Pete Tarantola RPTA 488(G): Park Open Space Planning National Park Paper Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine 16 April 2012
A BRIEF HISTORY It was 1814, and the War of 1812 was in full swing. The British, still stung by their humiliating defeat in the American Revolutionary War of the late 1700s, provoked the US into a formal declaration of war by intercepting trade ships, seizing American cargo and sailors, and landing troops on American shores. The jewel of the American shipping crown, Baltimore, was preparing itself for the fight. Baltimore sits at the head of the Chesapeake Bay, the greatest natural harbor in the world. Before the first shot was fired, Baltimore had established itself as one of the naval capitals of the western world. The “Baltimore Clipper,” a light-medium shipping vessel, had proven itself to be the most nimble and versatile ship around. Baltimore’s maritime artisans were backlogged with orders for their world-famous ships. Baltimore had become a moderately wealthy city, full of trade and highly-skilled craftsmen. Add to that the fact that Baltimore is only 60 miles from downtown Washington DC, and you can see why Charm City, as Baltimore was and is called, was high on the British hit-list. Fort McHenry was built just after the Revolutionary War, and was named after then Secretary of War James McHenry. Looking down on the harbor from Whetstone Point, now Locust Point, the fort is three miles from the center of Baltimore. Intended to protect the city from any naval attack, Fort McHenry was regularly staffed by 100 men, and a full compliment of cannonry. (see Figure 1) In early 1814, sensing imminent attack by the British, commander of Fort McHenry Major George Armistead prepared to defend the city. Troops from the areas surrounding Baltimore were consolidated at the fort (numbering approximately 1,000), the “fort’s guns and
TARANTOLA
2
those of two batteries along the river’s edge dominated the channels leading to the city, and a line of gunboats and sunken hulks across the mouth of Northwest Branch also obstructed entry.” (National Park Service, Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Maryland, p.1) On 13 September 1814, the British attacked. Commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, the British fleet sailed up the Chesapeake and into the Northwest Branch, where the American guns were waiting. Recognizing the American defenses, the British set up just out of range of the American 12-inch guns and let fly the barrage. Relying on their longer-range 15-inch guns and rockets, the British fleet bombarded Fort McHenry for 25 hours, firing up to 1,800 shells and rockets, as reported by Armistead himself. (ibid., p.1) But, the defenses held, and the American forces marshaled in the Baltimore, including the local militias comprised of prominent merchants and investors, drove the British out. (ibid., p.3) Lasting only a day and a half, the 1814 siege of Baltimore was another miserable failure for the British. So why, you may ask, are this one battle and this one fort significant? During the 25 hours of shelling, a man named Francis Scott Key (future son-in-law of Secretary of the Treasury Roger Taney) was watching from a truce ship anchored in the harbor. Key was a lawyer from DC who had been sent out to negotiate the return of a local doctor being held prisoner by the British. Witnessing the all-night shelling of the fort, and stubborn American refusal to back down, inspired Key to write a famous poem called “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which was a popular local song right up until the day it became the US national anthem in 1931. (Friends of Fort McHenry, Park Overview section)
TARANTOLA
3
Fort McHenry continued to serve a military purpose for more than 100 years, defending the city throughout the Civil War and then as a hospital during WWI. “In 1933 The National Park Service assumed management, and in 1939 the designation was changed to Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine.” (National Park Service, Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Maryland: concept for facility development and landscape treatment, p.2) Fort McHenry is the only site in the United States to have the double distinction of “National Monument” and “Historic Shrine.” 1
THROUGH THE YEARS In the 200+ years of its existence, Fort McHenry has gone through substantial changes. The original parcel of land, in 1776, measured approximately 22 acres, and it is agreed upon that no official survey was done prior to building the fort. As no permanent boundaries of the site were formalized, the space occupied by the fort grew over the years. By 1840, the fort occupied more than 43 acres, as it does today. (Poussan, p. 3) In 1816, construction of seawalls to shore up the property limits began. The seawalls became a constant source of contention, coming to a head in 1893 when the Commander of the fort, Major George Rodney, wrote an angry letter to the War Department complaining that the poor-quality seawalls were not protecting the post cemetery. Rodney claimed that the cemetery was being “washed” away, and that some of the graves were actually exposed. Eight months later the War Department sent an architect to draw up an estimate. (Brown & Long, p. 50)
1
There are two other areas administered by the National Park Service which are directly related to the War of 1812: Chalmette National Historical Park, in Louisiana, and Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial National Monument in Put-in-Bay, Ohio. (Lessem, Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Maryland [electronic resource], p. 5) TARANTOLA
