“THE DEATH OF PACKINHAM” A Powder Horn Carried at the Battle of New Orleans

By M.E. Hubbs

January 8th marks the 198th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans.  I'll not try to repeat the story of that important, one-sided victory for the fledgling United States.  That has been chronicled by many others.  Instead here is the story of one man who was there, and the powder horn that he carried into battle.

Early powder horns with good provenance to the War of 1812 and earlier eras are quite rare.  Many that have survived did so because of well executed inscribing and carving that propelled the horn into the realm of folk art as much as historic artifact.  Other horns only survived by chance. Simple horns, carried by common soldiers are the rarest and are usually the most difficult to document.  The horn that is the subject of this article has an impeccable provenance, yet it is a simple horn, carried by an ordinary man during an extraordinary moment in history.

Thomas Whitwell was the quintessential American frontiersman of the late 18^th and early 19^th century.  He is remarkable only by the extraordinary amount of documentation pertaining to him that was recorded in legal and governmental records of his time.  In an era when few left a trace on the written record, evidence of Whitwell’s life stretches from Massachusetts to Louisiana and several states in between.  Most of the details of Thomas Whitwell’s life have been discovered through the diligent research of his fourth Great-Grandson, Dr. David Whitwell.  That research, coupled with family oral traditions, has pieced together a compelling story of tragedy and adventure.

Thomas was born in 1774 and was only a toddler when he was “bound out” to his maternal Grandfather at Charlotte Courthouse, Virginia.  His father had died suddenly and his newly remarried mother left him and his older brother in the care of relatives when she departed for the Kentucky wilderness with her new husband.    In 1791, when Thomas was seventeen he was either released or fled an apprenticeship with William Johnson.  Family oral traditions are that Thomas was “shanghaied” and later jumped ship in Boston.  On 12 December 1791 the Boston Gazette reported that the ship Generous Friends had arrived in Boston from Africa.  A few weeks later a Thomas Whitwell received two official “warnings” from Boston authorities to leave the city. Thomas was listed as “white” and his last residence as “Africa”.  The family stories of abduction and jumping ship appear to be true, and on a slaver no less!

Thomas next appears in Mercer County, Kentucky where he joined his older brother, Mother and Stepfather.  He married Polly Anderson there in 1798.  By 1802 he was in Barron County, Kentucky.  Just before the War of 1812, Thomas moves again to recently opened lands along Yellow Creek in Dickson County, Tennessee.  It is here in 1814, at the age of thirty nine that he and his brother-in-law and best friend, Elkanah Anderson, would join Captain Ellis’s Company of Militia.

Ellis’s company was one of about thirty companies of West Tennessee militia that were raised in the autumn of 1814.  William Carroll of Jackson’s staff was sent home to recruit a new force to assist in the defense of New Orleans.  Carroll succeeded in raising three regiments.  Ellis’s Company, raised in Dickson County, was made a part of Colonel John Cocke’s 2^nd Regiment.  (This John Cocke is not to be confused with General John Cocke of the East Tennessee Militia during the Creek Indian War.) Carroll’s command made a torturous 1,300 mile, month long journey down the Cumberland, Ohio and Mississippi rivers and reached New Orleans on December 20, 1814.

Carroll’s three regiments were placed near the center of the American line along the Rodriguez Canal.  They took part in the fighting on 27 and 31 December and the climatic battle on 8 January 1815.  Carroll’s regiments occupied the line just opposite of where Lieutenant General Sir Edward Pakenham was killed on 8 January.   Family tradition states that Thomas’s brother-in-law, Elkanah Anderson, was killed in the famous battle.  Muster rolls from Ellis’s company show that Elkanah died on 15 January 1815 in New Orleans.  It is not clear if the death was due to wounds received during the engagement, or from other causes.




Thomas Whitwell's Powder Horn (Photo: Shane McKinnon)

The horn is rather small in size with a total length of approximately 9 inches.  Though relatively small, the volume of the horn would comfortably hold the one quarter pound of powder that militiamen armed with rifles were required to provide for themselves under the Militia Act of 1792.   The base of the horn is 9 inches in circumference and the hardwood base cap appears to have been originally attached to the horn body with metal tacks.  Although the tacks are missing from the 14 evenly spaced holes, the tale-tale signs of the tack heads are visible around the holes.  The base cap is not lathe turned but is hand carved with the base and sling button carved from a single piece of wood. 

To prevent (or to repair) cracks the horn spout has been reinforced with lead.  It appears that the spout was cast and bored then slid over the spout mouth atop a previous sheet lead repair.  There is no way of determining if the lead spout was applied when the horn was in use by Mr. Whitwell.  The horn lacks a stopper or sling. 

