CONFLICTING GOALS FOR A NATIONAL PARK

THE HISTORIC ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD, 1968-2008

National Park Service 

U.S. Department of the Interior 

History Program 

Northeast Region 

SPRINGFIELD ARMORY NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY

Conflicting Goals for a National Park: 

The Historic Arsenal at Springfield, 1968-2008

Ned Kaufman 

U.S. Department of the Interior 

National Park Service 

Northeast Region History Program 

July 2010 

Recommended: 

Acting History Program Manager 

Northeast Region 

Louis P. Hutchins Date 

Michael Quijano-West Date 

Approved: 

Superintendent 

Springfield Armory National Historic Site 

CONFLICTING GOALS FOR A NATIONAL PARK

THE HISTORIC ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD

1968-2008 

ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY

NED KAUFMAN

PREPARED UNDER COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT WITH

ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

2010
ii 

Frontispiece. Site plan of Armory Square prepared by the National Park Service in 1967 shows Armory Square 

and (at top) Federal Square at the height of their development, just before the Armory’s closure. The future 

national park would be defined by the roughly rectangular dark outline below the arrows that traces the line of 

the nineteenth century cast iron fence (NPS Evaluation Report, 1967). 

Cover Illustration: The Main Arsenal at Springfield Armory, constructed in 1850. The 

Arsenal building now holds the park’s administrative offices, visitor center, and museum 

collections. Photograph ©James Langone, 2006 

 
iii 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations v 

Preface vii

Chapter One: The End of the Armory 1

Springfield Armory in the History of America, and of Springfield 

 Springfield Responds to the Crisis 

 Springfield Plans for a Future without the Armory 

 A Technical Institute is Born, and the Question of Preservation Is Introduced 

 A Museum is Created, and the Problem of Preservation Reconsidered 

 Disposing of Federal Property, Exercising Federal Oversight 

 Postscript to the Prologue 

 

Chapter Two: The Creation of the Park 51 

Legislation is Introduced: 1970 

 An Unusual Kind of Park: The Plan is Elaborated, 1971-72 

 Negotiations with the Army and the State: 1971-72 

 Progress Towards Legislation: 1971-73 

 Controversy Over the Campus: 1971-73 

 Further Progress Towards Legislation: 1973 

 Difficulties Reaching Agreement with the State: 1973-74 

 Congress Authorizes the Park: 1974 

 Campus Plans, the Cooperative Agreement, and Section 106: 1974-75 

 Shifting Positions in the Battle over the Campus: 1975 

 Agreement is Reached and the Park Established: 1975-78 

 The Army Agreement: 1978 

 Postscript: The Campus and the Question of Federal Authority 

Chapter Three: Planning the Armory, 1978-1993 115

 The National Historic Site is Launched 

 Planning at the Armory: Process and Challenges 

 Planning at the Armory: Concepts 

 Renegotiating the Cooperative Agreement 

 

Chapter Four: Rehabilitating the Armory 141

The Federal Zone 

 The Campus 

 Another Look at the Question of Federal Authority 

Chapter Five: The Collections 201

Gaining Control Over the Collections 

 The Library and Archive 

 Archeology at the Armory 

 Defining the Collection 

 Conservation at the Armory 

 Curatorial Responsibility, Custody, and Ownership 

 The 2005 Collection Management Plan and the Question of Uniqueness 

 

 
iv 

Chapter Six: Interpreting the Armory and Serving its Publics 255

Defining the Goals and Limits of Interpretation 

 Interpretive Programming Up to 1989 

 Serving Other Parks 

 Visitor Services after 1989: Reorganization, Growth, and the Problem of Resources 

 New Programs, the Bicentennial, and Civic Cooperation 

 The Problem of Visitation 

 

Epilogue: Futures for Springfield Armory 291

Appendices 299 

 A. Authorizing Legislation 301

 1. H.R. 19574 (October 5, 1970): the First Bill 

 2. S. 979 (December 5, 1973): the Bill Passed by the House and Senate 

 3. P.L. 93-486: the Legislation Enacted on October 26, 1974 

 B. Cooperative Agreements and Memoranda of Understanding 311 

 1. Agreement with Massachusetts: 1978 

 2. Memorandum of Understanding with Massachusetts: 1993 

 3. Memorandum of Understanding with Massachusetts: 1999 

 4. Cooperative Agreement with Army: 1978 

 5. Interagency Agreement with Army: 2000 

 6. Firearms Disposition Center Agreement: 1997 

 7. Memorandum of Understanding with Seaboard Foundry: 1997 

 8. Memorandum of Understanding with Olmsted NHS: 1999

 C. Documents Related to the Disposition of Federal Property 349 

 1. Deed of Transfer for Campus: 1968 

 2. Amendment to Application for Armory Square Property: 1968 

 3. Deed to the City of Springfield for Museum: 1968 

 4: Deed to the City of Springfield for School Board: 1968 

 D. Chronology of NPS Involvement with Springfield Armory (1975) 379 

E. Inventories, Evaluations, and Nominations of Historic Structures 385 

 1. NPS Evaluation Report: 1967 

 2. National Register Nomination: 1968 

 3. List of Classified Structure: 2006 

 F. Superintendents of Springfield Armory NHS 399 

 G. Annual Visitation Statistics, 1979-2004 401 

 

 H. Organization Charts 403 

 1. As existing in 1991 

 2. Target of 1992 reorganization plan 

 3. As existing in 1993

 Annotated List of Sources and Repositories and Note on Sources 407 

 A. Source Repositories 

 B. List of Sources 
v 

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece. Site plan of Armory Square in 1967. ...................................................................... ii 

1.1. Armory Square, ca. 1830. ....................................................................................................... 3 

1.2. Armory Square in 1875. ......................................................................................................... 3 

1.3. Building 11 (West Arsenal) in 1967. ..................................................................................... 5 

1.4. The Green in 2005. ................................................................................................................. 5 

1.5. Buildings 15-16 in 2005. ......................................................................................................... 6 

1.6. Building 13 (Main Arsenal) in 1967. ..................................................................................... 6 

1.7. Building 1 (Commanding Officer’s Quarters) in 1967. ...................................................... 7 

1.8. Cast Iron Fence: measured drawing. ................................................................................... 8 

1.9. Building 7, 8, and 9, in 2005. .................................................................................................. 9 

1.10. Building 19 (Long Storehouse or Caserne) in 1967. .......................................................... 9 

1.11. Armory Square: aerial view in 1967. ................................................................................... 10 

1.12. Federal Square: aerial view in 1967. ................................................................................... 10 

1.13. Watershops area: aerial view in 1967. ................................................................................ 11

1.14. Railhead area: aerial view in 1967. ...................................................................................... 11 

1.15. Dedication of the National Historic Landmark plaque, 1963. ....................................... 13 

1.16. Dedication of the National Historic Landmark plaque, 1963. ....................................... 13 

1.17. The Benton Collection in 1967. .......................................................................................... 23 

1.18. The Benton Collection in 1967. .......................................................................................... 23 

1.19. Springfield Trade High School about 1967. ...................................................................... 24 

1.20. Students at Springfield Trade High School about 1967. ................................................. 26 

1.21. Federal Square in 2005. ........................................................................................................ 32 

1.22. Consultants’ proposed plan for S.T.C.C, 1967. ................................................................ 35 

1.23. Main Arsenal: spiral stair in 2005. ...................................................................................... 39 

1.24. Main Arsenal: rear facade in 2005. ..................................................................................... 40 

1.25. Consultants’ proposal for Armory Museum with new portico, 1967. .......................... 41 

1.26. Elevations of museum with proposed new portico and stair towers, 1967. ................. 42 

1.27. Plan of proposed museum complex, 1967. ....................................................................... 42 

2.1. Boundary Map prepared by NPS staff, 1973. ................................................................... 58 

2.2. Land Ownership Map prepared by NPS staff, 1973. ....................................................... 58 

2.3. General Development Plan prepared by NPS staff, 1972. .............................................. 63 

2.4. Building 10 in 1967. .............................................................................................................. 65 

2.5. Building 17 in 1967. .............................................................................................................. 65 

2.6. S.T.C.C. master plan made public in 1971-72. .................................................................. 69 

2.7. Perspective view of S.T.C.C. master plan. ......................................................................... 70 

2.8 Land Acquisition Plan prepared by NPS staff, 1973. ....................................................... 71 

2.9. Early version of S.T.C.C. master plan. ............................................................................... 72 

2.10. Perspective of early version of S.T.C.C. master plan. ...................................................... 75 

2.11. Perspective of S.T.C.C. master plan, possibly showing brick facing. ............................ 75 

2.12. Presentation drawing of S.T.C.C. master plan. ................................................................ 78 

2.13. Putnam Hall (new Building 17). ......................................................................................... 79 

2.14. Deliso and Putnam Halls (new Buildings 13 and 17). ...................................................... 79 

2.15. Putnam Hall (new Building 17). ......................................................................................... 81 

2.16. Putnam Hall (new Building 17). ......................................................................................... 82 

2.17. Site plan of S.T.C.C. campus, 1974. .................................................................................... 93 

2.18. Scibelli Hall (new Building 15). ........................................................................................... 98 
vi 

3.1. Management zoning proposed in 1986. .......................................................................... 124 

3.2. Development Concept Plan, 1986. ................................................................................... 127 

3.3 Building 13: main entrance with concrete loading dock and wooden stairs. ............. 130 

3.4 Site plan showing three levels of preservation controls. ............................................... 130 

3.5. Museum as center of visitor experience: park historian holds firearm. ..................... 139 

4.1. Gateway at State Street and Byers Street in 1967. .......................................................... 143 

4.2. Organ of Muskets. .............................................................................................................. 148 

4.3. Blanchard Lathe. ................................................................................................................. 149 

4.4. Plan of exhibits in Main Arsenal. ...................................................................................... 150 

4.5. View of permanent exhibits in Main Arsenal. ................................................................ 152 

4.6. Sidewalk at Byers Street in 2002. ...................................................................................... 156 

4.7. Sidewalk at State Street in 2002. ....................................................................................... 156 

4.8. Early studies of reuse alternatives for Building 1. .......................................................... 159 

4.9. Landscape behind Main Arsenal and Building 1, ca. 1950. .......................................... 161 

4.10. College president Scibelli inspects the decaying porch of Buildings 5/6. ................... 178 

4.11. College president Scibelli announces a new student parking lot. ................................ 178 

4.12. Building 19: elevation drawing. ........................................................................................ 181 

4.13. Building 19: study of reuse as technology center. .......................................................... 182 

4.14. Building 19: study of reuse as student center. ................................................................. 183 

4.15. Building 11 in 2005. ............................................................................................................ 185 

4.16. Buildings 5-6 in 2005. ......................................................................................................... 186 

4.17. Buildings 5-6 in 2005. ......................................................................................................... 188 

4.18. Building 19 in 2005. ............................................................................................................ 190 

4.19. Building 19 in 2005. ............................................................................................................ 192 

4.20. Building 19 in 2005. ............................................................................................................ 192 

4.21. Building 19 in 2005. ............................................................................................................ 193 

4.22. Building 19 in 2005. ............................................................................................................ 193 

4.23 Building 19 in 2009 ............................................................................................................. 198 

5.1 View of permanent exhibits in Main Arsenal. ................................................................ 221 

5.2. Table of size of selected park collections in 2008. ......................................................... 248 

5.3. Ranks of firearms in the second floor storeroom of the Main Arsenal. ..................... 252 

6.1. Signpost at street entrance to Springfield Armory NHS. .............................................. 258 

6.2. Building 16, seen from the park’s entrance drive. .......................................................... 259 

6.3. Same view, from a college publication. ............................................................................ 259 

6.4. Park entrance route: a long series of parking lots. ......................................................... 261 

6.5. Plan of wayside exhibits, 1986. ......................................................................................... 262 

6.6. Wayside exhibit in front of the Main Arsenal. ............................................................... 264 

6.7. Temporary exhibit in the Main Arsenal. ......................................................................... 277 

6.8. Information kiosk at Main Arsenal in 2008. ................................................................... 289 

Endpiece. Manikin holding gun, Main Arsenal. .......................................................................... 297 

 
vii 

PREFACE

 Springfield Armory is not the biggest, oldest, or most famous national park. In fact, it 

is relatively small, new, and little known. Yet the Armory’s story illuminates themes of crucial 

importance to the national park system. 

 Springfield Armory was the first, and until its closure in 1968, the longest operating 

government armory, or weapons factory, in the United States, boasting historical 

connections to George Washington and the early republic. It was also the central node in 

Springfield’s economy, and its loss sent shock waves through this western Massachusetts city 

and its civic establishment. The 1970s were not a good time for American cities, beset as they 

were with economic decline, disinvestment, racial tension, and social turmoil. The initial 

plans to salvage jobs and civic pride from the wreckage of the Armory’s closure were not very 

successful, and it was out of this second collapse, rather than the initial closure, that the 

campaign for a national park arose. The history of that campaign provides a glimpse of an alltoo-frequent dynamic in the creation of parks: the federal government as last resort. When 

local efforts to preserve a historic site (and in this case to operate a museum) fail, when the 

impossibility of such an operation ever breaking even has been fully demonstrated, then local 

leaders call on the National Park Service (NPS) to save a resource whose national 

significance makes its protection imperative for the nation’s future. In this case there was 

some poetic justice in thus turning to the federal government, since the Armory’s closure had 

been part of Defense Secretary MacNamara’s plan to privatize federal defense 

manufacturing. The government in Washington was not averse to helping troubled cities, 

and this undoubtedly added to Congress’s eagerness to set up a park in Springfield. Still, it 

was a fact that the operation the NPS was expected to take over was beset with problems. 

Nor were hopes for the incipient park’s economic contribution, based now on tourism rather 

than manufacturing jobs, ever really fulfilled. 

 Authorized by Congress in 1974 and established four years later, the Armory was one 

of a number of parks created in the 1960s and 1970s (Lowell National Historical Park and the 

National Seashores at Cape Cod and Fire Island come to mind) where Congress and the NPS 

included significant amounts of nonfederal property. These units were all to some degree 

experiments in park management, designed to allow the federal government to protect 

resources and provide public services without making large, expensive, and unpopular land 

purchases. At Springfield, roughly 35 of the park’s 55 acres belonged to the state of 

Massachusetts and had been given a few years earlier to a new community college, 

Springfield Technical Community College, for use as a campus. It seems clear that Congress 

never carefully thought through the question of how this two-headed monster would be 

managed. The legislation called for an agreement between the federal government and the 

state, and with great difficulty one was eventually signed. But neither the law nor the 

agreement was able to produce a smoothly operating park or to preserve all of its important 
viii 

resources. The reasons why this proved to be the case shed valuable light on this phase in the 

history of the national park system. 

 One of first quandaries was triggered by college plans to demolish several historic 

buildings and construct massive new ones within the very core of the park. These plans 

emerged just as the park’s authorizing legislation was moving forward. This was in the early 

1970s, which was also very shortly after the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act 

(NHPA) of 1966, and of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. As the 

controversies over the campus (already a National Historic Landmark) escalated, the NPS 

was still sorting out how to implement some of NHPA’s basic provisions, like the National 

Register of Historic Sites. The Advisory Council for Historic Preservation, also created by the 

legislation, was still housed within NPS and had not yet become independent agency. Section 

106, the Act’s preservation review process, was untested: the Springfield Armory case, 

substantively complex, bureaucratically subtle, and political fraught, became the agency’s 

first exercise in applying it. This phase of the park’s creation therefore offers a remarkable 

glimpse into a key moment in the history of federal preservation law. 

 Even after the controversies over the college’s new buildings had been settled, the 

campus continued to test the limits of preservation agreements as park management tools. 

The college at first was hostile to preservation and to federal interference; even later, when 

college leaders accepted the need for stewardship and even came to value the historic 

buildings, they never adopted preservation as end goal: they could not do so, for running a 

community college was their mission, and they were deeply dedicated to it. Thus as the 

condition of some historic campus buildings worsened, preservation projects continued to 

take second place to other college needs. To make matters worse, Springfield Technical 

Community College did not have final decision-making authority over its own campus: that 

belonged to the state, whose budget processes and priorities were far less sympathetic to 

preservation than college leaders. Indeed there is little evidence that the state legislature or 

governor’s office ever took seriously the legal commitment to preserve Armory Square which 

they had made by signing the cooperative agreement on which the park’s existence was 

predicated. Unfortunately, Springfield Armory came to offer an all too vivid example of what 

can happen to historic buildings when they are not maintained – in this case, historic 

buildings deemed sufficiently important to have been designated, even before the Armory’s 

closure, as a National Historic Landmark, and subsequently to be included in a national park, 

or National Historic Site as it was formally designated. The prospect of decaying buildings in 

the middle of a Congressionally designated historic site depressed and frustrated park 

administrators, and sometimes college leaders as well. Yet even today, important historic 

buildings within the park remain vacant and deteriorating, and there is a real possibility that 

one or more could be lost to arson, vandalism, or cumulative decay. 

 Apart from this melancholy spectacle, the dilemma of the college buildings raises an 

important question of how far federal authority extends over Congressionally authorized 

parkland. What does national park designation mean (and not mean) in relation to 

nonfederal land? Must the NPS sit by helplessly as designated park resources decay? The 
ix 

Armory story shows that NPS officials have consistently viewed federal authority as weak 

and largely unenforceable. Yet even as college buildings were decaying, a series of Supreme 

Court and federal circuit court decisions were fortifying the basis for federal authority. In 

these cases the court held in favor of the federal government, based not on the Cession 

Clause – the traditional basis for NPS authority – but on the stronger though less familiar 

Property Clause. Though the courts did not relate the Property Clause power to the specific 

facts of Springfield Armory, they opened the door to doing so. The NPS has not yet accepted 

the invitation, perhaps because harnessing the power of the Property Clause on behalf of 

Springfield Armory would require not only legal reasoning but also political will. There is 

some irony in the situation, for the semblance of federal power unsupported by its exercise 

contributed to the plight of the National Historic Site. On the one hand, the NPS felt 

correctly that it was the state’s responsibility to maintain the campus; and in any case, the 

agency was prohibited from spending Congressional funds on nonfederal property. Yet on 

the other hand, the campus’s location within a national park gave state officials a convenient 

excuse for withholding funds: “let the feds worry about it,” as former college president 

Andrew M. Scibelli paraphrased their attitude. One way to break the deadlock would be for 

“the feds” to exercise the power they do have, which is the power of the Property Clause. 

 Managing historic buildings under these conditions would have been difficult 

enough for a national park. But the Armory also lacked control over its other main asset, its 

internationally renowned collection of firearms. That belonged to the U.S. Army, which 

started assembling the Benton Small Arms collection in 1862. The Army readily agreed to 

leave the collection in Springfield after the Armory’s closure, but it refused to give up 

ownership. Actually the Army did not own the guns: the federal government did. But they 

were nonetheless “Army property,” and so they would remain, even though housed, 

displayed, catalogued, and preserved by the staff and at the expense of the National Park 

Service: as recently as 1998, indeed, the Army seemed interested in reclaiming some of the 

guns, and it has never stopped sharing its views (sometimes presented as peremptory orders) 

on how to care for the collection. 

 NPS museum professionals recognized even before they signed the agreement with 

the Army that managing a collection on these terms would be challenging. But Army 

ownership was not the only difficulty they faced. The sheer size of the collection astounded 

agency officials, as did its disorder. While museums had been an integral part of the NPS 

since its earliest days, and some of the agency’s collections were large and important, they 

were always understood to be subsidiary to the sites themselves, and their care subsidiary to 

their display. The Armory challenged these understandings, not only because of the 

collection’s importance but also because of the local politics leading to the park’s creation, 

which emphasized the collection over the site. Moreover, the agency’s capacity to care for 

and manage collections was not so great then as it became later. The tasks of curation and 

conservation were being professionalized, but trained experts and well equipped facilities 

were in short supply. As the Armory entered the park system, then, it was not only park staff 

in Springfield but also the agency’s highest-ranking museum professionals who held that its 
x 

collections did not fit the norm, and that they justified exceptional levels of spending and 

care. Was Springfield unique or merely unusual? Could it be managed according to standard 

agency policies, or did it demand special standards? These questions resonated through the 

park’s history, frequently placing park and regional officials at loggerheads. How they were 

negotiated offers valuable insights into the strengths and limitations of NPS museum policies 

as well as the agency’s administrative structure, which spread decision-making among central 

and regional offices, parks, and special-purpose technical centers. 

 One area of park operation was initially considered rather straightforward, and that 

was interpretation. Yet this simplicity was deceptive. Interpretive plans stressed broad 

themes like industrial history or the Armory’s relationship to Springfield, yet this approach 

sat uneasily with a second premise, which was that the collection would be the main focus of 

interpretation. The collection consisted essentially of about 9,000 guns. Over the years these 

artifacts had attracted a loyal following of gun enthusiasts, collectors, and scholars who 

wanted nothing more than to be able to pore over the details of rare experimental firearms. 

While the park did its best to satisfy this constituency (and still does), it was obvious even 

before the NPS’s arrival that this approach would not interest the general public. The 

resulting tension was never entirely resolved. One reason is that it proved surprisingly 

difficult in practice to wrest the interpretive emphasis away from the guns. The permanent 

exhibit, which the agency completed with great care and professionalism in 1989, did less 

than some had hoped to demonstrate that the Armory was more than “just a gun museum.” 

The historic site, which might have supported broader narratives, was largely closed off to 

interpreters by the conditions of its ownership and use. 

 Another source of tension was the guns themselves. Firearms provoke strong feelings 

of distaste among much of the public. They are not the only museum artifacts to do so, but 

torture equipment and memorabilia from Nazi concentration camps are typically exhibited 

with strong messages of condemnation: they are emblems of suffering, talismans against 

hatred and inhumanity. But at the Armory, guns were presented mainly to be admired, 

whether as examples of technical skill, industrial innovation, or national defense. This 

approach alienated part of the public even when the Armory was operating. As long ago as 

1843, indeed, a display of muskets at the Armory inspired the pacifist poet Henry Wadsworth 

Longfellow to write his anti-war poem, “The Armory at Springfield.” More recently, park 

superintendents and interpreters have felt this dilemma keenly: they have never seen 

themselves as advocating for guns, but guns are what they had, and they have been eager to 

derive some public benefit of instruction or edification from them – and to attract more 

visitors to the park. Thus the Armory’s interpretive programs have repeatedly sought to 

divert attention from the underlying fact that guns are weapons designed to kill. Sometimes 

interpreters have stressed their mechanical ingenuity, at other times they have enticed the 

public with special events unrelated to the collection. These efforts have produced many 

interesting and successful programs, but they have not resolved the underlying 

contradiction. What no one has yet tried is to look head-on at the clash of feelings that guns 

provoke – not as an obstacle to interpretation but as its subject. 
xi 

 The Armory has faced many serious problems: a divided site, collapsing buildings, 

Army interference, controversies over collection care and conservation, and the difficulty of 

interpreting a gun collection to a sharply divided public in a decaying city. Given these 

challenges, the situation today could be a good deal worse than it is, for despite mistakes and 

mishaps, there have been notable successes. Above all, the collection and most of the historic 

buildings are still there. That should not be taken for granted: without the NPS it almost 

certainly would not be the case. Today, then, although the Armory continues to present 

difficult challenges, the options for its future remain remarkably open. 
 
xiii 

METHODOLOGY

 The methodology employed in this study has consisted essentially of three parts: 

First, a thorough investigation of primary sources including official memoranda, letters, 

plans, and reports (and drafts thereof). The focus was on the documentary record produced 

and preserved by the National Park Service itself, mainly at Springfield Armory NHS, in the 

Washington office, and at the Northeast Museum Services Center in Charlestown, MA (a 

more complete accounting is included in the Annotated List of Sources and Repositories 

below, together with some discussion of the limitations of the documentary record). An 

effort was also made to review the archives of Springfield Technical Community College, but 

these proved to be extremely fragmentary. The second component was interviews, mostly 

recorded, with key figures in the park’s evolution. Again, the focus was on NPS officials, 

including four of the park’s six superintendents as well as current and former park staff and 

regional and Washington officials representing planning, museum services, cultural 

resources, and administration. A solicitor with the Department of the Interior was consulted 

on legal issues. Two long-serving officials of Springfield Technical Community College were 

also interviewed: one of them was former President Andrew M. Scibelli. Repeated efforts to 

interview staff at the Army’s Center for Military History, however, were rebuffed. (A list of 

interviewees will be found in the Annotated List of Sources and Repositories below.) The 

third component was direct study of the site and collections, pursued in numerous visits to 

the park and conversations with staff. Finally, in addition to these major research efforts, it 

should be noted that, as the product of a cooperative agreement, the study benefitted at 

many points from the input of agency reviewers, coordinated through the history program of 

the Boston Support Office, who elucidated many subtleties of agency policy and sometimes 

challenged the author’s interpretations. 

 An administrative history like this cannot be written without the active support of 

many agency officials, and thanks go first to the staff of Springfield Armory NHS, especially 

Supervisory Curator James D. Roberts and Superintendents Douglas Cuillard and Michael 

Quijano-West. At the Washington office I was helped especially by Chief Historian Robert K. 

Sutton, Janet McDonnell, Patty Henry, and Harry Butowsky; and at the Northeast Museum 

Services Center in Charlestown, MA, by Elizabeth Banks. Paul Weinbaum, History Program 

Manager for the Northeast Region, provided invaluable support throughout the process. 

Finally, all those who agreed to be interviewed deserve special thanks for their time and their 

trust: their names are given in the Annotated List of Sources and Repositories. 

1 

CHAPTER ONE

THE END OF THE ARMORY

ARMORY TO 

CLOSE BY 1968 

Research Work Is Shifted 

To Arsenal at Rock Island; 

Huge Economic Blow to City

 – Springfield Daily News, November 19, 1964 

 The news that confronted readers of the Springfield Daily News on the morning of 

November 19, 1964, was bad: the Department of Defense had decided to close Springfield 

Armory. For almost two hundred years, the Armory had stood at the very heart of this 

western Massachusetts city of 175,000, third largest in Massachusetts and northern terminus 

of the Connecticut River’s industrial corridor. The Armory’s picture was on the city seal. Its 

paychecks had seen the city through good times and, more importantly, through bad times. 

It was hard to imagine the city without the Armory’s $19.5 million payroll, its prestige, its 

bustling factories and forges, its dignified Victorian quadrangle rising proudly above 

downtown Springfield. The story of Springfield Armory as a National Park (or more 

precisely a National Historic Site) began as the citizens of Springfield contemplated that 

vision. 

 Though the word armory has become associated mainly with the large drill halls that 

were built across the country towards the end of the nineteenth century, Springfield Armory 

was a true armory: a place for designing, manufacturing, and storing guns. Also called 

arsenals, such places may be private or commercial as well as public, but Springfield Armory, 

having been founded by none other than George Washington, was for many years the pride 

of the U.S. Army. When its closing was announced in 1964, Springfield Armory was not only 

the oldest in the country, and the longest in continuous operation, but also “probably the 

longest continuously-operated industrial facility in the United States.”1

 Two centuries of 

history, then, were drawing to a close. Though Springfield residents worried more about the 

economic impacts of the Armory’s closure, the importance of its history was not lost on 

them, nor for that matter on the city, state, and national officials who would become involved 

in the Armory’s closure during the next few years: and in the end it was this history that 

would give a portion of the Armory a second life as a National Historic Site. 

 

1

 Raber Associates, “Conservative Innovators and Military Small Arms: An Industrial History of the 

Springfield Armory, 1794-1968,” report prepared for National Park Service, North Atlantic Regional 

Office, Boston, MA, August, 1989, p. I. 
The End of the Armory 

2 

SPRINGFIELD ARMORY IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA, AND OF SPRINGFIELD

 The history of Springfield Armory begins in 1777, when General George Washington 

approved the choice of Springfield as a place to make and store guns and powder for the 

Continental Army. There were good reasons for choosing Springfield. The Revolutionary 

War had been raging for two years, and although the action had begun to the east, it shifted 

westward after the British abandoned Boston in 1776. When they captured New York City, 

at the mouth of the strategically important Hudson River, Washington responded by 

retreating upriver, and much of the action over the following year would center on the 

Hudson valley, as the colonials fought to prevent British troops in New York City and 

Canada from joining forces. By 1777, the action was moving further west and south, placing 

Springfield safely behind colonial lines: moreover, the smoothly flowing Connecticut River 

provided good transport to Long Island Sound and the Atlantic. Throughout the rest of the 

war, the site of the future armory would serve as a manufacturing, storage, and supply depot 

for the entire northeast.2

 After the war, the Springfield Armory figured in an event that remains controversial 

over two centuries later. Shays’ Rebellion was an armed uprising of western Massachusetts 

farmers against punitively heavy taxes imposed to repay the state’s war debt. In January 1787 

Shays led his followers to Springfield, where they were stopped by cannon fire from the 

Armory. The protests continued until finally, in the teeth of a deadly blizzard, Shays led a 

thousand men towards Boston, where a regular army defeated them. 

 It was Shays’ Rebellion that prompted Thomas Jefferson’s famous observation that 

“‘a little rebellion now and then is a good thing...a medicine necessary for the sound health of 

government....” Another response was increased public support for a strong national 

government. And that in turn led to the designation in 1794 of Springfield’s armory as one of 

two new permanent federal arsenals, the other being at Harpers Ferry in Virginia (now West 

Virginia). The first significant construction campaign there took place in 1807-11, as the 

country’s relationship with Great Britain was again deteriorating (Frontispiece, Figs. 1.1-2). 

The West Arsenal, known also as Building 11, is the sole survivor of this early period (Fig. 

1.3). After 1815, the general outlines of Armory Square, the nucleus of the growing complex, 

were defined as additional red brick offices, workshops, residences, and storehouses were 

constructed around a spacious central green (Fig. 1.4-5, 2.4-5). Between 1841 and 1854 

Major James W. Ripley, the Armory’s most famous commanding officer, added two of 

Armory Square’s defining features: the Main Arsenal (Building 13) and the Commanding 

Officer’s Quarters (Building 1)(Figs. 1.6-7, 1.22-23, 4.10). He also started construction of a 

cast iron fence around the perimeter of the entire complex (Fig. 1.8, 4.1-3). This was 

completed later in the nineteenth century, along with more residences and a vast storehouse 

(Building 19: also sometimes called the cavalry caserne), which stretched over seven hundred 

feet in length (Figs. 1.9-10, 4.13, 4.20-23). At the same time, the Armory was expanding 

 

2

 NPS, Cultural Landscapes Inventory: Springfield Armory, 2004, Cultural Landscapes Inventory, p. 22. 
The End of the Armory 

3 

Figure1.1. Armory Square, ca. 1830: from left to right, the North Shops, Office & South Shops, East Arsenal, 

and Middle Arsenal (NPS: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Part 2a, 2004). 

Figure 1.2. Armory Square in 1875: excerpt from a birds-eye view of Springfield (NPS: Cultural Landscapes 

Inventory, Part 2b, 2004). 
The End of the Armory 

4 

beyond Armory Square, with the purchase of land and construction of a dam at the Upper 

Water Shops area in 1809 and the purchase of additional land in Federal Square, adjacent to 

Armory Square, in 1812. (Figs. 1.11-14) 

 During this period, Springfield Armory played a major role in the development of 

American manufacturing. Though the frequently heard claim that the Armory pioneered the 

technology of interchangeable parts may be exaggerated, the Armory was certainly 

responsible for significant “innovations in interchangeable manufacture of complex metal 

and wood products, and in organization of factory production.”3

 After Confederate troops captured and destroyed the other federal arsenal at 

Harpers Ferry, Springfield’s stature grew. It now became the federal government’s only 

producer of guns. Though a new arsenal in Rock Island, Illinois, began to make rifles in 1904, 

this did not immediately threaten Springfield’s dominance, and the Armory continued to 

expand with construction of a new Railhead area and the addition and enlargement of 

buildings at Federal Square, Armory Square, and the Water Shops. Springfield Armory 

remained the U.S. Army’s main center for research, development, testing, and manufacturing 

pilot weapons through World Wars, the Korean War, and well into the Vietnam War. 

Scholars credit it with the “design and production of the most important shoulder arms used 

by the United States Army from the 1790s to the 1960s.”4

 When the Armory’s closure was announced in 1964, Springfield residents were well 

aware of its illustrious history. They had been reminded of it no more than a year earlier 

when the Armory was designated a National Historic Landmark, a distinction reserved for 

buildings or places possessing “exceptional value as commemorating or illustrating the 

history of the United States.”5

 The National Park Service had determined in 1959 that the 

Armory met this standard and, in 1961, after the agency had notified the Secretary of the 

Army as well as area senators and congressmen,6 the Army formally applied for NHL status. 

The designation was a red-letter day in Springfield. Army Secretary Elvis J. Stahr, Jr., asked 

for a bronze marker for the site; the NPS also provided a certificate.7 Congressman Edward 

P. Boland most particularly wished to participate in the dedication ceremony for the bronze 

plaque,8

 which took place on April 2, 1963, the Armory’s 169th anniversary (Figs. 1.15-16). 

Armory employees were given administrative leave to listen to the brass band and the 

 

3 Ibid. 

4

 Raber Associates, “Conservative Innovators and Military Small Arms,” 1989, p. 1. 

5

 16 U.S.C. 462(b). 

6

 National Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings, Form 10-317: Springfield Armory, signed and dated, 

Charles E. Shedd, Jr., Historic Sites Historian, November 4, 1959 [1 p.]. Page of notes from 

correspondence log noting letters of December 19, 1960 to Senators Saltonstall and Kennedy and 

Congressman Boland and February 3, 1961, to Secretary of the Armory Elvis J. Stahr, Jr. (both: 

Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

7

 Letter, Elvis J. Stahr, Jr., (Secretary Army), to Stewart L. Udall, June 22, 1961 (Washington Office, 

NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

8

 Various memos, August, 1961 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 
The End of the Armory 

5 

 

 

 Figure 1.3. Building 11: West Arsenal 1(NPS Evaluation Report, 1967). 

Figure 1.4. Armory Square’s central green, seen from the Main Arsenal in 2005 (photo: author). 
The End of the Armory 

6 

Figure 1.5. Buildings 15-16 in 2005 (Photo: author). 

Figure 1.6. Building 13: Main Arsenal (NPS Evaluation Report, 1967) 
The End of the Armory 

7 

Figure 1.7. Building 1: Commanding Officer’s Quarters (NPS Evaluation Report, 1967). 

speeches by Springfield’s Mayor Charles V. Ryan, the Armory’s commanding officer, and 

others. The high point of the ceremony was the unveiling of the plaque by the legendary John 

Garand, designer of the Armory’s M1 rifle. Afterwards, “specially invited guests” toured the 

Armory, visiting the Main, West, and Middle Arsenals, the site associated with Shays’ 

Rebellion, the dam at Watershops Pond, and the Benton Small Arms Museum. Finally there 

was lunch at the Officers Club. “Television, radio, and newspaper coverage,” as NPS 

Regional Director Ronald commented, “was very complete.”9

 Notwithstanding the Armory’s national importance, it was its local significance that 

made its impending closure so alarming to Springfield residents in 1964. The Armory was 

central to Springfield’s economy and culture. During the nineteenth century the impetus it 

gave to weapons production had led other manufacturers to concentrate around Springfield 

and down the Connecticut Valley, making the region an important industrial center. The 

Armory itself, despite some ups and downs, had always been a substantial presence within 

 

9

 Photographs and program of dedication ceremony. The quotations are from Information Office, 

Springfield Armory, “Springfield Armory Named as National Historic Landmark on April 2, 1963” 

(press release), March 22, 1963, and letter, regional director to director, April 12, 1963 (all: Washington 

Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 
The End of the Armory 

8 

Figure 1-8. Cast Iron Fence (NPS, Historic Structures Report).
The End of the Armory 

9 

Figure 1.9. Buildings 7, 8, and 9, survivors of the longer row of houses which once stood between Building 

19 and the northwest side of the green (photo: author). 

