Big Hole National Battlefield Administrative History

Chapter Five:
Research and Interpretation

Research and interpretive efforts increased commensurate with increased staffing; for the first time, Williams remembers, Big Hole staff had the "funds and the wherewithal" to accurately and objectively interpret the details of the battle. [31] During the summer of 1962, park staff constructed a new circular trail from the historic parking area, around the Siege Area, to the Nez Perce Encampment/Horse Pasture overlook. [32] By the end of the 1962 season, Williams and Haines had installed new trail markers, in one of four designs: a routed outline of Chief Ollokot on brown, designating Nez Perce actions; a routed outline in white of a trooper hat designating army or volunteer actions; a white black-tipped eagle feather showing where a Nez Perce was killed or wounded; and a white cross designating the same for the troops and volunteers. Additional markers were added over the years, as new sites were revealed. They corresponded to a guide leaflet, "mimeo-graphed and hand assembled" during the first seasons and professionally printed (with minor modifications) by the Government Printing Office from 1963 until 1975. These leaflets were distributed from a new ten by fifteen-foot visitor center constructed by Williams at the Siege Area trailhead. [33]

Marker placement was based in large part on Williams' 1961-1962 effort to indicate the location of all known artifact finds on a master base map. Although Williams and his staff relied primarily on McWhorter's work (1937) they also included the results of Sherill's 1917-1918 survey; Don Rickey's 1959 metal-detector survey of the Siege Area and initial attack area, reported in "Field Research, Big Hole Battlefield National Monument, July 16-22, 1959"; and O.W. Judge's 1961 survey of the Encampment Area, reported by Williams in "Metal Locator Search – Nez Perce Indian Camp Area . . . August 21, 22, and 25, 1961." This data base was expanded in 1964 with Seasonal Ranger Kermit Edmonds' discovery of several important sites near the Howitzer Capture Area. This discovery "located and authenticated beyond any doubt the site of the howitzer episode" and was reported in "Field Research Project Report, Big Hole National Battlefield, June, July, August 1964" and associated grid maps NB-BIHO 8813 and NB-BIHO 8814. In 1964, Haines surreptitiously conducted a survey of the privately owned Nez Perce Encampment Area, tying in all artifact finds to McWhorter's stake locations on base map NB-BIHO 8812. Late in the fall of 1964, when the tourists had left and his family had returned to Yellowstone and he found himself with "nothing to do," Haines also surveyed two previously uninvestigated portions of the Encampment Area, locating evidence of Gibbon's left-wing charge, led by Lieutenant Bradley; the right-wing charge, led by Captains Logan and Rawn; and a probable battlefield burial. He reported his significant finds in "Report on Historical Research Accomplished at Big Hole National Battlefield During 1965." [34]

Interpretive Ranger Kermit Edmonds defined protection of these archeological artifacts as one of the most important tasks confronting park personnel in the early 1960s. The Park Service undertook these surveys not only as a means of increasing understanding of the details of the battle, but also as a means of protecting buried artifacts – and their information potential – from relic hunters. In off hours and late evenings, Edmonds also assumed responsibility for cataloguing all artifacts collected in the field, creating the Big Hole National Battlefield study collection. [35]

Haines attributes these early efforts to make Big Hole National Battlefield "a reasonably well interpreted site" to Jack Williams. These were "no-cost," "take-the-initiative," "grab-your- instruments-and-head-on-over" projects that inspired little controversy and generated an only modest paper trail. "The higher-ups in Yellowstone," Haines notes, "saw Big Hole as a nuisance site. There was no controversy because Yellowstone didn't really care." [36]

Formal development of an Interpretive Prospectus waited passage of Public Law 88-24 and expansion of the monument boundaries. Written by Clyde A. (Al) Maxey, this prospectus concentrated on the design of the visitor center, the logistics and location of the trail networks, and the tone and content of the interpretive signage. Typical visitor characteristics, as altered by the increased out-of-state traffic that followed reconstruction of Highway 43, informed these three primary development themes. [37]

Maxey reported that increasingly few visitors selected the battlefield as their primary destination; Big Hole provided a side trip and a rest stop – often made on impulse – for those traveling through the Big Hole Valley. These visitors were generally unfamiliar with the battle or the Nez Perce campaign and were wholly dependent upon Park Service interpreters for gripping explication. Increased numbers of out-of-state visitors diluted the impact of descendents of the Bitterroot Volunteers, who, prior to road completion, were an important constituency at the site. Edmonds remembers that, to the discomfort of park personnel and at variance with the interpretive focus, "these people wanted to celebrate the bravery and victory of the citizen volunteers . . . where most people came to contemplate the tragedy of the battle." [38]

Nez Perce occasionally visited the battleground, placing flowers, ribbons, and pendants at the Nez Perce death-site markers. The Park Service made no effort to remove the memorials, heightening the battlefield's dual role as historic site and sacred ground. American Indians of other tribal affiliations also came to Big Hole to draw inspiration or to pay their respects, moved perhaps by pan-Indian sentiments growing out of the civil rights movement and American Indian activism. [39]

