Comments on: Fort Ticonderoga

By: betje klier

betje klier — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:23:31 +0000

Improved by punctuation: Just as Lazarus’ poem lacks a comma, Indyanna’s comment would be enhanced by adding a period… To wit, “The complex would include a “conference center” and a 99-room “residence facility,” and bears…” Stop there. It’s a great idea, Indyanna! I guess that would set off a new debate with animal rights advocates and Canadians, since they have more bears and perhaps bigger, better, and fiercer bears, but it would certainly differentiate this park from others and provide an authentic touch and special sight for children from hotter climes. Oh, where is Teddy Roosevelt when we need him! bk

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:20:38 +0000

I hope I won’t be ‘jacking the thread, too much, if I use it to report that Valley Forge National Historical Park is facing a very different kind of threat. A well-funded and seemingly very whiggish private group is trying to build a museum devoted to the American Revolution as a whole (itself a worthy idea) on an “inholding” (an unacquired private tract) within the Congressionally-authorized boundary of the park. The complex would include a “conference center” and a 99-room “residence facility,” and bears the marks of a very commercial orientation. Until recently this was to be a partnership with the NPS on a less sensitive site within the park, but conflicting egos and budget priorities sent the outside group off on the current tangent. The issue is in preliminary township level zoning appeal proceedings, supported by the park, local residents, and the National Parks Conservation Association. It will doubtless go into litigation whatever the result at this level. A project of this broad character, minus the operational overkill and under appropriate interpretive guidance, would be a very good thing, on the model of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, but this version is not the right one.

By: ortho stice

ortho stice — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:59:28 +0000

Interesting post, Historiann! I thought about it today during my class, when the guest lecturer said, “The U.S. National Parks are quasi-mystical places that Americans visit to commune with nature and rejuvenate the American Spirit.” Ha!

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:49:18 +0000

I say all hands on deck. If Ticonderoga falls, we’ll have to evacuate Albany and fall back to what, Kingston, or maybe even New Paltz? This could get interesting…

By: Historiann

Historiann — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:24:13 +0000

But hysperia–you’ve got the installation at Cape Breton, which is a pretty terrific 18th C fort. (I heard that the fort and barracks in Halifax burned recently–did you hear that too, or am I imagining things?)

By: hysperia

hysperia — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 03:26:33 +0000

I say give Ticonderoga back to Canada! We’re well known for looking after our historical sites. Come on up and see. Upstate New York would be good too.

lol

Sort of.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 03:16:29 +0000

Good question, Indyanna–why isn’t the NPS in charge up there at Ticonderoga? You’re right that that’s no guarantee of budgetary solvency, but at least if it’s an NPS site, it presumably won’t have to face shut-down or the wrecking ball…

Ticonderoga no. 2: I haven’t thought about them since I took my last standardized tests, back in 1989. What a nostalgia trip! I’d better go lie down with a baseball mitt over my face and take a nap.

Dance–good idea on signing the guest book. I hadn’t thought about that. The NPS does good work–and, unfortunately, leans on a lot of good people to work for less money than they should, because they do much more than they’re paid to do.

By: dance

dance — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:35:54 +0000

I like to sign the guestbooks for those little museums with my furthest legit home. That is, maybe I’ll write California (childhood home) even though I live in grad school town one hour away. I figure it sounds good in the grant requests.

Also, having been to 3 national parks in the last month, I would just like to announce that I LOVE the National Park Service and what it does.

By: Indyanna

Indyanna — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:36:10 +0000

Growing up in (very) DOWNstate New York, I have to say that my first memory of the term “Ticonderoga” is mixed in a Proustian way with the aroma of that staple of the elementary schoolroom, the Dixon-Ticonderoga Number 2 Pencil. A quick Wiki discloses that this company was based in Jersey City, but that–you’ll like this part, Historiann–it originated as a “crucible” company that mined its graphite, or pencil lead, from the old Tantiusque lead mine in Sturbridge, MA–an operation going back to John Winthrop, Jr. in the mid-1660s.

But this is to digress. It’s kind of amazing that Ticonderoga is not run by the National Park Service (not that that would guarantee its financial stability). Fighting along that ancient corridor goes back to Samuel de Champlain’s first months in North America, and extends right down to the War of 1812 I think. It kind of reminds me of Valley Forge, which the state of Pennsylvania ran (into the ground) for eighty years, before trying to turn it over to the NPS. The Ford administration sent its Interior Department political appointees to Congress to testify that the state was “doing a fine job with it” (which the state explicitly denied), and thus should just keep doing it. Fortunately, Senate Majority Leader Hugh Scott, of PA, had more power than an accidental president and so the park became a federal facility, decked out as “Pennsylvania’s Bicentennial Gift to the Nation.” Three decades later it’s not out of the woods yet, however, budgetarily or in terms of development threats. But it’s definitely better to be funded by a poor uncle than by a rich candy bar maker, I think.