Figure 1.10. Building 19, the Long Storehouse or Caserne (NPS, Evaluation Report). 
The End of the Armory 

10 

 

Figure 1.11. Aerial views of Armory Square (NPS Evaluation Report, 1967).

Figure 1.12. Aerial views of Federal Square (NPS Evaluation Report, 1967).
The End of the Armory 

11 

Figure 1.13. Aerial views of Watershops (NPS Evaluation Report, 1967). 

 

Figure 1.14. Aerial views of Railhead areas (NPS Evaluation Report, 1967). 
The End of the Armory 

12 

the local economy. Just before the closure its annual payroll was reported at $19.5 million, its 

staff at 2,275 employees.10 Though far below the Armory’s all-time high of about 14,500 

employees during World War II, this was still a significant figure. And Armory jobs were not 

ordinary jobs: they came with government benefits, job security, and prestige, and were not 

tied to regional or national economic cycles, so that when severe recessions shook the 

country after World War II, Armory jobs cushioned the impact on Springfield. 

 The Armory’s physical plant was as impressive as its payroll. A government study 

calculated that the Armory represented a federal investment of over $65 million: to replace it 

in 1960 would cost more than $128 million (or about $817 million in 2008 dollars).11 The 

huge capital plant represented by this investment was spread through four separate 

complexes of buildings distributed throughout the city’s urban core. Armory Square 

accounted for about thirty buildings on 55 acres of land. Across the street, Federal Square 

encompassed roughly another ten buildings on 18 acres, then there were the Watershops, the 

forge complex, and the railhead at Page Boulevard: in total, 68 buildings totaling almost 1.8 

million square feet on 333.5 acres.12 In addition to land and buildings, there were rail spurs 

and utilities systems: phone lines, electric service, heating plants. There was Lake Massasoit, 

more familiarly known as Watershops Pond and the city’s largest body of water at 250-acres. 

Finally, there were the machines: lathes, milling and boring machines, vertical, horizontal, 

center-less, and cylindrical grinders, presses capable of handling up to 800 tons, drop 

hammers – not to mention “machine shops capable of fabricating and servicing all tools, dies, 

jigs, fixtures and gauges...,” a forge shop, precision casting laboratories, photo labs, 

metallography and plastics labs, and test firing ranges that could simulate temperatures as 

low as minus 70 or high as 200 degrees Fahrenheit at any specified humidity.13 If the Armory 

closed, not only would the paychecks stop: every building would be boarded up, every 

machine shut down. An enormous inventory of productive assets would suddenly become an 

overwhelming liability. 

According to the Department of Defense, much of the Armory’s productive capacity 

was already sitting idle. Defense reckoned that only 56 percent of the Armory’s 

 

10 Payroll: Springfield Daily News, November 19, 1964; employees: [Booz, Allen & Hamilton, 

Management Consultants], Retention of the Springfield Armory: A Study for the Secretary of Defense, 

Washington, D.C., October 15, 1965, p. x (SPAR Archives). 

11 Col. John P. Traylor (Ord [Ordinance?] Corps), Memorandum, “The Future of the Arsenal System,” 

n.d. [but attached to a letter of October 14, 1960], p. V-1-3, in Collected Documents Summarizing the 

Case for Retention of Springfield Armory - 1965, SATC - NAGE, December 10, 1965 (SPAR Archives). 

The calculation of current dollars is based on the Consumer Price Index up to 2004, as provided by 

www.EH.Net, the website of Economic History Services, a project supported by the Economic History 

Association, Business History Conference, Cliometric Society, Economic History Society, and History 

of Economics Society. 

12 Square feet: “Talking Paper for the Secretary of Defense: Closure of Springfield Armory,” January 21, 

1965, p. 11, in Collected Documents, 1965. 

13 Ibid.
The End of the Armory 

13 

Figure 1.15. Dedication of NHL plaque, April, 1963. John Garand unveils the plaque as Murray 

Nelligan looks on. (NPS-WASO, NHL files). 

 

Figure 1.16. Mayor Ryan stands by the plaque (NPS-WASO, NHL files). 
The End of the Armory 

14 

manufacturing capacity was being used in 1962: by 1965, the percentage had declined to 37 

percent.14 To Washington officials, these figures suggested the Armory might no longer be 

needed. But Springfield residents were used to fluctuations at the Armory: previous dips had 

always been followed by rebounds. So the decision to close the Armory came as a shock. 

Under study since 1960, it had been kept secret up to the moment the Springfield Daily News

revealed the announcement on November 19, 1964. The Defense Department offered several 

justifications. One was overcapacity. Springfield was now one of eight national armories, and 

others too were operating below capacity. Rock Island (IL), with 905 acres of land, almost 6.3 

million square feet of buildings, and a replacement value of over $334 million in 1965 

dollars,15 was operating at only 49 percent of productive capacity. Its unused assets could 

easily accommodate Springfield’s remaining functions. There were other reasons. Since 1960, 

Defense claimed, the existing arsenals had proven unable to “support the largest peacetime 

military force ever maintained by the United States.”16 Closing armories might seem counterintuitive, but Defense argued that private industry could and should fill the gap: it was more 

inventive, more entrepreneurial, and more efficient than government. 

SPRINGFIELD RESPONDS TO THE CRISIS

 The news threw Springfield into turmoil. The day after the announcement, the 

Springfield Union published no less than five articles on the subject and an editorial; seven 

articles the next day. The story would dominate local headlines for well over a year, and an 

annual poll of Daily News editors and reporters taken at end of 1966 identified the Armory 

closure and the campaign against it as the “overwhelming choice for top story of the year.”17

Its prominence in local newspapers continued right up to the departure of the last employees 

in April, 1968.18

 Immediately after the announcement, intense discussion arose among the city’s 

business and political leaders over how to respond. Optimistically, City Council President 

Armando G. Dimauro told the press that the closing would release “choice land for industrial 

development” and recreation: he could “see a great deal to be gained” from it. But few 

agreed. “This is going to play hell with the city of Springfield,’ said a labor union official. 

“‘We are worried to death about our future,” said the wife of an armory employee.19

 

14 “Talking Paper for the Secretary of Defense: Closure of Springfield Armory,” January 21, 1965, p. 11, 

in Collected Documents. 

15 “Talking Paper for the Secretary of Defense,” p. 11. Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 Springfield Daily News, December 27, 1966. 

18 The archives of Springfield Armory possess a remarkable collection of clippings which trace the 

unfolding of the closure as the city’s residents perceived it. All of the references to local press in the 

following account are drawn from this repository. 

19 Springfield Union, November 20, 1964. 
The End of the Armory 

15 

 Two days after the announcement, the city’s leaders were said to be “divided” on 

how to respond, but within days, the Springfield Union’s editorial page reported a “TwoFront Armory Fight”: one to oppose the closure plan, the other to “roll with the punch and 

come back with a solid alternative.” Mayor Ryan was determined to fight on the first front, 

but the prospects for victory against an adversary as tough and experienced as Defense 

Secretary Robert S. McNamara were poor, and so the paper urged “individuals and civic 

agencies” to “help prepare Springfield for the worst that can happen....”20

 The campaign to save the Armory got underway. The leaders scheduled a meeting 

with McNamara for February 27, 1965, and began to prepare their case. They worked under 

an intense glare of public interest: even their practice sessions were covered in the press. 

“Things are looking up!” crowed the Springfield Shopping News on Feb. 21: “The Armory may 

stay in Springfield after all.” But there was little evidence to back up its optimism. 

 The delegation that met with McNamara included the mayors of Springfield and 

neighboring Chicopee, Representatives Boland and Conte, Massachusetts governor John 

Volpe, Senators Leverett Saltonstall and Edward Kennedy (the latter recovering from a nearfatal plane crash). They brought an impressive stack of paper documenting their case.21 And 

they talked fluidly, persuasively, at length.22 They attacked the Department of Defense’s 

studies, disputed their assertion that the Armory’s facilities were in poor condition, protested 

the unfairness of asking Springfield – with one thousandth of the nation’s population – to 

absorb one tenth of the proposed civilian job cuts (and this on top of previous cuts). 

Representative Boland noted that the Defense Department’s cuts fell disproportionately on 

the northeast, and indeed the closure of the Brooklyn Army Terminal and the famed 

Brooklyn Navy Yard alone would cost the region no less than 12,900 jobs. 

 The delegates focused on an issue overlooked by Defense’s own studies: the closure’s 

impact on Springfield. “In Massachusetts,” explained Governor Volpe, we have a very severe 

problem economically.” The state was experiencing a “population explosion” and should 

have been adding 20,000 jobs per year, yet the opposite was happening: during the past two 

years, Massachusetts had lost 40,000 manufacturing jobs. The loss of the Armory’s payroll, 

coming on top of this, would be a “catastrophe,” creating poverty at the very time when the 

federal government was pouring billions of dollars into anti-poverty programs.23

 To cushion the blow, Defense offered to provide retraining programs and help 

transfer former employees to Rock Island. But the delegation of Armory defenders believed 

 

20 Springfield Union, November 25, 1964. 

21 “Memorandum for Meeting with Secretary McNamara” with, attached, “Report of Springfield 

Armory Study for Retention of Mission Responsibilities at Springfield Armory,” by Massachusetts 

Congressmen, People of Metropolitan Springfield, Armory employees, 5 February, 1965 (SPAR 

Archives). 

22 “Hon. Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense, meets with Massachusetts Congressional 

Delegation at the Pentagon Building, Washington, D.C., on Saturday, February 27, 1965” [transcript of 

meeting] (SPAR Archives). 

23 Ibid., p. 29. 
The End of the Armory 

16 

that few employees would uproot themselves and move to Illinois. Mayor Ryan explained: 

1,600 employees were veterans; a further 200 were disabled veterans; 1,200 were over the age 

of 45. The last statistic particularly worried him, because the nation had not shown itself 

adept at placing older men in new careers. But old or young, hearty or disabled, the 

fundamental problem was the same: “Bad consequences follow, human tragedies occur when 

a community such as Springfield all of a sudden finds it has to find 2,000 jobs for 2,000 men 

to support 2,000 families.” “And so,” pleaded the Governor, “we’re desperately hopeful, Mr. 

Secretary....” 24 After the meeting, the group held a press conference. Secretary McNamara 

attended and told the press that of more than six hundred such cases he had reviewed, 

Springfield’s presentation had been the most thorough, the most persuasive. He would 

personally review the case.25

 Back home, the mood was optimistic. “He Didn’t Say No,” exulted the Springfield 

Republican the next day. “Yields, Reconsiders,” proclaimed the Boston Globe. The “Pall of 

Gloom” had lifted, at least momentarily, according to the Springfield Daily News (March 1). 

Good news continued to roll in. In an unprecedented move, McNamara announced that he 

would retain the well-known consulting firm of Booz, Allen & Hamilton to carry out an 

impartial analysis. A few weeks later, the Secretary himself arrived in Springfield to tour the 

Armory, whose champions now presented a counter-proposal to keep 2,150 workers on the 

payroll while shrinking the physical plant to forty acres around Federal Square.26

“Springfield’s Hopes Boosted,” reported the Boston Globe on March 18. 

 Developments far from Springfield were conspiring against McNamara. In 

December, 1964, a government plan to buy guns from Germany came to public attention. 

Memories of Nazi atrocities had not faded and the revelation, coming just as the Defense 

Department announced its plan to close American armories, provoked public indignation. 

Further investigation revealed that the German company, Rheinmetall, had strong Nazi ties; 

worse, unlike other German companies, it had refused to pay reparations after the war. And 

when it was further revealed that Rheinmetall had used Jewish slave labor during World War 

II, the Armory’s supporters found an unexpected ally in B’nai Brith. By December, critics 

were charging that the German gun was not only immoral but “substandard.”27 McNamara 

had other problems. By the end of 1965, many senators were angry at what they perceived as 

his high-handed way of making decisions. Opposition to the war in Vietnam, which 

McNamara fervently supported, was building. That hurt McNamara’s prestige; on the other 

hand it also undercut the Armory’s claim that the country needed its weapons. 

 The Armory’s backers were not making much headway. In mid-May, 1965, the Army 

Weapons Command headquarters at Rock Island confirmed that the “vast Army 

 

24 Transcript of February 27, 1965, meeting p. 37. 

25 Transcript of February 27, 1965, meeting, p. 72. 

26 Springfield Daily News, March 1, 1965 

27 B’nai Brith: Boston Sunday Herald, February 6, 1966. Substandard: Springfield Union, December 8, 

1966. 
The End of the Armory 

17 

administrative machinery is continuing to grind along” according to the original phase-out 

schedule. And although Rep. Boland was able to kill a Congressional appropriation needed 

for the phase-out, even he admitted this was a mere skirmish. Meanwhile, Sen. Paul H. 

Douglas and his colleagues from Illinois were energetically promoting the interests of Rock 

Island.28

 In October, Booz Allen turned in its analysis.29 The company had worked closely with 

advocates in Springfield and praised their thoroughness and professionalism. But the report 

sided with McNamara. While the consultants found that the cost savings to be gained by 

moving Springfield’s “residual in-house functions to Rock Island” were “distinctly marginal,” 

they warmly endorsed the department’s privatization policies. They found that private 

industry had “more overall experience in total small arms weapon system development” than 

the Armory. And as guns merged into “larger weapon system,” this was “an appropriate time 

to bring a fresh set of attitudes and approaches to the system task. Industry has demonstrated 

that it can do this.” “It is clear,” the consultants concluded, “that the Armory’s manufacturing 

capability and capacity are not needed and should not be retained.”30

 As the Springfield Daily News put it late in 1964, “Save Armory Steps All Are Taken.”31

Early in 1966, advance men from the Department of Defense began arriving in Springfield to 

start transferring eligible employees. Yet the campaign was not quite over. Rep. Boland 

continued to make speeches in Congress, and at the end of April Senator Kennedy and 

Representatives Boland and Conte pleaded personally with the president to intervene. 

Johnson, however, would not override his secretary of defense. The best he would do was to 

detail a full-time representative of Defense’s Office of Economic Adjustment to help convert 

the Armory to private use. “President Johnson,” reported the Springfield Daily News, “has 

blown Taps on the Springfield Armory.”32 Mayor Ryan vowed to fight on, but by May even 

he had capitulated. The fight was over. 

SPRINGFIELD PLANS FOR A FUTURE WITHOUT THE ARMORY

 As early as November, 1964, the Springfield Union had called on city leaders to 

prepare for the worst: now, they turned to the second of the “two-front” campaign – 

planning for a future without the Armory. Springfield, the Union had written, must become 

better at “incubating new business, bringing in more from outside, and preserving what we 

have.” The paper favored industrial reuse for the Armory plant. If that failed, the School 

 

28 Original schedule: Springfield Daily News, 19 May. Sen. Douglas: SDN, July 3. 

29 [Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Management Consultants], Retention of the Springfield Armory: A Study for 

the Secretary of Defense, Washington, D.C., October 15, 1965 (SPAR Archives). 

30 Ibid., pp. iii-vi. 

31 November 30, 1964. 

32 Boland et. al., Springfield Daily News, April 28. President Johnson: May 4, 1966. 
The End of the Armory 

18 

Department could use it for an “‘education park,’” a centrally located collection of schools. 

The city should also consider keeping and even expanding the Armory’s museum, the 

Benton Small Arms Collection. “Sentiment for the past,” it said, “is a minor factor now, but 

Springfield will need its reminders, and will need the tourist trade like never before.”33 These 

and other ideas now began to absorb public attention. 

 In some ways the prospects of life without the Armory had improved since the first 

dire predictions. By 1967 the Armory’s payroll had shrunk to 1,100. Though it was still the 

third largest employer in Springfield (after the City of Springfield and Monsanto), it 

accounted for only 2.5% of manufacturing jobs in the Lower Pioneer Valley region and a 

mere one half of one percent of all jobs in the metropolitan area. Moreover, unemployment 

was running at 3.7%, a record low.34 This represented a considerable improvement since 

1961, when unemployment had reached a high of 8.4%, or even 1963, when a Springfield 

resident had described civilian unemployment as “rife in this area.”35

 Yet there were hints that the challenges ahead might be even more severe than 

anticipated, for the data hid a “pervasive deterioration” in the local economy that the 

Armory’s closure would only exacerbate. Jobs in Springfield were not keeping pace with 

regional population growth, and the only reason why the jobless rate was not much higher 

was that city residents were commuting to jobs elsewhere. As many as 10,000 people were 

commuting to Connecticut.36 The mix of jobs was changing too. Though industrial jobs 

accounted for somewhat more than one third of total employment in Springfield, much of 

the region’s industrial capacity now lay in the nearby cities of Chicopee and Holyoke. 

Relative to the total job market, manufacturing employment in Springfield was now about 

25% less important than in New England as a whole. Service sector jobs, by contrast, were 

running about 20% above the national average, those in finance about 70% higher.37

 Like many American cities, in short, Springfield was undergoing a painful transition 

from a manufacturing to a finance and services economy. At the same time, the economic 

balance between city and region was shifting. Though the region’s population was growing, 

the city itself had lost 6.1 percent of its population between 1960 and 1970.38 As jobs and 

 

33 Springfield Union, November 20, 1964. 

34 Figures from Realty Research and Consulting Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA, The Springfield Armory 

Project: An Action-Oriented Program for Solving the Economic Problems Created by the Phase-Out of 

Major Military Installations, U.S. Department of Commerce, July, 1967 [produced under contract to 

Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, in cooperation with City of 

Springfield, Armory Planning Committee, and Office of Economic Adjustment, U.S. Department of 

Defense], pp. 17 ff. (S.T.C.C.: Map Room). 

35 Letter, Christine M. Pratt to The President, April 3, 1963 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: 

fol. Springfield Armory). 

36 Realty Research, Springfield Armory Project, 1967, p. 19. 

37 Ibid., p. 16. 

38 Figure from the 1970 U.S. Census, quoted from Department of the Interior, “Draft Environmental 

Statement, DES 72-51, Proposed Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” prepared by NPS, 

Northeast Regional Office, Philadelphia, signed and dated Chester L. Brooks (Director, Northeast 
The End of the Armory 

19 

residents migrated to the suburbs, Springfield – again like many American cities – was losing 

its regional dominance. One result was deteriorating middle- and working-class 

neighborhoods in the center of Springfield. In 1970, unemployment was reported at 6-10 

percent around Armory Square, while the percentage of families on public assistance or 

welfare in Springfield’s core neighborhoods ran as high as 50 percent and was nowhere less 

than 10 percent. Downtown Springfield’s minority populations were large for the region: 

over 5 percent Spanish-speaking to the north of the Hillshops, over 25 percent black to the 

east. In some of these neighborhoods, over 75 percent of dwellings were rated substandard.39

As a federal report summarized in 1978, the Hillshops were surrounded by “Hispanic and 

Black neighborhoods, both of which are economically depressed and have high 

unemployment rates.”40

 The Armory’s closure, then, hit at a city that was already losing its population, 

industrial stature, employment base, and prosperity. It was urgent to keep the installation’s 

vast assets in productive use, and with the Armory scheduled to close on April 30, 1968, time 

was short. If institutions or businesses did not step forward quickly to take over its assets, if 

local and state legislatures did not pass the necessary measures, if federal applications were 

not submitted, reviewed, and approved, the property could not be transferred to new owners 

and its future would be cast into severe doubt. There were compelling reasons to find a 

solution before the Armory closed, and this meant that the simplest solution would probably 

be the best. 

 Mayor Ryan’s first response, in the spring of 1966, was to ask the federal government 

to sell the Armory to its former employees so that they could continue to operate it as a 

private enterprise. The government agreed to consider the proposal, but Senator Saltonstall 

charged Ryan with thinking too narrowly and the Department of Defense’s economic 

advisor agreed. In any case, when the government announced, late in June, that it would not 

sell the Armory to the employees, Ryan was ready with another solution: “AIRCRAFT CO. 

BIDS TO BUY ARMORY,” announced a headline on June 21.41 The Aircraft Armament 

Company of Baltimore was prepared to retain the entire Armory workforce and even 

increase it to 8,000 by 1970. Yet this hope too was short-lived: by the end of August, the 

company had withdrawn its bid, effectively ending the hope of keeping the entire Armory in 

industrial production – and of solving the Armory problem in a single stroke. 

 Region), April 25, 1972 - CRBIB 406255 (SPAR: Lowenthal files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 

1972). 

39 Springfield Technical Community College, Evaluation Report of the College, submitted to New 

England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, Commission on Institutions of Higher 

Education, August, 1971, tables on pp. 139 ff. (S.T.C.C.: President’s Office files). 

40 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Federal Property Assistance Program – 13.606, 

“Draft Case Report for a Variety of Proposed Actions Affecting Armory Square of Springfield Armory, 

Including Demolition and Construction Actions (signed by Donald Branum, Regional Environmental 

Officer, and dated April 7, 1978). 

41 Government announced: Springfield Daily News, June 16, 1966. Aircraft Company: Springfield Daily 

News, June 21, 1966. 
The End of the Armory 

20 

 Yet optimism was growing in Springfield. “Armory Closing May Spur Boom,” 

enthused the Springfield Daily News in a headline on September 9: the closing was “shaping 

up as one of the greatest economic developments in the city’s history since its founding 172 

years ago.” Surveying the effects of base closures throughout New England later that fall, the 

Federal Reserve Bank reported in more measured words that “Springfield may be able to 

make a satisfactory adjustment.” By the following summer, the Economic Development 

Administration was holding up Springfield as a national example for communities 

everywhere threatened by the loss of key industries. “All in all,” said Rep. Boland, “many of 

the dire predictions about Springfield’s future have evaporated.”42

 The new optimism had several sources. One was the appearance of General Electric 

as a suitor for one of the Armory’s major complexes. GE was the fourth largest corporation, 

the third largest employer and (in dollars) the second largest Defense contractor in the 

nation. The giant corporation proposed to take over Federal Square as an extension of its 

Missile and Armament Department, based in Burlington, Vt. It would use the complex to 

make parts for the Vulcan and Minigun, weapons systems used on high-speed jets and 

helicopters in Vietnam: they were “Gatling-gun type weapons which, by means of a rotating 

cluster of six barrels can deliver more than 60000 [sic] rounds of ammunition per minute.” 

GE was ready to start production almost immediately. Such was the enthusiasm for this 

scheme that the Springfield Daily News predicted enthusiastically that the Department of 

Defense might actually speed up the closure in order to accommodate General Electric. 

Meanwhile, the city devised a plan to lease Federal Square from the Army in advance of the 

closure, then re-lease it to General Electric: after the closure, the city planned to purchase the 

buildings and continue leasing them to GE.43

 By January, 1967, General Electric had fifty Federal Square employees on its payroll 

and was gearing up for full production: “Despair Yields to Promise After Battle Over 

Armory,” according to the Springfield Sunday Republican. The following month, the 

Department of Defense began to recruit Armory workers for relocation to Rock Island, but 

the Springfield Union reported that “they haven’t found many takers.” One reason was that 

GE was hiring. Kennedy and Boland soon announced that GE’s Springfield plant had won 

yet another contract, a $4.8 million order for machine guns. By midsummer, the economic 

development consultants were predicting that the re-use of the Armory’s industrial 

properties would eventually yield as many as 3,000 new jobs and would “far exceed” the 

Armory’s contribution to the local economy. Within a year of its arrival in Springfield, the 

company could announce that it had “pumped $4.4 million” into the local economy and 

grown to 816 employees. The following spring, GE announced it would expand by leasing 

 

42 Satisfactory adjustment: Springfield Union, November 3, 1966. National example: Springfield Daily 

News, August 16, 1966. Boland: Springfield Daily News, August 28, 1966. 

43 GE statistics: Springfield Union, November 9, 1966, and Springfield Sunday Republican, January 15, 

1967. Vulcan and Mini-gun: (Springfield Union, November 10, 1967. Speed up closure: September 8, 

1966. Purchase and lease: Springfield Union, November 9, 1966. 
The End of the Armory 

21 

the Armory’s testing laboratory on Page Boulevard.44

 Nor was GE the only industrial success story. In September, 1967, Ontario 

Corporation of Muncie, Ind., which manufactured forged metal parts for jet aircraft, 

announced an agreement to purchase the forge shop at Watershops Pond. And in March, the 

Philip Hano Co., Inc., of Holyoke, manufacturer of business forms, agreed to take over the 

bulk of the Page Boulevard property. Its operations were anticipated to reach 400-500 

employees.45

 Other pieces of the Armory puzzle were also fitting into place. Watershops Pond was 

one. For many years Springfield College had used this good-sized lake for swimming, ice 

skating, “intensive camp training,” summer camps for children, zoology and conservation 

classes. The pond was a civic amenity as well as a part of the campus. So it was a relief when, 

on June 20, 1967, the Springfield Daily News announced: “CITY OFFERED WATERSHOPS 

POND: GSA Orders Use Of Area for Park.” Important financial issues remained to be settled, 

since the government was prohibited from giving the pond away, and it was not until the 

following spring that Washington announced a deal whereby it was able to offer Watershops 

Pond to the city for $2,500, a cost that the General Services Administration called “little more 

than nominal.”46

 All in all, Springfield’s fears were proving to be baseless. In fact, so dramatically had 

the climate of opinion changed that when Defense Secretary stepped down at the end of 

1968, the Springfield Herald wrote that “it felt certain warmth” towards him. “The fight to 

save the Armory was a fierce one but it did work out for the best in the long run.”47

 Throughout this period, planning for Armory Square, the Armory’s oldest and most 

architecturally notable complex, proceeded on a separate course. Public attention began to 

focus on Armory Square in June 1966 with the announcement that the Armory’s closure 

might mean the loss of the Benton Collection of historic weapons, a fixture of the Armory 

since 1862 and currently displayed in Building 27 (Figs. 1.17-18). Mayor Ryan quickly 

launched an appeal to save the museum, but Armory Square was much bigger than the 

Benton Collection, and another issue soon claimed public attention. “Portion of Armory Site 

Best Suited to College,” suggested a letter to the Springfield Union on June 7, the first public 

suggestion of what would become Springfield Technical Community College.48

 The outlines of a vision for Armory Square began to emerge later that summer when 

the mayor’s Armory Planning Committee of government officials and civic, business, and 

 

44 Despair to promise: Springfield Sunday Republican, January 15, 1967. Few takers: Springfield Union, 

February 16, 1967. 1,000 workers: Springfield Daily News, June 29, 1967. GE anniversary: Springfield 

Daily News, November 3, 1967. Lease labs: Springfield Union, March 15, 1968. 

45 Ontario Corp: Springfield Daily News, September 8, and Springfield Union, December 5, 1967. Hano: 

Springfield Daily News, March 15, 1968. Consultants: Springfield Union, July 19, 1967. 

46 Springfield College: Springfield Daily News, June 14, 1967. Nominal cost: GSA Administrator Lawson 

B. Knott, Jr., quoted in Springfield Daily News, March 15, 1968. 

47 McNamara: Springfield Herald, editorial, December 3, 1968. 

48 Springfield Daily News, June 9, 1966. 
The End of the Armory 

22 

labor leaders announced that they would seek “total utilization” of the area, with pieces 

devoted to education, industry, and recreation. They did not define the pieces, and various 

proposals came forward. The city’s public school administration suggested an “educational 

park,” whose new schools would replace aging buildings elsewhere and provide “improved 

educational opportunities to nonwhite pupils.” The Board of Park Commissioners resolved 

to acquire whatever they could: and if industry and education efforts fell through, suggested 

park superintendent Baldwin B. Lee, Armory Square could become a “city-owned, 

permanent historical park.”49

 Mayor Ryan opposed the “educational park” idea, influenced perhaps by Edmond P. 

Garvey, a member of his planning committee and, since 1949, principal of Springfield’s Trade 

High School. Garvey had recently launched a new two-year vocational college, called 

Springfield Technical Institute, at the high school50 (Figs. 1.19-20), and the Armory Planning 

Committee now began to consider converting part of Armory Square into a “state technical 

institute” to accommodate 3,000 post-high-school students, with a staff of 855. The idea 

captivated Ryan and a delegation, including Garvey, was quickly organized to present the 

case to the state Department of Education. The “main future of Greater Springfield,” Ryan 

explained, “lies in its ability to train skilled workers and technicians – a definite lure for 

business and industry....” Springfield, ran the argument, already boasted the state’s best 

Technical Institute yet was forced to turn away 600 out of every 1000 applicants for lack of 

room. Its facilities were “already hopelessly inadequate” and could not possibly support the 

kind of growth Ryan and Garvey now imagined.51

 The Committee’s “total utilization” plan had other components. It might include a 

new police headquarters. It would certainly include the Benton Collection – “the ‘best small 

arms museum in the world’” – and an idea was taking shape that the museum’s “scientific and 

technical areas” could be “expanded...to the point where it would draw tens of thousands of 

tourists and firearms experts annually.”52 But the technical institute became the centerpiece 

of planning for Armory Square. For Donald Bradford, director of the Department of 

Defense’s Office of Economic Adjustment, and an optimist about Springfield’s future, the 

technical institute proposal was the “clincher.”53

 

49 Total utilization: Springfield Union, August 11, 1966. Educational park: Springfield Union, July 26, 

1966. Historical park: Springfield Union, July 27, 1966. 

50 Sell Armory: Springfield Daily News, May 10, 1966. Criticism: Springfield Daily News, May 12, 1966. 

Garvey: Springfield Daily News, May 31, 1966, and Springfield Union, August 12, 1967. 

51 Ryan opposes educational park: Springfield Daily News, July 28, 1966. Technical institute: Springfield 

Union, September 8, 1966. 

52 Springfield Union, August 11, 1966. 

53 Springfield Daily News, September 9, 1966. 
The End of the Armory 

23 

Figures 1.17,1.18. The Benton Collection in 1967 (The Springfield Armory Project: coll. STCC). 

Figures 1.17. 1.18. The Benton Collection in 1967 (The Springfield Armory Project: collection: S.T.C.C.). 

Figure 1.17, 1.18. The Benton Collection in 1967 (The Springfield Armory Project: collection: S.T.C.C.). 
The End of the Armory 

24 

Figure 1.19. Springfield Trade High School, birthplace of Springfield Technical Institute. (The Springfield Armory 

Project: collection: S.T.C.C.).

TECHNICAL INSTITUTE IS BORN, AND THE QUESTION OF

PRESERVATION IS INTRODUCED

 Momentum grew behind the technical institute. The state’s Commissioner of 

Education declared that Springfield’s proposed educational complex, including an 

elementary school and one or more specialized high schools “could turn out to be the most 

unusual educational complex in America”: the key was the technical institute. In October, the 

Joint Civic Agencies surveyed industrial firms in Greater Springfield and found that 95 % of 

respondents said there was an “extreme need” for such an institute. Some described it is as 

the “number one need if Springfield is to have economic growth in the future.” “Plan All-Out 

Push For Tech Institute By Sept. of 1967,” announced the Springfield Daily News, and by the 

spring of that year both city and state governments, enthusiastically backed by the 

newspapers, were working at full steam to open a new campus at Armory Square: if possible, 

by that very fall.54

 What role Armory Square’s historic buildings would play in the new technical school 

was anything but clear. State Rep. Anthony M. Scibelli thought converting the buildings 

would be easy: “The shops will just become classrooms,” he told the press. But others found 

the problems daunting. When five members of the School Committee toured Armory Square 

 

54 Commissioner of Education: Springfield Union, September 30, 1966; survey: Springfield Union, 

December 22, 1966; all-out push: November 11, 1966. 
The End of the Armory 

25 

in the fall of 1966, all came away “impressed by the historical grandeur of the grounds but 

divided on whether a technical institute can be put there by next September.” The old 

buildings offered many advantages: strong floors to support heavy machinery, big loading 

doors, and fine spaces for teaching subjects like automobile mechanics. The Armory’s ample 

office space could be “turned into classrooms overnight,” and the complex even featured 

impressive telephone connections. Yet Mrs. Mary M. Lynch had “mixed emotions.” Though 

“it would be tragic to destroy any of the historic value of the place,” she thought “some of the 

buildings will definitely have to be torn down.”55 Some School Committee members also 

worried that the technical institute would not leave room in the historic complex for a high 

school or junior high school. Well might they wonder: in his speeches, Garvey projected an 

enrollment of no less than 5,000 students.56

 The likelihood that Armory Square’s historic buildings would be demolished 

increased in July of 1967, when a Pittsburgh-based consulting firm released the economic 

development report which the federal government had commissioned at the request of Rep. 

Boland and Senator Kennedy. The consultants recommended that “existing buildings be 

renovated only as an interim solution to facilities needs and that a scheduled program of 

razing and new construction be adopted.”57 They thought only three buildings out of the 

entire complex – Building 13, 16, and 20 – had any value at all. “The remaining buildings,” 

concluded the report, “are essentially single-purpose, antiquated structures which, while 

unusually well maintained, have little utility beyond their present uses.” In their place, the 

consultants offered up a master plan for “massive new construction”: over 1 million square 

feet to be built over a period of fifteen years. To accommodate this tremendous construction 

program, every building in Armory Square would have to be demolished except for the Main 

Arsenal, which could be converted into a museum.58

 The recommendations provoked little controversy, perhaps because Springfield’s 

leaders continued to feel that desperate measures were needed to assure the city’s economic 

survival. Nor had Armory Square become the preeminent symbol of the Armory’s heritage 

that it is now: it was merely one piece of a complicated puzzle. And though Mayor Ryan 

might call the new Armory Square campus “the most exciting thing to happen in the 

Connecticut Valley in many years,” to the city’s Economic Development Administration the 

 

 

55 Scibelli: Springfield Daily News, March 13, 1967; School Committee: Springfield Union November 15, 

1966. 

56 For example, Springfield Daily News, June 10, 1967. 

57 Realty Research and Consulting Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA, The Springfield Project: An ActionOriented Program for Solving the Economic Problems Created by the Phase-Out of Major Military 

Installations, U.S. Department of Commerce, July, 1967 [produced under contract to Economic 

Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, in cooperation with City of Springfield, 

Armory Planning Committee, and Office of Economic Adjustment, U.S. Department of Defense], p. 21 

(S.T.C.C.: Map Room). 

58 Ibid., pp. 57, 62. 
The End of the Armory 

26 

Figure 1.20. Students at the Institute (The Springfield Armory Project: collection S.T.C.C.). 

forge shops, Federal Square, and Page Boulevard areas all seemed much more important: 

their availability for industrial re-use was nothing less than a “‘windfall’ to the city,” and it 

was Page Boulevard, not Armory Square, that “represented the ‘plum’ of all of the Armory 

property.”59

 Meanwhile the Planning Committee’s “total utilization” plan had evolved to include 

about fourteen acres for the city’s school system to use as a physical education area. Located 

behind the Main Arsenal, along Byers and Pearl Streets, this portion of Armory Square would 

be redesigned to contain playing fields. But acquiring the land raised its own difficulties. In 

fact, quite apart from the technical institute, the city found that its Armory Square plan 

required three separate federal applications: one for the school area, one for the streets, and 

one for use of the Benton Small Arms Museum.60 As for the technical institute, city and state 

officials were working at full tilt to clear away obstacles that seemed to multiply at each step. 

By March, it was clear that the institute would have to become a state-sponsored community 

college, for which state legislation was required. From Mayor Ryan’s perspective this was not 

a bad thing, since he hoped to shed the financial burden of running the institute beyond its 

first year. But the proposal’s route through state government held out the risk of delay, and it 

 

59 Ryan: Springfield Daily News, June 10, 1967. Economic Development Administration: Springfield 

Daily News, June 21, 1967. 

60 Springfield Daily News, April 24, 1967. 
The End of the Armory 

27 

was only by dint of exceptional cooperation and acceleration of schedules that the legislation 

was adopted in time to meet strict federal deadlines. 