4
In 1815 the B&O Railroad granted an easement to the US Government on one side of the fort, and in 1836 the Government purchased all the adjacent properties, bringing the total acreage to 43.26, as is reflected in the 1840 official survey of the fort’s property. (Poussan, p. 1 & 3) For 20 years after the Battle of Baltimore the fort was left to deteriorate. In 1835 the War Department realized this folly and began to rehabilitate the fort. Modern and larger guns were brought in and the gun carriages were improved. The barracks were fully restored and raised to two stories. The fort was again fully ready to defend the city of Baltimore. (Lessem, p. 30) The fort again became a pivotal site in the history of the US during the Civil War. In the 4 years of the war Fort McHenry served as a jail for 10,000 Southern sympathizers and Confederate prisoners. Likewise, during the First World War Fort McHenry “served as US Army General Hospital #2. Approximately 30,000 wounded veterans received care at the fort.” (Friends of Fort McHenry, Park Overview section) With the end of WWI came the end of the fort’s war service. In 1925 Fort McHenry was set aside as a National Park, under the administration of the War Department2, and then in 1933 the National Park Service assumed management. In 1939 the designation of the fort was changed to National Monument and Historic Shrine. (National Park Service, Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Maryland: concept for facility development and landscape treatment, p. 2) Since the NPS assumed management in 1933, it seems the fort has been a quiet place. In 1963 the NPS planted a hedgerow to delineate the original boundaries of the 1814 fort, and in 1966 the NPS built a visitor’s center on the grounds. In 1968 a “Master Plan” was written for the 2
One of the likely reasons for the Army handing over management of the fort to the National Park Service is lack of conservation and preservation knowledge, on the Army’s part. Thompson & Newcomb briefly discuss on p. 83, stating, “The Army began in earnest to restore the fort and its structures. This took nearly all of 1929. Although the Army was not in the historical restoration business, it made a serious effort to return the structures to their former appearances…”
TARANTOLA
5
fort, and those policies have mostly remained intact. A few policy changes have occurred since the 1968 document, such as removal of the hedgerow (as it was not original to the 1814 landscape), but until the new visitor’s center no major changes were enacted. THE CURRENT PROCESS FOR LAND ACQUISITION POLICY CHANGE As an official piece of US Government property, Fort McHenry goes through a long bureaucratic process every time some change is made. In the next section of the paper we will look at some of those changes, but in this section we will first try to understand the steps which must be taken. In the 1988 Amendment to the 1968 Master Plan, we can follow the National Park Service’s (NPS) steps in proposing to build a new visitor’s center. On page 1, the NPS states its goal: “To commemorate in a respectful manner the events of the Battle of Baltimore and the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner.” In order to achieve that goal, the NPS lays out three objectives, which are abbreviated as: …restore, preserve, and maintain the fort; provide visitors with an atmosphere and information that instills in them appreciation of the significance of the fort; manage the natural resources of the park. (pp. 1-2) The document goes on to explain how, specifically, those three objectives can be accomplished. The first section of the document to follow the goals is called “Affected Environment,” and serves as a sort of Natural Resources Inventory. The “Affected Environment” section describes the monument itself as well as the landscaping and surrounding area. (p. 3) After the physical descriptions, the section goes on to list and very briefly discuss the natural and cultural resources of the monument. (p. 4) Finally, the Affected Environment provides a succinct analysis of the demographics and data related to visitor use. (pp. 5-6)
TARANTOLA
6
Having analyzed at the effect the monument has on its surroundings, the document moves on to the second section, “The Proposed Plan and Alternatives.” (pp. 7-10) This section is exactly what it claims to be, with the author laying out the plan for alteration or improvement (in this case, a new visitor’s center) and hypothesizing, with supporting research, what options the NPS may have. In the case of this report, the author has included three alternatives; alternative 1 is to do nothing, alternative 2 is to add on to the existing structure, and alternative 3 is to build a new structure. As alternative 3 is recommended, the author goes into great detail in explaining why building a new structure is clearly the best of the alternatives, going so far as to outline a proposed schedule of implementation. The third section in the document is called “Environmental Consequences,” and in it we find the supposed effects of each of the three alternatives. (pp. 11-13) For each of the three alternatives the possible/probable effects are broken down into cultural and natural resources, effects on visitor use, and effects on management and operations. Obviously the author is making “educated guesses” in speculating about the effects of proposed alterations and construction, but it is obvious that a large amount of research and effort went into justifying those predicted outcomes.