Inscriptions on the horn body are rather crude.  The various lines of the 1812 era inscription appear to have been added in stages.  There is also speculation that the horn originally belonged to Mr. Whitwell’s father, also named Thomas.  This is due to the date “1775” which seems to be out of context with the rest of the inscription on the horn. This is a year after the birth of Thomas Jr. and the year of Thomas Sr.’s death.

The lines are inscribed from the base towards the spout and are generally justified on the left near the base cap.  They read:

Drawing of War of 1812 Inscriptions on the Powder Horn

Close-up of Inscription (Photo: Shane McKinnon)

The War of 1812 era inscription is followed by this:

THIS iS MY FOTHER’S HOrN

W^m. WHiTWELL 1818

William Whitwell was Thomas’s oldest son.  It is not clear whether the “This is my father’s horn” was carved by Thomas, referring to Thomas Sr., or by William in reference to Thomas Jr.  Changes in the style of carving suggest it is the former.  From Thomas down, the horn passed through a five-generation un-broken line of descent.  Each descendant-owner inscribed a line on the horn to celebrate their generation.  Some put their names and date of acquisition; others added their name and birth date.  The last descendant-owner that appears on the horn is also the only female.  She added her name and birthday:

LETA WILMA WHITWELL

5-24-1910

Leta Whitwell Johnson inherited the horn sometime after the death of her father in 1947.  After many years of correspondence with Dr. David Whitwell, who descends from Thomas through a different line, she decided to pass the horn to him to keep it in possession of a Whitwell.  David was granted the horn in 1975 and drove from California to Oklahoma to secure the treasure.  It was rescued from the Johnson family barn.  The loose base cap and long cracks in the horn are the result if it being stepped on by a cow at some time before its rescue! The horn also shows signs of earlier repairs.

Although some may be disappointed that additional lines and names were added to this horn after its first historic inscription, those carvings are indicative of the significance and importance each succeeding generation has placed on this treasured family heirloom.  Without that family perception of importance this artifact may never have survived to surpass its standing of heirloom, to become an artifact of national significance.

Acknowledgments:  My thanks to Dr. David Whitwell for remaining patient with my many emails concerning Thomas Whitwell and his horn.  And most of all for the diligent research that he as done on our common Fourth Great-Grandfather.

This article originally appeared in: Military Collector & Historian; Spring 2008, Vol. 60 Issue 1, p2 (the journal of the Company of Military Historians)

They Gave Their Lives for Tourism, UPDATE!

This is a follow-up to my blog post of August 27, 2012 - http://erasgone.blogspot.com/2012/08/they-died-for-tourism-hatfields-and.html

It is amazing how a series of obscure local events, that happened in the back woods of West Virginia 125 years ago, can still capture public imagination.  The Hatfield and McCoy feud does just that.  A recent TV mini-series starring Kevin Costner has added even more fuel to the feud fire.  Recent archaeological work has pin pointed an important battle site of the fight and plans are already moving forward to capitalize on the tourist potential of that piece of ground. 

These two re-blogged articles tell the story.

Associated Press.  By Bruce Schreiner

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Hatfield clan New Year's attack on Randolph McCoy's cabin marked a turning point in America's most famous feud -- the homestead was set ablaze, and two McCoys were gunned down. Hatfield family members and supporters were soon thrown in jail.

Artifacts recently unearthed appear to pinpoint the location of the 1888 ambush in the woods of Pike County in eastern Kentucky. Excavators found bullets believed to have been fired by the McCoys in self-defense, along with fragments of windows and ceramic from the family's cabin.

"This is one of the most famous conflicts in American history, and we've got bullets fired from one of the key battles. It doesn't get any better than that," said Bill Richardson, a West Virginia University extension professor who was part of the recent discovery.

The property is owned by Bob Scott, a Hatfield descendant who has suspected for years that the hilly land was the site of the brutal attack. He grew up listening to stories from his parents and grandparents about the 19th-century feud.

"My father told me years ago that someday this well would talk," Scott said, referring to the well on the site where Randolph McCoy's daughter Alafair died while trying to flee the attackers.

Now backed by the discovery, Scott plans to capitalize on the historic 70-acre site near the West Virginia line. The options include a housing development featuring horseback and ATV trails, he said.

Scott's home is about 75 yards from where the cabin stood. The McCoys moved to nearby Pikeville after the homestead was burned.



The Hatfields pose for a family portrait in 1897



The artifacts were found last year during filming of a National Geographic Channel show.