 Had the Armory’s closure been announced a year or so earlier, much of Armory 

Square might have been demolished, for the National Historic Landmark designation was 

voluntary and largely honorific. But on October 15, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson had 

signed the National Historic Preservation Act, whose provisions would greatly affect the 

future of Armory Square.61 NHPA created new federal preservation mechanisms and gave 

the National Park Service new preservation responsibilities, and in May, 1966, NPS Director 

George Hartzog assembled a committee to study them.62 It included Regional Director 

Ronald Lee, nearing the end of his long NPS career, and Ernest Allen Connally, who was 

destined to play an important role at the Armory. The committee began to flesh out new 

offices and divisions. To consolidate the agency’s key preservation functions, it 

recommended establishing an Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation (OAHP), and 

this Director Hartzog did early in 1967, placing Connally at its head. The office would have 

three branches, representing archeology, historic architecture, and history, and to head the 

latter Hartzog chose Robert M. Utley, a career officer known for combining “professional 

and bureaucratic skills to an uncommon degree.”63

 In addition to the OAHP, two other new units were formed to carry out entirely new 

functions. The law directed the NPS to maintain a “national register” of places and objects 

“significant in American history, architecture, archeology, and culture,” and for this a 

National Register office was created. The law also directed the NPS to create an Advisory 

Council on Historic Preservation in order to provide expert and impartial commentary on 

federal actions affecting properties listed on the new register: the process was spelled out in 

Section 106. To head the National Register unit, Hartzog brought William J. Murtagh over 

from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. For the Advisory Council, Hartzog chose 

Robert R. Garvey, Jr., the Trust’s executive director (and no relation to Springfield’s Edmond 

Garvey). 

 A key question considered by NPS officials in fall 1966 was the shape of the new 

National Register. It was clear that the NHLs would be folded into the new list, but would 

they be placed on a pedestal or simply listed along with other properties? At first, the task 

force favored calling out a group of “inviolate properties of national significance.” A paper 

was prepared arguing that all properties should be ranked according to importance and 

tagged as “must preserve,” “should preserve,’” or “desirable to preserve.” Ronald Lee 

favored a less rigid classification into national, regional, and local significance. But Connally 

 

61 P. L. 89-665, 89th Congress, S. 3035, October 15, 1966. The original law is reproduced in Barry 

Mackintosh, The National Historic Preservation Act and the National Park Service: A History, NPS, 

1986, pp. 97 ff. 

62 This and the following account are derived from Barry Mackintosh, The National Historic 

Preservation Act and the National Park Service: A History, National Park Service, History Division, 

1986, pp. 1 ff. 

63 Mackintosh, National Historic Preservation Act, 1986, p. 4. 
The End of the Armory 

28 

feared that any such ranking would render the lower tiers effectively expendable. “Rather 

than prejudging whether particular sites ‘must’ or ‘should’ be preserved,” as NPS historian 

Barry Mackintosh explains, “he preferred to weigh the public benefit of their preservation in 

the context of actions affecting them, during the review process” spelled out by Section 106. 

Adopting Connally’s position early in 1967, the task force recommended that the new 

Register be presented as “an ungraded, uncategorized list of properties arranged 

alphabetically by States.”64

 If the review process of Section 106 provided the framework for weighing the 

benefits of preservation, it also gave listing on the National Register regulatory significance 

and made the question of criteria important. For unlike the NHL program, National Register 

listing was not entirely honorific: though it imposed no specific preservation requirements, it 

did trigger a federal review.65 Section 106 required federal agencies to “take into account” the 

“effect” of any action it carried out, funded, or licensed on any place or property that was 

eligible to be “included in the National Register.” It also required heads of agencies to “afford 

the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation...a reasonable opportunity to comment with 

regard to such undertaking.”66

 To understand the impact of NHPA on the Armory, it is important to note the 

differences between the law as enacted and the amended statute familiar to most readers. A 

key difference concerned the responsibilities of agency heads. Although properties 

“included” in the Register were subject to review, agencies were not yet obliged to survey 

their holdings for properties that might be eligible for inclusion, much less to nominate them. 

Instead, NPS staff looked to state liaison officers to identify any such buildings in the course 

of the surveys they were expected to carry out. It was not until 1971 that President Nixon’s 

Executive Order 11593 directed federal agencies to “locate, inventory, and nominate” 

properties under their jurisdiction that “appear to qualify for listing...” 67 and not until 1976 

that this requirement became part of the law itself. Other amendments made federal agencies 

affirmatively responsible for taking special care to “minimize harm” to National Historic 

Landmarks and directed the Secretary of the Interior to “review and approve” all federal 

property disposition plans to ensure that architectural and historical values would be 

“preserved or enhanced.”68 All of these changes would eventually sharpen the law’s 

regulatory teeth, but as the NPS confronted the Armory’s closure and the disposition of its 

property, they lay in the future. 

 In addition to these substantive amendments, there were other procedural changes. 

In the law as enacted, no time limits were specified for the review process: later these were 

 

64 Mackintosh, National Historic Preservation Act, 1986, p. 26. 

65 This account of Section 106 is drawn from Mackintosh, National Historic Preservation Act, 1986, pp. 

79 ff. 

66 Public Law 89-665, 89th Congress, S. 3035, October 15, 1966, Sec. 106. 

67 Quoted from Mackintosh, National Historic Preservation Act, 1986, p. 38. 

68 16 U.S.C. 470h-2, quoted from Mackintosh, National Historic Preservation Act, 1986, p. 125. 
The End of the Armory 

29 

added. Another difference concerned the relationship between the Advisory Council and the 

NPS. Until 1976, the Council’s executive director was appointed by the director of the NPS, 

and his staff was drawn from the NPS. This meant that the entire process, from Register 

listing through Section 106 review, was carried out within the NPS. 

 That the National Historic Preservation Act would affect Springfield must have been 

clear. The disposition of surplus government property was a federal undertaking as defined 

by the act; the Armory was a National Historic Landmark and therefore automatically listed 

in the new National Register: therefore the impending disposition of Springfield Armory was 

subject to Section 106, and the Department of Defense would have to submit to some kind of 

preservation review. Yet the precise impact of the new law was not immediately clear. The 

NPS had been involved with the Army in a desultory discussion of the site’s future ever since 

November of 1964, when the Army sought guidance as to what if any responsibilities the 

National Historic Landmark designation imposed.69 The NPS’s answer suggested the Army 

had little to worry about, and the passage of NHPA almost two years later brought no 

immediate change. It was not until the following summer, when the state of Massachusetts 

submitted its formal application to receive most of Armory Square as a campus for the new 

Technical Institute that the law’s impacts began to be felt. 

 By then, the college and its consultants were elaborating their building and 

development plans, and in June, 1966, NPS officials learned that the Armory was at risk, 

“particularly the core historic area of Armory Square” which was earmarked for the 

Technical Institute. The discovery galvanized the NPS into action. Early the following 

month, Interior notified the General Services Administration, the agency responsible for 

most federal property dispositions, that “the historic buildings of the arsenal complex” were 

subject to NHPA. Interior also asked the GSA to impose conditions binding the new owners 

of the property to “preserve the historical and architectural integrity of the historic 

buildings,”70 but Administrator Lawson Knott replied that it was not the GSA but rather the 

Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that was responsible for disposing of Armory 

Square. As for the remainder of the Armory, Knott flatly refused to impose preservation 

conditions: it was “...industrial property” whose users would “find it necessary to alter, 

demolish and rehabilitate some or all of the buildings,” and imposing preservation 

 

 

69 J.O.L., Note for file, November 20, 1964; see also letter, William H. Cooney (Chief, Legal Office, 

Springfield Armory) to Murray H. Nelligan (Regional Chief of Interpretation), December 8, 1964; and 

memo, Regional Director, NE Region (Lee) to Director, December 24, 1964 (all Washington Office, 

NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

70 Letter, Cain to Lawson B. Knott, Jr. (Administrator, GSA), July 3, 1967 (Washington Office, Park 

History Files: folder: SPAR, Correspondence 1967-75). The letter is also paraphrased in NPS, Office of 

Archeology & Historic Preservation, “Springfield Armory: Evaluation Under Provision Of Historic 

Preservation Act 1966,” August 17, 1967, pp. ii-iii (Washington Office, Park History Files: fol. 

Correspondence 1967-75) 
The End of the Armory 

30 

requirements on them would “defeat the city’s efforts in strengthening the economy of the 

community.”71

 Early in August 1967 the NPS dispatched a team of experts to assess the Armory’s 

historic architecture and “determine its responsibilities” under NHPA. This meant 

principally deciding what should be listed on the new National Register and thereby made 

subject to Section 106. This should have been a simple matter of re-inscribing the National 

Historic Landmark designation of 1963, but that designation provided little guidance. In fact, 

the NHL boundaries themselves now required clarification: their vagueness, unimportant as 

long as the designation had been purely honorific, was becoming a serious problem. 

 The muddle had arisen in December 1964, less than a month after the announcement 

of the Armory’s closure, when its chief legal officer asked the NPS “how much of the Armory 

is considered historic under the Landmark designation.” Ronald Lee’s office informed him 

that, “of the several scattered installations embraced in the title ‘Springfield Armory,’ only the 

original tract [i.e. Armory Square] was so considered...”; and within it, only the Main, West, 

and Middle Arsenals (Buildings 13, 11, and 14), “plus those objects in the Armory museum 

which are directly associated with the history of the Armory.”72 More recently, in the 

summer of 1966, the director of Defense’s Office of Economic Adjustment had jotted down a 

list of historically significant buildings “located on Armory Square...” which must have 

reflected conversations with NPS officials: it included the Main Arsenal, Commanding 

Officer’s Quarters, Field Officers’ Quarters, and Company Officers’ Quarters from 1833 and 

1836.73 This list was a good deal longer than Lee’s. Then in May 1967 the Armory’s executive 

officer asked the NPS what was to be done with the NHL certificate and plaque affixed to 

Building 16. “It would be of great historical value to retain the Landmark status,” he noted, 

asking whether the Main Arsenal could be designated as “the Landmark” and the tablet 

affixed to its entrance.74 On the face of it this was an unlikely proposition: the fact that, at the 

dedication ceremony, the plaque had been “affixed to the wall flanking the main entrance to 

the Administration Building”75 surely meant that Building 16 was part of the NHL. Yet the 

list provided by Lee’s office in 1964 had not included it, nor had the list compiled by Defense 

the previous summer. 

 In July 1967 Interior proposed more expansive boundaries. Notifying the GSA that it 

 

71 Letter, Lawson B. Knott, Jr. (Administrator, GSA) to Stanley A. Cain, July 26, 1967 (Washington 

Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

72 Memo, Regional Director, NE Region, to Director, December 24, 1964 (Washington Office, NHL 

Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory); see also “Springfield Armory: Evaluation,” 1967, p. I, which 

refers to this definition. 

73 S.S. Bradford, Note for the Files, July 27, 1966 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. 

Springfield Armory). 

74 Letter, E.B. Gravel (Executive Officer, Armory) to Regional Director, May 12, 1967 (Lowenthal files: 

folder: Disposition of Army Museum). 

75 Memo, Regional Director to Director, April 12, 1963 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. 

Springfield Armory). 
The End of the Armory 

31 

would have to comply with NHPA, the department defined the “historic buildings of the 

arsenal complex” as “those dating from the 19th century” and claimed that all of them were 

subject to Section 106.76 Since the letter was written to assert jurisdiction within a fastmoving situation, it may be inferred that the department’s lawyers intended to stake out as 

broad a claim as possible. And it was against this background that the NPS team arrived in 

Springfield the following month. Their report concluded that as many as ten buildings, 

constituting the southeast, southwest, and northeast sides of the green or parade ground, 

plus the parade ground itself and the perimeter fence, possessed “national historical 

significance” and merited preservation as a matter “of the highest importance” (see 

Frontispiece). In addition, the report listed several other buildings as “worthy of 

preservation” and recommended that they “should be retained if possible.” A third level of 

significance included yet other buildings that possessed “architectural interest,” though the 

experts did not call for their preservation.77 

 The change in the agency’s attitude went beyond simply listing more buildings; the 

NPS now saw Armory Square as an ensemble, a “harmonious totality in which the sum is 

greater than any single part.” The report attributed that totality to the buildings’ consistent 

style and “restrained, dignified” character, the central Parade Ground that brought them 

together into an ensemble, and the “magnificent site” with its “sweeping vistas” over 

downtown.78 Yet the three-tiered hierarchy looked less like the “ungraded, uncategorized list 

of properties” ultimately adopted for the National Register than the discarded proposal to 

rank properties as “must preserve,” “should preserve,” or “desirable to preserve.” In fact, 

although the report provided a justification for the agency’s claim, a month earlier, that all of 

Armory Square’s nineteenth century buildings were historically valuable, Interior assured the 

Department of Defense that only the top tier would be listed on the National Register and 

subject to Section 106; the second and third tiers merely expressed recommendations or 

wishes.79

 The agency had now staked out, refined, and backed up its claim to Armory Square. 

Yet this was but one piece of the vast property which the Department of Defense was 

deaccessioning, and the NPS evaluation report was vague about how the National Historic 

Preservation Act might apply to the rest. It is unclear how carefully the agency surveyed and 

evaluated the rest of the Armory. The July 3 letter, in which the NPS asserted jurisdiction, 

referred specifically to the “arsenal complex,” which most likely meant Armory Square, or 

 

76 Letter, Cain to Lawson B. Knott, Jr. (Administrator, GSA), July 3, 1967 (Washington Office, Park 

History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

77 “Springfield Armory Evaluation,” 1967, pp. 19, 35, 31. 

78 “Springfield Armory: Evaluation,” 1967, pp. ii, 19, 33. 

79 Summarizing the report in a letter to Defense Secretary McNamara, Assistant Interior Secretary Cain 

said it recommended that the parade ground plus ten buildings and the fence were important enough 

to receive administrative and legal protection under the National Historic Preservation Act: i.e., the 

report’s top tier (letter, Stanley A. Cain to McNamara, August 31, 1967: Washington Office, Park 

History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 
The End of the Armory 

32 

Figure 1.21. Buildings in Federal Square continue the scale and style of Armory Square (photo: author). 

perhaps even Lee’s earlier and narrower grouping of Main, West, and Middle Arsenals. It 

almost certainly did not mean the Armory as a whole. Yet GSA seems to have thought that it 

might, for Administrator Knott’s response was to refuse to apply preservation conditions to 

the rest of the Armory.80

 Against the background of this controversy, the NPS’s evaluation report could be 

read in more than one ways. It was titled Springfield Armory – not Armory Square. It 

discussed the history and architecture of each area of the Armory,81 and Connally claimed 

later that the agency had evaluated the entire Armory.82 Yet outside Armory Square, it did 

not identify a single building as worthy of inclusion in any of its three tiers of significance. 

Did the rest of the Armory contain nothing worthy of listing on the National Register? Even 

taking into account how greatly the standards for evaluating industrial buildings such as 

those which dominated the Water Shops or Railhead areas have changed since then, this 

 

80 Letter, Lawson B. Knott, Jr. (Administrator, GSA) to Stanley A. Cain, July 26, 1967 (Washington 

Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

81 “Springfield Armory: Evaluation,” 1967, pp. 15-16. 

82 The report “relates to the entire property and was prepared as a guide for proposed use of all 

buildings within the Springfield complex that were to be disposed of to various clients.” Memo, Chief, 

Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation (Connally) to Assistant Director for State, Local and 

Private Programs, Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, January 23, 1968 (Washington Office, NHL Program 

Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 
The End of the Armory 

33 

explanation seems unlikely. As the NPS report itself noted, Federal Square and Armory 

Square together comprised a single area known historically as the Hillshops. Federal Square’s 

history began as early as 1812, and its architecture continued and complemented the 

“restrained, dignified” ensemble of Armory Square. (Fig. 1-21; see also Frontispiece, Figs. 

1.11-12.) It is hard to believe, then, that the complete exclusion of Federal Square from the 

evaluation report represented a considered judgment that nothing there was “worthy of 

preservation” or even possessed “architectural interest.” 

 Several explanations are possible. The NPS may have met the GSA’s challenge to its 

authority by insisting on the full exercise of its powers to survey and nominate properties, 

while ensuring that the substance of its recommendations would not provoke further 

conflict. Or the agency may have decided to stake its political capital where the immediate 

threat lay. Or finally, agency staff may have understood their assignment as simply to clarify 

the boundaries of an existing National Historic Landmark. This explanation gains some 

support from the history of the Register. Though the NHPA gave the NPS legal authority to 

carry out evaluations de novo, the agency had decided some months earlier not to do so: 

instead it would rely on state liaison officers to submit all Register listings other than those 

already listed as National Historic Landmarks or managed by the NPS as historical areas 

within the National Park system. The hoped-for external listings came in very slowly – only 

six in 1968 – so that the first publication of the Register in February 1969 contained little 

other than re-inscribed National Historic Landmarks and historical areas within the 

National Park system.83

 The NPS report appeared at a critical moment in the history of the new technical 

institute: the college was on a fast track to open within a matter of weeks and all effort was 

directed to fitting up the existing buildings. In June the state had selected the Springfield firm 

of Caolo and Bieniek Associates Inc. to manage the project, and it was touch and go whether 

the buildings would be ready in time.84 In the event, the newly state-chartered community 

college opened its doors on September 6 to 800 students enrolled in fourteen technical 

programs. 600 of these students, in eight programs, were accommodated within three 

buildings in Armory Square.85 “Seeing students at the old Armory,” commented the Sunday 

Republican, “did our heart good: actually it’s a rather Ivy Leaguish campus....”86 And in truth, 

the old parade ground gave the new technical institute a striking resemblance to the 

quadrangles of Yale or Harvard, New England’s pre-eminent educational institutions. 

Rehabilitation work continued during 1967-68, so that by the next fall the college could boast 

 

 

83 Mackintosh, National Historic Preservation Act, 1986, esp. pp. 25, 34. 

84 Caolo and Bieniek: Springfield Union, June 16, 1967. Buildings ready: Springfield Daily News, June 28, 

1967. 

85 Springfield Daily News, September 11, 1967. 

86 Springfield Sunday Republican, September 17, 1967. 
The End of the Armory 

34 

that “all the buildings in the Armory complex” had been refurbished and now housed a total 

of 22 career programs.87

 Despite this success, the college saw the old buildings as little more than a provisional 

solution: the earliest master plan, prepared by the city’s consultants, called for demolishing 

all of Armory Square (Fig. 1.22), while Garvey’s enrollment target of 5,000 students seemed 

to justify large-scale reconstruction. In the turmoil leading up to the college’s opening it is 

likely that the implications of the National Historic Preservation Act, Section 106, and the 

National Park Service’s interest in Armory Square had not yet sunk in. Yet the implications 

were there. All but two of the features enumerated by the report (the Main Arsenal and the 

boundary fence) lay within the portion of Armory Square earmarked for the campus. The 

report thus emerged as an unanticipated barrier to the college’s dream of an entirely modern 

campus. Not that its authors were unsympathetic to the desire for new construction. In fact, 

the report identified a substantial area to the northwest of the parade ground as available for 

development, stipulating only that new construction there “should be kept in scale and 

design harmony with buildings on the other three sides.” The authors urged the college to 

hire an architectural firm to develop a campus master plan – one presumably that did not call 

for demolishing all or most of Armory Square.88

 With General Electric operating in Federal Square and the technical institute open in 

Armory Square, key pieces of the Armory puzzle appeared to be in place. Yet as the college 

opened, the future of the Benton Collection, another essential component of the Armory 

Planning Committee’s “total utilization” plan, remained uncertain.89 And with the Armory’s 

closure just months away the pressure was mounting. 

A MUSEUM IS CREATED AND THE PROBLEM OF PRESERVATION RECONSIDERED

 The technical institute’s backers enjoyed significant advantages that the nascent 

museum lacked. Administratively, the rudiments of a technical institute already existed. 

Moreover, it boasted a strong and politically well connected leader, a ready-made 

mechanism for state adoption through the Massachusetts Board of Regional Community 

Colleges, the promise of state funding, and even the potential for creating new sources of 

support, such as the $200 tuition fee which the school imposed in June, 1967.90 The 

museum’s creators enjoyed none of these advantages. Beyond their hopes of obtaining the 

 

87 [Edmond Garvey], “President’s Message” in President’s Five Year Report, S.T.C.C., [1972] (S.T.C.C.: 

President’s Office files). 

88 “Evaluation,” p. 35. For the NPS’s findings and recommendations, see also “Summary of: ‘Springfield 

Armory: Evaluation under Provision of Historic Preservation Act, 1966,’ by Office of Archeology [sic] 

& Historic Preservation, August 17, 1967” (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Legislation). 

89 Springfield Daily News, October 9. 1967. 

90 Springfield Daily News, June 24, 1967. 
The End of the Armory 

35 

Figure 1.22. Proposed site plan for Springfield Technical Institute, prepared in 1967 by Countoris & Associates of 

Pittsburgh, PA, under contract to the city (The Springfield Armory Project: collection: S.T.C.C.). 
The End of the Armory 

36 

collection and a building in which to display it, all they had was the good will of some federal 

officials who were reluctant to see the Benton Collection leave Springfield. 

 During the summer of 1966, Mayor Ryan pleaded with the Department of Defense to 

leave the collection. “Better than any other single part of our community life,” he argued, the 

museum could remind people of the “tradition and heritage of Springfield as the small arms 

arsenal of our country from George Washington to the present.” The newspapers agreed. But 

the Department of Defense promised only that, “if it is moved, it will be moved intact.”91 In 

theory, the Army had several options. It could transfer the museum to Rock Island with other 

Armory operations, give it to the Smithsonian Institution, turn over the building and 

management of the collection to another federal agency “such as the National Park 

Service,”92 or leave it in Springfield. These options were not equally attractive. Neither the 

National Park Service nor the Rock Island options were seriously considered. The 

Smithsonian was not very encouraging. The Army soon let it be known that it would look 

favorably on a proposal to care for the collection in Springfield.93

 Federal officials encouraged and assisted local interests in keeping the collection. 

The General Services Administration provided the necessary application forms for 

“Obtaining Property for Historic Monument Purposes”; the Armory’s commanding officer 

said he was certain the city’s request would be granted. But at the end of July the application 

had not been submitted. At the beginning of October it still had not been submitted. The 

Armory’s Colonel Sweeney let it be known that he had no choice but to develop a back-up 

plan to move it to another Army installation. The GSA pleaded with the city to submit the 

forms, for “nothing much will be done by anyone until we are in receipt of your formal 

application.”94

 The delay arose in part from Springfield politics. Notwithstanding the mayor’s strong 

desire to keep the collection in town, the legal authority to accept it lay with the City Council. 

Thus when Ryan assured the GSA, late in October, that a decision had been “finally made to 

go full speed ahead in an effort to keep the museum here,”95 he must have meant that he had 

struck a deal with Council leaders. If so, what turned the tide may have been the arrival of a 

 

91 Ryan: Springfield Union, July 2, 1966. Newspapers: see, e.g., “Leave Us the Museum,” Springfield 

Union, editorial, July 7, 1966. Defense: Springfield Daily News, June 6, 1966. 

92 Joseph H. Ewing, chief, historical properties branch of the Army Military History Division, quoted in 

Springfield Daily News, June 9, 1966. 

93 Springfield Daily News, June 6, 1966. 

94 End of July: Springfield Union, July 26, 1967. Sweeney: Springfield Daily News, October 9, 1967. Jones: 

Letter, R. W. Jones to Mayor Ryan, October 19, 1967 (Lowenthal files: folder Disposition of Army 

Museum).See also letters, Oliver M. Knode, Jr., to Mayor Ryan, June 23, 1967; R. W. Jones to Ryan, 

October 19, 1967; City of Springfield, “Outline for the Proposed Retention of the Benton Small Arms 

Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts,” prepared by OEA (Office of Economic Adjustment), August 9, 

1966 (all: Lowenthal files: folder: Disposition of Army Museum). 

95 Letter, Mayor Ryan to R. W. Jones (Regional Director, Property Mgmt and Disposal Service, GSA, 

Boston), October 24, 1967 (Lowenthal files: folder: Disposition of Army Museum). 
The End of the Armory 

37 

consultant’s fundraising report which the Museum Committee had been expecting.96 The 

report confirmed what the committee had known for months: that “establishing a sufficiently 

large endowment” to care for a collection of more than 10,000 objects would be difficult at 

best, and that a “major fund drive” would be needed. It also confirmed the opinion of the 

Springfield Union’s editors that keeping the museum was “shaping up as a tough and 

expensive job.” Yet the report concluded that it could be done. A sum of $500,000 would be 

needed to rehabilitate the Main Arsenal, with “new heating and lighting systems, parking 

facilities, driveways, offices, display cases, rest rooms, and other items....” The committee 

thought it would be best to raise the target, for as committee chair Oliver Knode put it, 

“$750,000 would be much better....You can never have too much money for this sort of 

thing.” Then there was the need to raise operating funds on a scale sufficient to carry the 

museum until it “becomes self-supporting, which might take as long as five years.”97

 In the end, the Museum Committee launched a fund drive with a target of $650,000, 

and this was apparently the step the City Council had been waiting for. In November, the 

mayor convened a special session for the Council to consider resolutions authorizing the city 

to accept land, buildings, and collections for the museum.98 From the Army’s perspective, 

this was the last chance to keep the collection in Springfield. The Council approved the plan. 

As Mayor Ryan wrote to the local GSA official in charge, “...we are all quite elated over this 

decision.”99

 The committee now focused on other pressing matters, such as completing the 

necessary incorporation papers and federal forms and creating a board of trustees for the 

new non-profit organization. Problems of space and facilities also had to be solved. The guns 

were stored and displayed in Building 27, at the north corner of the Parade Ground, but 

Knode thought the structure was “too small and hasn’t enough facilities to properly display 

the collection.”100 Moreover, it was not certain that Building 27 would be available to the 

museum. Garvey denied published reports that he had staked a claim to the building,101 but 

museum planning proceeded on the assumption that it would belong to the college. Perhaps 

the museum was just as glad to claim the much grander Main Arsenal building. In any case, 

 

96 SWESP-DC, Disposition Form for Meeting, s. Mills (Lowenthal files: folder: Disposition of Army 

Museum). 

97 “Major fund drive”: Springfield Union, August 24, 1967. Springfield Union’s opinion: November 1, 

1967. $500,000 figure: Springfield Daily News, August 24, 1967. Knode: Springfield Daily News, October 

24, 1967. Self-supporting: Springfield Daily News, October 23, 1967. 

98 Springfield Daily News, November 21, 1967; see also “Draft of Resolution for Springfield City 

Council,” n.d. [1967], n.p. (Lowenthal files: folder: City Acquisition of Site, 1967 - CRBIB 406.242). 

99 Army perspective: SWESP-DC, Disposition Form for Meeting on Status of Museum, November 13, 

1967, signed by Major Charles S. Mills, Jr. (Lowenthal files: folder Disposition of Army Museum). 

Ryan: letter, Mayor Ryan to R. W. Jones (Regional Director, Property Management, and Disposal 

Service, GSA, Boston), October 24, 1967 (Lowenthal files: folder: Disposition of Army Museum). 

100 Springfield Daily News, August 24, 1967. 

101 See SWESP-DC, Disposition Form for Meeting, signed Mills. 
The End of the Armory 

38 

the shift of venue entailed problems. For reasons of cost and collection care the GSA advised 

against moving the collections into the Main Arsenal before the renovations were 

complete,102 and Garvey promised that the Massachusetts Board of Regional Community 

Colleges (MBRCC) would look after the collection if the new quarters were not ready on 

time. But the museum chose to move the collection in December, while federal staff and 

money were still available,103 and so in January, 1968, the museum – though still in care of the 

U.S. Army – reopened in the Main Arsenal building.104

 While surmounting many practical obstacles, museum boosters also succeeded in 

defining a public rationale for the museum. Whereas the school was intended to perpetuate 

Springfield’s industrial leadership, museum backers planned for a future of tourism. Boosters 

claimed the museum was “destined to become one of the major tourist attractions in the 

Northeast.” City Councilor Frank H. Freedman, who was running for mayor, predicted it 

would become “a symbol of our heritage” and, more importantly, “an important tourist 

attraction as we build up our tourist and convention trade.” Knode explained that “by 

establishing the gun museum...we will be retaining for the city the most significant symbol of 

its heritage....” Placing the new attraction within the old Armory would further “enhance its 

tourist appeal.”105 Moreover, noted the City Council, housing it in the Main Arsenal and 

Commanding Officer’s Quarters would give it “the most honored, treasured and recognized 

buildings at the Armory....”106

 Linking the museum with Springfield’s heritage helped define a positive relationship 

between the museum and its physical plant that was quite different from the technical 

institute’s. By praising the historical significance of their own buildings, museum backers did 

not mean to denigrate the rest of Armory Square, but their consultants – who also developed 

the college’s master plan – intended precisely this. While their report praised the two 

buildings earmarked for the museum as “rich in historic lore” and endowed with “unique 

architectural features”107 like the Main Arsenal’s spiral stairway (Fig. 1.23) it urged the 

technical institute to demolish the rest of Armory Square. The claim that the museum 

buildings were special seemed to support the argument that the others were expendable. 

 By the fall of 1967, many people were coming to see the museum as the preservation 

component of Armory Square. Though the NPS’s evaluation report called strongly for 

preservation of at least eight campus buildings plus the parade ground and fence, museum 

backers’ believe that their end of Armory Square would be the only portion to survive did not 

 

102 Letter, R. W. Jones to Mayor Charles V. Ryan, Jr., October 19, 1967 (Lowenthal files: folder: 

Disposition of Army Museum). 

103 See SWESP-DC, Disposition Form for Meeting, signed Mills. 

104 Springfield Daily News, January 6, 1968. 

105 Springfield Daily News, October 25, 1967. 

106 “Draft of Resolution for Springfield City Council,” n.d. [1967], p. [11] (Lowenthal files: folder: City 

Acquisition of Site, 1967 - CRBIB 406.242). 

107 Realty Research, Springfield Armory Project, pp. 102, 103. 
The End of the Armory 

39 

Figure 1.23. The spiral stair of Building 13 (photo: author). 

immediately change. Knode told Connally that reading the report made him wish for the 

preservation of the rest of Armory Square, “but,” he concluded, “I suppose that is too much to 

hope for.”108 In any case, the report supported the decision of museum backers to preserve 

the Main Arsenal and Commanding Officers’ Quarters, and museum officials believed it 

would help them raise funds.109

 Despite their appreciation of the NPS report, the museum’s physical plan was not 

entirely in harmony with its recommendations. The Main Arsenal’s modest entrance 

doorway, located at the base of the central tower, faced the parade ground: the rear facade 

was quite unadorned (Fig. 1.24). But museum planners believed the museum needed a “major 

new entrance facing downtown Springfield,”110 and so the consultants designed an imposing 

new entrance feature, a six-column portico or “column facade” which they proposed to 

remove from Building 16 as soon as it was demolished. They also called for new stair towers 

on the ends of the buildings, to be ornamented with pilasters and built with “brick from 

razed buildings”111 (Figs. 1.25-26). 

 

108 Letter, Oliver M. Knode, Jr., to Ernest Allen Connally, January 22, 1968 (Lowenthal files: folder: 

Disposition of Army Museum). 

109 Letter, Connally to Kalmbach, January 8, 1968. A copy of the report was sent to Eisenhower on 

January 9. (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

110 “Draft of Resolution for Springfield City Council,” n.d. [1967], p. [10]. 

111 Realty Research, op. cit., pp. 109, 108. 
The End of the Armory 

40 

Figure 1.24. The rear facade of Building 13 (photo: author). 

 The consultants proposed other changes. To provide “mass appeal” and satisfy the 

“typical New England tourist,” they urged the new museum to broaden its scope, to 

demonstrate a “total former way of life.” It would be good to have a “pre-Civil War New 

England general store,” and towards this end they suggested moving one of Armory Square’s 

surplus buildings into the “museum complex.” “[S]ome kind of early New England living 

history demonstration” would also be attractive, “such as pottery or craft manufacture, 

candy making, bakery, or gun smithing.” The museum could sell the craft objects thus 

produced. To provide an appropriate shop, the museum could buy a historic building from 

elsewhere and move it onto the museum site.112 The city authorities earmarked $45,000 for 

doing so, and for other improvements including renovating the Commanding Officer’s 

Quarters “for public use” and equipping these or other buildings “as Revolutionary general 

store, craft shops, or gift shop”113 (Fig. 1.27) 

 These ideas came from Old Sturbridge Village, which the consultants of Realty 

Research had discovered was the region’s “single most important draw.” The consultants 

were captivated by this recreation of a typical New England village of 1790-1840, complete 

with 36 houses, shops, mills, and meetinghouses on a 200-acre site.114 Sturbridge 

 

112 Realty Research, op. cit., pp. 100-101. 

113 “Draft of Resolution for Springfield City Council,” p. 10. 

114 Realty Research, op. cit., pp. 135. 
The End of the Armory 

41 

Figure 1.25. The consultants’ proposal for the Armory Museum, with a new portico facing downtown: 

prepared in 1967 by Donald E. Nye, under contract to the city. The new S.T.C.C. buildings, imagined in steel 

and glass, can be seen in the background (from The Springfield Armory Project: collection S.T.C.C.). 

offered a financial as well as a curatorial model, and the consultants stressed that its income 

from craft sales exceeded that from ticket receipts. In Springfield they imagined a miniature 

version of Old Sturbridge Village; and though it might contain no more than three or four 

buildings, on a mere five acres, it too would have the capacity to generate “substantial 

supplementary income” from craft demonstrations and sales.115

 This plan came to the attention of the National Park Service in November 1967, two 

months after the agency had released its evaluation report, when the City of Springfield 

submitted its draft application for land and buildings to the General Services 

administration.116 The NPS’s response was diplomatic but firm. In conveying federal 

property for museum or historic monument purposes, Ernest Allen Connally told the 

Department of Defense, the “recipient is strictly bound to maintain the historic integrity of 

the property.” Adding a portico to the Main Arsenal would “seriously affect” that integrity. It 

would be best to leave the building alone; or if a new entrance were needed, to reconstruct its 

original one-story, four-column, portico. The fire towers should be incorporated within the 

 

115 Realty Research, op. cit., p. 102. 

116 The plan was presented to the Army at a meeting on November 13 but may not have reached the 

NPS until sometime after. (See SWESP-DC, Disposition Form for Meeting on Status of Museum, 

November 13, 1967, signed by Major Charles S. Mills, Jr. [Lowenthal files: folder: Disposition of Army 

Museum]). 
The End of the Armory 

42 

Figures 1.26, 1.27. Elevations of Museum, showing proposed new portico and stair towers 

(above), and proposed plan of Museum complex (below) (from The Springfield Armory Project: 

collection S.T.C.C.). 
The End of the Armory 

43 

building, so as to “avoid altering its distinct, authentic architectural mass.” As for the 

Sturbridge Village components, introducing “extraneous structures (historic though they 

may be) that never in fact existed on the site” would “constitute a serious impairment of the 

historic scene. A Revolutionary general store, gift shop, etc., would be especially repugnant.” 

These features, Connally told the Department of Defense (in what was surely a tactful 

understatement) “would cast some doubt on the prospect of a favorable report.”117

 The disagreement never reached that stage. By the middle of December, Knode and 

his architect had abandoned all points of contention: “they wanted only a sales counter in the 

museum” and would use the Commanding Officer’s Quarters as a house museum, for which 

a ladies’ committee was seeking furnishings. They would import no buildings from 

elsewhere. 

DISPOSING OF FEDERAL PROPERTY, EXERCISING FEDERAL OVERSIGHT

 As 1968 opened, the major pieces of the “total utilization” plan for Armory Square 

were ready to fit into place. The technical institute, the museum, and the city’s school system 

all were ready to accept portions of the property as soon as the Department of Defense could 

transfer them. On the federal side too, important questions had been settled. While the 

General Services Administration would handle the disposition of property to the city, the 

Department of Health, Education, and Welfare would transfer the college campus to the 

state. The Department of the Interior, acting through the National Park Service, would 

coordinate a review under the requirements of NHPA. 