THE NEW VISITOR’S CENTER Following the format put forth by the 1988 Amendment to the 1968 Master Plan (see above), the NPS set about proposing to build a new visitor’s center. The first mention of altering the existing visitor’s center, built in 1966, was in the 1988 document. The final and accepted proposal to build was in the 2004 Cultural Landscape Report. It’s easy to throw our hands up and say, “Government inefficiency caused the necessary changes to be put off for 16 years!”
TARANTOLA
7
Though there may be some truth to that, a more likely explanation is that Fort McHenry is simply one of the most significant places in the history of our nation, and any proposed actions must be carefully examined. With the ultimate goal being the building of a new visitor’s center at the site, the authors of the 2004 document, Davidson & Foulds, explain the research as such: A Cultural Landscape Report (CLR) serves the National Park Service as both the primary treatment document for cultural landscapes and as a tool to inform day-to-day management decisions and long-term landscape preservation strategies. (p. 2) As was the case with the 1988 document, the CLR is divided into three sections: a history of the site and an inventory of the resources, all the facts of the proposal, and the supposed effects of the various alternatives. Davidson & Foulds tell us that the parks infrastructure was almost entirely built in the 1960s. Since that time, visitation has doubled and the site’s facilities (parking and visitor’s center) simply cannot handle the increased numbers. In the same paragraph, Davidson & Foulds tell us that if the current visitation trends continue, the annual number could rise another 110,000 in the next ten years. (pp. 8-9) The document proposes four alternatives to dealing with the swelling number of visitors: alternative 1 is do nothing, alternative 2 is to rehabilitate the existing visitor’s center, alternative 3 is to build a new visitor’s center but move it off the site (not by much) of the original fort, and alternative 4 is to build a new visitor’s center on the site of the original visitor’s center. As we saw in the 1988 document, the authors go into great detail to explain the benefits and detriments
TARANTOLA
8
of each of the alternatives, and it is clear that a massive amount of research went into the 2004 CLR. (p. 9) In the end, all of the interested parties settled on alternative 4, to build a new visitor’s center on the site of the 1966 building. (see Figures 3-5) The new visitor’s center opened in 2011, having taken 7 years to complete and cost $9 million. D’Amico described the building as such: The new 17,000-sq-ft Fort McHenry Education and Visitors Center replaced the existing structure, built in 1966, and is expected to serve about 750,000 visitors a year. Registered with the Green Building Certification Institute, the center includes a geothermal heating and cooling system, solar control, and materials with high recycled content. (p. 1)
THE FORT TODAY Today, Fort McHenry offers excellent programming, for young and old, designed to educate visitors in the history of the fort, the city, our flag, and our national anthem. The fort is open all but two days of the year, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Ten guided interpretive walks run the grounds daily, and the staff offers a variety of “hands-on” activities year-round. The fort’s museum contains over 54,000 artifacts and the library houses over 500 books and 70,000 documents. (Friends of Fort McHenry, p. 1) The 1988 Amendment to the 1968 Master Plan showed that: Approximately 25% of the visitors who watch the park film are from Baltimore, 25% from Maryland but outside Baltimore, and 50% from other States and countries. A significant portion of those from other States are
TARANTOLA
9
from DC, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. Foreign visitors account for approximately 8% of the visitors. (p5) (These figures were not amended by the 2004 CLR, thus we must assume that the percentages are still accurate.) The flag flies over Fort McHenry 24 hours a day, by authority of a Presidential proclamation issued 2 July 1948 (Lessem, Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Maryland, p. 36), and it has become tradition “that when a new flag is designed it first flies over Fort McHenry. The first official 49 and 50 star American flags were flown over the fort and are still located on the premises.” (Fort McHenry Wiki, National Monument section) In 2016 the National Park Service will celebrate its centennial. A nationwide series of listening sessions produced more than 6,000 comments that helped to shape five centennial goals. The goals and vision were presented in a 2006 report called The Future of America’s National Parks. Every national park staff took their lead from this report and created local centennial strategies to describe their vision and desired accomplishments by 2016. To see Fort McHenry’s Centennial Strategy, go to http://www.nps.gov/fomc/parkmgmt/upload/CentennialInitiative-2016.pdf.
