Brownsville and Texas Southmost College to house the park library and make it available to researchers. He also found his way back to the classroom and served as an adjunct history professor at UTRGV. He strove to strengthen the bond between the park and the university and worked for the establishment of a Palo Alto Research Center to be housed at UTRGV-Brownsville.
Recognition
Over the course of his career, Doug has received recognition primarily for interpretive work and writing. This includes the NPS Intermountain Region Freeman Tilden Award in 1997 and a National Association of Interpretation publication award in 2011 for the booklet, Hispanics in the Civil War: From Battlefield to Homefront. He is also the author of the book Two Armies on the Rio Grande from Texas A&M Press which won both the Clotilde P. Garcia Tejano Book Award for Tejano History and the Brigadier General James Collins Book Prize for Military History.
Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park will not be the same without Doug Murphy but the park’s staff will work to build upon the strong foundation Ranger Murphy has left us with.
Doug and his wife Karen have two children, Harrison and Katherine
Last updated: June 21, 2019