 All that remained now was the actual transfer of property. Yet, that was no mere 

formality. The involvement of four federal agencies, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 

and the city of Springfield, guaranteed some confusion. The law itself added further 

complexity. The museum’s rapid capitulation in the fall of 1967 was symptomatic. The 

museum needed Interior’s approval before it could formally apply for the land, buildings, 

and collection: it could not get that approval with the consultants’ plan.118 Yet it was not, as 

one might think, NHPA that gave Interior this power but rather the Federal Property and 

Administrative Procedures Act of 1949. This law spelled out the terms under which federal 

agencies could transfer property to city and state governments. One provision, concerning 

the transfer of real property for “school, classroom, or other educational use,” gave HEW 

authority to ensure that the instrument of transfer – the title deed – conformed with 

applicable laws, and to “determine and enforce compliance” with its terms. Another 

 

117 Letter, Ernest Allen Connally (Chief, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation) to Donald F. 

Bradford (Director, Office of Economic Adjustment, Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense, 

December 8, 1967 (Lowenthal files: folder: City Acquisition of Site, 1967). 

118 See, e.g., memo, Chief, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation (Ernest Allen Connally) to 

Chief Historian, December 29, 1967 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR, 

Correspondence 1967-75) and letter, R. W. Jones to Connally, December 18, 1967 (Lowenthal files: 

folder: Disposition of Army Museum). 
The End of the Armory 

44 

provision gave the Secretary of the Interior comparable authority over the transfer of real 

property for parks, recreation areas, or historic monuments.119

 Though NHPA applied to both transfers, the Federal Property and Administrative 

Procedures Act made it clear that the path to long-term preservation solutions was through 

the title deeds, the only legal instruments that could permanently subject the recipients of the 

property to conditions imposed by the federal government. The NPS would, therefore, focus 

on the title deeds. Yet at the same time, these provisions also ensured that the college and 

museum transfers would follow different paths, for the property transfer rules gave Interior 

an important role to play in the museum transfer, none at all in the college transfer. 

 Despite the preeminent important of the 1949 act, Interior officials felt there was 

much riding on the exercise of NHPA in Springfield. The Armory was one of the first 

significant federal properties to be transferred out of federal ownership following the act’s 

adoption, and an Assistant Secretary of Interior told Defense Secretary McNamara that the 

application of Section 106 in Springfield was “unusually important because in many respects 

it will serve as a precedent for future Federal property dispositions.”120 Moreover, the 

“complex character of the Springfield case” gave Interior officials special reason to focus on 

it.121 Finally, the Armory’s historical connection with George Washington and with two 

centuries of American war-making gave it unusual symbolic stature. 

 Interior had begun to apply NHPA in July with its blunt assertion of jurisdiction, 

followed by the evaluation report. Formal discussions began at the end of August, and by 

October, Connally could report that both Defense and HEW were “accommodating to the 

intent of the Act,” their staffs “very cooperative.”122 Nevertheless, Defense’s Donald 

Bradford, who had been helping Springfield officials prepare for the closure, put his finger 

on the weakness of Section 106 when he assured Interior officials at a meeting that Defense 

foresaw “no difficulties in meeting both the historical and educational objectives to an 

acceptable degree.” The reason this was easy to promise was that the law required very little 

of Defense: only that 

no exterior change is made to the properties in Armory Square 

recommended for preservation without first obtaining the comment 

of the Department of the Interior and/or the Advisory Council on 

Historic Preservation.123 

 

119 40 U.S.C. 484(k)(2)(E)i-iii) and (k)(1)(A) and (2)(A) (1964 edition). 

120 Letter, Stanley A. Cain (Assistant Secretary, DoI) to Robert S. McNamara, August 31, 1967 

(Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

121 (Letter, Stanley A. Cain to John W. Gardner (Sec HEW), August 31, 1967 (Washington Office, Park 

History Files: folder: SPAR, Correspondence 1967-75). 

122 Memo, Chief, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation (Connally) to Assistant Secretary for 

Fish and Wildlife and Parks, October 20, 1967 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1967-75). 

123 Letter, Donald F. Bradford (DoD, Director, Economic Adjustment) to Stanley A. Cain, September 

13, 1967 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 
The End of the Armory 

45 

Not everyone at Interior was willing to accept such a permissive reading of the law. “Is 

Bradford right about the legal aspect?” an upset Interior official asked Connally. “It isn’t 

enough that we have a chance to comment .... We need to enforce compliance.”124

Unfortunately, Bradford was right. As Connally explained, Interior had “no authority to 

enforce compliance beyond pointing out this provision of law,” which the agency was 

doing.125 Bradford’s deputy put it nicely in an internal memorandum: 

...the commitment would be simply to pause and reflect before 

demolishing or altering a historic structure, seeking the advice of 

the Council during the period of reflection.126

 While Interior sought preservation gains, both Defense and HEW pursued their 

departmental interests, and those of the new college, with persistence. That meant resisting 

efforts to impose restrictions. “All were agreed,” summarized Defense’s official record of an 

August 29 meeting, 

that preservation of the historical environment at Armory Square is 

desirable, to the extent that this can be accomplished within the 

educational criteria of DHEW and practical operating and monetary 

limitations which restrict the freedom of action of the 

Commonwealth and the Institute.127 

Though Bradford was willing to “urge” the state towards preservation, he reminded 

Connally that the “primary concern” was to allow the technical institute to open immediately 

in Armory Square without being tied down to specifics about the future.128 For its part, HEW 

readily agreed to “require” the Massachusetts Board of Regional Community Colleges to 

“acknowledge...the historical significance” of the Armory, as well as Interior’s 

recommendations, in its property application. It also promised to require the state to 

submit any plans affecting the exterior historical and 

architectural integrity of the historic buildings and parade 

ground which are not in keeping with your determinations to the 

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation for comment.129

 

124 Memo, Assistant Secretary (Fish, Wildlife and Parks) to Connally, September 21, 1967 (Washington 

Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

125 Memo, Chief, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation (Ernest Connally) to Assistant 

Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks (Stanley Cain), October 20, 1967. 

126 [McCarthy C.] Nowlin [Deputy Director, Office of Economic Adjustment], Memorandum for the 

Record, August 29, 1967 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-

75). 

127 Nowlin, Memo for the Record, August 29, 1967. 

128 Letter, Donald F. Bradford (DoD, Director, Economic Adjustment) to Stanley A. Cain, September 

13, 1967 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

129 Letter, Donald F. Simpson (Assistant Secretary for Administration, HEW) to Stanley A. Cain 

(Assistant Secretary, Fish, Wildlife and Parks), September 15, 1967 (Washington Office, Park History 

Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 
The End of the Armory 

46 

Still, Assistant Secretary Simpson reminded the NPS that college enrollment might eventually 

exceed 5,000 and that, even at current levels, the campus’s acreage-to-student ratio was “far 

below recognized educational standards....” Simpson, like Bradford, was putting Interior on 

notice that HEW was unwilling to tie the state’s or the college’s hands with long-range 

commitments. 

 Connally nonetheless asked HEW to include in the property conveyance a 

“restriction requiring preservation” of the elements identified in the evaluation report.”130

Given that HEW frequently prohibited recipients of federal buildings from altering them 

without its consent for up to twenty years,131 this was not an unreasonable request. But HEW 

said it was “not customary” for the department to place “such lengthy restrictions in deeds” 

as Interior requested: instead, HEW offered to incorporate the NPS report in the college’s 

official “use-plan,” which would be referenced in the title deed. Thus the NPS’s 

recommendations would be “acknowledged in the transfer.”132 Since by this time the college 

had already submitted its application, HEW asked the state to amend it, and the amendment 

was accordingly delivered in March, 1968:133

AMENDMENT 

TO 

APPLICATION FOR ARMORY SQUARE SITE 

SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 

The Board of Regional Community Colleges acknowledges the 

historical significance of the Springfield Armory property. We 

shall be happy to submit any plans affecting the historical and 

agricultural [sic] integrity of the historic buildings to the Advisory 

Council on Historic Preservation for comment, as required by 

Sec. 106 of Public Law 89-665. We cannot, however, accept 

requirements which would limit good educational utilization of 

the property. 

 In the event of reconstruction of the exterior of any of 

the buildings or total demolishing of such buildings, we shall be 

happy to preserve such photographs, plaques and models as may 

be available. 

 It is our intent to maintain the iron fence as it now is. 

It is also our intention to preserve the parade ground as an open 

or recreational area to the fullest extent possible. 

 

130 Memo, Chief, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation (Connally) to Assistant Secretary for 

Fish, Wildlife and Parks, October 20, 1967 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1967-75). 

131 Nowlin, Memo for the Record, August 29, 1967. 

132 Memo, Chief, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation (Connally) to Assistant Secretary for 

Fish, Wildlife and Parks, October 20, 1967 (Washington Office, Park History Files, folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1967-75). 

133 “Amendment to Application for Armory Square Site, Springfield, Massachusetts, signed William G. 

Dwyer and dated March 26, 1968. See also cover letter of Dwyer to Edward G. Bradley (HEW), March 

26, 1968 (Lowenthal Files: fol. Duplicate Land Records). 
The End of the Armory 

47 

 The amendment met the formal terms of HEW’s commitment. Yet as a preservation 

guarantee it was worth little or nothing. The Board made no commitment whatsoever to 

protect the buildings and, instead, once more asserted its unlimited right to do whatever it 

thought would promote “good educational utilization” of the property. 

 The state deed was signed in the spring of 1968. It bound the state, for a period of 

thirty years, to use the transferred property “continuously in the manner and for the 

educational purposes set forth in the approved program and plan” (i.e. the application and 

amendment), “and for no other purpose.” Though no penalty for breaching this condition 

was specified, the risk was implicit that the federal government might repossess the 

property.134

 Interior had more sway over the museum deed. Signed in May, it provided 

substantial preservation assurances. It bound the city (and anyone providing services to it) to 

assure the property’s “continuous use” and, even more significant, its “maintenance” as a 

“historic monument”; conferred an affirmative obligation to “take and continue to take such 

action” as needed to assure this; and forbade the city from transferring the property to 

another entity unless Interior was satisfied that the new owner could continue to meet these 

terms. Unlike the college deed, these terms did not expire after thirty years but ran with the 

land forever.135

 On April 30, 1968, the last employees left Springfield Armory. The forges, rail sidings, 

laboratories, firing ranges, storerooms, administrative offices, the officers’ quarters and the 

officers’ club, went silent. Over the next few months, the pieces of the Armory were formally 

conveyed to their new owners. The result looked like this:136

Armory Square: 

 • About 5 acres conveyed by Interior to Springfield for museum 

use. 

• About 13 acres conveyed by HEW to Springfield for educational 

use by School Department. 

• About 34 acres conveyed by HEW to the Commonwealth of 

Massachusetts for establishment of Springfield Technical 

Community College.

 

 

134 “Deed Without Warranty,” 3356:315, May 31, 1968 (Lowenthal Files: fol. Duplicate Land Records). 

135 [Deed], 3339 page 236, signed and dated May 27, 1968 (Lowenthal Files: fol. Duplicate Land 

Records). 

136 Information mostly as given by HEW, Federal Property Assistance Program – 13.606, “Draft Case 

Report for a Variety of Proposed Actions Affecting Armory Square of Springfield Armory,” 1978, pp. 5-

7. 
The End of the Armory 

48 

Federal Square: 

• 17.88 acres sold by GSA to Springfield in September, 1968, and 

leased to General Electric. 

Forge Shops: 

• 3.71 acres sold by GSA to Springfield in May, 1968, to lease for 

industrial purposes. 

• 3.8 acres dedicated by GSA for roadways and given to Springfield 

in September, 1968, for public streets. 

Railhead: 

• 24.11 acres sold by GSA to Springfield for industrial development 

in September, 1968. 

Water Shops: 

• 222 acres conveyed by Interior for park purposes in 1969. 

• Two adjoining parcels conveyed to Springfield by GSA in 

December 1968 and April 1969. 

POSTSCRIPT TO THE PROLOGUE

 The mood in Springfield had lifted, in three and a half years, from despair and anger 

to optimism. An overwhelming problem had been solved, and the solution brought benefits 

to many groups. Industry would keep much of the Armory in productive use. Watershops 

Pond would continue to be a public amenity, the school system would gain new athletic 

fields, the city would gain a new and dynamic institution in Springfield Technical 

Community College, the museum would remain and even grow, and the Main Arsenal would 

continue to rise over downtown Springfield. The National Park Service had also 

demonstrated its ability to apply NHPA in an unusually demanding situation and with 

creditable results. 

 Nevertheless, this impressive solution contained the seeds of later problems. City 

fathers, economic development consultants, the General Services Administration, and the 

National Park Service ended by agreeing (though not necessarily for the same reasons) that 

Armory Square was in a class by itself, distinct even from the adjacent Federal Square. This 

perception was strengthened by the NPS’s evaluation report which, while doing much to 

save Armory Square, also supported the emerging notion that the rest of the Armory was not 

worth preserving and left uncontested the GSA’s claim that preservation controls would 

impede the industrial reuse of the other areas. Later events suggest that a more aggressive 

preservation posture might have been possible and even helpful, for the first effort at 

industrial reuse collapsed quickly, and without any help from preservation: later the 

buildings were rehabilitated as a technology incubator, and they have been better maintained 

than parts of the college campus. Yet details ranging from landscaping to window glazing 

might have been handled with more regard for history if Federal Square’s value had been 

acknowledged in 1967. 

 By validating the notion that Armory Square contained everything important to 

preserve in the Armory’s history, the NPS unintentionally diminished that history in another 

way. Armory Square represented only a fraction of the Armory’s history. The Armory’s work 
The End of the Armory 

49 

was designing and making guns, and increasingly that work went on in huge factory 

buildings, ever more sophisticated and massive equipment. The sheer heft of the Armory’s 

historical presence was perhaps better conveyed by the Water Shops, the railhead, or even 

the back half of Federal Square, than by the “Ivy Leaguish” and genteel Armory Square. So 

while Armory Square came to represent the Armory’s history, it also came in some ways to 

misrepresent it. 

 Even within Armory Square, problems were developing. One concerned the thirteenacre hillside behind the Museum. Conveyed to the city for us by the school system, the area 

was partially filled and leveled in 1969 for athletic fields. Yet within a few years it would 

become apparent that the work had reactivated an old spring, causing drainage problems. 

Moreover, it prompted the removal of specimen trees, the destruction of much of Colonel 

Ripley’s terraced landscaping, and the removal of historic circulation routes, including part 

of the original entrance road from the Byers and Pearl Street gateway. These changes would 

prove substantial obstacles to later efforts to restore the historic landscape.137

 Perhaps more serious was the divergence between the two major components of the 

mayor’s “total utilization” plan, the college and the museum. The college was a powerhouse, 

with dynamic leadership, state backing, prospects of significant funding, and expansive plans. 

The museum suffered from uncertain financial prospects, questionable public and official 

support, an untested organization, and plans of debatable realism. 

 The two institutions diverged just as markedly in their attitudes to the historic 

buildings given to them by the federal government. The museum was delighted to have them 

and was seen by many as the preservation component of Armory Square. Its short-lived “Old 

Sturbridge Village” proposal did not reflect hostility to the historic buildings so much as 

uncertainty about the institution’s mission. And in defeating it, the NPS probably saved the 

museum from a costly and embarrassing error, since it is hard to see how a scaled-down 

restoration village tucked away at the back of a college campus could ever have succeeded. 

Still, at the end of the scuffle, the thesis behind the theme park proposal – that the public 

would not flock to see a collection of guns pure and simple – remained uncontested. The 

museum now faced a challenge and an opportunity: it could expand its scope within the 

envelope of existing buildings, or it could accept the Benton Small Arms Collection for what 

it was and become simply a gun museum. The resolution of this dilemma would come later. 

 Unlike the museum, the college was hostile to the historic buildings from the outset, 

seeing them as nothing more than temporary lodgings, an institutional launching pad. The 

consultants called for their demolition, and only the NPS and its parent agency, the 

Department of the Interior, opposed this program. Once alert to the college threat, the NPS 

responded quickly. Yet the agency may have paid a price for waiting as long as it did. 

Completed on August 17, 1967, and distributed later that month, the report appeared at an 

 

137 Land transfer: Springfield Daily News, February 13, 1968; consequences of work: “Proposed 

Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts: A Draft Master Plan,” Office of 

Environmental Planning and Design, Eastern Service Center, June 1971, pp. 8, 9, 37 (Washington 

Office, Planning Files). 
The End of the Armory 

50 

awkward moment. For as the college opened its doors on September 6, it can safely be 

assumed that few officials in Springfield had yet studied this list of “which buildings should 

be regarded as urgently requiring preservation and which, should it become necessary, might 

be regarded as expendable.”138

 The dangers implicit in this situation may not have been obvious. The federal 

government would not actually dispose of the property for many months. In the meantime, 

the school was merely a tenant. And as an HEW official assured the NPS, there was “no 

immediate question of altering the buildings” identified in the report. It would be “several 

years” before the college could adopt a new master plan, and since the implementation of any 

such plan would probably be assisted by federal funds (qualifying therefore as a federal 

undertaking) it would be subject to review by the NPS and the Advisory Council under 

Section 106.139 Still, none of this changed the fact that the school had effectively gained 

possession of Armory Square without feeling the weight of federal preservation regulation. 

Buoyed by strong public and official support, college leaders may have come to feel that the 

campus was truly theirs, free of federal oversight. Thus when oversight eventually came, it 

was perceived as interference, as in 1976, when college officials expressed their resentment 

of construction delays caused “by the intervention of historical groups and by the National 

Park Service.”140 The college’s attitude would lead to the demolition of several historic 

buildings and to a long legacy of distrust between the college and the NPS. 

 Still, the consequences of carrying out the evaluation report earlier could have been 

worse, for if it had not been prompted by the urgency of the college threat, it might have 

confirmed Ronald Lee’s judgment that the NHL was limited to three buildings. Once 

published, that judgment would have been very hard to retract. And without the evaluation 

report’s strong endorsement of Armory Square’s ten buildings, its parade, its perimeter 

fence, and above all its “harmonious totality,” it is conceivable that most, if not all, of the 

campus would eventually have been demolished. 

 

138 Letter, Stanley A. Cain to John W. Gardner (Sec HEW), August 31, 1967 (Washington Office, Park 

History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

139 Memo, Chief, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation (Connally) to Assistant Secretary for 

Fish, Wildlife and Parks, October 20, 1967 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1967-75). 

140 Springfield Technical Community College, Evaluation Report of the College, submitted to New 

England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, Commission on Institutions of Higher 

Education, August, 1976, pp. 164-165 (S.T.C.C.: President’s Office files). 
51

CHAPTER TWO

THE CREATION OF THE PARK

 If all had gone according to plan, the story would now be over: there would have 

been no national park. But things did not go according to plan. By 1970, major parts of the 

Armory solution had unraveled. General Electric was leaving. Federal Square was in collapse. 

The city’s new ballfields were a failure. And by 1970, museum President Larry Lewis was 

panicked: the museum’s fundraising campaign had failed and the museum was on its last legs. 

Only the college seemed to be successful: all too successful, if one cared about Armory 

Square. The cry was now for a new and radically different solution: enter the National Park 

Service. 

 The story that now unfolds is complex, for the process of establishing the new 

national park unit immediately became entangled with other threads. Authorizing legislation, 

introduced in 1970, required the NPS to negotiate agreements with the Army and with the 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and each of these negotiations involved its own 

complications. Negotiations with the state were further complicated by the fact that 

Springfield Technical Community College chose this moment to put its building plans in 

motion – plans that called for demolishing historic buildings and constructing large new ones 

in the heart of Armory Square. These plans triggered further governmental processes, such as 

the Section 106 review process spelled out by the recently adopted National Historic 

Preservation Act. This in turn caused further complications, since the review process turned 

on defining the boundaries of the National Historic Landmark, and this had never been 

done. 

 Spinning these intricate threads were three federal agencies, plus the U.S. Congress, 

the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the City of Springfield. Yet, underneath the 

complexities lay a simple but uncomfortable fact: the federal government’s move to include 

the college campus within a new park came just as the college sought to initiate its ambitious 

building plans. Given the campus’s existing status as a National Historic Landmark, conflict 

was virtually inevitable. But, without the park, it would have been less complex and might 

have had a different outcome. The park proposal raised the stakes for both sides at the same 

time that it brought in Congress as an additional party. Making everything yet more fraught, 

each of the players was motivated by a sense of urgency. The City of Springfield desperately 

wished to keep the failing museum in Springfield; the college was implacably determined to 

build while the funds were available; as for the NPS, a complex web of motivations produced 

internal contradictions, for protecting a National Historic Landmark, establishing a park, 

capturing current appropriations, and satisfying Congress sometimes called for different 

approaches. It took seven years to resolve these conflicts. 
The Creation of the Park 

52

LEGISLATION IS INTRODUCED: 1970 

 Some NPS staffers claimed they had foreseen, as early as 1967, that the museum 

would someday collapse and the Service rescue it.1

 But the drive to create a park was 

launched by one man, museum President Larry Lewis. It was May of 1970 when Lewis 

approached Charles G. Carothers, III, deputy assistant secretary of the Interior, to discuss 

the museum’s “plight.”2

 Carothers replied that the museum might be eligible for one of the 

preservation grants that had become available under the National Historic Preservation Act, 

but that was not where Lewis was driving. “... [I]t would seem obvious at this point,” he 

wrote, “that we must begin the long process of becoming part of the National Park 

Service....”3

 The Museum’s situation was dire. The fundraising campaign had scraped together no 

more than about $200,000 of the $500,000-$650,000 initially projected. “Wide-spread public 

feeling about guns in the wake of the events of the past few years” was blamed for the failure,4

and in truth it was not a good time to be raising money for a gun museum. Martin Luther 

King, Jr., was shot down in 1968, Robert F. Kennedy the same year, President John F. 

Kennedy, Malcolm X and any number of other Civil Rights campaigners before them. The 

cities were in flames. The Museum encountered other obstacles: the defense industry was 

sliding into recession,5

 many companies had already committed their charitable dollars, and 

the Museum found itself competing for scarce dollars with “several Army museums on Army 

posts.”6 In addition to hurting the museum’s fundraising, Lewis felt that the assassinations 

were driving visitation down.7

 Even during the summer tourist season, admission fees totaled 

no more than $1200 per month; income from the sale of souvenirs was inconsequential. And 

 

1

 According to Memo Appleman to Connolly, June 19, 1970 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files, 

fol. Springfield Armory). Note also the 1967 Evaluation Report’s recommendation (p. 37) that, in the 

event of a museum failure, “consideration should be given” to forming a National Historic Site out of 

its two buildings and its collection.

2

 Letter, Larry D. Lewis to Charles G. Carothers (Deputy Assistant Secretary, DOI), May 19, 1970 

(Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

3

 Letter, Lewis to Carothers, June 16, 1970 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield 

Armory). 

4

 M.W. Thomas, Jr. [(Assistant Director and Chief Curator, NY State Historical Association], 

“Observations on the Springfield Armory Museum,” July, 1970 (report submitted to Larry D. Lewis) 

(Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

5

 Memo, Assistant Director, Legislation (Richard K. Griswold) to Acting Chief, Division of Wilderness 

and New Areas, December 2, 1970 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1967-75) 

6

 Lewis, quoted in “Museum at Armory in Trouble,” Springfield Republican, September 13, 1970 

(Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

7

 Memo, New Areas Keyman, Northeast (s. Gary Bunney for Gerald W. Tays) to Associate Director, 

Legislation, November 15, 1973 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 

1967-75). 
The Creation of the Park 

53

so, by the summer of 1970, the museum – with annual operating costs of about $60,000 – was 

running an operating deficit of $2,500-3,000 per month, which was rapidly consuming assets 

of no more than about $25,000. Quite apart from operating expenses, the museum needed 

some $750,000 to rehabilitate its two historic buildings.8

 Lewis explained to Sarles and 

Connally of the NPS that the museum could carry on for a few years, but only “providing 

there were a prospect of long-term relief,” such as joining the National Park system. 

“...[S]uch a course,” they warned, “would be long, arduous, and possibly non-productive.”9

 Lewis was exploring other alternatives. The National Trust for Historic Preservation 

funded a study showing how to “keep the museum alive and the gun collection intact and in 

Springfield.” The author, an experienced museum professional, concluded that an NPS 

takeover would have “some merit and logic.” The key problem would be to prop up the 

museum’s finances long enough for it to survive the transition; then, its new proprietors 

would have to negotiate with the city for parking. Another solution seemed preferable: 

partnership with the college. This could take the form of “direct operation” by the college or 

shared tenancy of the Main Arsenal. As the report pointed out, many universities ran 

museums: this one’s emphasis on technology and local history made it a logical fit for 

Springfield Technical Community College. Besides, the proposal offered clear benefits to the 

museum world. Although Winterthur and other recently founded training programs were 

turning out high-level curators and administrators, Thomas thought the field really needed 

technicians with the “practical skills of carpentry, taxidermy, effective lighting, audio-visual 

techniques,” and so forth – and especially mechanics who understand the value of old 

machinery and knew how to fix things without throwing away the original parts. S.T.C.C. 

was perfectly suited to provide these.10

 Lewis was not interested in partnership with the college. He had already “started the 

necessary machinery” towards incorporating the Armory into the National Park System.11

He soon had promises of support from Representatives Boland and Conte, and by the end of 

the summer, the NPS had agreed to have its bill drafters create a piece of legislation for them 

 

8

 Museum finances and visitation: Memo, Chief, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation 

(Ernest Allen Connally) to Deputy Assistant Secretary, Fish, Wildlife and Parks, June 22, 1970 

(Washington Office, Park History Files, folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75); “Armory Museum 

Doomed Without Federal Aid,” Springfield Republican, September 6, 1970 (Washington Office, NHL 

Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

9

 Memo, Chief, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation (Ernest Allen Connally) to Deputy 

Assistant Secretary, Fish, Wildlife and Parks, June 22, 1970 (Washington Office, Park History Files: 

folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

10 M.W. Thomas, Jr., “Observations on the Springfield Armory Museum,” July, 1970 (Washington 

Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). Thomas was Assistant Director and Chief 

Curator of the New York State Historical Association. 

11 Letter, Lewis to Charles E. Carothers (Deputy Assistant Secretary, DOI), July 20, 1970 (Washington 

Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 
The Creation of the Park 

54

to introduce at the earliest moment.12 That fall, Springfield’s newspapers carried headlines as 

worrisome as any seen since the early 1960s: “Armory Museum Doomed Without Federal 

Aid.” “‘What we have to do,’” said Lewis, “‘is hold the fort here for the next two and a half to 

three years until legislation taking the museum into the Park Service is passed.’” A takeover 

was “‘the only recourse.’”13

 Boland introduced his bill to the House of Representatives in October, 1970, near the 

end of the legislative session, and again in January, 1971.14 Meanwhile, though “most 

anxious” to secure passage, Boland and the museum board discovered that Congress 

demanded a detailed planning study of the proposed new area before acting. The problem 

was that there was no money for it in the agency’s budget, so at Lewis’s suggestion it was 

agreed that the museum would pay for it. The outlines of the “master plan type study” 

emerged in discussions between the NPS Director’s Office, Congressman Boland’s staff, and 

the Army.15 Though the $12,500 cost proved more than Lewis had in mind, the museum’s 

board undertook to raise the funds, “urgently” asking the NPS to complete the study as 

quickly as possible. The museum now had about $50,000 in hand, enough to operate for no 

more than two years, even at a reduced budget of $2,000 per month. In January, at Lewis’s 

urging, Springfield’s City Council agreed to appropriate that sum on a monthly basis until the 

takeover was completed, which not only relieved the pressure but also gave the city 

government a strong interest in a federal takeover.16 The Eastern Service Center started 

work in March; a team of planners was on the ground in Springfield by end of April; the 

 

12 Memo, Frank B. Sarles (Staff Historian) to Chief Historian, August 14, 1970 (Washington Office, 

NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory); letter, Hartzog (Director) to Boland, September 1, 1970 

(Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

13 Headline: “Armory Museum Doomed Without Federal Aid,” Springfield Republican, September 6, 

1970 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory); Wallace: “Museum at Armory 

in Trouble,” Springfield Republican, September 13, 1970 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: 

SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

14 H.R. 19574, A Bill to authorize the establishment of the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, 

Springfield, Massachusetts, and for other purposes, October 5, 1970 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: folder: 

Pre-Establishment Planning, 1971), and H.R. 108, A Bill to authorize the establishment of the 

Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Massachusetts, and for other purposes, January 22, 1971 

(92nd Congress) (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: folder: Legislative History). 

15 Lewis suggested: memo, Assistant Director, Legislation (Richard K. Griswold) to Acting Chief, 

Division of Wilderness and New Areas, December 2, 1970 (Washington Office, Park History Files: 

folder: SPAR, Correspondence 1967-75); “master plan type study,” discussions: Memo, Joe Holt (for 

NPS Director) to Director, Northeast Region, February 18, 1971 (Washington Office, Park History 

Files, folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

16 Urgent request: memo, Larry D. Lewis (President) to Director, NPS, February 5, 1971 (Washington 

Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75); Museum’s cash on hand: memo, 

Assistant Director, Legislation (Richard K. Griswold) to Acting Chief, Division of Wilderness and New 

Areas, December 2, 1970 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-

75); City Council: “Bills to Be Refiled For Museum Federal Funding,” Springfield Union, December 18, 

1972 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning 1973). 
The Creation of the Park 

55

“Draft Master Plan” was completed by June, 1971;17 and in December, 1971, Senator Edward 

W. Brooke introduced Boland’s bill in the Senate.18

 The bills of 1970 and 1971 gave the Interior Department three conditions for 

establishing the park. Reiterated in subsequent bills introduced through the end of 1973,19

they shaped the agency’s work over the next few years. The first condition was to accept a 

donation of land sufficient to “constitute an administrable unit.” This was essentially a signal 

to the City of Springfield to donate the museum’s land and buildings to the federal 

government. The second was to reach agreement with the Secretary of the Army “concerning 

the retention or transfer of the arms collection and other museum objects at the Armory.” 

This was a signal to the Army to leave the collection in Springfield and, together with the 

first, amounted to a rescue plan for the museum. This was how Springfield newspapers 

characterized the legislation: “U.S. Parks Panel Studies Armory Museum Takeover,” 

announced one headline. Mayor Freedman told reporters that “‘there would be an unlimited 

amount of money to improve and renovate the museum.’” The Springfield Union described 

the park plan as “taking over the gun museum.”20 

 The third condition, however, made it clear that the legislation was much more than 

this. It called on Interior to reach agreement with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 

regarding the preservation of the “historic buildings and the physical setting” of the state’s 

portion of Armory Square. In requiring the state and the college to preserve the campus, the 

bill effectively elevated the historic site to equal status with the collection, and this intent, 

though largely ignored by the local press, was strongly and consistently endorsed in 

Washington. Throughout the supporting material compiled and submitted to Congress 

during the summer of 1971, then, the NPS emphasized the importance of protecting the 

site.21 So did Congressman Boland, at the hearings of 1973. And so did the Senate 

 

17 “Proposed Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts: A Draft Master 

Plan,” Office of Environmental Planning and Design, Eastern Service Center, June 1971 (Washington 

Office, Planning Files). The plan was signed as recommended by the Chief of the Office of 

Environmental Planning and Design on June 11, 1971, and as approved by Acting Director, Northeast 

Region, Nathan B. Golub, on June 14, 1971. However, a note facing the table of contents states that the 

plan was neither approved nor disapproved, administratively or congressionally, because it was a 

planning document for a new area proposal and was prepared for “information and discussion.” 

18 S. 2977, A Bill to authorize the establishment of the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, 

Massachusetts, and for other purposes, December 9, 1971 (92nd Congress) (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: 

folder: Legislative History). 

19 S. 979, An Act to authorize the establishment of the Springfield Armory National Historic Site, 

Massachusetts, and for other purposes, December 5, 1973 (93rd Congress) (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: 

folder: Legislative History). (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: folder: Legislative History). 

20 Headline: Springfield Daily News, April 26. Mayor and advantages: “Mayor to Push Armory Park Bill,” 

Springfield Union, November 30, 1971. For later coverage along the same lines see, e.g., Phyllis 

Andreoni, “Mayor to Push Case for Gun Museum,” Springfield Union, October 20, 1973 (SPAR: 

Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning 1973). 

21 See, for example, the agency’s “Statement of Proposal,” which listed four conditions for creating the 

park, three of them concerning preservation of the site. See also the draft environmental impact 

statement, which listed four reasons why the legislation was necessary: a) the museum faced a crisis 
The Creation of the Park 

56

subcommittee report.22 In fact, the omnibus bill signed into law the following year dropped 

the requirement of the Army agreement, retaining only that for the protection of the site. 

 One reason for emphasizing the site may have been the NPS’s history of seeing itself 

as a site-management rather than a museum agency, an attitude which also colored the NPS’s 

reaction to the proposed Frederick Law Olmsted NHS in Brookline. In 1976, for example, 

the NPS told Congress it was reluctant to take on Olmsted because of the agency’s lack of 

experience with collections like the huge and important Olmsted archive of drawings and 

documents. Moreover, even though the Olmsted collection was widely recognized by 1979 as 

a key component of the proposed park, the authorizing legislation passed that year (like that 

for the Armory) did not require the NPS to acquire it. And although the agency did acquire 

the collection, it only reluctantly accepted the responsibility of managing it.23 Compounding 

the problem at both parks was the fact that NPS policy specifically discouraged the 

acquisition of “original archival material,”24 which formed a major part of both collections. 

 Still, uncertainty about the collections was not the only reason Congress, the NPS, 

and the park’s Springfield advocates insisted on giving equal weight to Armory Square. As the 

NPS’s legislative office put it in 1974, the legislative record “reflected deep concern on the 

 which is “likely to imperil its existence within a short time”; b) “protection of the integrity of the 

historic scene in non-Federally owned land within the Armory, specifically around the Parade, is not 

assured,” due to the lack of preservation conditions in the 1968 deed of transfer; c) the college’s 

development plans “give rise to serious concern regarding the massing and character of the proposed 

structures”; and d) visitor facilities are inadequate for presenting and interpreting the Armory story. 

See, finally, the NPS’s “draft master plan,” which defined the purpose of the new area as “to preserve 

and protect, in scenic integrity, for the benefit and inspiration of the people of the United States the 

nationally significant portions of Springfield Armory” and listed two management objectives towards 

achieving this goal: visitor use and resource preservation, the latter meaning “preservation, through 

acquisition and/or cooperative action, of the historically significant components of Armory buildings, 

their settings and the arms collection.” (“Statement of Proposal” and Environment Impact Statement, 

contained in “Support Data, Proposed Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” June, 1971 [SPAR: 

Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 1971]. “Proposed Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts: A Draft Master Plan,” Office of Environmental Planning and 

Design, Eastern Service Center, June 1971, p. 31 [Washington Office, Planning Files]). 

22 Boland: “U.S. House of Representatives. Report of Proceedings. Hearing held before Subcommittee on 

National Parks and Recreation of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, H.R. 329, Springfield 

Armory Historic Site, Monday, December 10, 1973,” Washington, DC, Ward & Paul, n.d. [unedited 

typed transcript with handwritten corrections, marked “UNREVISED AND UNEDITED, NOT FOR 

QUOTATION OR DUPLICATION IN ANY FORM”] pp. 3 ff. (SPAR Superintendent’s Files). 

Subcommittee report: U.S. Senate, Committee on Interior and insular Affairs, Report to accompany S. 

979, Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Mass., Calendar No. 568, Report No. 93-590, 

December 3, 1973. 

23 David Grayson Allen, The Olmsted National Historic Site and the Growth of Historic Landscape 

Preservation (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2007), 26, 42, 64. 

24 “The collection of historical materials pertinent to the park resources and interpretive theme and to 

the administrative history of the park is encouraged,” as long as such material is “confined to printed 

sources and notes and copies of printed or documentary sources.” National Park Service, 

Administrative Policies for the Historical Areas of the National Park System (1973), 34, quoted in Allen, 

op. cit., 55. This policy remained essentially unchanged until the 1980s. 
The Creation of the Park 

57

part of both the Congress and the Service” over the protection of the site.25 Given the 

conflicts that were raging over the college’s building plans, that was hardly surprising. 

AN UNUSUAL KIND OF PARK: THE PLAN IS ELABORATED, 1971-72 

 Though the bills introduced from 1970 through 1973 gave equal weight to protecting 

the college campus and the collection, they did not explicitly describe the campus as part of 

the National Historic Site. Instead, they called for an agreement with the college to protect it. 

