An Administrative History of the Midwest Archeological Center, Lincoln, Nebraska
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National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Midwest Archeological Center Lincoln, Nebraska An Administrative History of the Midwest Archeological Center, Lincoln, Nebraska Report prepared by the Organization of American Historians for the National Park Service Theodore Catton, Principal Investigator Thomas Thiessen, Co-Author 2019 An Administrative History of the Midwest Archeological Center, Lincoln, Nebraska Report prepared by the Organization of American Historians for the National Park Service Theodore Catton, Principal Investigator Thomas Thiessen, Co-Author United States Department of the Interior National Park Service Midwest Archeological Center Lincoln, Nebraska 2019 PREFACE The Midwest Archeological Center (MWAC) is a field office of the National Park Service in Lincoln, Nebraska, where a staff of archeologists and support personnel conduct archeological research and conservation. The Center is dedicated to preserving, investigating, and interpreting archeological resources in the national parks in the Midwest. It also renders archeological assistance to national parks outside the Midwest as well as to other entities outside the National Park System. MWAC was formed on July 1, 1969, from the former Missouri Basin Project (MBP). The MBP was the Lincoln field office of the Smithsonian Institution’s long- running program of salvage archeology known as the River Basin Surveys (RBS). The RBS had a 23-year run from 1946 to 1969. It was aimed at salvaging the archeological record in areas that were condemned for dam and reservoir development during the era of big dam projects following World War II. Administered by the Smithsonian Institution in cooperation with the National Park Service, the RBS formed the core of the federal government’s interagency archeological salvage program through the middle decades of the twentieth century, and it holds an important place in the development of archeology in the United States. MWAC’s origin in the RBS and the MBP in particular gives the Center an illustrious background. The reasons behind the termination of the RBS and the transfer of the MBP field office from the Smithsonian Institution to the National Park Service in 1969 forms an important part of MWAC’s history. This is the subject of Chapter One. Other regional archeological centers came into existence in the National Park Service around the same time as MWAC. The concentration of archeological staffs in regional centers in the late 1960s and early 1970s occurred partly by historical accident and partly by design. It set archeology apart from most other disciplines within the agency. Staging the archeological discipline in centers rather than simply seeding it across the National Park System field areas made sense to some in the agency but provoked distrust in others, and a fight over the archeological centers ensued. Placing MWAC’s early years from 1969 to 1975 within the context of the larger NPS archeological program’s historical development during this critical period is another important part of MWAC’s history. This is the focus of Chapter Two. MWAC’s mission changed. Starting out with a mix of interagency archeological salvage projects and cultural resource management (CRM) projects in the parks, it came to focus primarily on the latter. F. A. Calabrese, Center chief from 1974 to 1995, grew the Center around the increasing demand for CRM in the parks. Calabrese was a strong advocate for developing a specialized professional staff dedicated to park archeology. He wanted to make the NPS archeology program a leader in the field and not just a contracting arm of the government. MWAC’s years of expansion from 1975 to 1995 are the subject of Chapter Three. In the mid-1990s, as the NPS went through a major reorganization, the relative autonomy of archeology in the centers was once again challenged. It fell to Calabrese’s successor, Mark Lynott, Center manager from 1996 to 2013, to defend the Center idea i AN ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY and reorganize the Center in the wake of the NPS reorganization. In contrast to the previous two decades of Center growth, Lynott had to struggle with flatlining budgets and rising costs and an existential threat to MWAC that arose in the early 2000s when it was proposed that the work of the archeological centers might be outsourced to private contractors. The mandated “A-76 study” of MWAC’s operations that came from this proposal stands as a painful episode in MWAC’s history. Steering the Center through those challenging times is the main theme of Chapter Four. Administrative history aims to chronicle an institutional record as well as provide an interpretive understanding of how an institution got where it is, and so this administrative history touches on many other important facets of MWAC’s history. Subchapters discuss such items as MWAC’s longstanding promotion of geophysical survey, its collection management program, its role in archeological information management, and its support of the National Historic Landmarks Program, among others. The narrative makes several excursions into archeology projects at particular parks. The aim is to highlight some of the more important projects and provide examples of field work without attempting to be at all comprehensive. MWAC exists for the sake of the archeology found in the parks, so it is essential that the narrative include description of a variety of parks and archeological resources under MWAC’s purview. This administrative history has two authors. Thomas D. Thiessen wrote Chapter One almost 20 years ago. As a former MWAC archeologist, he has maintained an interest in the history of MWAC and recently contributed a chapter on the MBP in Dam Projects and the Growth of American Archaeology: The River Basin Surveys and the Interagency Archeological Salvage Program. Chapter One is taken from his 1999 work, “Emergency Archeology in the Missouri River Basin: The Role of the Missouri River Basin Project and the Midwest Archeological Center in the Interagency Salvation Program, 1946-1975.” Theodore Catton wrote the remainder of this history under contract with the National Park Service through the Organization of American Historians. He served in the NPS for two years in the Cultural Resources Division of the Pacific Northwest Regional Office in 1993-1995 (experiencing firsthand the NPS reorganization of that time). His public history career has focused largely on preparing NPS administrative histories such as this one. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ............................................................................................................................ i Timeline .........................................................................................................................XIII Chapter One ....................................................................................................................1 Early Antecedents and the Interagency Archeological Salvage Program ...........................................................................................................................1 Work Relief Programs ...............................................................................................1 The Committee for the Recovery of Archaeological Remains ....................................1 The Interagency Archeological Salvage Program .......................................................6 The River Basin Surveys ...........................................................................................14 The Missouri Basin Project .......................................................................................17 End of the River Basin Surveys .................................................................................23 Establishment of the Midwest Archeological Center ................................................29 Chapter Two Transition Years ..........................................................................................33 NHPA, Moss-Bennett, and the Changing Scope of NPS Archeology .........................34 Center Staffing and New Leadership .......................................................................41 The Fight over the Centers ......................................................................................45 The Steamboat Bertrand Project ..............................................................................51 The Upper Oahe Project and Middle Missouri Archeology ........................................55 Archeology in the Parks ...........................................................................................59 NPS Archeology Bifurcated ......................................................................................64 Chapter Three Serving Two Regions ................................................................................69 Organizational Culture ............................................................................................69 Archeology in the Rocky Mountain Region ..............................................................76 Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site ...............................................79 iii Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site ..................................................82 Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument ..................................................87 Curecanti National Recreation Area .................................................................89 Grand Teton National Park ..............................................................................91