The bullets were discovered burrowed several inches into a hillside overlooking where the McCoy cabin stood, Richardson said. Three different calibers of bullets, including shotgun pellets, were uncovered.

The ammunition, found in an area about 30 feet wide, was traced to the same time period as the 1888 battle, Richardson said.

"The front of the cabin faces almost directly at the spot where these bullets were," Richardson said. "We know from the oral histories that they were shooting out the front of the cabin and from the upper windows. So they're exactly in the spot where they should be."

Also found during the initial search was a piece of charred wood with a nail traced to the McCoy cabin's time period, he said.

Later, an archaeological team led by Kim McBride, co-director of the Kentucky Archaeological Survey, confirmed the location of the McCoy cabin. They found tiny pieces of window glass and ceramics traced to the same period, along with more nails and charred wood.

She would like to return to the site for more excavation work, which could take three to five weeks.

There were other clues connecting the property to the McCoys. The deed to the property was traced back to Randolph McCoy, she said.

"It was kind of a coming together of all the pieces of evidence," McBride said.

The discoveries come amid a surge of interest in the feud that spanned much of the last half of the 19th century. The fighting claimed at least a dozen lives by 1888 and catapulted both families into the American vernacular, becoming shorthand to describe bitter rivalries.

The History Channel aired a three-night miniseries about the feud that set basic cable viewing records. The drama starred Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton as the patriarchs -- William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield in West Virginia and Randolph "Ole Ran'l" McCoy in Kentucky.

The New Year's attack was one of the bloodiest episodes in the feud.

"It was a turning point," Richardson said. "The feud had lasted 23 years up until this battle. And then 20 days later it's virtually over."

Now, descendants of both families live peacefully among each other in the Appalachian region. And officials in both states see the potential to reap a financial windfall because of the public's fascination.

Attendance was up last June at a three-day Hatfield and McCoy festival held in Matewan and Williamson in West Virginia and in Pike County in Kentucky. The event featured tours, re-enactments, book signings, arts and crafts, and a marathon run. Descendants showed their allegiance by wearing ribbons -- red for Hatfields, blue for McCoys.

Many believe the feud was rooted in the Civil War, but the bitterness was perpetuated by disputes over timber rights and even a pig.

Historical markers describe other pivotal events in the feud, including the spot where three McCoys -- all sons of Randolph McCoy -- were tied to pawpaw trees and shot to death by an unofficial posse organized by Devil Anse Hatfield. He was avenging the death of his brother Elliston at the hands of the McCoys.

Scott counts descendants from both families as friends.

"It's very unique to stand here on New Year's Eve and realize what happened," he said. "It's sad that that occurred, but that was a way of life."

Although the artifacts were uncovered a few months ago, the discoveries weren't announced until Monday. The new National Geographic Channel series, called "Diggers," premieres Tuesday. The episode detailing the McCoy homestead discovery airs on Jan. 29.

Read more:  http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/01/artifacts-help-pinpoint-key-hatfield-mccoy-battle/?test=latestnews#ixzz2GvAvN67f

Site of Hatfield-McCoy Feud Draws Tourists

By Roger Alford, ABC News

A wooded hillside overlooking the Tug Valley has gone from being a gruesome murder scene to a tourist attraction that draws people from around the world.

It was here that three young brothers were gunned down by a group of men set on revenge for the stabbing death of one of their own kin.

This tiny spot in the Appalachians would have been forgotten long ago had the combatants not been named Hatfield and McCoy. But because these are the nation's most notorious feuding families, the scattered places where they fought and died are being preserved in the interest of history — and commerce.

Congress has appropriated nearly $500,000 to build walkways to accommodate foot traffic and make some of the bloodiest feud sites more tourist-friendly. Local leaders are hoping for a sizable return in tourism dollars for a struggling mountain economy.

Kevin Gilliam, a Pikeville architect working to restore some of the feuding grounds, said he has been amazed by the level of interest in the feud from outside Kentucky, even outside the United States.

"People already come from all over to visit these places," he said. "From Canada, from Japan. It's unreal the people who are showing up."

A reconstructed cabin marks one of the key sites of the Hatfield/McCoy Feud.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/artifacts-pinpoint-key-hatfield-mccoy-battle-article-1.1231326

   

Fight over a Pig

The feud between the McCoys of Kentucky and the Hatfields of West Virginia — believed to have stemmed from a dispute over a pig — brought national attention to the region. A court battle over timber rights escalated the tension in the early 1870s. By 1888, at least 12 lives were lost as a result of the feud that received widespread publicity in national newspapers and magazines at the time.