But during the spring or summer of 1971, as the agency was outlining the desired agreement, 

it also produced a map which clearly showed the boundaries of the NHS drawn around the 

perimeter of Armory Square, so as to include the campus as well as the museum buildings. 

(Fig. 2.1-2) The NHS sketched by the planners was to encompass about 20 acres of federally 

owned land, which was to be acquired from the city of Springfield, plus an additional 35 

acres of state-owned college campus, and it was the management of this jointly owned entity 

that was to be articulated through the agreement. It was an unusual concept: a park unit with 

two owners and managers, one federal, the other state. 

 The idea of including non-federal land within a national park was not in itself novel. 

Many large western parks included private holdings, which were often slated for eventual 

federal acquisition. But sometimes park agencies drew boundaries to include private land 

without any intention of acquiring it. An important precedent was the Adirondack Park, 

created by the State of New York in 1892 to encompass millions of acres of private land as 

well as state-owned Forest Preserve. Ninety years later a total of well over 4 million acres of 

nonfederal property had been included within the boundaries of national parks, preserves, 

and other areas.26 Some of these acres were privately owned, but 1.3 million acres were 

public land held by state and local governments, and these nonfederal public lands 

accounted for more than half of some park units: for example, Kalaupapa NAP (10,729 out of 

10,902 acres), Santa Monica Mountains NRA (93,741 out of 150,000 acres), and Fire Island 

National Seashore (12,535 out of 19,518 acres).27

 At the time of the Armory’s authorization in 1974, there were, within the 

northeastern seaboard, about 26 national park units which included some proportion of 

nonfederal land within their boundaries.28 Some were battlefields which had been 

 

25 Memo, Acting Associate Director, Legislation (Robert Landau) to NAR Regional Director, July 18, 

1974 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

26 National Park Service, Summary of Acreages for 1982, quoted in Blake Shepard, Comment: “The 

Scope of Congress’ Constitutional Power Under the Property Clause: Regulating Non-Federal 

Property to Further the Purposes of National Parks and Wilderness Areas,” Boston College 

Environmental Affairs Law Review, v. 11, 1983-84, p. 481. 

27 Ibid., p. 520 n. 261. 

28 Simply for purposes of establishing a general context, I have selected an area stretching from 

Maryland to Maine and including the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, 

Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. 
The Creation of the Park 

58

Figure 2.1. Boundary Map. Prepared by the NPS in 1973, these maps match others prepared to 

support legislation in 1971. (NPS: WASO). 

Figure 2.2. Land Ownership Map. Prepared by the NPS in 1973, these maps match others 

prepared to support legislation in 1971. Dark area is state-owned land (NPS: WASO).

 Drawing upon the National Park Service’s The National Parks: Index 2005-2007 [n.d.], I have included 

all units listed as designated or authorized by 1974 within this eleven-state area. 
The Creation of the Park 

59

transferred to the NPS from the War Department in 1933 or authorized shortly thereafter. 

Others were historic sites. Still others belonged to the recent crop of national seashores, 

rivers, trails, and recreation areas which, multiplying since the mid-1960s, were extending the 

range and variety of NPS units: areas like Gateway National Recreation Area, the 

Appalachian National Scenic Trail, or the Cape Cod and Fire Island National Seashores. 

 According to a recent tally of landownership, these pre-1974 park units contained in 

total about half a million acres within their authorized boundaries, of which a little less than 

15 percent was not owned by the federal government. Within individual parks, amounts and 

percentages of nonfederal land varied widely: there was simply no normative condition. 

There were units with small amounts and low percentages of nonfederal land (Martin Van 

Buren NHS, with 1/4 acre nonfederal out of almost 40 total; or Allegheny Portage Railroad 

NHS, with 29 acres nonfederal out of almost 1,300 total); small amounts but high percentages 

(Adams National Historical Park, with about 14.5 acres nonfederal out of about 24 total); 

large amounts but low percentages (Gateway National Recreation Area, with 6,162 acres 

nonfederal out of over 26,000 total; or Appalachian National Scenic Trail, with about 57,000 

nonfederal out of 227,000 total); and large amounts and high percentages (Assateague Island 

National Seashore, with about 22,000 nonfederal out of 40,000 total; or Fire Island NS, with 

about 13,300 nonfederal out of about 19,500 total).29

 Just as varied were the motivations that led to the inclusion of nonfederal lands 

within the borders of these park units. Some of these situations evidently emerged by 

accident, or were intended to be eventually reversed. Some represented partnerships with 

state, local or not-for-profit conservation organizations. Yet others – the seashores and trails 

of the 1960s – evinced a desire to extend the reach of the agency’s land conservation efforts 

while avoiding the traumas of land condemnation and enduring bitterness that characterized 

earlier creations like Shenandoah National Park. Indeed the Congressional acts that 

established the rivers and trails systems in 1968 set up new management regimes that ruled 

out the large-scale land acquisition of the past. 

 By the early 1970s, then, the idea of including nonfederal land would not have been 

in itself surprising to agency officials or legislators: the system had always contained some 

units with mixed ownership, and the expansion of the 1960s had increased their numbers. 

That expansion continued in the 1970s, encompassing urban historical areas as well as rural 

landscapes. Two parks which displayed similarities to Springfield Armory were Boston 

National Historical Park, authorized on October 1, 1974, only weeks before the Armory, and 

Lowell National Historical Park, authorized in 1978. Boston was established to preserve 

historic structures associated with the American Revolution and the early history of the 

United States: its eight sites were divided among federal, state, city, and private ownership. 

The NPS described Lowell as a “large cooperatively managed historical urban park”: its 

resources, like Boston’s under federal, state, city, and private ownership, included the 

“canals, mills, residential, church, and public buildings of a 19th century industrial city.” They 

 

29 Acreage figures from National Park Service, The National Parks: Index 2005-2007, n.d. 
The Creation of the Park 

60

were managed under a complex set of overlapping designations: local and National Register 

historic districts, a Heritage State Park, and of course the National Park. At both parks, 

agreements between the NPS and other owners and managers were important: a major 

partner at Lowell was the Lowell Historic Preservation Commission, a civilian body created 

and directed by the authorizing legislation to meet specified preservation planning 

objectives.30

 Yet the Armory was distinctive if not unique. Here, the majority of land would be 

owned by a single landlord who did not share the NPS’s conservation mission, owed nothing 

to the park legislation, and could not really be penalized for noncompliance. Despite 

significant precedents, then, Springfield Armory was an experiment. Moreover, by the time 

the park was established in 1978, the political climate had changed significantly since the 

1960s, when hybrid units like Cape Cod and Fire Island National Seashores were created. 

Then, the inclusion of nonfederal land within park boundaries could be seen as extending 

the reach of federal conservation programs. Now, Washington was becoming increasingly 

deferential to private landowners, state, and local governments, and the new reluctance to 

use federal powers aggressively was coloring every aspect of federal land acquisition and 

management.31

 In the seven years during which Congress considered the Springfield legislation and 

the NPS struggled to meet its terms, no agency official ever wrote down the precise reasoning 

behind the idea of including the campus within the park. Nor did Congress ever discuss it. 

That was not necessarily surprising. The arguments for establishing the park were clear 

enough in a general way: protecting the site, keeping the collection in Springfield, honoring 

the site’s patriotic associations, and bringing funds to a declining city. Yet the more specific 

question of what exactly Congress and the NPS thought park designation would accomplish 

with regard to the state’s portion of the park lacked such a clear answer, and the ambiguity 

would hamper the agency’s efforts to establish the park and protect the site. 

 If the challenges of the site received little attention, the opposite was true of the 

collection. Agency officials emphasized them throughout the data and planning documents 

they compiled to support the legislation. For example, the “development schedule,” a list of 

expenses needed to bring the new park up to an acceptable standard, informed Congress that 

the NPS proposed to allocate almost $1 million to the interior of the Main Arsenal and a 

further $3,000,000 for exhibits.32 These numbers raised eyebrows at the regional office,33 and 

 

30 “Boston National Historical Park: Final Land Protection Plan, July 19, 1984”; “Land Protection Plan: 

Lowell National Historical Park,” approved 1984, pp. 2, 7; “Lowell National Historical Park, 

Massachusetts: Final Environmental Impact Statement, General Management Plan,” August, 1981, p. 8; 

P.L. 95-290 (95th Congress), June 5, 1978, Sec. 301. 

31 The roots of this new climate and its impact on another park are described in Ned Kaufman and 

Charles Starks, Land Regulation at Fire Island National Seashore: A History and Analysis, 1964-2004

(Northeast Region, National Park Service, 2008): see esp. Chapter 2. 

32 “Support Data, Proposed Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” June, 1971 (Lowenthal Files: 

folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 1971). The actual figure for the interior was $989,000. 
The Creation of the Park 

61

Nan Rickey, a specialist at the agency’s Harpers Ferry Center, stepped forward to “justify” 

the $3 million figure, arguing that the collection was “a national treasure of enormous 

cultural significance to the economic, technological and military history of this country...the 

largest collection of military small arms in the world....” It was also a “living collection,” still 

used for military research and development and for more academic research by scholars 

studying war and foreign policy. Its market value was “conservatively estimated” at “over 

$7,000,000.00.” 

 Of the $3 million investment, Rickey explained that $1,030,000 was needed for 

management, conservation, and cataloging: this did not include regular curatorial work. The 

remaining $1,970,000 was tagged for interpretation, including audiovisual productions, a 

large exhibit on Springfield weapons and the “manifestations of American technological 

genius responsible for their development at this Armory,” and the development of two floors 

of open storage for use by researchers and weapons experts. The seemingly “high estimate,” 

she explained, reflected the special security and display needs of guns, as well as the 

collection’s sheer size, “difficult to fully comprehend unless one has seen it.”34

 The director of the Harpers Ferry Center supported Rickey. Unlike many park 

collections, he noted, this one was “large, growing, and highly specialized.” The condition of 

objects and records was largely unknown: all estimates involved a fair amount of guesswork, 

but like Rickey, Marc Sagan felt the expenses were justified because the collection was 

“unique in the Park Service.” Likening the scope of its interpretive development to 

Philadelphia’s Independence Visitor Center or the Museum of Westward Expansion in St. 

Louis, he noted that it would “result in placing on display approximately half again as many 

objects as are presently displayed in all of the other museums (refurnished historic houses 

excepted) in the entire system.”35 Days later, Acting Regional Director George A. Palmer 

defended the number to the director in Washington: it was valid, “considering the immense 

size and great value of the museum collection and the enormous amount of work that will be 

required,” to manage it and to maintain it as an “active library of army development.”36

 Despite its impressive collection, the museum was operating with a staff of three and 

an annual budget of about $55,000,37 and the NPS planned to scale it up dramatically. By 

 33 Memo, Deputy Director to Director, NE Region, December 23, 1971 [sic] (Lowenthal Files: folder: 

Pre-Establishment Planning, 1972). 

34 Memo, Nan Rickey, IP (HFC), to Merdith B. Ingham, LW, December 13, 1971 (SPAR: Lowenthal 

Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 1971). 

35 Memo, Director, Harpers Ferry Center (Marc Sagan) to Director, NE Region January 17, 1972 

(Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 1972). 

36 Memo, Acting Director, NE Region (George A. Palmer) to Director, January 26, 1972 (Lowenthal 

Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 1972). 

37 Staff: “U.S. House of Representatives. Report of Proceedings. Hearing held before Subcommittee on 

National Parks and Recreation of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, H.R. 329, Springfield 

Armory Historic Site, Monday, December 10, 1973,” Washington, DC, Ward & Paul, n.d. [unedited 

typed transcript with handwritten corrections, marked “UNREVISED AND UNEDITED, NOT FOR 

QUOTATION OR DUPLICATION IN ANY FORM”], p. 55 (SPAR Superintendent Files). Budget: 
The Creation of the Park 

62

1973, plans called for fourteen full-time park staff, most of who would work in the museum, 

plus two seasonal workers, with a projected operating budget of $365,000 per annum, 

including building and grounds maintenance.38

 The agency, finally, proposed an ambitious restoration plan for the federal portion of 

the park (Fig. 2.3), whose main components were as follows: 

• Main Arsenal: Remodel, including improved first-floor exhibit and sales 

areas, new support spaces in the basement, and library, study space, open 

collection storage, and college classrooms upstairs. Restore original tower 

base and cupola windows, replace existing fire escapes with interior stairs. 

Restore original Doric portico if archaeological investigations produced 

enough information. 

•Building 1 (Commanding Officer’s Quarters): Restore main floor, 

rehabilitate upper floor as staff apartments. 

•Buildings 10 and 17 (Figs. 2.4-5): Move to original locations, to be 

ascertained through archeology, and restore. Use Building 10 for 

“meetings, classrooms, tour staging, and other special events,” Building 

17 for administrative offices. 

• Landscape: Remove loop drive, tennis court, and 1969 playing fields, 

recreate original contours of hillside behind Main Arsenal, and restore 

original terracing and roadways. Construct new parking lot for fifty cars 

and five buses behind Commanding Officer’s Quarters, on site of former 

garden.39

NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE ARMY AND THE STATE: 1971-72 

The authorizing bills called for agreements with the Army and the state. Negotiations 

for the two agreements took dramatically different courses. Reaching agreement with the 

Army was relatively easy. Even before legislation was introduced, Larry Lewis assured the 

NPS that he had a “clear understanding” from Defense officials that “there would be no 

difficulty in securing title to the arms collection.”40 Actually, Interior did not insist on 

 “Current Operating Costs,” in “Hearing Materials, Springfield Armory National Historic Site” 

(Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 1971). The budget was supplemented by utilities, 

maintenance, and some materials costs borne by the college in exchange for the use of the 

Commanding Officer’s Quarters. 

38 Letter, Nathaniel [illegible], Assistant Secretary Interior, to Henry M. Jackson (Chairman, Interior 

and Insular Affairs), September 7, 1972 (Lowenthal Files: folder: Legislative History); letter, Acting 

Assistant. Secretary Interior [illegible] to Chairman Henry M. Jackson, August 31, 1973 (Washington 

Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Legislation). 

39 “Proposed Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts: A Draft Master 

Plan,” Office of Environmental Planning and Design, Eastern Service Center, June 1971, pp. 35, 37-40, 

46 (Washington Office, Planning Files). 

40 Frank B. Sarles, Jr., Memorandum for Files, “Subject: Meeting on Springfield Armory, November 30, 

1970,” n.d. - (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 
The Creation of the Park 

63

Figure 2.3. General Development Plan. Dated 1972, the drawing differs from the Draft Master Plan completed 

the previous year in that it does not call for relocating Building 17, which the College had demolished at the 

end of 1971 (NPS: WASO). 

obtaining title. “It is essential,” the department explained, “that the arms collection remain at 

Springfield and under the administration of the National Park Service.” Beyond that, the 

department was willing to negotiate “any conditions the Department of the Army may wish 

to include in a deed of transfer or a permanent loan....”41 In effect, Interior asked for only 

three things: 1) donation or loan of the collection; 2) the right to display the collection and to 

lend objects to other institutions; and 3) copies of the collection’s provenance records, 

showing how and when each item had been acquired. In exchange, the department offered 

to “adopt a program of maintenance and restoration of the collection,” make the collection 

and records available to the Army, and allow the Army to survey the collection at regular 

intervals.42 In May, 1972, the Army’s Under Secretary BeLieu replied that “the Army would 

be pleased to loan the collection to the National Park Service.”43

 

41 Letter, W. T. Pecora (Acting Secretary Interior) to Robert F. Froehlke (Secretary Army), April 7, 1972 

(Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 1972). 

42 “Benton Arms Collection: Terms of Acceptance Satisfactory to the Department of the Interior” 

(single sheet, no signature, no date., with yellow cover slip dated July 12, [1971], stating document has 

been provided to Solicitor’s Office for meeting with Army on July 17) (Washington Office, Park 

History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

43 Letter, Kenneth E. BeLieu (Under Sec of the Army) to William T. Pecora (Under Secretary Interior), 

May 10, 1972 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence -75). 
The Creation of the Park 

64

 Well before Congress began to focus on the legislation, then, the NPS could 

demonstrate a satisfactory understanding with the Army. Though this understanding 

included neither donation nor permanent loan of the collection, it did encompass a ten-year 

loan, renewable automatically unless one partner notified the other that it had not complied 

with the agreement’s terms. The agreement ultimately signed in 1978 would not depart 

materially from these terms.44

 Negotiations with the state were considerably more challenging. Indeed they nearly 

wrecked the park initiative on more than one occasion. The problem was that NPS and 

college officials looked at Armory Square in radically different ways. Concern over the 

college’s campus plans surfaced among some NPS officials as early as January, 1971, when 

Ernest Allen Connally encountered a drawing of the college master plan in its course catalog 

(Figs. 2.6-7). The plan called for six new buildings, three of them facing the Parade: a 

“humanics [sic], a science and biological science-business building....” Under the plan, the 

state would authorize about $10 million in the 1972 capital budget for the humanities and 

science buildings; a further $5 million would be appropriated the following year for the 

biological science and business building. These were not small buildings: the proposed 

science building would reach 6 stories and 180,000 square feet, including a small observatory 

on the roof. In addition, the college hoped “to develop the north side of the parade grounds 

as a quadrangle with covered walkways and grassy area between the buildings.’”45

 Even more than the construction plans, it was the college’s demolition plans which 

caught Connally’s attention. The plan has “given us some concern,” he wrote to President 

Garvey with careful understatement. The drawing seemed to “indicate some inconsistencies” 

with the recommendations of the 1967 evaluation report. Indeed it seemed to suggest that 

the college was planning to demolish Building 12, a structure classified as nationally 

significant, as well as Buildings 10, 17, and 27, identified as worthy of preservation. It also 

showed a “large ‘Physical Education’ building” situated immediately adjacent to the 

Commanding Officer’s Quarters; “Though we can form no clear opinion from this drawing 

alone,” Connally surmised, “we venture the thought that such a large structure in close 

proximity to the historic Commanding Officer’s Quarters would have a deleterious effect on 

the latter.”46

 In response, Garvey assured Connally that Building 12 was safe. But, he added, “there 

was no question of preserving any of the buildings identified ... in the ‘worthy of 

 

44 “Cooperative Agreement Between Department of the Army and Department of the Interior” [draft, 

n.d., unsigned - attached to Froehlke letter to Morton, November 21, 1972] (Washington Office, Park 

History Files: folder: SPAR Legislation); “Cooperative Agreement Between Department of the Army 

and Department of the Interior,” signed and dated for Interior on October 26, 1978, and for the Army 

on December 15, 1978 (Central Files: A 4415 Cooperative Agreements). 

45 “STCC Plans $15 Million Expansion Project,” Springfield Sunday Republican, June 6, 1971 

(Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

46 Letter, Ernest Allen Connally to Edmond P. Garvey, January 8, 1971 (Washington Office, Park 

History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 
The Creation of the Park 

65

Figure 2.4, Buildings 10 in 1967 (NPS Evaluation Report, 1967) 

Figure 2.5. Buildings 17 in 1967 (NPS Evaluation Report, 1967).
The Creation of the Park 

66

preservation’ category.” It was “practically a physical impossibility,” he lectured Connally, 

“to plan a campus for 5000 day students and 5000 evening students without giving the 

architect some leeway. The architect is making every effort to preserve these buildings, but 

his main responsibility is to design facilities that will accommodate 5000 students.”47

A few months later, the agency’s master planning team made its first visit to the 

Armory. Despite Connally’s earlier exchange with the college, the mood was optimistic. Led 

by team captain Meir Sofair from the agency’s Eastern Service Center in Denver, CO, the 

group included a landscape architect (Robert Chamberland), an interpretive planner (Nan 

Rickey), a historian (Frank B. Sarles) and the general superintendent of the Boston group of 

NPS sites (Benjamin J. Zerbey). The group examined the collections, library, archives, and 

photographs and met with Larry Lewis and Tom Wallace of the museum. They also met with 

the president and dean of admissions of the collection, Edmond Garvey and Nels H. 

Johnson. Sarles reported that “it was a cordial meeting, at which Mr. Garvey repeatedly 

expressed willingness to cooperate with the National Park Service in any way possible.” The 

college officials had reason to be pleased, for the planners had just discovered the original 

locations of Buildings 10 and 17, two small houses now located on the college campus but 

once flanking the Main Arsenal: the college planned to demolish these structures, but 

MBRCC vice-chair Putnam professed to be “much gratified” by the NPS’s interest in moving 

them onto federal property.48

 Among the tasks undertaken by the team in the course of developing the plan and 

compiling information to support the legislation was to sketch out a cooperative agreement. 

Sarles’s summary did not mention the two buildings, or for that matter the college master 

plan. Instead, it forbade exterior alterations to buildings on the east and south sides of the 

Parade, called for “height and design approval by NPS” of new structures north of the 

Parade, touched on day-to-day grounds maintenance issues, and alluded to the possibility of 

“mutual interpretive and educational programs” in the future.49 On the basis of this 

preliminary sketch – and without any formal response from the college as yet – the legislative 

process moved forward. 

 

 

47 Letter, Edmond P. Garvey to Connally (Chief, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation), 

January 21, 1971 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

48 Memo, Frank B. Sarles, Jr. (Staff Historian) to Chief Historian, May 4, 1971 (Washington Office, Park 

History File: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

49 “Proposed Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts: A Draft Master 

Plan,” Office of Environmental Planning and Design, Eastern Service Center, June 1971, p. 32, 47 

(Washington Office, Planning Files). 
The Creation of the Park 

67

PROGRESS TOWARDS LEGISLATION: 1971-73 

 The park initiative gained adherents. In the fall of 1971 the NPS’s Advisory Board 

announced its support, as did Springfield’s mayor, city council, and chamber of commerce.50

Larry Lewis was doing everything he could to generate enthusiasm, urging museum backers 

to write to their senators51 and (recalling former President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s role as 

honorary chair of the museum’s 1966 fundraising drive) corresponding with Mamie 

Eisenhower, who passed his appeals on to Secretary of the Interior Rogers Morton. By the 

end of 1972, the bills had reached the Office of Management and Budget, whose approval 

was necessary for passage, and Lewis told the press he had reason to believe they had been 

“favorably viewed by President Nixon before Congress adjourned.”52

 This was particularly good news since Nixon had just won reelection in a landslide. 

But by next spring, Lewis’s appeals were beginning to sound desperate. “The Springfield 

Armory Museum is going to close,” he told Senator Brooke, “unless someone takes some 

interest in this matter and gets the report to the Interior over to OMB and on to the Hill for 

hearings.”53 In addition to the local legislators, Lewis sought help from Elliott Richardson, 

known around Washington not only as Secretary of HEW (at the time legislation was 

introduced) but as a prominent Massachusetts native, indeed an archetypal Boston Brahmin. 

But his correspondence with Richardson now began to reflect the peculiar political 

developments that were convulsing the nation. In March, Judge John J. Sirica handed down 

harsh sentences for the Watergate burglars, the Republican operatives who had broken into 

the Democratic party offices before the previous election. Suspicions were growing that high 

administration officials, perhaps even the president, were involved in a cover-up, and the 

administration was paralyzed by accusations, resignations, and firings. Richardson had been 

appointed to head HEW in 1970, but in 1973 he was moved to Defense, whence he advised 

Interior Secretary Morton that the initiative to save the Armory would have to come from 

Interior.54 But Richardson was to move again: in May, 1973, Nixon had just nominated him 

 

50 Memo, Chairman, Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and Monuments, 

Durward T. Allen, to Secretary Interior, October 6, 1971 (Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment 

Planning, 1971); “Mayor to Push Armory Park Bill,” Springfield Union, November 30, 1971 

(Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence -75); “National Service [sic] 

Proposed Takeover of Armory Museum Sought,” Springfield Union, December 1, 1971 (Washington 

Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

51 Memo, Lewis to Friends of the Springfield Armory Museum, August, 1972, attached to Letter, Hulett 

to Senator Charles McC. Mathias, Jr., November 1, 1972 (Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment 

Planning, 1972). 

52 “Bills to Be Refiled For Museum Federal Funding,” Springfield Union, December 18, 1972 (SPAR: 

Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning 1973). 

53 Letter, Lewis (President) to Brooke, May 7, 1973 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment 

Planning 1973). 

54 Letter, Secretary of Defense Elliot L. Richardson to Morton (Dear Rog), May 17, 1973 (SPAR: 

Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning 1973). 
The Creation of the Park 

68

to replace disgraced Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst, and so it was to the 

prospective Attorney General that Lewis pleaded: “While I know you have quite enough to 

do at the moment, the very mess you are trying to unravel has delayed the process of 

Government to the point this project may fail.” He asked Richardson to “give this matter a 

shove since everyone listens to you!”55 This was true: Richardson was highly regarded. But 

the fact was, the legislation was moving about as fast as could be expected. “‘They were filed 

too late,’” said Lewis, referring to the bills introduced into Congress in 1972: they would have 

to be re-introduced in the next Congress.56

 Meanwhile, there was progress in Springfield. The first bill had been hurriedly 

drafted, and one clause, authorizing Interior to accept a donation of twenty or more acres 

from the city, had angered an important constituency. It was easy to deduce that the 

government had its eye on the hillside behind the Main Arsenal, including the school 

department’s new playing fields. School officials took umbrage, and Lewis complained to 

Connally at the NPS that they might have chosen words “less inflammatory to the local 

sensibilities of our School Committee.”57 The bills introduced in 1971 were careful not to 

mention any specific acreage, and by June the mayor could assure Lewis that “something 

could be worked out with the Park Service.” As Lewis commented, “they all now realize the 

importance of our venture.” But in point of fact, the fields had not been a great success and 

the schools were planning to leave them anyway: the remaining controversy, concerning 

interim facilities, had been solved by the end of the year, and Mayor Freedman was able to 

announce the city’s unqualified support for the park.58

 Meanwhile, another thorny land problem had arisen. NPS planners now believed 

that the NPS would have to acquire a narrow strip of state-owned land immediately in front 

of the Main Arsenal59 (Fig. 2.8). The problem was that this piece of land was an essential part 

of the college’s roadway network. While NPS planners were willing to rely heavily on 

easements and the cooperative agreement to guarantee access for park visitors and staff, they 

 

55 Letter, Larry D. Lewis to “General Richardson” (attorney general), May 7, 1973 (on Lewis’s personal 

stationery; emphasis in original; SPAR: Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning 1973). 

56 “Bills to Be Refiled For Museum Federal Funding,” Springfield Union, December 18, 1972 (SPAR: 

Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning 1973). 

57 Letter, Lewis to Connally, October 20, 1970 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield 

Armory). 

58 Lewis: Letter Larry D. Lewis (President, The Springfield Armory Museum) to Ernest Allen Connally, 

June 17, 1971 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence -75). Temporary 

use of fields: “Position of the City of Springfield Toward Proposal,” June, 1971, in “Hearing Materials, 

Springfield Armory National Historic Site” (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment 

Planning, 1971); Support: “Mayor Lobbies for Takeover,” Springfield Daily News, December 1, 1971 

(Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

59 “Estimated Land Acquisition Cost, Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” June 21, 1971, 

attached to memo, Charles R. Rinaldi (Acting Chief, Office of Land Acquisition and Water Resources, 

ESC) to Chief, Office of Environmental Planning and Design, ESC, July 2, 1971, with enclosures: 

(SPAR: Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 1971). 
The Creation of the Park 

69

Figure 2.6. An early version of the S.T.C.C. master plan showing three slab-like buildings facing the green and 

complete replacement of all buildings to the north (S.T.C.C.). 
The Creation of the Park 

70

Figure 2.7. Perspective of S.T.C.C. Master Plan published in 1970-71 course catalog (S.T.C.C.). 

had concluded that federal ownership of this small segment was necessary to provide a 

scenic buffer. Also, it would enable the NPS to repave or otherwise improve it without 

seeking special authorization to spend federal funds on nonfederal lands.

CONTROVERSY OVER THE CAMPUS: 1971-73 

At the end of 1973, the Senate and House held hearings on the Armory legislation. 

Supporters painted a rosy picture of progress on the land donation and the cooperative 

agreement. But behind the scenes, the Armory’s future was mired in controversy, and some 

NPS officials had lost confidence in their ability to create a viable historic site. The proposed 

park was in crisis. 

 The problem stemmed from the college’s master plan, with its urgent call for new 

buildings and for the demolition of historic structures. Garvey’s response to Connally’s letter 

of 1971 had not been encouraging. It had simply restated the college’s resistance to 

interference with its expansive enrollment and construction goals. There the matter rested 

until the NPS’s master planners arrived in May, 1971, and discovered that Buildings 10 and 

17 had originally flanked the Main Arsenal – “a most fortunate find,” as team member Frank 

Sarles put it, “since the College has already made plans for demolition of those two 

structures.” The planners’ proposal to move the buildings and use them for park 

administration and an orientation center obviously solved several problems at once. Larry 

Lewis “expressed delight” and urged the planners to bring it up as “an agreeable introductory 

topic” with the architect who had proposed their demolition. In fact, both the architect and 
The Creation of the Park 

71

Figure 2.8. Land Acquisition Plan prepared by NPS, 1973 (NPS: WASO). 

the MBRCC “expressed themselves as much gratified” to learn that the NPS wanted the two 

troublesome buildings.60

 The new buildings presented a more difficult problem. Instead of blocking them, 

NPS planners recommended that the cooperative agreement provide for “height and design 

approval by NPS.”61 They may have discussed these ideas with the college’s architects, for 

the design of the proposed buildings appears to have changed at about this time. The earliest 

drawings, of 1967, had showed sleek steel and glass slabs facing the Parade. But the 

newspapers now reported that the college master plan “calls for red brick facing on the new 

buildings to blend with the historic Armory buildings”62 (Figs. 1.25, 2.9-11). 

 The reliance on design regulation embodied in these proposals was consistent with 

Connally’s earlier letter which, despite concerns about a new building next to the 

Commanding Officer’s Quarters, had not objected to those facing the Parade. In this spirit, 

then, the NPS’s draft master plan proposed to “regulate development” in order to “preserve 

and protect, in scenic integrity...the nationally significant portions of Springfield Armory.” 

 

60 Memo, Frank B. Sarles, Jr. (Staff Historian) to Chief Historian, May 4, 1971 (Washington Office, Park 

History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

61 Memo, Frank B. Sarles, Jr. (Staff Historian) to Chief Historian, May 4, 1971 (Washington Office, Park 

History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

62 “STCC Plans $15 Million Expansion Project,” Springfield Sunday Republican, June 6, 1971 

(Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 
The Creation of the Park 

72

Figure 2.9. An early version of the S.T.C.C. master plan showing three slab-like buildings facing the green and 

complete replacement of all buildings to the north (S.T.C.C.). 

The planners predicted that such regulation would have a “deterrent effect on the height of 

the structures to be erected.”63 Yet the environmental impact statement, prepared at the 

same time in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, was less 

optimistic: not only did the college’s development plans “give rise to serious concern 

regarding the massing and character of proposed structures,” but the buildings facing the 

Parade were “out of character with the overall existing scene and, consequently, will be 

incompatible with one of the basic requirements of this plan.”64

 These contradictions reflected the different functions of the documents in question, 

but they also revealed the emerging tension between the goals of preservation and park 

management. As a disclosure document, the environmental impact statement could be rather 

 

63 “Proposed Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts: A Draft Master 

Plan,” Office of Environmental Planning and Design, Eastern Service Center, June 1971 

(Recommending by (signed) [illegible](Chief, Office of Environmental Planning and Design), June 11, 

1971, and approved by (signed) Nathan B. Golub (Acting Director, Northeast Region), June 14, 1971), 

pp. 15, 31, 32, 50 (Washington Office, Planning Files). 

64 “Proposed Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts: A Draft Master 

Plan,” Office of Environmental Planning and Design, Eastern Service Center, June 1971 

(Recommending by (signed) [illegible](Chief, Office of Environmental Planning and Design), June 11, 

1971, and approved by (s) Nathan B. Golub (Acting Director, Northeast Region), June 14, 1971), p. 50 

(Washington Office, Planning Files). 
The Creation of the Park 

73

frank. By contrast, the plan was a management document: it suggested that the NPS was 

prepared to put its faith in a policy of design regulation despite the doubts that some officials 

may have had over its success. 

 The disclosures revealed in the environmental impact statement did not detract from 

general enthusiasm for the park proposal. “The major hurdles have been cleared,” reported 

the Springfield Sunday Republican early in June, 1971: the college’s master plan had been 

approved by the state’s Board of Higher Education and by committees of the state legislature. 

It still awaited final endorsement by the legislature and by Governor Sargent, but the 

prospects for funding were good. And in fact, Garvey said, preliminary design work had 

already begun with a preliminary state appropriation of $500,000. “‘The new buildings,”’ he 

added, “‘are desperately needed – we have been in temporary facilities for almost five 

years.’”65

 This moment in the college’s building program provides a window into local politics, 

which differed from what agency officials in Washington presented to Congress and perhaps 

even from what they understood. Since discovering the single drawing in the course catalog, 

Connally had sought Larry Lewis’s aid in finding out more about the college’s master plan. 

Noting that the state had not yet approved the plan, Lewis replied that “we would be unwise” 

to ask for more information just then. “We are at least going to get a red brick facing,” he 

pointed out, adding that Garvey had promised not to interfere with the museum. Lewis 

agreed to move forward, but only when “the matter is finalized at the State level, and there 

would be no danger of the appropriation being lost. In other words, let’s just keep going as 

we are.”66 However worried Congress and the NPS might be about the impacts of 

construction on Armory Square, then, Lewis’s main goal was to assure that the construction 

went forward and did not compromise the museum. 

 Meanwhile, the fate of Building 17 hung in the balance. Later in the summer of 1971, 

the college received a bid for demolishing it, at a cost of $1,275, and some time thereafter, 

another for moving it, at a cost of $20,000. Garvey thought the one company that bid on the 

moving operation was “not interested” in doing it.67 There matters rested until March, 1972. 

Then, with less than two months until the college’s deadline for removing the building, Lewis 

told the NPS he was investigating the cost of moving it. A month later still he informed 

Garvey he had doubts about the building’s surviving a move and that the cost was in any case 

“beyond our means.” As the museum’s board of directors was “unable to handle this matter,” 

 

65 “STCC Plans $15 Million Expansion Project,” Springfield Sunday Republican, June 6, 1971 

(Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

66 Letter, Lewis to Connally, June 18, 1971 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield 

Armory). See also letter, Lewis to Connally, June 17, 1971, in a similar vein (Washington Office, Park 

History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence -75). 

67 Letter, Norman Mirkin (Associated Building Wreckers, Springfield) to Nels Johnson (S.T.C.C.), 

August 9, 1971; memo, Garvey to John J. Fortsch, Jr., n.d. (Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment 

Planning, 1971). 
The Creation of the Park 

74

the museum would accede to whatever the college decided.68 The college began demolishing 

the building that fall. Obviously saving it had been a low priority for all concerned. 

 Throughout this period, park plans appeared to be moving smoothly forward. The 

NPS had failed to follow Connally’s warning shot of January 1971 with any tough 

questioning and, despite the disclosures in the environmental impact statement, seemed 

resigned to the college’s construction and demolition plans.69 Yet that document did point 

up a related problem which would haunt the agency. Arnold Berke was a senior planner with 

the Lower Pioneer Valley Regional Planning Commission. Troubled by the NPS’s admission 

that it was “‘no longer clear just what structures and grounds in Armory Square are included 

in the landmark status,’” he asked William Murtagh, Keeper of the National Register, to 

settle the issue. He warned Murtagh that the college’s expansion plans threatened Armory 

Square, adding that he was “skeptical” about the college’s willingness to accept the 

“architectural controls” proposed by the NPS. Understanding the precise limits of the NHL 

designation “and the use of their associated controls and regulations,” would at least “be 

helpful in our efforts to preserve the significant structures of Armory Square.”70

 Berke’s request touched a sore spot, for the passage of the National Historic 

Preservation Act in 1966 had given real importance to the boundary question, which had 

never been resolved: no longer merely honorific, the boundaries had become the trigger for 

applying the review process spelled out in Section 106. Following passage of the law, agency 

officials had assumed that the existing NHL designation would simply be translated into a 

National Register listing. But confusion over the boundaries frustrated this effort. Early in 

1969, Robert Utley told the Massachusetts Historical Commission that the portions of the 

NHL identified in the 1967 evaluation report as having national significance constituted the 

National Register listing.71 Yet later that year, the Regional Director’s Office stated that the 

NHL designation was intended to cover only the Main, West, and Middle Arsenals.72 At the 

time Berke raised the question, then, there were still no agreed-upon or clearly documented 

National Register boundaries. Murtagh’s answer evidently relied on Utley: he told Berke that 

twelve properties in Armory Square had been determined to “possess national historical 

significance” and were included in the NHL designation, together with the Parade itself and 

 

68 Letters, Lewis to Meredith Ingham, February 22, 1972 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. 

Springfield Armory), and Lewis to Garvey, April 11, 1972 (Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment 

Planning, 1971). 