TARANTOLA 10
Figure 1
A 1974 map of Baltimore’s harbor, showing Fort McHenry. (Davidson & Foulds, p. 1)
TARANTOLA 11
Figure 2
A 2011 aerial photograph of the fort. Retrieved 31 April 2012 from: http://mdbizmedia.choosemaryland.org/2011/03/03/bombs-bursting-in-air-new-ft-mchenryvisitors-center-expected-to-draw-thousands-of-visitors/ft-mchenry/
TARANTOLA 12
Figures 3-5
The front of the new visitor’s center.
TARANTOLA 13
The rear of the new visitor’s center.
TARANTOLA 14
The interior of the new visitor’s center. Figures 3-5 retrieved 31 April 2012 from: http://www10.aeccafe.com/blogs/archshowcase/2011/09/21/fort-mchenry-national-monument-and-historic-shrine-visitor-andeducation-center-in-baltimore-maryland-by-gwwo-architects/
REFERENCES
Brown, Sharon & Long, Susan (1986). Historic structure report: administrative, historical, and architectural data sections, seawall, Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Maryland. Denver: US Government Printing Office. Centennial Initiative (2012). Retrieved 31 April 2012 from: http://www.nps.gov/fomc/parkmgmt/centennial-initiative.htm D’Amico, Esther (2011). Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine - New visitor and education center, Baltimore. ENR: Engineering News-Record, November 2011. Retrieved 31 April 2012 from: http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.wiu.edu/ehost/detail? sid=bd15664d-331a-4c15-af6f-
TARANTOLA 15
4657d5ef2ac8%40sessionmgr104&vid=1&hid=106&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2Z Q%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=67649962 Davison, Mark & Foulds, Elliot (2004). Cultural landscape report for Fort McHenry [electronic resource]: Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine. Brookline, Mass.: Olmsted Center for Landscape Protection. Retrieved 31 April 2012 from: http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/fomc/clr.pdf Fort McHenry (2012). Retrieved 31 April 2012 from the Fort McHenry Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_McHenry Friends of Fort McHenry (2005). Park overview. Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine and Hampton National Historic Site Business Plan, fiscal year 2005. Retrieved 31 April 2012 from: http://www.friendsoffortmchenry.org/fort-mchenry.html Lessem, Harold (1954). Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Maryland [electronic resource]. Washington, DC: National Park Service. Retrieved 31 April 2012 from: http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/hh/5/index.htm Lessem, Harold (1961). Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Maryland. Washington DC: National Park Service. National Park Service (1988). Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Maryland. Washington DC: National Park Service. National Park Service (1988). Amendment to the 1968 master plan and environmental assessment : Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Maryland. Washington DC: US Department of the Interior. National Park Service (1987). Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine,
TARANTOLA 16
Maryland: concept for facility development and landscape treatment. Denver: US Department of the Interior. Poussan, John (2001). Draft chronology of events associated with the acquisition of the real property comprising Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Maryland, by the U.S. Government. Retrieved 31 April 2012 from: http://www.nps.gov/fomc/parkmgmt/upload/Bndry_Chronology.pdf Thompson, Erwin and Newcomb, Robert (1974). Historic structure report, Fort McHenry, historical and agricultural data. Denver: National Park Service. Retrieved 31 April 2012 from: http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/fomc/hsr.pdf
TARANTOLA 17