Already, the Dils Cemetery in Pikeville — where patriarch Randolph McCoy, his wife, Sara, and daughter Roseanna are buried — has been landscaped and stairs have been added to allow easy access for visitors. Improvements are now under way or soon will be at six other landmarks connected to the infamous feud. Some, like the cabin site where a trial was held to settle the pig dispute, are overgrown with vegetation after years of neglect.

Gilliam said he expects a replica of that cabin to be built and open to tourists by next year.

Along with the congressional appropriation, the Pike County Fiscal Court has contributed $25,000 for the feud project, and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet $100,000.

Tourism officials have added historical markers with explanations of the landmarks at seven sites. One is the place where three McCoys — Tolbert, Pharmer and Randolph McCoy Jr. — were tied to pawpaw trees and shot to death in 1882 by an unofficial posse organized by Devil Anse Hatfield, patriarch of the Hatfield family.

The McCoy boys were wanted for killing Ellison Hatfield in an Election Day fight on Aug. 7, 1882.

Feud Fuels Local Economy

Pike County Tourism Commission chief Phyllis Hunt said promoting the feud sites is good for the local economy. She said she expects visitation to skyrocket once all the improvements are completed.

"We have visitors throughout the year who come to see the feud sites," she said. "We give them directions and a map, and they're always so excited to see where it actually happened."

Visitors flood the feud sites during the annual Hillbilly Days Festival each April and the Hatfield-McCoy Reunion Festival each June in Pikeville.

Betty Howard, who traces her ancestry to both the Hatfields and McCoys, said people from outside the region often are more interested in the feud than are local residents.

Some in the Tug Valley would rather forget what they see as an ugly chapter in the history of the region, Howard said. That, she said, is why is has taken so many years to open the feud sites to tourists. Howard said people should be proud of their heritage, and the Hatfield-McCoy feud, though many wish it had never happened, is a part of that heritage.

"Some people may want the history of the feud to go away," Howard said. "But it's not going away."

If You Go…

PIKEVILLE-PIKE COUNTY TOURISM: Visit www.tourpikecounty.com or call (800) 844-7453. HILLBILLY DAYS FESTIVAL: April 15-17, downtown Pikeville, Ky. HATFIELD-McCOY REUNION FESTIVAL: June 10-13, downtown Pikeville, Ky. HATFIELD-McCOY FEUD SITES: Look for roadside markers for these rural sites. Dils Cemetery, where Randolph and Sara McCoy are buried, along with daughter Roseanna and son Sam. Location: Chloe Road in Pikeville. Place where Ellison Mounts was hanged. He was convicted of murder for a raid on McCoy home in which two people were killed. Location: Kentucky Avenue in Pikeville. Site of hog trial, which escalated the feud between the families. Location: Route 319 in McCarr, Ky. Site of the murder of Asa Harman McCoy, the first person killed in the feud. He was a Union Army veteran and brother of Randolph McCoy. Location: Route 1056 in Blackberry, Ky. Old courthouse and jail, where murder trials were held and where combatants were incarcerated. Location: Main Street in Pikeville.

Site of grave of baby daughter of Roseanna McCoy and Johnse Hatfield. They were lovers from the feuding families. Location: Route 292 in Burnwell, Ky. Site of "PawPaw Incident," where three McCoy boys were tied to trees and shot. Location: Route 1056 at Buskirk, Ky.

Read more:  http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=119068&page=1

 

BACK TO BLUE - After 108 Years the US Army Returns to Blue for its Service Uniform

By Mark E. Hubbs

“When a Soldier can be brought to take delight in his dress, it will be easy to mold him to whatever else may be desired, … therefore every method should be pursued to accomplish what may so justly be looked on, as the foundation of order and economy in a Corps.”

— Lt. Col. Bennett Cuthbertson, 1768

The United States Army announced on June 6, 2006 that the suite of Army dress service uniforms would be streamlined to one blue dress uniform to be known as the Army Service Uniform.  The change was begun in 2008 and is expected to be fully instituted in the regular Army, Army Reserve and National Guard by 2014.  The Army green uniform will be phased out and the uniform previously known as “dress blues” will become the new “Class A” uniform.  It will be authorized for wear for any situation where the old green uniform would have been appropriate and will also continue to be worn for formal occasions in a slightly different form.  For many, this may seem like a break from tradition, but the shift back to blue is actually a return to the uniform colors that have been in use in America since before the Revolutionary War.