69 See memo, Utley to Assistant Director, Cooperative Activities, April 3, 1972, in which Utley declines 

to comment on the EIS (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence -75). 

70 Letter, Arnold M. Berke (Senior Planner, Lower Pioneer Valley Regional Planning Commission) to 

William J. Murtagh (Keeper, National Register), July 20, 1972 (Washington Office, Park History Files: 

folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

71 Letter, Utley to Anne Wardwell (Massachusetts Historical Commission), January 31, 1969 

(Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

72 Registry of National Historic and Natural Landmarks, Report of Biennial Visit to Springfield 

Armory, Armory Square, Springfield, Mass., of September 18, 1969 (by Edwin W. Small, Assistant to 

Director, NERO) (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 
The Creation of the Park 

75

Figures 2.10, 2.11. Two undated perspectives of the S.T.C.C. master plan, showing the range of buildings on 

the northwest side of the green. The drawing below may be later, as it appears to show the brick facing 

added in mid-summer 1971 in response to NPS criticisms (S.T.C.C.). 
The Creation of the Park 

76

the iron fence. He explained further that the boundaries included all of city’s property within 

Armory Square plus that portion of state land “south of a line extending along the north 

boundary of the Parade.”73 Apparently, then, the north side of the Parade lay outside the 

National Register boundary. This was significant because all of the college’s construction and 

demolition projects were slated to take place there: they could well be exempt from Section 

106 review. 

 As the fall of 1972 wore on, the NPS’s regional office, seemingly unperturbed by its 

plans, continued to treat the college with deference. On November 29, Regional Director 

George A. Palmer alerted Washington that essential legislative support data would be as 

much as two months late because the previous proposal had “overlooked the total needs of 

the ground space requirements” for the college’s new buildings “as indicated in their Master 

Plan.” Palmer explained that new boundary lines, drawn “to allow for this expansion,” were 

awaiting the College’s concurrence.74

 Meanwhile Albert Benjamin was approaching matters quite differently. He was 

Palmer’s assistant and chief of the New England field office. He had noticed certain 

developments that “either have or could potentially have adverse effects on National 

Historic Landmark property.” The college was demolishing Building 17: the rear portion was 

already gone, “but there might well be enough to save.” Also, the college was in the process of 

building three “massive contemporary structures directly facing on the parade field”: one, 

indeed, was almost finished (Figs. 2.12-16). In addition to these immediate threats, Benjamin 

felt that others could arise if the college destroyed any more buildings “to make way for their 

new campus, as indeed they intend to do.”75

 Larry Lewis advised Benjamin that it was “to [sic] late to do anything” and asked him 

“not to bring the subject up with Garvey.” Knowing that Lewis was a “close personal friend 

of Congressman Boland,” Benjamin probably saw that Lewis was concerned not only about 

the impacts of complaints on the college but also on the legislation to save the museum. 

Nevertheless, he immediately phoned Murray Nelligan in Washington and put his concerns 

in a memorandum to Regional Director Palmer. He pointed out that the agency’s draft 

master plan called for moving Building 17 to its original position; that the college was fully 

aware of the campus’s National Historic Landmark status and of its responsibilities under 

Section 106; and that as federal funds were almost certainly being used in the college’s 

building program that program was subject to Section 106 review. Benjamin also spelled out 

the political ramifications of the situation. These went beyond the question of Boland’s 

support for the legislation to the nature of the agency’s “future relationship with the college 

 

73 Letter, William J. Murtagh to Arnold M. Berke, Senior Planner, Lower Pioneer Valley Regional 

Planning Commission, August 10, 1972 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1967-75). 

74 Memo, George A. Palmer to NPS Director, November 29, 1972 (Lowenthal Files: folder: PreEstablishment Planning, 1972). 

75 Memo, Assistant to Director, NE Region (Benjamin) to Director, NE Region, December 1, 1972 

(Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 
The Creation of the Park 

77

which we must depend on for future protection of Armory Square as well as a fully integrated 

working relationship with the Park.” Whatever the long-term implications, Benjamin added 

that the NPS had a “minimum responsibility” to notify the Advisory Council on Historic 

Preservation: “as far as I can tell at this time,” he wrote, “no one has attempted to meet the 

legal obligation” of doing so.76

 Someone had, however, notified HEW that the college might be breaking the law. 

And Donald Branum, an HEW official in Boston, had already ordered a stop to demolition. 

This was quickly rescinded when the agency’s lawyers decided it lacked legal authority, but 

HEW did take the opportunity to study its “responsibilities under the term [sic] of the 

original deed.” Meanwhile, at least one NPS official believed the Advisory Council already 

knew about the proposed demolition but was waiting for the NPS to request an investigation. 

And so, on December 14, Regional Director Palmer officially notified the Council that the 

college was demolishing Building 17 and that its building program would have a “possibly 

adverse effect” on the West, Middle, and Main Arsenals.77

 Given the confusion surrounding the National Register listing, Palmer’s letter was 

carefully phrased. The 1967 evaluation report had accorded Building 17 “‘less than national 

significance,’” and descriptions of the NHL designation had omitted it. One NPS official 

concluded that the agency was “in a very weak position” to protest its demolition and 

recommended instead leaving it to the Advisory Council or HEW “to take the matter further, 

if they so desire.”78 Admitting that a National Register listing that included Building 17, if 

prepared now, would be “open to challenge,” Palmer therefore emphasized the impacts of 

adjacent construction on the three buildings which were indubitably listed on the National 

Register: the West, Middle, and Main Arsenals. 

 The college was undeterred. Five days later, the Massachusetts Board of Regional 

Colleges asked HEW for permission to “dispose of” Buildings 26 and 27, demolish Building 

17, and move Building 10 at some unspecified future date. HEW granted permission the same 

day for all except Building 10.79

 

76 Memo, Assistant to Director, NE Region (Benjamin) to Director, NE Region, December 1, 1972 

(Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

77 Branum was Assistant Regional Director of HEW’s Boston Office of Surplus Property Utilization. 

Legal authority: memo, Landmark and National Register Specialist [no name] to Assistant Director, 

Cooperative Activities, n.d. [December 1, 1972]; study its responsibilities: memo, Assistant to Director, 

NE Region (Benjamin) to Director, NE Region, December 1, 1972; knew about the demolition: memo, 

Landmark and National Register Specialist [no name] to Assistant Director, Cooperative Activities, 

n.d. [December 1, 1972] (all: Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 

1967-75); Palmer notified: letter, George A. Palmer, to Robert R. Garvey, Jr. (Executive Secretary, 

ACHP), December 14, 1972 (Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 1972). 

78 Memo, Landmark and National Register Specialist [no name] to Assistant Director, Cooperative 

Activities, n.d. [December 1, 1972] (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1967-75). 

79 In making this request, the board noted that the deed of transfer had stipulated that either Building 

10 or 17 be retained: given the latter’s “questionable” condition, “obviously the choice of which to 

demolish and which to save was relatively easy.” Two letters, William G. Dwyer (President, Board of 
The Creation of the Park 

78

Figure 2.12. Presentation drawing of STCC Campus Master Plan, discovered in an STCC Storeroom. It does 

not correspond precisely to either of the perspectives above (S.T.C.C.). 

 Though HEW claimed it had complied with NHPA, the Advisory Council was not so 

sure, and early in January 1973, it asked HEW to review the performance of the college and 

its supervisory board with regard to its responsibilities under both Section 106 and the deed 

of transfer. Even though the humanities building was “almost completed,” the Council noted, 

“at no time have any of the plans of the Springfield Technical Community College been 

submitted...for review,” as required and agreed.80 The Council appeared to be laying the 

 

Regional Community Colleges) to Robert F. Thompson, Jr. (Assistant Regional Director, Office of 

Surplus Property Utilization, HEW, Boston), and two letters, Harold Putnam (Regional Director, 

Office of Surplus Property Utilization, HEW, Boston), to Dwyer: all December 19, 1972 (Lowenthal 

Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 1972). 

80 Letter, Ken Tapman (Compliance Officer, ACHP) to Caspar Weinberger (Secretary, HEW), January 

12, 1973 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 
The Creation of the Park 

79

Figure 2.13. Building 17 (Putnam Hall), first of the college’s large new buildings (photo: author).

Figure 2-14. Buildings 13 and 17 (Deliso and Putnam Halls), built 1973-74 (photo: author). 
The Creation of the Park 

80

groundwork for a full-scale review, but no such review took place, and it would be a full year 

before Section 106 was heard of again. By then, the humanities building was finished, 

Building 17 was demolished, and new issues had arisen.

 Throughout this period the legislative process continued to move forward in 

Washington, but the events of November and December, 1972, raised deep concerns among 

those closer to the Armory. “It appears from this,” wrote one participant, “that Springfield 

Armory is a lost cause.” Another commented: “This speaks much about the quality of the 

college and its administration.”81 The episode persuaded Benjamin, who was simultaneously 

advancing the legislation and sounding the alarm over the college’s building plans, that the 

prospect of “having any control over the college building program as we had hoped in the 

draft master plan and as spelled out in the EIS seems very remote at this time.” The College’s 

actions, he thought, were “indicative of the limited commitment the college has to historical 

[sic] preservation.” Worse, they pointed to “potential difficulties we probably will face” in 

reaching an agreement with the college to preserve the rest of the parade ground. Benjamin 

thought it likely that the college would “cause future difficulties” relating to their Section 106 

responsibilities. It probably did not help that, as Larry Lewis put it, the college’s architect was 

“a very difficult person to deal with and apparently unwilling to compromise his vision for 

the college” – a vision that now included an eight-story parking garage immediately north of

the Commanding Officer’s Quarters. “We may well face a battle with the college,” warned 

Benjamin, not least over parking.82

 Though Benjamin realized it was “too late in the game to raise fundamental 

questions” about the park’s establishment, that is exactly what he did in a memo to Regional 

Director Palmer. He pointed out that the NPS could save Buildings 7, 8, and 9 from 

demolition by buying and relocating them. But his “personal view” of the park’s prospects 

was pessimistic. He questioned the “seemingly large staff and sizable amount of development

funds” proposed for a park whose “primary feature” was an arms collection “visited by a 

relatively small number of people with specific interest in firearms.” Visitation would 

probably remain low. “Rather than a full scale staff with a large operating budget and 

multimillion dollar development,” Benjamin suggested the agency write a cooperative 

agreement that would leave the museum’s day-to-day management in the hands of Lewis and 

his “experienced staff.” Under such an agreement, the NPS could upgrade the site and 

provide “operating funds,” which might amount to about a quarter of the expenditure 

currently proposed. The agency would “get far more value for our money and avoid many 

potential problems.”83

 

81 Note, “fbs” [?] to Dr. Mortensen, January 18, 1973 (covering enclosure of Palmer’s letter to ACHP), 

and handwritten annotation to same, initialed but illegibly (Washington Office, Park History Files: 

folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

82 Memo, Chief, New England Field Office (Albert J. Benjamin) to Director, NE Region, December 11, 

1972 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

83 Memo, Chief, New England Field Office (Albert J. Benjamin) to Director, NE Region, December 11, 

1972 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 
The Creation of the Park 

81

Figure 2.15. Building 17 (Putnam Hall). The red brick is a close match to that of the historic buildings. The scale 

is monumental (photo: author). 
The Creation of the Park 

82

Figure 2.16. Building 17 (Putnam Hall). The red brick is a close match to that of the historic buildings. The scale is 

monumental (photo: author).
The Creation of the Park 

83

 Benjamin’s concerns fell on deaf ears. The NPS continued assembling documents to 

support the legislation and, in March 1973, it fell to Benjamin to ask College President 

Garvey for a statement of the college’s position on the legislation.84 Garvey replied that the 

college “welcomes the establishment” of the park and “looks forward with pleasure to having 

Benton Small Arms Museum” and the Department of the Interior “as neighbors.” He assured 

the NPS that the college did not intend to alter the buildings on Main Street or along Federal 

Street from the corner northward to the Main Gate, and that it would maintain the parade 

ground “as it now exists and all of the buildings on the campus that have been designated as 

part of the National Historic Site.” He also noted that the college’s new buildings, then under 

construction, were “faced with brick in keeping with the Historical [sic] nature of this 

property.” But there was a caveat: “In summation, we welcome the establishment of this 

Historic Park as long as the property taken does not impose any restrictions on the future growth 

of the College or take any of the land previously deeded to the Commonwealth.”85

 Benjamin had deep misgivings about the letter. He worried that it left room for the 

college to pursue its plans for a “high rise parking garage.” And he pointed out that Garvey 

had conspicuously declined the opportunity to “comment specifically on an agreement.” But 

it was the conclusion that especially disturbed him. In light of the letter, he advised the 

regional director, “it will be extremely difficult to reach any meaningful agreement with the 

college in reference to the preservation of the parade field and the remaining buildings 

surrounding it”: the college and its supervisory board “will insist that the furtherance of 

educational needs will always take precedence over historic preservation.”86

FURTHER PROGRESS TOWARDS LEGISLATION: 1973 

 Public hearings on the authorizing legislation, held by the Senate and House in 

November and December of 1973, provided an opportunity for legislators to wax eloquent 

on the Armory’s historical importance and patriotic value.87 Representative Roy A. Taylor of 

 

84 Letter, Benjamin to Garvey, March 1, 1973 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR, 

Correspondence 1967-75) Emphasis added. 

85 Emphasis added. Letter, Garvey to Benjamin, March 13, 1973. For the NPS’s summary, see 

“Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Position of the Commonwealth,” n.d. (both: Washington 

Office, Park History Files: folder SPAR Legislation). 

86 Memo, Assistant to Director, Northeast Region (Albert J. Benjamin) to Director, NE Region, March 

16, 1973 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

87 Neither hearing was published. However, transcripts of both exist: See “Hearings before the Senate 

Subcommittee on parks and Recreation Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, November ? [added 

in pen: 6, 1973] (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder SPAR Legislation), and U.S. House of 

Representatives. Report of Proceedings, Hearing Held Before Subcommittee on National Parks and 

Recreation of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, H.R. 329, Springfield Armory Historic Site, 

Monday, December 20, 1973, pages 1-58, Washington, D.C., Ward & Paul [typescript, marked 

“Attachment D Unrevised and Unedited, not for Quotation or Duplication in Any Form] (Washington 

Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Legislation). 
The Creation of the Park 

84

North Carolina called its historical significance “unquestionable.” Rep. Silvio O. Conte, one 

of the bill’s original sponsors, said it was “rich and glorious...deeply intertwined with the 

creation and growth of the nation,” with its defense and the “preservation of its ideals.” 

Boland thought the legislation would be a “fitting and relevant commemoration” of the 

Armory’s role in U.S. history, particularly welcome in light of the nation’s approaching 

bicentennial. 

 The National Park Service saw the Armory as “a heritage of government arms 

development and manufacture that is worthy of preservation”: the new historic site would 

“commemorate the important role of the Springfield Armory in the Nation’s military 

history.”88

 Questions arose about the status of the required agreement with the state. Chairing 

the Senate hearing, Senator Alan Bible asked Lewis whether it was correct that the 

negotiations with the state were “progressing very well and that they have negotiated out the 

agreements”; was it true that the conclusion of an agreement awaited only the passage of 

legislation? Lewis replied: “Yes, Mr. Chairman, that is a correct statement. There is a great 

spirit of cooperation.” Bible pressed the point: “So you can anticipate no problems there 

once this bill is signed. Is that what you are saying?” Again Lewis agreed.89 The questions 

followed a similar pattern in the House, prompting similar reassurances. Admittedly, the 

agreement had not yet been completed, “but,” Boland assured the chair, “we anticipate no 

problems with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” Rep. Taylor asked whether he could 

safely assure the full committee and the House that “there is no problem there?” Boland: yes. 

Taylor understood that “maybe a couple of buildings have been torn down. And we want to 

be certain that others will not be destroyed and that incompatible structures will not be 

erected.” Boland: “I am sure we are in the process of getting that assurance”; in fact, “we will 

have it.” Speaking for Springfield’s Chamber of Commerce, Paul Greeley added that 

Lieutenant Governor Frye had assured him that “from a state point of view he saw no reason 

why this agreement couldn’t be worked out promptly.”90

 The National Park Service was a little more guarded. Though Director Ron Walker 

assured Bible that the state would donate the two-acre strip of land in front of the Main 

Arsenal, Benjamin, on the witness stand with him, had to admit the NPS lacked any written 

commitment from the state legislature or the governor. The best he could do was assure the 

Senators that the state had a “deep interest” in the proposal and, moreover, had received a 

“communication” on the subject from the college. This implied that the college, at least, 

supported the transfer. But would the state follow the college’s recommendation? Walker: 

 

88 Report of Proceedings, Hearing Held Before Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation of the 

Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, H.R. 329, Springfield Armory Historic Site, Monday, December 

20, 1973, pages 1-58, Washington, D.C., Ward & Paul [typescript, marked “Attachment D Unrevised 

and Unedited, not for Quotation or Duplication in Any Form], pp. 2, 8, 7, 23 (Washington Office, Park 

History Files: folder: SPAR Legislation). 

89 Senate hearing, p.72. 

90 House hearing, pp. 7, 12-13, 55. 
The Creation of the Park 

85

“Well, we would hope that they would....” Still, the two-acre donation was only one part of 

the agreement, and Walker admitted that the agency had not received any commitment to 

sign an agreement at all. “Mr. Benjamin,” he told the Senators, “has attempted on no less than 

60 [sic!] occasions to do that as recently as within the last six weeks,” but without success. 

The college was apparently “waiting for the legislation to solidify before they would be 

willing to sit down and work out the specific terms of an agreement....” Bible was evidently 

surprised to hear this: had not Boland and Lewis “indicated all that was necessary before the 

donations of either the state land or the college land was the passage of this bill”? Walker: 

they “envisioned no problems in getting this agreement.”91 The pattern was repeated in the 

House, where Associate Director Stanley W. Hulett told legislators that the college had not 

responded to the draft which the NPS had sent. “We have had some difficulties in getting an 

agreement from them,” he admitted.92

 By this time, agency officials must have been genuinely anxious about the agreement. 

Yet they used that very anxiety to reassure legislators: after all, they implied, did they not 

desire an agreement as ardently as the legislators? Referring to the demolition of two 

buildings and the ongoing transformation of the “entire northwest side of the parade,” they 

assured Congress that “as a condition of establishing the area, we would require a 

satisfactory agreement with the college whereby the remaining historic buildings, along the 

northeast and southeast sides of the parade will [sic] be retained, and the physical setting of 

the parade lands will not be impaired.” But Rep. Taylor pressed the point: had the college 

used the land “in a manner which shows that it appreciates the historic value?” Hulett 

admitted it had not: this was “one of the problems,” and indeed the very reason why we “feel 

so strongly” that the agreement “should be worked out prior to the legislation proceeding to 

the floor of the House....” Actually, Hewlett pointed out, the NHPA required the college to 

submit its plans to the Advisory Council, but “to date they have not submitted those plans in 

compliance with Section 106....” Taylor: did not the law require approval before demolishing 

a historic building? Hulett: yes.93

 Together, Taylor and Hulett had placed on the Congressional record the fact that the 

college, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the HEW had broken the law. It was this 

behavior that had shaken Albert Benjamin’s confidence in the park proposal. Yet to 

Washington officials, the same facts simply underlined the need for a park and an agreement. 

 At the close of the Senate hearing, one NPS official described Senator Bible as “not 

outwardly enthused about the lack of a draft agreement with the college.”94 Nevertheless, on 

December 3, 1973, the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs reported favorably 

 

91 Senate hearing, pp. 98-99. 

92 House hearing, pp. 25, 28-29. 

93 House hearing, pp. 25, 28-29. 

94 Memo, New Areas Keyman, Northeast (signed Gary Bunney for Gerald W. Tays) to Associate 

Director, Legislation, November 15, 1973 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1967-75). 
The Creation of the Park 

86

on the bill,95 and the Senate passed it the following day. By contrast, the chair of the House 

subcommittee told the press that there would be no action on the bill until the state had 

reached an agreement with HEW and Interior guaranteeing “all buildings on the Armory 

property will be maintained intact.”96 Things had reached an impasse, and tempers on both 

sides were running high. Among NPS officials, the belief had taken root that the college had 

acted in bad faith. But the college’s spokesman told the press he did not understand the 

objections raised during the hearing: Interior, he said, had “had several meetings with college 

officials and raised no objections in the past regarding planned development at the college.” 

The college, he pointed out, had “nowhere else to build new facilities.”97 “Settle Differences 

at Armory Square,” urged the Springfield Daily News: “This multi-million dollar project is too 

important to be lost, or even delayed....” 

DIFFICULTIES REACHING AGREEMENT WITH THE STATE: 1973-74 

 As the Congressional hearings got underway, work also began in earnest on the 

cooperative agreement because the authorizing legislation required its completion and 

approval by the state as a condition for establishing the park. In 1971 the master planning 

team had proposed a first sketch; now, in November, 1973, Robert Utley sent the regional 

director a more developed draft embodying the “basic provisions” to which the college 

“should subscribe.”98 It obligated Interior to provide technical assistance and advice 

regarding the preservation of the campus and to cooperate in fulfilling the purposes of the 

National Historic Site. It bound the college to “preserve in perpetuity the historical 

character” of the campus and, more specifically, to “undertake no construction, alterations, 

or repairs changing the character or appearance of the historic Springfield Armory parade 

ground or the external aspect of the historic buildings fronting upon it.” The draft offered 

similar restrictions on alterations or repairs to buildings north of the parade, plus the further 

provision that the college would undertake no new construction without the Secretary’s 

prior approval.99

 

95 U.S. Senate, Committee on Interior and insular Affairs, Report to accompany S. 979, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site, Mass., Calendar No. 568, Report No. 93-590, December 3, 1973. 

96 Roy A Taylor: “Mayor Expects Armory to Win Historic Status,” Springfield Daily News, December 

11, 1973 (copy in Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning 1973). 

97 “Mayor Expects Armory to Win Historic Status,” Springfield Daily News, December 11, 1973 (copy in 

Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning 1973). 

98 Memo, Assistant Director, Park Historic Preservation (Robert M. Utley) to Northeast Region 

Regional. Director, November 12, 1973 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1967-75). 

99 The exact language is: the college shall “undertake no alterations or repairs substantially changing 

the external character or appearance of the buildings or grounds in the remainder” of the area under 

administration, “and no new construction therein,” until plans have been “approved” by the Secretary 

or his representative. If Secretary did not act on such plans within 90 days, they would be deemed 

approved. “Draft Memorandum of Agreement Between the Department of the Interior and [the 
The Creation of the Park 

87

 Utley said his draft was based on the agency’s cooperative agreement with Tuskegee 

Institute, soon to be authorized as part of the same omnibus park bill as the Armory. And 

indeed the clauses binding the college were drawn from a draft of that agreement.100 But the 

situations at the two parks were dramatically different. At Tuskegee, the NPS had a partner 

eager to “preserve in perpetuity the historical character” of its campus, which it treasured as a 

physical record of its historical connection to Booker T. Washington and George 

Washington Carver and thus of its distinction as an institution. In Springfield, by contrast, 

the college had no historical association with the Armory and regarded Armory Square as 

little more than deteriorated real estate. 

 In March 1974, agency officials, believing they were under an imminent deadline to 

show Congress a draft agreement, sent a new version to the regional solicitor with a request 

for expedited review.101 In it, the NPS promised to grant the college a right-of-way across the 

park, to limit visitor and business access to the park via the State/Byers entrance, to explore 

traffic control measures, to assume a fair share of the utility bills, and to work with the college 

to solve the parking problem, even countenancing “a possible parking garage.” These clauses 

addressed genuine concerns of the college. On the other hand, the new version bound the 

college yet more tightly to commitments it was not eager to make. In addition to definitely 

requiring the college to transfer the strip of land in front of the Main Arsenal to the NPS, and 

to preserve Building 10 “in its entirety,” it spelled out the standards according to which 

Interior would review college plans: such review was to insure “that no adverse effect is 

created upon the historic scene,” where adverse effect was defined (following Section 106) to 

include complete or partial destruction or alteration of a property, isolation from or 

alteration of its surroundings, or the introduction of visual, audible, or atmospheric elements 

out of character with it. The agreement also contained a new provision prohibiting the 

college from using the grounds in ways that were not “in keeping with the need to preserve 

 

 governing body of] Springfield Technical Community College Concerning Preservation of the Historic 

Buildings, Grounds, and Environment of Springfield Armory Within Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site,” no signature, no date, (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1967-75). Though undated, a handwritten annotation matches one referred to by 

Connally in a letter of August 20, 1974, as identifying the original version. It appears in the file between 

documents dated March 16 and November 12, 1973. 

100 Memo, Assistant Director, Park Historic Preservation (Robert M. Utley) to Northeast Region 

Regional Director, November 12, 1973 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR, 

Correspondence 1967-75). A copy of the Tuskegee agreement is preserved among papers concerning 

Springfield Armory: see “Memorandum of Agreement of ___________ between the Department of the 

Interior and the Trustees of Tuskegee Institute relating to the Preservation of the Original Campus of 

Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site,” n.d., unsigned (Washington Office, 

Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

101 Covering memo to draft agreement, NA Regional Director (David A. Richie) to Acting Regional 

Solicitor Philadelphia, March 7, 1974 (Lowenthal Files: Pre-Establishment Planning Relating to Co-Op 

Agreement, 1974). 
The Creation of the Park 

88

 the historic resource and to maintain their [sic] visual integrity,” and it made all uses of the 

parade field subject to joint approval by MBRCC and Interior.102

 Before being submitted to the MBRCC, the draft was further developed. Regarding 

the grounds, the new draft set the strip of land in front of the Main Arsenal at 1.97 acres, 

provided for an easement to allow the college to “maintain its normal traffic flow pattern,” 

required the college to permit the Parade’s use for special events in keeping with the site’s 

purpose and to allow park visitors to use it “so that they may gain a fuller appreciation of the 

entire site,” and allowed the federal government to reimburse the college for “certain 

maintenance services” on federal grounds, such as mowing and tree care. Regarding the 

college’s building plans, it bound the college to: 

undertake no construction, alterations, changes, or repairs... 

changing in any way the appearance or character of the historic 

Springfield Armory parade ground, the external aspects of all the 

historic buildings fronting it, or the historic iron fence 

surrounding the property....The historic aspects of the parade 

field shall be carefully preserved. All uses of these grounds shall be 

in keeping with the need to preserve this historic resource and to 

maintain their visual integrity. 

 Throughout the rest of the campus, the college would “undertake no alterations or 

repairs substantially changing the external character or appearance of the buildings or 

grounds...and no new construction therein, except on those structures or facilities for which 

a contract has already been let...,” without first obtaining Interior’s approval.103

 The March 1974 draft appears to have been the first to be formally presented to state 

officials. The Public Facilities Committee of the MBRCC reviewed it and in due course sent 

back a counter-proposal, but this was far from the “reaction and approval” that at least one 

NPS official had hoped for.104 Although the college agreed to grant the NPS an easement for 

access and to permit the use of the parade ground for park-related events, it stripped out all 

 

102 “Springfield Armory Cooperative Agreement – Draft,” March 7, 1974 (with covering memo, NA 

Regional Director [David A. Richie] to Acting Regional Solicitor, Philadelphia, March 7, 1974) 

(Lowenthal Files: Pre-Establishment Planning Relating to Co-Op Agreement, 1974). 

103 [Draft] “Memorandum of Agreement Between the Department of the Interior and [the governing 

body of] Springfield Technical Community College Concerning Preservation of the Historical 

Buildings, Grounds, and Environment of Springfield Armory within Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site,” no signature, no date, (with typewritten annotation at top of p. 1, “Agreement Submitted 

March 1974 to Board of Regional Community Colleges” (Washington Office, Park History Files: fol.: 

SPAR Correspondence. 1967-75) 

104 Jerry Wagers, [title]: memo to Associate Director, Legislation, March 22, 1974, covering [Draft] 

“Memorandum of Agreement Between the Department of the Interior and [the governing body of] 

Springfield Technical Community College Concerning Preservation of the Historical Buildings, 

Grounds, and Environment of Springfield Armory within Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” 

no signature, no date., (Lowenthal Files: Pre-Establishment Planning Relating to Co-Op Agreement, 

1974). 
The Creation of the Park 

89

of the provisions regarding construction and alteration. Without them, the promise to 

preserve the “historical character” of the campus was meaningless.105

 A negotiating session was scheduled for July 1974, with Wagers and Benjamin 

representing the agency. By this time the Armory problem was attracting considerable 

attention in Washington. Because of Congress’s “deep concern,” as well as commitments that 

had been made, the NPS’s legislative office wanted to review all further drafts of the 

agreement.106 At a director’s meeting, NPS Director Ronald Walker and Deputy Director 

Russell Dickenson declared that the agreement was to be approved by “all of them.”107 A new 

draft was ready within days, representing the NPS’s sense of what would be “acceptable” to 

the college.108 The changes focused on the construction issues. The new draft proposed a 

single set of provisions covering the entire National Historic Site, though it called out the 

parade, the buildings facing it, and the iron fence as having “particular importance”: “their 

historic values need to be permanently preserved in all aspects.” Elsewhere, the previous 

provisions were replaced by a single stipulation that MBRCC “shall submit all plans at the 

earliest stage possible for review and comment by the Secretary or his duly authorized 

representatives which relate to any construction, alterations, changes, repairs, or uses which 

might affect the external character or appearance of the buildings or grounds within the 

National Historic Landmark boundary.” As for Building 10, the absolute requirement to 

preserve it was replaced with the looser stipulation that BRCC “make every reasonable and 

prudent effort” to do so. After five years, moreover, if the college needed to remove it (as 

indeed the master plan required), the MBRCC’s only obligation would be to give Interior a 

reasonable chance to move it before demolition.109

 Although the new draft seemed to represent progress towards an agreement, the 

central issue remained unresolved. On the one hand, Regional Director Galvin 

acknowledged that college officials “continue to state that it has always been their intention 

to preserve the parade field and the buildings which face it on two sides.” On the other, he 

 

105 [Draft] “Memorandum of Agreement between the Department of the Interior and /the governing 

body of/ Springfield Technical Community College Concerning Preservation of the Histroical [sic] 

Buildings, Grounds and Environment of Springfield Armory within Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site,” no signature, no date, (with cover letter from Joseph G. Pyne [Director, Engineering 

Services, BRCC] to Albert J. Benjamin, May 23, 1974, identifying this as this as BRCC’s revision) 

(Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

106 Memo, Acting Associate Director, Legislation (Robert Landau) to NAR Regional Director, July 18, 

1974 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

107 Follow-up slip, EAC to , July 29, 1974 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1967-75). 

108 Memo, NAR Acting Regional Director (Dennis P. Galvin) to Associate Director, Legislation, WASO, 

August 1, 1974 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

109 “Draft Memorandum of Agreement Between the Department of the Interior and the 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Board of Regional Community Colleges Concerning Preservation of 

the Historic Buildings, Grounds, and Environment of Springfield Armory within the National Historic 

Site,” no signature, no date, (attached to Galvin memo of August 1, 1974, as noted above) (Washington 

Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 
The Creation of the Park 

90

commented that they also “continue to be quite firm in their resistance to signing any 

agreement which would place any specific limitations or requirements on their development 

plans, or upon any actions which they would consider to be necessary for good educational 

utilization of the site....”110 Meanwhile Utley had rejected a crucial change which Wagers had 

already accepted in discussions with the college: the downgrading of Interior’s right to 

“review and approve” to one merely to “review and comment.” To Utley this represented a 

“fatal weakening of the agreement,” a capitulation to the college’s desire to have “no 

interference in its plans and programs.” Utley’s response reflected the growing distrust that 

many NPS officials had come to feel: “Nothing in our past relationship with the college,” he 

wrote, “suggests that its administration can be trusted.” He believed the agency should “nail 

the college to specific language” before the House acted on the legislation.111

 This was the advice Utley gave to Ernest Connally, who apparently took it to heart. If 

the college was going to resist government oversight, he argued, then the NPS must be 

“equally firm in insisting on effective safeguards against the kind of insensitive development 

that the college has carried out in the past and that has already seriously compromised the 

integrity of the property.” The administrators had been “unresponsive” to NPS concerns: 

there was no likelihood that this would change. Connally wanted to go back to the agency’s 

original draft. But he also suggested an alternative: to accept the latest draft but with the 

proviso that disputes over “adverse effect or proposed mitigation” would be submitted to the 

Advisory Council, whose determinations would be “definitive.”112

CONGRESS AUTHORIZES THE PARK: 1974 

 By the time Connally dispatched his memo on August 20, 1974, the need to obtain an 

agreement had become urgent. Just six days earlier, the House committee had released its 

report urging approval of the legislation. On August 19, the House had passed it. According 

to the report, slightly over 20 acres of the 55-acre site were to be donated to the government, 

and the rest was “to be managed as a preservation control [sic] zone pursuant to the 

agreement between the Secretary of the Interior and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” 

As to this agreement, the report made an arresting claim: “the Committee has been advised 

that a suitable cooperative agreement has been negotiated...to protect the historic values of 

the site....”113

 

110 Memo, NAR Acting Regional Director (Dennis P. Galvin) to Associate Director, Legislation, WASO, 

August 1, 1974 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

111 Follow-up Slip, Robert M. Utley to Dr. Connally, July 17, 1974 (Washington Office, Park History 

Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

112 Memo, Associate Director, Professional Services (Connally) to Associate Director, Legislation, 

August 20, 1974 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

113 U.S. House of Representatives, “Report to accompany H. 13157,” August 14, 1974 (Report No. 93-

1285), 93rd Congress, 2nd Session, p. 13. 
The Creation of the Park 

91

 It would have been more accurate to say that negotiations were about to encounter a 

new obstacle. The committee counsel agreed with Connally that the “simple review 

authority” offered by the college was insufficient. The NPS Associate Director for Legislation 

Richard C. Curry thought the legislative history was “quite clear” in requiring the “protection 

and preservation of the historic values” of the site, and the proposed agreement would not 

“meet this requirement.” Connally urged the regional office to tell the college the latest draft 

was simply “not sufficient to serve as a basis for establishment....”114 And so, just as the House 

committee was announcing the conclusion of an agreement, the NPS was in fact entering a 

new phase of negotiations. 

 On October 8, 1974, the Senate passed the omnibus bill authorizing the Armory. A 

week later the House concurred in various Senate amendments concerning other parks. On 

October 26, President Richard M. Nixon signed the omnibus bill into law. Since it made no 

mention of the Army agreement, only two conditions remained to be met before the Armory 

could become a national park: the city had to donate the land and the state had to sign an 

agreement. Referring to the latter condition, at least one Washington official anticipated a 

“long delay” in establishing the park.115 The urgency of concluding the agreement was now 

keenly felt in Springfield, as in Washington. Early in December, Mayor William C. Sullivan 

thanked Director Ron Walker for the legislation and pleaded for the “earliest and fastest 

transition” of the Armory to NHS status. Once again, the funds appropriated by the City 

Council to keep the museum afloat were “just about exhausted.” Connally reminded him of 

the two conditions.116

CAMPUS PLANS, THE COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT, AND SECTION 106: 1974-75 

 Unfortunately, HEW chose this moment to sponsor the college’s next building 

venture, the construction of a new science building, Building 15 (eventually named Scibelli 

Hall), at the northwest corner of the Parade, on the site of Buildings 2 and 3 (Fig. 2.17). 