The interpretive prospectus assumed that most visitors would proceed from the visitor center along a modified road system down to the battlefield area. The road would provide reasonably direct access to the battlefield, without unnecessarily disrupting the historic scene. Formal trails for the more "ambitious, energetic, and inspired visitor" were designed to provide a self-guided introduction to the battle, in chronological sequence, from the Army's approach, to the Horse Pasture, then to an overlook from the point where Gibbon's command made its initial assault on the Encampment Area, and finally to the Siege Area and the post-battle memorials. [40] The memorials were to be treated as cultural resources, representative of evolving public response to the battle and the Indian Wars. Through this chronological telling – initiated in the visitor center with the pre-battle interpretive displays – Park Service planners hoped to avoid the errors made at Custer Battlefield. There, the story was "literally told in reverse," beginning at the point of Custer's defeat and the soldiers' burials and forcing inordinate and inappropriate attention on the battle and the Seventh Cavalry rather than on the "long and bitter struggle between the white man and the Indian." (Historian Edward Linenthal argues that in books and movies, through the 1950s and 1960s, "the Indians' plight did not register as a human tragedy but served instead as the backdrop for the celebration of the westward march of Anglo-American civilization. Injustices done to the Indians were regrettable footnotes to an otherwise happy story." Since the 1870s, the Nez Perce saga had struck a different chord in the American public and the interpretive program and visitor response at Big Hole National Battlefield differed from those at other Indian War sites, most notably at Custer Battlefield.) [41]

According to the interpretive prospectus, interpretive text and battlefield signage would heighten the visual experience with a sense of the "excitement, the valor, the confusion, the cruelty of war and ultimately the futility of many of these conflicts." During normal working hours, monument staff would also present information. Monument gates were to stay open, however, during early morning and evening hours when full staffing was not practicable. Self-guided trails were to fully convey the broad details of the years prior to the battle, as well as the years that followed.

This focus on audio-visual and written materials not only accorded with the limited staff at the monument but also with changes in the service-wide interpretive program. In 1964, a Museum Study Team under the authority of the newly created Division of Interpretation and Visitor Services completed a management survey of the NPS Museum Branch. The team proposed a number of guidelines on exhibit design and preparation. Ralph Lewis reports that one guideline – that "the narrative story should, generally, be presented through publications and audiovisual means" – marked a turning point in the role of park museums. No longer would personal contact with a seasonal ranger define most visitors' national park experience. [42]

The NPS had intended to base their interpretive program and development plans at Big Hole on Historian Merrill D. Beal's monograph "The Nez Perce Campaign, 1877" (prepared under contract to the NPS and published in 1963 by the University of Washington Press as ‘I Will Fight No More Forever'; Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War). Reviewers in the academic press criticized the work as rife with minor errors, inconclusive in its analysis of controversial details of the military conduct of the campaign, and "failing to rise above its forerunners." Theodore Stern of the University of Oregon noted "[Beal's narrative] marks a regression from Fee's provision of battle maps, Haines' treatment of the events leading up to the war, and the special insights offered by McWhorter from Indian participants." [43] Park Service opinion was mixed. Regional Historian Mattes roundly criticized methodology and content. Haines, though more circumspect, also voiced concern that the study provided little new knowledge of the battle or the campaign." Yellowstone Superintendent Garrison, however, maintained that NPS reviewers had failed to acquaint themselves with the limits to the contract and had missed the opportunity for timely review. Garrison ruled that Beal had adequately fulfilled the terms of his contract and ordered that he be paid in full. Negative assessments of the work, however, prevailed and the monograph was not widely used by park staff. In 1967, Haines' "Historical Research Management Plan for Big Hole National Battlefield & Bibliography of the Nez Perce War, 1877" superseded Beal's document as the park's basic planning and interpretive document. [44]

Although Haines' work provided an effective management document, the Park Service continued to work without a definitive history of the Battle of the Big Hole. In his enthusiastic review of the "Historical Research Management Plan," Robert M. Utley requested that a "documented history of the battle of Big Hole" be added to the Summary of Research Proposals. "There is no one authoritative study on the subject, and . . . [one] should [be] available as soon as possible." This goal was not realized until the 1991 publication of Haines, An Elusive Victory – The Battle of the Big Hole (West Glacier, Montana: Glacier Natural History Association, 1991).

Since the 1930s, park interpreters had struggled to balance accurate presentation of the tragedy inherent in the battle with tribute to the Army Regulars and Bitterroot Volunteers. They had also struggled between a close focus on the details of the battle and a broad view of the Indian Wars and the cost of western expansion. In his "Statement of Historical Significance," Haines struck that balance and defined the dual focus as mutually inclusive. The details of the battle as revealed through careful research and testing – the location of a tepee, or a line of attack, or a death chant, or a burial – brought into immediate relief the lessons of the larger war. These details were reduced to minutia only when the larger story was excluded from the telling:

As a focal point in one of the least justifiable of all our Indian wars, the Big Hole National Battlefield is both a memorial to the courage and tenacity of the men of two disparate cultures, and a reminder of a dark phase in the Indian-White relationship. In the first sense – as a memorial – this battlefield provides an insight into the purposes and feelings of the individual participants . . . because it is so well documented from the particular viewpoint of each side, and because there is such a wealth of supporting physical evidence. The strong sense of duty and steadiness of the white soldier is as apparent as the Indian warrior's resolve to protect his own. . . . The travail of both, and the Indian non-combatants as well, stands out in bold relief.

In the second sense – as a reminder – the battle of the Big Hole illustrates the bitter end product of misguided policy. . . . In few other incidents does the injustice and futility of settling a dispute by force of arms appear more plainly than in this battle. [45]

Thirty years later, as he contemplates the length of his career and his contribution to Big Hole National Battlefield, Haines remembers "It is the best recorded battlefield of all the western Indian wars. Soldiers, volunteers, and the Nez Perce have contributed information. That makes it a more powerful story. . . . [Visitors] would go quietly around the area, like they were in a cathedral. I have never been in a Park Service area where people were so interested and so respectful." [46]