In the generations leading up to the change, a soldier’s uniform was intended as both a dress uniform and combat uniform.  When most of the European powers began to experiment with green and gray-green uniforms at the end of the 19th Century, the U.S. Army followed their example.  Blue for field uniforms began to be phased out in 1898 for khaki tan.  In 1902 a new olive drab uniform was introduced.  Soldiers began to receive it in 1906 as stocks of the old blue uniforms ran out.  By the time our Doughboys sailed for France in 1917 all blue uniforms for field and dress had been eliminated.  The shade of green has changed through the years, from the olive drabs used until after World War II, to the deeper green used in the current dress uniform.  Also, by the time of World War II, the dress uniform became separate from the more practical garments used for field and combat wear.

The American association with blue as a uniform color began in colonial times when many militia units chose blue for their uniforms instead of the red of regular army British troops.  This was most likely done to ease logistics, as indigo for blue dye was grown in the colonies, where most red dyes were imported from Europe.

The first standardized uniform used by the fledgling American Continental Army was also blue.  In early 1777, the Continental Congress allocated funds to procure 30,000 “ready-made” uniforms from French contractors.  Dr. Benjamin Franklin was part of the American commission in France who made arraignments for the uniforms to be made.  Franklin, and fellow commissioner Silas Deane, designed a uniform equal in quality, but unlike the design used by the French Army.  The American uniforms were built with cold American winters in mind.


The first of the French contract uniforms arrived in March, 1778 and immediately caused a stir in the Continental Army.  A shortage of blue wool broadcloth resulted in the delivery of only half of the uniform coats in blue.  The rest were made in brown wool.  Both were constructed with red lapels and cuffs.  They came only in small, medium and large, with the largest size similar to our medium size of today.  An Army inspector reported, “The greatest part of what I have seen of them are exceedingly good. . . the coats well cut, have a tasty air and that great quality of being at the same time large and warm. . . “

Courtesy: Todd Post, 2nd Virginia Regiment

 The troops, however, desired blue uniforms and detested anything other than blue.  As a result, General George Washington,“in order to prevent disputes & jealousy among the Troops of the Main Army. . .  and to give them all an equal chance,” decided that lots would be drawn to determine which of his regiments would receive the blue coats and which would receive the hated brown.  In the end, the allocations were made by state.  Nine states were represented in Washington’s army at the time.  Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire were stuck with brown until additional blue uniforms could be made.  Washington later issued a general order in 1779 which standardized all government issued uniforms to be blue, with cuffs and facings of various colors to indicate the home state of the soldier.

Blue became so associated with the U.S. Army and our new nation that The Adjutant & Inspector General's Office on March 27, 1821 stated, "Dark blue is the National colour.  When a different one is not expressly prescribed, all uniform coats, whether for officers or enlisted men, will be of that colour."  
  
As the uniform evolved throughout the 19th Century, the enduring constant was the color blue for the uniform coat.  The trousers emerged as light blue in the 1820s.  The wool cloth used for trousers was called kersey and was a coarser, cheaper cloth compared to the expensive wool broadcloth used for uniform coats.  The cheap kersey cloth could not take a consistent deep blue dye as the better quality broadcloth could.  As a result, kersey was dyed a lighter shade of blue.

This tradition in the difference in shades of blue between the coat and trousers is carried on in the modern Army blue service uniform.


So, in the near future when you begin to see our young soldiers in their blue uniforms, don’t think of it as a break from tradition.  Consider it instead, a return to our heritage of the “National Color.”

I originally had this article published in the Spring 2011 issue of The Infantry Bugler, the journal of the National Infantry Associaiton. 
http://www.infantryassn.com/Bugler%20issues/042811/Flashbook/bugler_fbook.html

Courtesy: US Army

 

A Pyramid on the Prairie

For almost ten years, I was the primary historian who worked preservation issues for a very unusual historic site in North Dakota. No battles occurred there, no pre-historic remains lie beneath its surface and no famous person was born there. In fact, this military installation was only operational for less than one year in the mid 1970s. What made this Cold War era site so important is what it accomplished without firing a shot. The highly advanced technologies that made it a success also doomed its existence as an operational system.

Now this site has been declared surplus and is being auctioned off to the highest bidder.

 

Photo by author

 

As a result of the USSR’s successful testing on August 26, 1957 of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and subsequent orbiting of the Sputnik I satellite, defense of the United States against ballistic missiles became a national priority. Following a decade of technology development and system tests, a Safeguard Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) site was authorized by Congress to be constructed near Nekoma, North Dakota to defend Minuteman ICBMs based near Grand Forks, North Dakota. Construction started in the late 1960s.