Having learned a lesson from its previous encounter with the Advisory Council, the 

department was careful this time to follow the Section 106 process. On August 30, two weeks 

before the House passed the authorizing legislation, the agency asked the State Historic 

Preservation Office to concur with its finding that the demolition of the two buildings, vacant 

 

114 Memo, Associate Director, Legislation (Richard C. Curry) to NAR Regional Director, September 5, 

1974 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

115 Memo, Polly M. Rettig [Survey Historian, Nat Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings] to Ben Levy, 

September 5, 1974 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

116 Letters, Mayor William C. Sullivan to Walker, November 12, 1974, and Connally to Sullivan, 

December 4, 1974 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 
The Creation of the Park 

92

and unused by the college, would not have a significant adverse effect on the National 

Historic Landmark.117

 HEW based its case on two arguments: first, that the 1967 evaluation report had not 

identified the buildings in question as worthy of preservation; second, that they lay outside 

the NHL. SHPO Elizabeth Amadon would now have to confront the unresolved boundary 

question. For guidance, she had only William Murtagh’s letter of 1972, and that was hardly 

dispositive. She therefore told Donald Branum of HEW that the boundaries were “not really 

defined,” except as they included “specific buildings. The only problem,” she continued, “is 

the Iron Fence, which goes completely around all four sides of the Armory property. 

Obviously, William Murtagh did not intend that all the property within the fence should be 

included but just the Parade Grounds and the area to the west, south and east of the Parade.” 

That in fact was what Murtagh had said. The problem was that his designation of individual 

buildings did not comply with National Register standards for boundary descriptions. 

Amadon told Branum she was waiting for clarification from NHL program staff.118

Meanwhile she granted the concurrence he sought. HEW now asked the Advisory Council 

for clearance to permit demolition, which was scheduled to begin in about six weeks.119

 By the fall of 1974, then, four distinct processes had become entwined at the Armory: 

the legislative movement toward park authorization, the Section 106 case, the working out of 

the National Register and NHL boundaries, and the negotiation over the cooperative 

agreement. The NPS played complicated and somewhat contradictory roles in these 

interlocked processes, and that made it harder for the agency to win. The reason was that the 

NPS was frequently struggling against itself. As guardian of the nation’s historic sites, the 

NPS would lose if it did not protect Armory Square, a National Historic Landmark. As 

steward of the park system, it would lose if it did not create the park mandated by Congress. 

The only way to create the park was to conclude an agreement with the college, and the best 

way to do that was to relax the standards protecting Armory Square. The agency was under 

great pressure to “save” the Armory. But while the NPS understand that to mean both the 

guns and the site, many people cared only about the guns. An agency official might easily 

conclude that the surest way to save the Armory was to allow the site to be harmed. The 

question was how much harm could be tolerated. The answer kept changing, and sometimes 

it depended on which branch of the agency was talking: the regional office, the professional 

staff in Washington, the legislative liaison office, or the director’s office. 

 

117 Letter, Donald Branum (Director, Surplus Property Utilization - Region I, HEW) to Ann Webster 

Smith (Dir, Office of Compliance, ACHP), August 30, 1974 [sic], countersigned by Elizabeth R. 

Amadon, SHPO, as concurring (Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 1972). 

118 Letter, Amadon to Donald Branum (HEW), August 22, 1974 (Washington Office, NHL Program 

Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

119 Ibid.
The Creation of the Park 

93

Figure 2.17. Site plan of STCC campus in 1974-75 (S.T.C.C. course catalogue). 

 The political difficulties facing the NPS colored the process of defining the National 

Register boundaries. In a handwritten note to Polly Rettig of the National Register office in 

Washington, SHPO Amadon wrote, “This is one of those difficult ones that should be simple 

but may get very complicated! Help!”120 Rettig agreed: “in view of the College’s attitude,” she 

explained to Ben Levy, “the situation with regard to landmark boundaries for the Armory 

could become ‘supremely sticky’, [sic] at least in terms of P.R.” She wanted to believe the 

“implication” of the 1967 report and agency memos, that “the landmark designation applies 

to the whole of Armory Square..., with special attention to be given to the preservation of the 

twelve properties of national significance.” Barry McIntosh of the Division of History agreed: 

if the whole of Armory Square merited inclusion in a National Historic Site, then (in Rettig’s 

paraphrase) “the whole should certainly qualify for landmark status.” But Rettig “could find 

no direct statement to that effect.” Part of the problem was that the NHL file had 

disappeared. Rettig also pointed out that “the College has (unfortunately) been led to think 

in terms of twelve properties only (and has wanted to think of no more).” If the boundaries 

were now enlarged, the college might balk at “being subjected to retroactive control.” She 

feared too that taking a hard line in the upcoming Section 106 review would make the NPS a 

“prime target of the College’s wrath and make life difficult for other agencies in the bargain.” 

 

120 Handwritten note from “B” [Betty Amadon?] to Polly [Rettig], attached to letter, Amadon to Donald 

Branum (HEW), August 22, 1974 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 
The Creation of the Park 

94

She recommended putting the whole Armory business “on a back burner” until the missing 

file could be found. But Levy was “inclined not to delay.” Moreover, he wanted to include all 

of Armory Square: “I think you should have little difficulty in relating the buildings to the 

landmark,” he advised Rettig.121

 On October 26, as President Nixon was signing the legislation, the Advisory Council 

formally objected to HEW’s finding of “no adverse effect.” Even though the NHL 

boundaries were “unclear” – and even if Buildings 2 and 3 turned out to lie outside them – 

they faced the Parade Ground and were in clear view of the Main Arsenal, both of which 

were unquestionably included within the landmark. Under Council regulations, therefore, 

their demolition would cause an adverse effect by introducing “‘visible, audible, or 

atmospheric elements that are out of character with the property or alter its setting.”122 The 

ruling not only blocked demolition, at least temporarily, but also took some of the political 

pressure off the NPS. The Council ordered HEW to prepare for a full-scale consultation and 

scheduled a hearing for February 1975. 

 Meanwhile, negotiation continued over the college’s building plans and the 

cooperative agreement. Although the college offered the NPS “limited review authority” over 

future college building plans, the agency told the MBRCC in September 1974, that the 

legislative record required full “approval authority” over construction.123 In November, the 

regional office said the same thing again: Congress required “full protection” of the historic 

site and that a “minimum requirement” was “approval authority” by Interior “over any plans 

which relate to any construction, alterations, changes, repairs, or uses which might have an 

adverse effect upon the historic values of the area.” The NPS called for an immediate 

resumption of negotiations.124

 This letter may have been prompted by the agency’s Office of Legislation,125 which 

was eager to “contact Boland’s office to get the pressure off our backs and hopefully onto the 

college people.”126 But which party was reluctant to negotiate? The letter implies it was the 

 

121 Memo, Polly M. Rettig [Survey Historian, National Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings] to Ben 

Levy, September 5, 1974, with attached handwritten note from Ben [Levy] to Polly (Washington 

Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

122 Letter, John D. McDermott (Director, Office of Review and Compliance, Council) to Custard 

(HEW), October 26, 1974 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). The letter 

cited criteria b and c of Section 800.9 of the Council’s regulations. If Buildings 2 and 3 proved to be 

within the NHL, the proposed action would also produce an adverse effect under criterion a. 

123 Letter, David A. Richie (Acting Regional Director) to William G. Dwyer (President, BRCC), 

September 19, 1974 (SPAR, Lowenthal Files: Pre-Establishment Planning Relating to Co-Op 

Agreement, 1974). 

124 Letter, Jerry D. Wagers (Regional Director) to William G. Dwyer (Pres, BRCC), November 4, 1974 

(Lowenthal Files: Pre-Establishment Planning Relating to Co-Op Agreement, 1974). 

125 According to memo, Federal & State Liaison, Cooperative Activities (Jack Benjamin) to Regional. 

Director, November 4, 1974 (Lowenthal Files: Pre-Establishment Planning Relating to Co-Op 

Agreement, 1974). However, it is not absolutely clear that Wagers’s letter is the one to which the author 

refers. 

126 Ibid.
The Creation of the Park 

95

college, and other evidence supports this. But at the end of December, faced with an angry 

delegation from HEW, it was the NPS that promised to “resume negotiations...at once.”127

The about-face reveals the near collapse of the process around the end of 1974, as the 

negotiations over the cooperative agreement and the Section 106 process paralyzed one 

another. 

 In mid-November, the Advisory Council proposed a plan that would solve both 

problems: a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) “mitigating adverse effect.” The MOA gave 

the college pretty much everything wanted: permission to demolish Buildings 2 and 3, and 

later Buildings 7, 8, and 9; permission to construct Building 15 “as designed,” that is, without 

any further contextual modifications; and permission to move Building 10 onto NPS 

property whenever it was ready to build on the site. The quid pro quo that would mitigate the 

impacts of these steps on the National Register site, was that the college would record all of 

the buildings to be demolished in drawings suitable for filing with the Historic American 

Buildings Survey in Washington, DC. The Council also sought preservation guarantees in 

areas of lesser interest to the college, especially a commitment to restudy the master plan and 

“consider” retaining Building 19, the vast storehouse (also called a cavalry caserne). At the 

same time, the MOA directed the NPS to provide technical assistance in adaptively reusing 

the structure. And finally, it ensured that future actions affecting the building would be 

subject to Section 106 review, and it committed the college to “re-enter serious negotiations” 

towards a cooperate agreement “on the maintenance and preservation” of Buildings 5, 6, 11, 

12, 14, 15, 16, 29, and the Parade Ground.128

 Both HEW and the State Historic Preservation Office agreed to these terms. The NPS 

also signaled that it would sign the agreement, mainly in order to gain standing to shape it 

further and, if necessary, enforce it. At the same time, the NPS finally settled the boundary 

question, completing a National Register listing on December 2, 1974. The bulk of the 

nomination described individual features, relying on the list included in the 1967 evaluation 

report and omitting mention of the historic structures the college was seeking to demolish. 

Nevertheless, as Levy and McIntosh had urged, the boundaries did encompass all of Armory 

Square which, despite the intrusion of the college’s new buildings, constituted a “cohesive 

district in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”129

 

127 Memo, Assistant Director, Park Historic Preservation (Robert Utley) to Associate Director, 

Legislation, December 23, 1974 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 

1967-75). 

128 Letter, Robert R. Garvey, Jr. (ACHP) to Ronald Walker (Director), December 12, 1974 (Washington 

Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

129 The features singled out for description were Buildings 1, 5/6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 27, the 

Parade, and the cast iron fence. National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form, 

Armory Square/Springfield Armory, prepared by Polly M. Rettig (Historian, Landmark Review Project 

of NPS Historic Sites Survey, December 2, 1974 (Lowenthal Files: folder: National Register 

Nomination). The form states that the original form was prepared by Charles E. Shedd, Staff Historian, 

November 4, 1959: see also National Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings, Form 10-317: Springfield 

Armory, signed and dated, Charles E. Shedd, Jr., Historic Sites Historian, November 4, 1959 [1 p.] 

(Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 
The Creation of the Park 

96

 The nomination, then, did not conflict with the Council’s proposed memorandum of 

agreement, or with the college’s plans. Yet Regional Director Wagers now objected to the 

MOA on the grounds that it would not allow the NPS to preserve the Armory to a standard 

consistent with the legislation.130 When Advisory Council Director Robert Garvey requested 

an explanation for this unexpected reversal, NPS Deputy Director Dickenson retorted that it 

was Congress, not the agency, that had changed course: the standard set by the 1967 

evaluation for reviewing the college’s construction plan was based on the assumption that all 

of Armory Square would be adaptively reused for educational purposes, but “concessions to 

adaptive use allowable in a landmark become unacceptable in a property maintained solely 

for its historical value.” By authorizing the National Historic Site, Congress had invalidated 

earlier assumptions and called for a new standard. The Council, Dickenson remarked, was 

now dealing with “a full-fledged unit of the National Park System.” 

 Dickenson took a tough line on the boundary question. It “should have been clear 

from the first,” he lectured Council Director Garvey, that the landmark boundaries were 

identical to those of the Armory. Though some structures were more important than others, 

none was ever singled out as “nationally significant. It is the entire Armory Square that is 

nationally significant.” He chided everyone involved for their “preoccupation with individual 

buildings rather than with the historic district as a whole”: in planning for the adaptive use of 

complexes like this, “the impact of proposed developments on the whole is perhaps even 

more important than on individual buildings.” Turning to the core of the issue, Dickenson 

charged that the college had “compromised” the parade ground, the “heart of the authorized 

national historic site,” by building two large and “incompatible” structures. A third, plus the 

demolition of Buildings 2 and 3, would “magnify the existing intrusion to unacceptable 

dimensions” and “would so damage the integrity of the authorized national historic site as to 

raise serious doubt about whether it should be established....” An acceptable cooperative 

agreement would have to ensure not only “preservation and adaptive use” of Buildings 6, 11, 

12, 14, 15, 16, and 29 (and if possible also Building 19) but also “contain adequate safeguards 

against any development that will intrude on the historic setting of the national historic 

site....”131 Apparently height limits and design guidelines would not accomplish this. 

 The letter produced a sensation. At a meeting the next day, HEW accused the NPS of 

being “arbitrary and unreasonable and inconsistent with previous positions.” In HEW’s view, 

the college had “acted in good faith” throughout a seven-year development process and 

should not be “further penalized” or subjected to the “monetary consequences” of NPS’s 

change of face. Utley conceded there was “some justice” to the charge of NPS inconsistency 

but insinuated that the NPS “did not wholly agree with HEW’s assessment of the purity of 

intent and action of the college officials.” More to the point, he emphasized again that the 

 

130 Letter, Robert R. Garvey, Jr. (ACHP) to Ronald Walker (Director), December 12, 1974 (Washington 

Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

131 The letter was drafted by Robert Utley: letter, Russell E. Dickenson to Robert R. Garvey, Jr. (ED, 

ACHP), December 19, 1974 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 

1967-75). 
The Creation of the Park 

97

authorizing legislation had changed everything: “compromises acceptable to facilitate 

adaptive use are not acceptable in a unit of the National Park System.” It was at this point that 

HEW, anxious not to compromise the college’s funding, pleaded with the NPS to resume 

negotiations on the cooperative agreement. Utley agreed. If negotiations led to a satisfactory 

agreement, he explained, the NPS would “offer to explore” with the college’s architect 

“whether a basis exists for a building whose scale and design would be acceptable” (though 

privately Utley thought it “doubtful that any building on this site can be made acceptable”). 

On the other hand, if the college proved unwilling to meet NPS’s “basic requirement for 

review and approval of all developments that may visually impact the national historic site,” 

then the NPS would inform Congress and the HEW it had abandoned its effort to create the 

park.132

 A week later, on New Year’s Eve, regional office staff met with MBRCC officials, one 

of whom described the discussion as “friendly” but “not very productive.” The college’s 

problem was money. It had already invested about $2 million in design work that, as an NPS 

official put it, “we might object to” if Interior gained approval authority over the master plan. 

In fact, about $700,000 of the total was invested in Building 15, the “visual intrusion” which 

some NPS officials believed could not be allowed. The college was willing to consider ceding 

“design approval,” but only if the federal government agreed to reimburse them for 

disapproved work. The financial problem went beyond funds already invested. The early 

1970s saw severe inflation, spurred in part by the oil and gas shortage of 1973, and with 

construction costs rising rapidly, the college feared that further delays might leave it unable 

to finish the project. 

 The NPS official most deeply involved in the negotiations was Associate Regional 

Director F. Ross Holland, and in Holland’s view the college faced “real problems.” Yet the 

options he saw open to the agency were hardly more attractive, and he urged his colleagues 

to give them “meditative thought.” On the one hand, he believed that Building 15 would be a 

“serious intrusion upon the scene, virtually destroying” the park’s “visual integrity” (Fig. 

2.18). The only way the NPS could accept it was by choosing to “think of the site as only a 

museum.” But this he thought would be inconsistent with the NPS’s mission. Conversely, if 

the NPS remained “adamant” and took a “hard line” on preservation, the college would 

suffer. All in all, Holland thought the NPS had an “obligation to the community to...make 

some resolution about Building # 15” or abandon the park idea. Only by accepting Building 

15 “in all of its massiveness,” Holland thought, could the NPS obtain a cooperative 

agreement. He believed “the higher social good for the area would be to develop the area 

solely as a community college”: the NPS should cancel the park and let the college or some 

other entity run the museum.133

 

132 Memo, Assistant Director, Park Historic Preservation (Utley) to Associate Director, Legislation, 

December 23, 1974 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

133 Memo, F. Ross Holland, Jr., to Jerry Wagers, December 31, 1974 (Washington Office, Park History 

Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 
The Creation of the Park 

98

Figure 2.18. Building 15 (Scibelli Hall), the college’s last new building (photo: author).

 The agency adopted Utley’s position. At a meeting in Washington with Deputy 

Director Dickenson, Utley, and others, Wagers was instructed to “immediately pursue a hard 

line negotiation” and to hold firm on “all the requirements in our original draft agreement, 

specifically review and approval of all future construction, integrity of the parade ground and 

facades of facing historic buildings, access and other items.” To contain the political problem 

caused by the agency’s obstructive posture, representatives would explain to Congressman 

Boland “the difficulties we have been having and are continuing to have with the college...,” 

and why the agency could not accept the intrusion of Building 15.134

 The results of this policy soon became apparent: “the college,” Wagers informed the 

director, “is in a position of no retreat....[T]hey stand as firmly as we do on the essential 

points in their case...: further negotiation will not be fruitful unless we can yield to their 

concerns to some appreciable degree.” Beyond economic hardship, college officials now 

argued that the 1968 deed of transfer was “the instrument” that described their legal 

obligations to the federal government, and it said nothing about giving the NPS review 

authority. Given the college’s educational mission, they were simply “not in a position” to 

jeopardize the master plan. 

 

134 Memo to file, Robert M. Utley, January 10, 1975 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: 

SPAR, Correspondence 1975-80). Also present at the meeting were Curry and Connally. Utley refers to 

having drafted the letter in memo, Assistant Director, Park Historic Preservation (Utley) to Associate 

Director, Legislation, December 23, 1974 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1967-75). 
The Creation of the Park 

99

 In sum, college officials held a radically different view of the negotiation process 

from that of the NPS. Whereas NPS officials viewed the college with deep distrust, college 

officials saw their relationship with the NPS as “one of continual erosion,” in which the 

college had repeatedly “modified their plans as best they could to accommodate various 

Federal interests” – by not building on the parade, by adapting rather than replacing the 

buildings on the northeast and southeast sides, by contributing to maintenance and utilities – 

only to be met with one demand after another. “They do not feel,” concluded Wagers, “that 

further accommodation will leave them with a viable educational institution.”135

SHIFTING POSITIONS IN THE BATTLE OVER THE CAMPUS: 1975 

 Thus things stood on January 23, 1975. Yet within two weeks, Wagers was ready to 

“concede” on Building 15. He still believed the NPS should “hold a very firm position” on 

acquiring the segment of roadway known as Parcel B and on reviewing future construction. 

But in exchange, as Utley put, “we, in turn, will accept Building 15.”136

 What caused the sudden reversal? The NPS had grounded its claim to review 

authority on the legislative record. But college officials now claimed that the Senate report 

proved that Congress had never intended to let the NPS block its current plans. They were 

right. The report stated that “the buildings on the northwest side of the Parade, part of the 

modern college development, are already under construction and will be of a contemporary 

and massive scale,” and that the historic buildings there, if not relocated, would be 

“demolished during the construction of the modern campus of the Springfield Technical 

Community College.” It was true that the report spoke of “scenic and developmental 

control,” but that seemed to be limited to the Parade and the facades “on the northeast and 

southeast side.” The Senate had clearly acknowledged and accepted the replacement of the 

Parade’s northwest side with new buildings.137

 The NPS now discovered that its own testimony to the House was equally damaging: 

In its construction program the college has already demolished one 

of two historic buildings which we had planned to relocate and is in 

the process of converting the entire northwest side of the parade to 

modern buildings. As a condition of establishing the area, we would 

require a satisfactory agreement with the college whereby the 

 

135 Memo, Regional Director (Wagers) to NPS Director, January 23, 1975, and attached “Summary,” 

(Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

136 Wagers’s view: follow-up Slip, EAC to Utley, February 7, 1975 (Washington Office, Park History 

Files, folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80); Utley’s position: memo to file, Robert M. Utley, February 

26, 1975 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

137 “Summary” attached to memo, Regional Director (Wagers) to NPS Director, January 23, 1975 

(Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory); U.S. Senate, Committee on Interior 

and Insular Affairs, Report to accompany S. 979, Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Mass., 

Calendar No. 568, Report No. 93-590, December 3, 1973, p. 2. 
The Creation of the Park 

100

remaining historic buildings, along the northeast and southeast sides of 

the parade will be retained, and the physical setting of the parade lands 

will not be impaired.

138

As Utley remarked to Holland, “The entire testimony treats that portion of the campus as 

lost.”139

 The agency’s acceptance of this discovery was hesitant at first. The letters and memos 

of February 1975 conceded Building 15 yet made no explicit reference to the Congressional 

record. But as time passed, the agency’s belief that the Congressional record allowed 

acceptance of Building 15 gradually became a conviction that it compelled acceptance of it. In 

April, Director Gary Everhart had to explain why the NPS was now willing to accept Building 

15 and the necessary demolitions, actions previously rejected by the Council and by the NPS 

and still judged “inappropriate to the level of integrity we desire in historic sites within the 

National Park Service”: he pointed to the Congressional record.140 At the end of May, 

Deputy Director Dickenson told HEW the authorizing legislation “was enacted on the 

premise that the new buildings on the north edge of the parade ground, both existing and 

proposed, would be regarded as acceptable.” In August, Holland remarked that 

“Congressional Hearings would not permit us to object to these massive buildings.” The 

agency was clearly trapped in an uncomfortable position: unable to oppose what it could not 

support, its spokespersons had to explain time and again that acquiescing was different from 

approving, and their reliance on the Congressional record for justification became steadily 

more assertive.

 With Building 15 out of the way, the disposition of Parcel B still remained to be 

resolved. Wagers thought the Congressional record supported the agency’s insistence on 

acquiring the parcel: “That will preserve the view from the armory of the parade,” he argued, 

“and has other advantages as well.”141 Also, in exchange for capitulating on Building 15, the 

NPS wanted guarantees against future encroachments, including a pledge to “protect the 

historic scene on the parade ground” (including the remaining historic facades), height limits 

to prevent future construction on the north side of the campus from being visible from the 

parade, and review-and-approval authority over future projects. In short, the NPS explained 

to Congressman Boland, the agency had “reached the limit of our accommodation” and 

 

138 Emphasis added. House of Representatives, “Report of Proceedings. Hearing Held before 

Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, H.R. 

329: Springfield Armory Historic Site,” December 10, 1973 (typed digest of excerpts), pp. 2-3 

(Charlestown: CRM Division Files: folder: H30 Springfield Armory – Park General). 

139 Memo, Robert F. Utley to Ross Holland, November 22, 1976 (Washington Office, Park History 

Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

140 Letter, NPS Director to Robert Garvey, n.d. [draft?], with attached follow-up slip from Marcella 

[Sherfy] to Utley, April 2, 1975 (Washington Office, Park History Files, folder: SPAR Correspondence 

1975-80). It is not clear whether this letter was actually sent. 

141 Follow-up Slip, EAC to Utley, February 7, 1975 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: 

SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 
The Creation of the Park 

101

could concede nothing further: without the roadway and the preservation guarantees, “we 

cannot proceed with the establishment of the area.”142

 By late February, 1975, MBRCC representatives seemed willing to consider these 

terms, and Utley thought there was a real hope of reaching an agreement.143 At the end of 

March, NPS Director Everhart told the Council the agency had concluded that “the 

requirements of law can be served by the acceptance of Building 15 in return for the expected 

preservation commitment from the College,” and that a draft agreement would be 

forthcoming for review. But once again events (in Holland’s words) took “an unforseen [sic] 

twist.” Everhart’s letter to the Council was literally on its way to the mailroom when a 

Council official called to ask the NPS to withdraw it: HEW now wanted the NPS “not to back 

down from its original position” on Building 15. The Council, explained one NPS official, 

“doesn’t want us to say anything that sounds at all accepting of Building 15, so that with 

HEW’s new interest we can take a hard line.” The NPS agreed to hold the letter back. Yet the 

agency had lost its stomach for the fight. One official told the Council “we might already be 

beyond that point in conversations with the College....” “Frankly,” wrote Holland, “my 

feeling is that we have hasseled [sic] around with these buildings long enough and that we 

have put the College Board through a considerable amount. In the end we are going to wind 

up with the buildings, and we’re going to have to live with the College people over there.” 

Holland, who was directly responsible for agreements and contracts, hoped the college 

would eventually assist the NPS with park maintenance, and he feared that “to cause the 

College further problems could result in an unfriendly relationship.” The NPS was simply 

ready to move on: “I don’t understand why HEW is getting so pious now,” complained Utley, 

“after playing the role of the devil for the last several years....”144

 In effect, the cooperative agreement, designed as the tool to preserve Armory Square, 

had become an obstacle to preservation. Yet despite the NPS’s urgent desire to conclude it, 

further delays had become almost inevitable. The Council had scheduled a hearing on 

Building 15 for February but, at HEW’s request, had already postponed it to May: the 

Council now granted HEW a further postponement until August. Meanwhile, HEW 

requested that the review be expanded from Building 15 to the college’s entire master plan, 

explaining that the department had always intended to “conduct a single review” of college 

building plans but had rushed on the demolition of Buildings 2 and 3 when the college’s 

financial position had made this “a matter of urgency.” Now, with the funding crisis over, the 

 

142 Memo to file, Robert M. Utley, February 26, 1975 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: 

SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

143 Memo to file, Robert M. Utley, February 26, 1975 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: 

SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

144 Holland was Associate Regional Director for Professional Services. Memo, Ross Holland to Jerry 

Wagers, March 28, 1975 (SPAR - Lowenthal Files: fol. Pre-Establishment Planning Relating to 

Cooperative Agreement, 1975); and letter, NPS Director to Robert Garvey, n.d. [draft?], with attached 

follow-up slip from Marcella [Sherfy] to Utley, April 2, 1975 (Washington Office, Park History Files: 

folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80).o 
The Creation of the Park 

102

department sought to review the entire master plan “as soon as possible” so that the college 

could develop its campus “on a clear basis.” It also wished to “force the Community College 

to redesign” Building 15, perhaps by shrinking it, while the master plan was still “in a ‘fluid 

state,’” an effort which the cooperative agreement would make “virtually impossible.”145

 The Council now asserted jurisdiction to review the cooperative agreement as a 

separate federal undertaking. From the NPS’s point of view this promised to speed things up, 

but Utley saw the danger at once. If the Council ruled that the master plan had an adverse 

effect on the historic site, then the agreement, by acquiescing in it, would also have an 

adverse effect.146 This would not block the agreement, but it would be embarrassing to the 

agency, since the agreement’s purpose was to protect the site from such effects. 

 There was confusion about the process to be followed. The Council believed the NPS 

had promised to set the agreement aside until HEW had discussed Building 15 with the 

college and the Council had ruled on the master plan. The NPS did not think so. In fact, 

Wagers did not wait a day before dispatching a new version of the agreement to the 

solicitor’s office, asking for an expedited review so that it could be presented to the college at 

the earliest opportunity.147 Not only did the new draft accept Building 15 without further 

review, it also allowed the college to demolish Building 10 at any time upon 180 days notice, 

and it settled for an easement in place of full federal ownership of Parcel B. On the other 

hand, it set height limits on future construction behind the new buildings and gave Interior 

review and approval authority over construction activities “changing in any way the 

appearance or character” of the parade ground, the historic facades on the northeast and 

southeast sides, and the iron fence.148

 By the end of May, Deputy Director Dickenson believed the college was “prepared to 

sign.” Yet a month and a half later there was still no agreement, and Representatives Boland 

and Conte were pushing the agency hard for “speedy action.” There were new reasons for 

 

145 “Single review,” “urgency,” “clear basis”: letter, Charles Custard (Director, Office of Environmental 

Affairs, HEW) to Robert Garvey, April 17, 1975 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1975-80); all other quotations, memo to file, Marcella Sherfy, April 11, 1975 

[correction tape has been applied over name and date] (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder 

SPAR Legislation); and memo, Robert M. Utley to Associate Director, Professional Services, April 15, 

1975 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

146 Memo to file, Marcella Sherfy, April 11, 1975 [correction tape has been applied over name and date] 

(Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Legislation); and memo, Robert M. Utley to 

Associate Director, Professional Services, April 15, 1975 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: 

SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

147 Memo, Regional Director, NARO (Jerry D. Wagers) to Regional Solicitor, April 8, 1975 

(Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

148 [Draft] “Memorandum of Agreement between the Department of the Interior and Springfield 

Technical Community College Concerning Preservation of the Historic Buildings, Grounds, and 

Environment of Springfield Armory within Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” no signature, 

no date, (two versions, annotated in upper right corner of 1st page: “Version A” and “Version B” and 

differing only in Section I (h) (SPAR, Lowenthal Files: Pre-Establishment Planning Relating to Co-Op 

Agreement, 1974). 
The Creation of the Park 

103

urgency: $242,000 had been included for the Armory in an amendment to the House Interior 

appropriations bill for fiscal year 1976 – enough to fill seven staff positions and launch full 

operation of the park. The funds would go to waste if the park was not quickly established. In 

May the NPS, despite Dickenson’s optimism, had told Congress the agreement might not be 

signed until the following spring and had requested a reduced appropriation of only $47,100, 

enough to provide basic grounds maintenance, keep the museum building open, and 

establish an institutional presence during the remainder of the fiscal year. But at the end of 

July, 1975, the Appropriations Committee settled on $218,000.149 The NPS was under 

pressure to conclude the agreement. 

 Once again, events took an unexpected turn. Claiming that “technical difficulties in 

obtaining information” on the college’s master plan had prevented the department from 

completing its environmental assessment, HEW now asked for a third postponement. The 

Council was furious. Accusing HEW of jeopardizing its ability to “negotiate...a coordinated 

Federal policy” for the site, it ordered HEW to comply without delay and demanded a full 

report on the department’s effort within a week.150

 HEW completed its submission to the Council, or draft case report on August 1.151 It 

stressed Building 15's “compatibility” with the parade, achieved despite its incongruous 

seven-story height through “materials and facade treatments.” While conceding that both 

demolition and construction would have “visual effects on Armory Square,” it also argued 

that these actions would not take place in, but rather “near,” the National Register property. 

This contradicted the NPS’s National Register nomination, which had included all of 

Armory Square within the boundaries, but the nomination had not yet been approved and 

would not be until December 1975. In August, then, faced with HEW’s case report, the NPS 

argued that the entire Armory was listed on the Register by virtue of its being authorized as a 

National Historic Site.152

 

149 Dickenson: letter, Russell E. Dickenson (Deputy Director) to Charles Custard, May 28, 1975 

(Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR, Correspondence 1975-80); “Speedy action”: 

memo, Landscape Architect (Ed Hoppe) to Associate Regional Director, Professional Services, July 16, 

1975; budget amendment figures: National Park Service, “Minimum Requirements for Operation of 

Springfield Armory, Massachusetts,” May 27, 1975 (both: SPAR - Lowenthal Files: fol. PreEstablishment Planning Relating to Cooperative Agreement, 1975); Appropriations Committee: Letter, 

Michele B. Metrinko (Associate Solicitor, Conservation and Wildlife, DOI) to Edward P. Boland, July 

21, 1975 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

150 Letter, John D. McDermott (Director, Office of Review and Compliance) to Charles Custard 

(Director, Office of Environmental Affairs, HEW), July 24, 1975 (Washington Office, Park History 

Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

151 Department of Health, Education & Welfare, Federal Property Assistance Program - 13.606, “Case 

Report for Demolition and construction of Buildings at the Former Springfield Armory, Springfield, 

Massachusetts,” August 1, 1975, attached to letter, Holland (Associate Regional Director, Professional 

Services) to Donald Branum (Regional Environmental Officer, HEW, Boston), August 8, 1975 (SPAR - 

Lowenthal files: Pre-Establishment Planning Relating to Cooperative Agreement, 1975). 

152 Letter, Holland (Associate Regional Director, Professional Services) to Donald Branum (Regional 

Environmental Officer, HEW, Boston), August 8, 1975 (SPAR - Lowenthal files: Pre-Establishment 

planning Relating to Cooperative Agreement, 1975). 
The Creation of the Park 

104

Meanwhile negotiations on the cooperative agreement continued, so that by 

September, only the disposition of Parcel B remained unresolved. Though he had been 

willing to accept an easement in May, Wagers had now returned to his earlier position that 

the legislative history required for full ownership. He was adamant. So was the college.153

Wagers thought the reason was college officials’ belief that Washington was too lax with 

demonstrators. Recalling the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in Lexington and Concord, 

these officials did not want to see the “potential unsightliness of tents and other camping 

accoutrement” on their campus, and they appeared to believe that as long as they owned 

Parcel B they could “halt all demonstrations.”154 Wagers found this view “rather naive,” but it 

may not have been the real reason. College officials had previously expressed their fear that 

the NPS would open the parade to “demonstrations, gatherings, or other forms of social 

expression,” but on those occasions they had assured the NPS that their only reservation 

about donating Parcel B was their concern that the government might widen the road for 

two-way traffic.155 Perhaps, believing Building 15 was finally nearing approval, college 

officials now had little further interest in the cooperative agreement. 

 Whatever the reason, the agency had “reached an impasse” and faced the prospect of 

returning to Congress empty-handed.156 At a public meeting in Springfield on September 30, 

Congressman Boland’s representative called for a speedy resolution, Mayor Sullivan called 

on the college to “give in on their position,” and even an MBRCC official admitted that the 

NPS had “‘gone the last mile’” and promised to try to persuade the college to compromise.157

Yet still STCC President Garvey did nothing. Early in November, the NPS admitted defeat. 

Holland told the HEW the NPS no longer had plans for Springfield Armory. Wagers 

informed Boland, Sullivan, and Governor Michael S. Dukakis that the agency had no choice 

but to “recommend that Springfield Armory National Historic Site not be established.”158

The governor responded immediately, ordering the college to make “any concessions 

necessary to obtain a cooperative agreement.” Boland’s office also pressed the MBRCC and 

the college. The “breakthrough” came within days, as the board and college finally agreed to 

 

153 Memo, Regional Director NAR (Wagers) to Director NPS, September 12, 1975 (SPAR - Lowenthal 

files: Pre-Establishment Planning Relating to Cooperative Agreement, 1975). 

154 Memo, F. Ross Holland, Jr., to Jerry Wagers, December 31, 1974 (Washington Office, Park History 

Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1967-75). 

155 Memo, Regional Director (Wagers) to NPS Director, January 23, 1975 (Washington Office, NHL 

Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

156 Memos, Regional Director NAR (Wagers) to Director NPS, September 12, 1975 (SPAR - Lowenthal 

files: Pre-Establishment Planning Relating to Cooperative Agreement, 1975) and Regional Director 

(Wagers) to NPS Director, January 23, 1975 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield 

Armory). 

157 Memo, Ross Holland to Jerry Wagers, October 6, 1975 (SPAR - Lowenthal Files: Pre-Establishment 

planning Relating to Cooperative Agreement, 1975). 