 

The Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex (SRMSC) lies in extreme northeast North Dakota, scattered across four counties. The SRMSC consisted of two phased-array radars, the Missile Site Radar (MSR) and the Perimeter Acquisition Radar (PAR). Both the MSR and PAR sites were considered small, self-contained communities. The four Remote Sprint Launch (RSL) sites, clustered about the MSR at varying distances, were manned by personnel garrisoned at the MSR.

Location of the SRMSC in North East North Dakota

 

The SRMSC became operational on October 1, 1975 and was inactivated on February 10, 1976. It was the only operational ABM system ever deployed in the free world. It is generally recognized that its construction and activation were instrumental in successfully negotiating the ABM and Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) Treaties with the Soviet Union. The PAR was leased to the U.S. Air Force (USAF) in September 1977, and currently remains operational as an early warning and surveillance radar for the North American Air Defense Command and Satellite Surveillance Network. The USAF redesignated the PAR Site as Cavalier Air Station. The remainder of the SRMSC was dismantled and placed in a caretaker status until December 1991, when the United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command (USASMDC) reacquired accountability for the property in preparation for possible future ABM deployment. Although there was great hope in the local community that a deployment would bolster the sagging agricultural economy, SRMSC was not chosen as a home to the new Ground-Based Midcourse Defense site. Fort Greely, near Fairbanks Alaska received that honor. The 49th Missile Defense Battalion operates a new missile defense system at that remote installation.

 

The four RSL sites, located within 20 miles of the MSCB, were in the general area of the Minuteman missiles which they were to defend. Each occupied from 36 to 45 acres of land. The sites were composed of security stations, heat sinks, fuel storage tanks, waste stabilization ponds, and a Sprint missile launch area containing 12 to 16 launch stations. They also contained a hardened, buried, reinforced-concrete Remote Launch Operations Building (RLOB) - a single-story structure that controlled and monitored the RSL sites as the signals from the MSCB directed. The RLOB connected to the surface through a hardened concrete tunnel, 11 feet wide and 90 feet long.

 

 

Jerry Greenwood (center) long time site manager at SRMSC, discusses preservation options
with representatives from the North Dakoka Historic Preservation Office. This is inside the tunnel
leading to the Remote Launch Control Building at RSL-3. Photo by author.

     

 

Graphic Engagement Walktrough

http://srmsc.org/ewt1000.html

 

Contemporary video of how the system worked

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UUbMWf-uZI

 

The total area of the MSR site is 433 acres, and is 102 miles northwest of Grand Forks, and 12 miles south of Langdon, close to the tiny agrarian town of Nekoma. About 25 air miles separate the MSR and PAR sites. The MSR saw little or no use after closure. A non-tactical portion of the MSR (274 acres) was acquired by the General Services Administration (GSA) in 1977. During the period after closure, the GSA made little provision for maintenance and repair for many of the buildings. As a result of the low maintenance program and the harsh environmental conditions during the winter season, many of the structures were significantly damaged with some becoming irreparable. All of the family housing units and many of the other non-tactical buildings have been removed. MSR site facilities included an associated partially-buried, earth-mounded Power Plant (MSRPP), a heat sink, fuel storage tanks, two test towers, the Universal Missile Building (UMB), the Warhead Handling Building (WHB), security stations and Sprint and Spartan launch areas with over 100 missile launch tubes. Non-tactical buildings included: an industrial building; water storage ponds; waste water stabilization ponds; enlisted men’s quarters and dining complex; Bachelor Officers’ Quarters complex; a community center; a dispensary; a chapel; a gymnasium; outdoor recreational facilities; family housing; and miscellaneous support structures.

 

The Missile Site Radar (MSR).  The Spartan and Sprint launch silos are in the foreground.  The edge of the non-tactical area is seen
top right.  It included housing, HQ building, maintenance buildings, motor pool, chapel, dining hall, PX, bowling and alley. 
Everything need to support a small community. Photofrom: http://srmsc.org/

 

 The Missile Site Control Building (MSCB) is the focal point for the MSR and is a landmark that is visible for miles around the complex. “The Pyramid,” as it is known locally, was flooded in the years after closure, as a result of seeping groundwater. A salvage effort, shortly after closure, resulted in debris left hanging from walls and ceilings and heaped on the floors. Through a mammoth effort it has subsequently been drained and the vast interior of the structure has been cleared of the tangled debris that had covered its floors. The MSCB has approximately 127,000 square feet of floor area, two subterranean main floors housed a computer rooms, radar control stations, tactical operations centers and a massive power plant with five 7,000 horsepower diesel generators. Two above-ground floors which housed Tactical Support Equipment (TSE) and contained the four phased array radar faces for providing hemispheric coverage.



Photo from the Historic American Engineer Record on the MSR.  The Missile Site Control Building and its exhaust stacks from its
underground power plant.  Some have called these stacks the "North Dakota Stonehenge."  The pyramid can be seen for miles around and is a local landmark.  It has become part of the cultural landscape. Photo from the Historic American Engineering Record for SRMSC.

 

In 1993, the USASMDC made the decision to prepare Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) documentation for the tactical areas of the SRMSC in preparation for a possible new deployment of an ABM system. I was one of a team of historians who were involved in writing the report, gathering primary sources and getting the finished product accepted by the National Park Service and the Library of Congress. The SRMSC HAER is one of largest and most comprehensive recordations of its type ever prepared. The data is presented in several parts. First, it provides a detailed historic context for the complex as a whole. Second it provides historical background, construction drawings and photographs on over 60 buildings. And finally, the most significant and complex buildings, such as the MSCB, PAR and RLOBs have multiple photographs, drawings and enhanced historical information. Representative information for both a Sprint and Spartan Missile launch silo is provided to record all of the Spartan (30) and Sprint (70) silos. The SRMSC HAER has been deposited at the Library of Congress, and the North Dakota State Historical Society, where current and future Cold War scholars may have access to this important historical resource.

 

Much of the information in the HAER has been made available on this excellent website:

http://srmsc.org/

 

I also prepared a Cultural Resource Management Plan in accordance with Army Regulations. This book-length document provides details on the setting in North Dakota, an extensive history of the area from pre-historic to modern times, and preservation options for the buildings. The GSA has placed my Cultural Resource Management Plan on line, I suspect for the benefit of potential bidders. You can access it here:

http://gsaauctions.gov/ATTACHMENT/REGNF/FTWOR713001005/Cultural%20Resource%20Management%20Plan%202003.pdf

 

As a result of the important part that SRMSC played in the Cold War victory over the former Soviet Union, and the unique technological and architectural features it includes, USASMDC recognized the fact that certain key SRMSC facilities could be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (NR) as being of“exceptional importance."

 

When the US Army decided not to deploy its new anti-ballistic missile system at the SRMSC I prepared a white paper for the National Park Service in an effort to entice them into acquiring the property for preservation and interpretation as a Cold War Heritage site. The white paper described the properties, their significance in history and some interpretation ideas on how the properties could be adapted for visitation and interpretation. The idea gained traction at the NPS regional office, but alas, did not make it to the national level for consideration. The NPS was already working on a shoestring, it could afford to take on new historic properties.

 

The properties are now being auctioned off by the General Services Administration (GSA). I wish one of my friends would buy the MSR, and invite me to visit once in a while!

 

The Sprint missile launch area with the MSCB "Pyramid" in the background. Photo by author.

   

5,000 Visitors!

Eras Gone tallied its 5,000th visitor today! 

A humble "thank you" to all of my readers.  When I started this project back in July 2012, I had no idea that so many folks would ever find the blog or take the time to read my stories.  Thanks again.  I hope to continue to add topics on history, archaeology and travel each week.

Stay tuned, and Merry Christmas!

Dead of Influenza, Far From Home - An Arkansas Mystery

Last November we observed the end of World War One, the War to end all Wars.  Not all casualties were on the battlefield on foriegn shores, however.  This is a tale of men who died supporting the War in the United States, a shore that was just as foriegn to them.  Their story was all but forgotten until a recent discovery in Little Rock, Arkansas.



By Evin Demirel

ARKANSAS MYSTERY

Re-Blogged From: http://www.syncweekly.com/news/2012/jul/10/arkansas-mystery/

Sculptor Shep Miers likes riding his Vespa around Little Rock. He easily zips from his home, to the Arkansas Arts Center, where he teaches furniture design, to his warehouse off Asher Street. Hard-to-reach places don’t present a problem to his motor scooter, and the field of vision it allows can’t be beat.

Which means, on four wheels, he might have never seen it.

A month ago, Miers had just turned off Asher and was heading north on Woodrow Street when he glimpsed something to his left. There, in the official cemetery of the Diocese of Little Rock, he noticed a small granite marker, by itself under a cedar tree.

Miers entered Calvary Cemetery to inspect the marker. On the tombstone, he read, “In Memoriam of the Porto Ricans who died at Picron, Ark. 1917-18.” A mass grave.

Shep Miers discovered this forgotten marker at Calvary Cemetery in Little Rock

“Well, that’s a story,” he recalled thinking. “I wonder what that’s about.”

He told his wife, Kaye, who told a historian friend. From there, the mystery was forwarded to historians all around the state, but only scant details were found to fill the gaps. A long-forgotten corner of Arkansas’ past, it seemed, had been illuminated. Guy Lancaster, editor of the Arkansas Encyclopedia of History & Culture, agrees: “This is one of those things that has somehow evaded historical consciousness for quite some time, so it’s gonna take some rediscovering.”

The path begins almost 2,000 miles to the southeast, in Puerto Rico, in 1917.

It was a watershed year for the 100-mile-long Caribbean island, which 19 years before had come under United States control following the Spanish-American War [the U.S. renamed it “Porto Rico,” a spelling lasting 34 years]. On March 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed an act granting U.S. citizenship to all Puerto Ricans. The islanders didn’t assume all U.S. citizenship rights, such as the right to vote in presidential elections, but they did inherit most citizenship obligations, such as serving in the military if drafted.

That same spring, the United States officially entered World War I. Around 18,000 Puerto Ricans were drafted to serve its military. This helped alleviate some of the surging unemployment afflicting the island’s rural economy, as corporate-financed sugar plantations had emerged in the preceding years, displacing thousands of subsistence farmers from their own land.

During the next year, the United States ratcheted up its involvement in the war’s European theater. The government and private businesses entered into numerous agreements to fortify American forces, as well as aid allied nations like France. The U.S., for instance, often paid the French for artillery and ammunition not in cash but picric acid, which was used in making explosives, and the war gas chlorpicrin. Demand was high; monthly U.S.-based picric-acid production soared from 53,000 pounds in May 1917 to nearly a million pounds by November 1918. U.S. officials, expecting even more to be needed, had contracted in spring 1918 with chemical companies in Georgia, Michigan and Arkansas to build three plants, each of which was projected to monthly produce 14.5 million pounds of picric acid.

Of these three projects, manufacturing only got off the ground at the one located by what’s now the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.

There’s not much left of the pop-up community formed around the Little Rock area’s picric acid plant. It’s not clear where the roughly 400-acre site was, although we have a few clues: a Picron Street by the airport, a Picron Hill behind the Holiday Inn off Bankhead Drive, government documents stating the site was two miles from the Arkansas River. We do know in the summer of 1917 the New York-based Everly M. Davis Chemical Company cleared off an area full of cotton, corn, sorghum and sweet potato patches, and $7 million was spent on the plant, 25 dwelling homes, a clubhouse and a bunkhouse for 500 workmen. About 1,500 unskilled laborers were needed. Without enough available local workers, some Texans and Oklahomans were brought in. But the turnover rate was extremely high, and demand persisted. Help was sought from Washington, D.C., and soon it arrived.

That summer, the U.S. Department of Labor released numbers estimating 75,000 unemployed Puerto Ricans were available for work in the United States — an untapped resource expected to provide good, cheap labor. Pay for some islanders on the East Coast was set at 35 cents an hour, with time and a half for overtime. Housing was free, and meals cost 25 cents each, according to a 1918 U.S. Employment Service Bulletin. The War Department agreed to import islanders who had signed up for factory work via the home trips of transport ships carrying supplies to a San Juan base.
This, apparently, is how the Department of Labor secured 1,436 Puerto Ricans to work at Picron. According to a 1918-19 document from the U.S. Ordnance Department, though, the experiment proved “unfortunate.”

These island workmen were barefoot, thinly clad, poorly fed, unable to speak or understand English; they reached the scene in the early fall, just ahead of the influenza epidemic. At first they were housed in tents with wooden floors, but later they were barracked at Liberty Hall, a temporary auditorium in Little Rock. The contractors bought them winter outfits, and their organizer testified that they were considerately treated. But they were unable to work effectively, homesickness seized them, and influenza, following, reaped a harvest of death among them. It was two months before a vessel could be had to return them to their native land, and when they embarked, they left 176 of their number in the graveyards of Little Rock.”

On Dec. 3, 1918, less than a month after Armistice Day, the government suspended Picron’s picric-acid production. Less than a year and a half later, it sold the plant, along with the water and gas supply systems, to H.C. Couch, president of the Arkansas Light & Power Co., who represented a group of local businessmen.

For the most part, the Picron site disappears from the pages of public history after this, until one of Couch’s descendants stumbled upon a mass grave in the southwestern corner of Calvary Cemetery. Maybe it’s divine fate that Shep Miers, Couch’s great-nephew, brought this story — which he’d never heard within his own family — to the public. Or maybe it’s simply a reflection of how small and interwoven Arkansas still is, despite tens of thousands of immigrants arriving in recent decades.

As in past eras, many came for work. Many stayed.