158 Letters, Holland to Branum, November 6, 1975, and Wagers to Governor Michael S. Dukakis, 

November 3, 1975 (both: SPAR - Lowenthal Files: Pre-Establishment planning Relating to Cooperative 

Agreement, 1975). 
The Creation of the Park 

105

transfer Parcel B to the National Park Service, retaining only an easement for their own 

access. “[T]he log-jam has apparently been broken...,” reported Wagers: “We want the park 

established as soon as the agreement is approved.”159

AGREEMENT IS REACHED AND THE PARK ESTABLISHED: 1975-78 

 The NPS owed a big debt to Governor Dukakis, who expected a rapid resolution.160

The city was just as eager, for its treasury was being drained. Congressman Boland’s office 

expected the NPS now to “move toward the final establishment of the Springfield Armory 

Museum.”161 But the Advisory Council had not completed its review, and with Parcel B out 

of the way, Building 15 again became a sticking point. No one was happy with the way it had 

been resolved. NPS officials keenly felt the difficulty of their position, explaining again and 

again that the agency’s lack of opposition to the mutilation of a National Historic Landmark 

and Historic Site was not the same as support for it. College officials were also dissatisfied. 

Non-opposition was not good enough for them: they wanted the agreement to show support. 

The Advisory Council and HEW were equally unhappy, but for the opposite reason. Engaged 

in a last-ditch effort to block Building 15, they charged that the NPS had “condoned the 

destruction” of Buildings 2 and 3 and the erection of Building 15. The NPS responded to 

both sides with versions of the standard argument. To the college, Wagers explained that, as 

a “preservation agency,” the NPS could not “‘actively support’ the demolition of historic 

structures”: the best it could do was “not object.”162 To HEW and the Council, Utley and 

Holland explained that the agency did not “approve” the demolition but merely “acquiesced 

 

159 Governor and “breakthrough”: Utley, Follow-Up Slip to Connally, November 12, 1975; agreement 

and Boland’s office: Letter, J. David Keaney (Administrative Assistant, U.S. House of Representatives) 

to Ross Holland (November 19, 1975) (both: Washington Office, Park History Files, folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1975-80); Wagers: Memo, Regional Director, North Atlantic Region (Jerry D. 

Wagers) to Assistant Director, Park Historic Preservation, WASO, December 2, 1975 (Washington 

Office, Park History Files, folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

160 [Marcella Sherfy?], “Elongated Follow-up Slip, 12/11/75,” December 11, 1975 (Washington Office, 

Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80); letter, Holland to Amad on, March 19, 

1976 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: Pre-Establishment Planning 1976-77). 

161 Letter, J. David Keaney (Administrative Assistant, U.S. House of Representatives) to Ross Holland 

(November 19, 1975) (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

162 Letter, Jerry D. Wagers (Regional Director) to Robert Cataldo (Chairman, Facilities & Sites 

Committee, BRCC), January 9, 1976: comments on section IIIb (Washington Office, Park History Files: 

folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). E.g., letter, Holland to Branum, February 4, 1976 (SPAR: 

Lowenthal Files: Pre-Establishment Planning 1976-77). For other expressions of the same dilemma, see 

letter, NPS Director to Robert Garvey, n.d. [draft?], with attached follow-up slip from Marcella 

[Sherfy] to Utley, April 2, 1975; draft letter, Douglas P. Wheeler (Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, 

Wildlife and Parks) to Custard, n.d. [after April 8, 1976, and probably before April 27; annotated. 

“Letter never sent]; letter, Denis P. Galvin (Acting Regional Director) to John P. Keith (Regional Plan 

Associates [sic] NY, October 27, 1976 (all: Washington Office, Park History Files, folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1975-80); and letter, Holland to Branum, February 4, 1976 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: 

Pre-Establishment Planning 1976-77). 
The Creation of the Park 

106

in the endeavor.” Since “that side of the Parade had been given away in testimony there was 

nothing we could do about it,” despite the agency’s “well documented record” of 

“opposition as preservationists.” But of course it was precisely the NPS’s standing as a 

“preservation agency” that most upset both the Council and HEW, because it gave the 

agency’s non-opposition a “special impact.”163 Moreover, HEW charged that the NPS’s 

unilateral negotiations with the college had “created difficulties,” condoning changes in 

Armory Square which HEW had not approved and the destruction of a building that was 

subject to a prior agreement with the SHPO.”164 Behind the scenes, Holland assured the 

SHPO that he hoped HEW would succeed in modifying Building 15. But the legislative 

record prevented the agency from offering anything but “moral support.”165

 When Congress approved the first Armory appropriation, NPS officials had told 

legislators the cooperative agreement would be concluded by spring of 1976, in time for the 

anticipated rush of Bicentennial visitors. But in May the Advisory Council brought forth not 

a cooperative agreement but a critique of its laxity. The Council called for more stringent 

rules for reconstructing buildings partially destroyed by acts of god, SHPO review of fire 

escapes and access ramps, archeological safeguards on underground work, and tighter 

regulation of temporary structures.166 The Council also wanted the NPS to draft a 

preservation covenant that could be added to the instrument of transfer – not to govern the 

college portion of the site but rather its own. And now the agency’s Regional Advisory 

Committee, a group of citizens and preservation professionals, also joined the chorus of 

critics. In a letter to committee chair Antoinette F. Downing, a subcommittee branded the 

entire Armory business as a “case history of flagrant disregard for the enforcement of 

National Historic Preservation laws.” Starting in 1967, the committee charged, the agency 

had condoned the “illegal destruction” of parts of a National Historic Landmark. The 

cooperative agreement capped “a long history of failure to enforce preservation law” with 

“official authority by an agency of the Federal government for continued demolition of a 

National Landmark.” At a time of “advanced respect for historic preservation,” it was 

“appalling” and, in fact, illegal.167 

 The NPS had little to say to these critics. It refused all of the Council’s requests.168 To 

 

163 Memo, Ross Holland to Jerry Wagers, April 29, 1976 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: 

SPAR Correspondence 1975-80; also SPAR – Lowenthal: Pre-Estab Planning 76-77). 

164 Letter, Charles Custard (HEW) to Bruce Blanchard (Director, DoI Office of Environmental Project 

Review), April 6, 1976 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

165 Letter, Holland to Amadon, March 19, 1976 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: Pre-Establishment Planning 

1976-77). 

166 Letter, John D. McDermott (ACHP) to Charles Custard (HEW), May 21, 1976, p. 10 (Washington 

Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80. 

167 Letter, William B. Pinney (Director, SHPO, Vermont) to Antoinette F. Downing, May 26, 1976 

(Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

168 Letters, Custard to Robert Garvey (ACHP), April 7, 1976; Charles Custard (HEW) to Bruce 

Blanchard (Director, DoI Office of Environmental Project Review), April 6, 1976; Utley to John D. 
The Creation of the Park 

107

the Regional Advisory Committee, Acting Regional Director Galvin wrote that it was 

“important that we get a cooperative agreement so that we can get on with halting 

deterioration of the buildings in the park and begin the preservation of the gun collection.”169

Even so, little happened during the next year. By the fall of 1977 the NPS was managing the 

park without an agreement, following an understanding with Congress, and had a staff of 

seven in place, including a superintendent, Mohammed Khan. Yet that fall the college 

brought forward an entirely new objection to the agreement. Though the NPS had already 

explained that it could not set a time limit on future Section 106 reviews, since it was unable 

to control the speed at which the Advisory Council worked, the college now insisted on 

exactly such a time limit. The NPS was out of patience. Absent an agreement by November 1, 

the agency told the MBRCC it would “seek the advice of Congress in steps necessary for 

deauthorization.”170 Five more months of amendments and negotiations followed. On 

March 27, 1978, the agreement was finally signed,171 removing the last hurdle to establishing 

the park. 

 The agreement was not complex. Its “intent and purpose” was to give the Board of 

Regional Community Colleges both “administrative jurisdiction” and responsibility for the 

“preservation of the historical integrity” of a 34.61 acre portion of the park, which it called 

the “Preservation Control Area.” To this end the Board bound itself to retain Building 10 

until 1979 and to “preserve the appearance of the exterior of the historic structures” and the 

parade ground, with “historic structures” defined as Buildings 1, 5/6, 10, 11-16, 19, and the 

college’s portion of the cast iron perimeter fence. Apart from the new buildings already 

condoned by the legislative history, the agreement prohibited building construction that 

would alter the “historical integrity” of the Parade Ground and surroundings, or the 

exteriors of any other historic structures. It made all future projects subject to the 

concurrence of the NPS, following review of their impact on the parade ground, but 

guaranteed approval to any located behind the buildings on its northwest side provided they 

could not be seen from it. In addition, the Board agreed to donate Parcels A and B, prohibit 

uses of the Preservation Control Area inconsistent with its preservation or with public 

enjoyment, provide reasonable public access, respect the constitutional rights of visitors, and 

allow the NPS to inspect for compliance. In return, the NPS promised to give the college an 

access easement to Parcel B and technical advice on preservation, and to seek a “common 

solution” to the parking problem, “including consideration of a parking structure.” 

 McDermott (Director, Office of Review and Compliance, ACHP), June 9, 1976 (Washington Office, 

Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80 

169 Letter, Denis P. Galvin (Acting Regional Director) to John P. Keith (Regional Plan Associates [sic] 

NY, October 27, 1976 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

170 Letter, Denis P. Galvin (Acting Regional Director) to Costello, October 11, 1977 (SPAR: Cultural 

Resources Department Files: fol. 1978 Cooperative Agreement). 

171 Agreement Between the United States and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, signed and dated

March 27, 1978. See Appendix B. 
The Creation of the Park 

108

THE ARMY AGREEMENT: 1978 

 The Army agreement had been set aside unfinished in 1972. Though no longer 

required by the law, it began once more to occupy the attention of NPS officials as they 

assumed management responsibility for the collections in 1977. The terms they then 

considered were essentially those of 1972: the Army would loan the collection for ten years, 

after which the loan would be renewed automatically, unless either party terminated it by 

showing non-compliance by the other. The agreement gave the National Park Service the 

substantial burden of “curatorial responsibility” for the collection’s care and display, 

including a “program of maintenance, storage, restoration, and display,” yet allowed the 

Army to retain the right to inspect and inventory the collection at any time and to specify 

conservation measures consistent with its own practices. Other than a vague commitment to 

“improve the property” by adding (at its own discretion) to the collection, the Army offered 

no financial, technical, or management assistance with the maintenance and display of its 

thousands of muskets, rifles, pistols, shotguns, revolvers, semi-automatic and automatic 

weapons, trench guns, sabers, bayonets, flags, uniforms, machines, tools, and spare parts.172

 NPS museum professionals were not happy with these arrangements. Arthur Allen 

called the agreement “woefully inadequate” and complained: “What possible benefit does 

NPS perceive in providing curatorial care (for 6,000 to 8,000 weapons not on public display) 

for objects we do not even own?” Better to own only part of the collection, he argued, than 

accept it all on loan. Given the strong political pressure to prevent the Army from taking the 

collection out of Springfield, he thought the NPS held a strong negotiating position and 

should remain “firm in purpose [sic] to have the guns completely in our control.”173

 Allen and his colleagues explained their misgivings in the Collection Management 

Plan completed in March, 1977. The planning team urged the NPS to “immediately and 

actively seek the complete transfer” of all essential objects as identified in the scope of 

collections statement: nothing less than “full responsibility for and control over the 

collection” would do. By contrast, they predicted that the proposed loan would give the 

Army “every privilege of ownership without any of the responsibilities of managing such a 

large collection”: the NPS, they warned, would eventually find itself between a rock and a 

hard place, unable to justify “extensive and costly preservation treatment” for objects it did 

not own yet equally unable to withhold them from a collection “housed and exhibited at one 

of its historic sites.”174

 While the agency never quite reached the point of crisis feared by Allen, his 

 

172 “Cooperative Agreement Between Department of the Army and Department of the Interior,” signed 

and dated October 26, 1978 (SPAR: Central Files: A 4415 Cooperative Agreements). 

173 Memo, Chief, Division of Museum Services (Arthur C. Allen) to Chief, Division of Reference 

Services, HFC, March 9, 1977 - Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 

1988). 

174 Division of Museum Services, Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory, March, 1977, p. 15; 

and Allen, ibid. 
The Creation of the Park 

109

misgivings were not unfounded. It fell far short of giving the NPS clear and undisputed 

custody over the collection, and during the 1990s (as described in Chapter 5) the park would 

have to face down a serious effort by the Army to regain control over some or all of the 

collection. In that situation, then-superintendent Steve Beatty found the agreement and the 

underlying legislation “very weak.” But in 1978 these concerns had no visible impact on 

decision makers. The agreement was signed by the Department of the Interior on October 26 

and by the Army on December 15, 1978. 

POSTSCRIPT: THE CAMPUS AND THE QUESTION OF FEDERAL AUTHORITY

 Four years had elapsed from the Armory’s authorization to its establishment, seven 

from the day the agency’s planners had outlined the first draft of the cooperative agreement. 

The process prompted some soul-searching. Confronted in 1976 by the Regional Advisory 

Committee’s searing criticism, Robert Utley had conceded that internal communications 

were poor, the “lapses” that led to the agency’s testimony “embarrassing and in many ways 

inexcusable.” Yet he also pointed out that the Armory was the NPS’s first Section 106 case 

and that, all things considered, the agency might have done far worse. Once it had made the 

mistake of giving its damaging testimony to Congress, he argued, any attempt to undo or 

disown it would have been “unwise and defeating,” destroying “any rapport” that the agency 

had with the college as well as “the opportunity to insure or encourage preservation of the 

remaining historic resources.”175

 Reflecting on the “knotty problem” of the Armory, Acting Regional Director Denis P. 

Galvin agreed with Utley in blaming poor internal coordination for many of the agency’s 

mistakes. After the regional office had negotiated preservation concessions from the college 

in exchange for Building 15, the Washington office decided “it did not want Building 15 

constructed under any circumstances,” causing an abrupt reversal. Then the Washington 

office realized its hard-line position violated the “understanding of Congress,” causing a 

second reversal. In the agency’s defense, Galvin stressed the difficulties the college faced in 

dealing with at least four federal agencies. He felt the regional office’s negotiations had 

sought to be “fair to the college and consistent in what we expect of them,” for “if we are to 

persuade others of the value of historic preservation, we must not constantly change our 

minds with every shift in the cast of characters about what we expect others to do in 

preserving the Nation’s historic sites and structures.” Moreover, he pointed out, putting new 

buildings in a historic setting was not in itself “inconsistent with current thinking by 

preservationists.”176

 

 

175 Memo, Robert F. Utley to Ross Holland, November 22, 1976 (Washington Office, Park History 

Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

176 Letter, Denis P. Galvin (Acting Regional Director) to John P. Keith (Regional Plan Associates [sic] 

NY, October 27, 1976 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 
The Creation of the Park 

110

 What did the hard-won agreement accomplish? Seeking to counter the Advisory 

Council’s view that it might constitute an adverse impact on the site, Director Everhart 

pointed to its positive impacts: it prevented inappropriate uses of the Parade Ground, 

protected the historical integrity of the Parade Ground and surrounding structures from 

impairment, and halted deterioration of the iron fence.177 Officials also explained that the 

agreement would produce a “method for devising a system of scenic controls” over the 

college’s portion of the Parade, and that the resulting “use restriction and design control” 

would “somewhat hampered the college’s building plans.178 In fact, the agreement did 

somewhat more than this. It guaranteed public access to the entire historic site, an essential 

condition for managing a public park, and it contained an affirmative statement of the 

MBRCC’s responsibility for “preservation of the historical integrity” of the campus. Yet in 

general, as the agency’s explanations suggest, it was designed to prevent harm. It did nothing 

to support visitor services or encourage interpretation and left most aspects of day-to-day 

management coordination to be sorted out later through ad hoc agreements. Thus, it was not 

so much a joint management agreement for a public park as a compact for its physical 

preservation. That of course was exactly what the legislation called for, but at best it gave the 

NPS few clues on which to plan for the park as a whole: at worst, it discouraged such 

planning. Even in the area of building preservation, the agreement did not set basic 

maintenance standards, nor did it give the NPS any enforcement powers. The consequences 

of these decisions would soon become clear in aspects of park operation ranging from 

building maintenance through planning and cultural landscape management to visitor 

services. 

 The nature of the agreement reflected not only the political obstacles facing the NPS 

but also the agency’s thinking on the crucial underlying question of the nature and extent of 

federal authority over nonfederal land within authorized park boundaries. Galvin and Utley 

(like most agency officials) evidently thought they had very little authority. This assumption 

shaped the negotiation process on many levels. Stung by the Regional Advisory Committee’s 

charge that the agency had failed to prevent Building 15 and the associated demolitions, 

Galvin argued revealingly that there was “nothing we can do about them, since they are 

outside the National Park Service boundary.”179 He meant, of course, the boundary of federal 

landownership: they were inside the park boundary. But to Galvin, their location on 

nonfederal land apparently put them outside federal policy or regulation. Similarly, Utley 

 

177 Letter, Director [Gary Everhart] to McDermott (Director, Office of Review and Compliance, 

Council), March 21, 1977 (Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-

80). 

178 Department of the Interior, “Draft Environmental Statement, DES 72-51, Proposed Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site,” prepared by NPS, Northeast Regional Office, Philadelphia, signed and 

dated Chester L. Brooks (Director, Northeast Region), April 25, 1972, pp. 3, 4 (CRBIB 406255, SPAR: 

Lowenthal Files: folder: Pre-Establishment Planning, 1972). 

179 Emphasis added. Letter, Denis P. Galvin (Acting Regional Director) to John P. Keith (Regional Plan 

Associates [sic] NY, October 27, 1976 (SPAR: Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR 

Correspondence 1975-80). 
The Creation of the Park 

111

argued that the authorizing legislation had “not significantly changed” the National Historic 

Preservation Act’s effect on the Armory. True, it had brought in the NPS as a second federal 

presence in Springfield, alongside the HEW, and it had directed the NPS to create a national 

historic site “in cooperation with the existing user of the site.” But these actions had no legal 

significance. As Galvin put it, the only federal agency “having any power over the college” 

was HEW.180

 By the mid-1970s, at least some legal experts were ready to dispute this minimalist 

assessment of the agency’s authority. The problem of harms flowing from private lands both 

inside and adjacent to park boundaries was attracting increasing attention, in part because it 

was growing but also because of an important Supreme Court decision in 1976. Writing that 

year, legal scholar and public lands expert Joseph L. Sax argued that the broad protective 

mandate conferred by the NPS Organic Act demonstrated that “Congress does not intend to 

leave the parks wholly at the mercy of private landowners.” Yet what precisely Congress did 

intend, he conceded, was “uncertain.” Sax faulted both Congress and the NPS, the former 

for “passivity in the face of serious threats,” the latter for an “extremely restrained,” even 

 “passive” response to those threats. All in all, Sax noted, there had been “very little 

regulation” of nonfederal landowners within the parks.181

 The question of authority over nonfederal land hinged on the even more basic 

question of the federal government’s authority over its own lands, which were mostly located 

within states that enjoyed their own constitutional rights of sovereignty. Sax observed that 

the NPS habitually grounded federal authority in the Cession Clause of the U.S. constitution, 

which gave Congress the power to “exercise exclusive Legislation” over parcels of land 

ceded by states for the purpose of becoming seats of federal government, or purchased with 

state consent “for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful 

Buildings.”182 This meant that the NPS generally relied on explicit cessions of jurisdiction 

from state to federal government.183 As an example, Sax pointed to an incident in 1966, when 

the agency asked the Interior Department’s solicitor to clarify the constitutionality of 

 

180 Memo, Robert F. Utley to Ross Holland, November 22, 1976; and letter, Denis P. Galvin (Acting 

Regional Director) to John P. Keith (Regional Plan Associates [sic] NY, October 27, 1976 (both 

Washington Office, Park History Files: folder: SPAR Correspondence 1975-80). 

181 Joseph L. Sax, “Helpless Giants: The National Parks and the Regulation of Private Lands,” Michigan 

Law Review 75 (1976-77): 259-60, 245, 241. For a similar assessment, see Blake Shepard, “Comment: 

The Scope of Congress’ Constitutional Power Under the Property Clause: Regulating Non-Federal 

Property to Further the Purposes of National Parks and Wilderness Areas,” Boston College 

Environmental Affairs Law Review 11 (1983-84): 514, 516. 

182 U.S. Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 17. The clause gives Congress the power to “exercise exclusive 

Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by 

Cession of Particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of 

the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the 

Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, 

dock-Yards and other needful Buildings.” 

183 Sax, op. cit., 245. For an explanation of Congress’ power under the Cession Clause, see also Shepard, 

op. cit., 486 ff. and 515 ff. 
The Creation of the Park 

112

applying federal zoning to private lands within a park boundary. Absent a cession of 

legislative jurisdiction, the solicitor responded, the federal government lacked authority to 

impose zoning. A similar incident occurred in 1971 when Interior’s lawyers refused, again 

citing lack of authority, to seek an injunction against a private entrepreneur who sought to 

build an observation tower adjacent to the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg Military Park. 

Five years later still, stung by judicial criticism of its failure to protect Redwoods National 

Park from external logging, the NPS sought explicit Congressional authorization to regulate 

private activity around that park. But the White House’s Office of Management and Budget 

blocked the move, and the bill was never submitted to Congress.184

 Absent an explicit cession of jurisdiction, then, reliance on the Cession Clause left the 

federal government largely helpless against nonfederal owners, even those within park 

boundaries. At the Armory there was some irony in this situation, since for most of its history 

Armory Square had been a federal enclave of just the sort described in the Cession Clause. 

But it had been given to the state in 1968, and there had been no cession of jurisdiction back 

to the federal government. That did not mean the NPS had no legitimate interest in the 

college campus: the Organic Act of 1916 directed the agency to “conserve the scenery and the 

natural and historic objects and the wild life” of parks without regard to the ownership of 

specific parcels, and to provide for their “enjoyment” so as to leave them “unimpaired” for 

that of future generations. Still, the Act did not make clear how to apply these directions in a 

case like that of Armory Square. As for the authorizing legislation, its only statement on this 

matter was to require a cooperative agreement “for preservation of historic buildings and the 

physical settings of lands not in Federal ownership....”185 As long as the NPS relied 

exclusively on the Cession Clause for authority to pursue its mandate, then, federal authority 

over the nonfederal land within the park boundary would remain weak. The cooperative 

agreement would be the manifestation of that authority, its terms their description, but those 

terms would necessarily be circumscribed. 

 The negotiations over the agreement exemplified the institutional caution that 

Joseph L. Sax noted in 1967. One reason it frustrated him was that it was no longer legally 

necessary: by 1976 the Cession Clause had ceased to be the only or even the strongest basis 

for federal authority. The Supreme Court’s decision earlier that year in Kleppe v. New Mexico

put the Property Clause front and center as the basis for federal authority, at the same time 

placing federal power on a more secure footing. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals would 

extend this line of reasoning in important decisions handed down in 1977 and 1981. By 1983, 

one legal commentator could argue that the Cession Clause power had been superseded by 

 

 

184 Sax, op. cit., 247-49. 

185 U.S.C., title 16, sec. 1; “A Bill to Authorize the Establishment of the Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site...,” S. 2977, December 9, 1971, Sec. 2 (same text in other House and Senate bills, 1970-73). 

As actually enacted, the legislation described the required agreement in slightly different terms as one 

that “will assure the historical integrity of the site” (P.L. 93-486, October 26, 1974, Sec. 101 (a)(4). 
The Creation of the Park 

113

that of the Property Clause.186 By 2006, a standard handbook on public land law remarked 

that reliance on the Cession Clause was virtually obsolete.187

 These developments lay in the future: their implications are discussed in Chapter 4. 

Meanwhile, the NPS had an agreement and a park to run. The agreement reflected the 

agency’s view that, notwithstanding the congressionally authorized park boundary, it had 

little authority over the college campus. The operation of the park was launched on that 

basis.

 

186 Shepard, op. cit., 515. 

187 Robert L. Glicksman, Modern Public Land Law in a Nutshell (St. Paul, MN: Thomson/West, 2006): 

44. 

115 

CHAPTER THREE

PLANNING THE ARMORY

1978-93 

THE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE IS LAUNCHED

 Sometime in 1977 the NPS reached an understanding with Congress to manage 

Springfield Armory, and spend appropriated funds, on an interim basis. Certain needs were 

immediately clear as the NPS assumed management responsibility. Arthur C. Allen advised that 

the “absolute first priority” was to repair the fence, the second to upgrade the Main Arsenal. 

There was a long list of urgent management and operational needs. Everyone agreed the 

challenges presented by the collection were “absolutely staggering.”1

 To launch the park, the 

NPS chose Mohammed A. Khan, a community relations specialist from the agency’s National 

Capitol Parks division. However, Khan was not transferred until the following year.2 Next the 

park detailed W. Douglas Lindsay, who also came from National Capitol Parks but had more 

experience, having managed the agency’s extensive Bicentennial programs during the summer 

of 1976. Lindsay became the park’s first truly influential superintendent, remaining at the 

Armory until 1990, an unusually long tenure by NPS standards. He oversaw the initiatives 

which, more than any others, defined the new park: the development of fundamental planning 

documents, the rehabilitation of the Main Arsenal, and the installation of permanent exhibits. 

These tasks were not quickly accomplished. The General Management Plan, begun in 1976, was 

not approved until 1986, while the revised cooperative agreement, an integral part of the 

planning effort, was only completed in 1993. As described in the next chapter, work on the 

Main Arsenal began in 1977, yet the rehabilitated building and the new exhibits were not 

opened to the public until 1989. 

 Before Lindsay arrived in Springfield, Regional Director Jack Stark had warned him of 

“extensive” problems.3

 Associate Regional Director Galvin also gave him a “gloomy 

assessment,” as did Arthur Allen. Stark and Galvin handed him a six-page memo so negative 

Lindsay refused to keep a copy in his files. At Harpers Ferry, Art Allen extended the briefing. 

Once on site, though, Lindsay formed his own conclusions, and they differed at some points 

from what he had heard. His first priority would be to “disengage from the multitude of forces 

 

1

 “Notes on Springfield Armory,” no signature, no date, [probably Arthur C. Allen, mid-March, 1977] 

(Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

2

 The reason concerned a complaint brought by a visitor to Congressman Boland. See Doug Lindsay, 

recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 

3

 The following information comes from Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 

2009. 
Planning the Armory 

116 

that were acting on this beleaguered little unit.” The Harpers Ferry Center and the regional 

office were far more deeply invested in running the park than was normal: in his view, they 

were over-managing. There were valid reasons for their interest, including the unusual security 

risks presented by the guns. But there were also drawbacks. The key figures at the region – 

Stark, Galvin, and Administrative Director Gilbert C. Calhoun – had all come out of the big 

western parks. They were what Lindsay called “green and gray rangers”: “very hard, 

disciplined, and they had a real hard time with this park, because it wasn’t the way a national 

park should be.” Lindsay felt the Armory needed a new approach, a lighter hand, and he began 

cultivating relationships with the “soft side” of the regional office, specialists in cultural 

resources and historic preservation like Charles Clapper, Dwight Pitcaithley, and Francis 

McMenamon, who had deep substantive knowledge of the resources and the techniques for 

conserving them. 

 Lindsay’s challenges were not limited to the agency. He realized quickly that he would 

have to “make some kind of peace with the college’s “crusty” and “autocratic” president, 

Robert C. Geitz. Within the federal property line, maintenance needs were acute, yet the park 

lacked basic equipment. There were staff problems too. Some employees, inherited from the 

museum or the Army, did not understand the culture of the NPS or the craft of running a 

national park. Even veteran NPS staff was demoralized and directionless. Even as he was 

getting the regional office out of the park’s day-to-day affairs, then, he would need its help in 

building up the park’s capital stock of things like chain-saws and tractors. He would give the 

staff direction by organizing people into small, functional units. And eventually, after he had 

gotten the staff “settled down,” he would bring in new people with skills – people like historian 

Larry Lowenthal, who would become his second-in-command. 

PLANNING AT THE ARMORY: PROCESS AND CHALLENGES

 Lindsay’s successor, Steve Beatty, thought Lindsay’s great achievement was to put the 

park’s physical resources in good order.4

 Yet the sustained planning efforts of the park’s first 

decade were just as important in shaping its future. To understand the thrust of those efforts, it 

is helpful to review their chronology. The centerpiece of planning efforts was the creation of a 

master plan. Though the draft master plan prepared for Congress in 1971 had been unusually 

comprehensive, it became clear within a few years that many of its assumptions were “no 

longer valid.”5

 In 1976 the regional office launched a new process to develop a general 

management plan.6

 The first step was to gather opinions by circulating “park planning 

 

4

 Steven Beatty: recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 

5

 Task Directive, General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan Package No. 101, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site, prepared by Larry Beal, Anna Whit Watkins, and Michael Spratt, 

February 22, 1983 [draft - not recommended, concurred, or approved] (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. 

GMP/DCP Task Directive). 

6

 Early history of planning process drawn from [Draft] Memo (ROD and FONSI), Superintendent to 

Regional Director, n.d. [April, 1986] (SPAR: Central Files: D18); memo, Jonathan Gray to Ross 

Holland, May 13, 1976 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. Pre-DCP Public Comment, 1976); and memo, 
Planning the Armory 

Armory 

117 

informational packages” to about forty individuals and organizations and by holding a public 

involvement session. By the fall of 1976, the regional office had a comprehensive summary of 

planning issues and options.7

 In 1978, however, after the cooperative agreement was enacted, 

the Denver Service Center was given responsibility for the park’s basic planning document, 

perhaps as a result of overwork at the regional office.8

 At the same time, the document was 

redefined as a Development Concept Plan (DCP),9

 which agency policy characterized as a type 

of implementation plan, prepared alongside or after approval of a general management plan 

(GMP) and typically used for elements like access and circulation systems or facilities for 

visitor use and park management.10 Though the justification for short-cutting the preparation 

of a full-scale general management plan has not survived, it probably reflected a judgment that, 

as a small park, the Armory did not require the full apparatus of a GMP. 

 Following these shifts, internal meetings and reviews resumed, and a preliminary plan 

and environmental assessment were ready for internal review by December 1979. Now, 

however, there was a second change of course: for reasons to be discussed below, the plan was 

set aside, and work did not resume until 1983, at which time the document was renamed a 

General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan. Though the schedule called for approval 

by November 1983,11 the draft plan was not released for public review until September 1984: it 

was adopted in the spring of 1986.12

 Superintendent SPAR to Regional Director NAR, June 6, 1986 (Boston Support Office: Compliance 

Files: fol. L7617 SPAR DCP PKG 101 & 103). 

7

 Shary Page Berg, “Status Report on Springfield Armory Planning: Preliminary Identification of Issues 

and Options,” September, 1976, revised June, 1978 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. First Master Plan 

[CRBIB 406259]). 

8

 This is the opinion of Dwight Pitcaithley: recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 

9

 [Draft] Memo, Superintendent to Regional Director [ROD and FONSI], n.d. [April, 1986] (SPAR: 

Central Files: D18). 

10 Management Policies, 1988, 2:9, 9:1, 9:7. The DCP is not defined in the 1978 Management Policies, 

which identified the GMP (formerly master plan) as the basic park planning document. See National 

Park Service, Management Policies, 1978, II-2. 

11 Task Directive, General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan Package No. 101, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site, prepared by Larry Beal, Anna Whit Watkins, and Michael Spratt, 

February 22, 1983 [draft - not recommended, concurred, or approved], pp. 2, 10 (SPAR: Lowenthal 

Files: fol. GMP/DCP Task Directive). The guideline was 1982 NPS-2: Planning Process Guidelines. 

12 The public comment period was thirty days. Little controversy or even public interest was expected. 

See memo, Superintendant. to Regional Director, October 19, 1984 (SPAR: Central Files: D18) and 

Task Directive, General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan Package No. 101, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site, prepared by Larry Beal, Anna Whit Watkins, and Michael Spratt, 

February 22, 1983 [draft - not recommended, concurred, or approved] (Lowenthal Files: fol. 

GMP/DCP Task Directive). In addition, Superintendent Lindsay offered a private briefing to 

Congressman Boland: letter, Lindsay to Boland, September 20, 1984 (SPAR Central Files: D18). 

Minimum alternative: letter, Herbert S. Cables, Jr. (Regional Director) to Valerie Talmage, Executive 

Director, MHS, April 17, 1986. Compliance documents: [Draft] Memo, Superintendant. to Regional 

Director., n.d. [April, 1986], with attached memo, Superintendent to Regional Director (draft 

ROD/FONSI), May 16, 1986, and memo, Superintendent to Regional Director, June 6, 1986 [Final] 

ROD/FONSI (all SPAR Central Files: D18). 
Planning the Armory 

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 The Master Plan was part of a broader campaign to give the park a full complement of 

planning and management documents, which included the following: 

• Collection Management Plan and inventory (both prepared in 1977, and discussed 

further in Chapter 5); 

• Statements for Management (drafted in 1978-79 and again in 1979 but not 

approved); 

• Historic Structure Report (HSR) (“initial research document” containing historical 

data and a base map completed in 1978,13 architectural data section not approved 

until 1983); 

• Interpretive Prospectus (drafted in 1979, approved in 1980, and discussed in Chapters 

5-6); 

• List of Classified Structures (those calling for special planning consideration because 

impacts would trigger Section 106 procedures: prepared by a student intern working 

for the regional office in summer 1981);14

• Land Protection Plan (required by new Interior Department policies relating to the 

Land and Water Conservation Fund: completed in 1983); and 

• “Historic Resource Study suitable for publication of the organization of and the 

manufacturing process at Springfield Armory”15 (contracted to Raber Associates in 

fall 1983 and completed in 1989).16

 Two of these documents call for comment. The List of Classified Structures (LCS) was 

an inventory tool devised in the early 1970s to compensate for the vagueness of many early 

National Register descriptions by providing a complete and authoritative inventory of 

structures included therein. Dwight Pitcaithley, who became regional historian in 1979, sought 

to ensure that every park in the region had such a list as a basis for evaluating planning 

decisions that could affect historic resources: the Armory’s list was completed by 1981. There 

was a complication, however: the LCS was not limited to structures named in the National 

Register documentation, on the theory that the Register documentation could later be 

amended to include items added to the inventory. Pitcaithley approached the task of list 

making in an expansive spirit, and at the Armory (as discussed in the next chapter), this led to 

 

13 John Albright, Historic Structure Report: Historical Data and Historical Base Map, Springfield Armory 

National Historic Site, NPS, DSC, Historic Preservation Division, Denver, CO, May, 1978 (SPAR: 

Lowenthal Files). 

14 Classified Structure Field Inventory Reports, all dated August 20, 1981, with cover memo, Associate 

Regional Director, Planning and Resource Preservation, NAR, to Superintendent, February 3, 1982 

(SPAR Central Files: H3017). 

15 Documents regarding contracting the Raber study, including ”Request for Approval to Contract...” 

approved in August and September of 1983, describes needed study as “historic resource study suitable 

for publication of the organization of and the manufacturing process at Springfield Armory” 

(Charlestown: CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR: Resource Study - Pkg. 106 Historic Research). 

16 Raber Associates (Michael S. Raber, Patrick M. Malone, Robert B. Gordon, Carolyn C. Cooper), 

“Conservative Innovators and Military Small Arms: An Industrial History of the Springfield Armory, 

1794-1968,” report prepared for National Park Service, North Atlantic Regional Office, Boston, MA, 

August, 1989. 
Planning the Armory 

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119 

formal recognition of cultural landscape elements that park managers did not find worthy of 

attention. 

 More serious problems developed around the second planning document, the Historic

Structure Report (HSR). Like the General Management Plan, the HSR was affected by course 

changes and delays: its history suggests that the reasons were related. Working for the Denver 

Service Center, historical architect Robert L. Carper had prepared a synopsis of the 

architectural data section by the spring of 1978, and this was dispatched to the regional office 

as a guide to needed rehabilitation work.17 That summer, Carper completed measured 

drawings of four buildings and the fence,18 which the deputy manager of the Harpers Ferry 

Center complimented for their “excellent overall quality.” Later that year, however, Regional 

Director Jack Stark demanded the removal of various alternatives as not in the best interests of 

the structures.19 Within weeks, Carper was reassigned to a different region and the job of 

coordinating revisions handed to another architect, Richard Turk, whose report was not 

approved until 1983.20

 One reason for the delays and reversals suffered by both the GMP and HSR was the 

high level of uncertainty regarding many aspects of the historic site, which made it difficult to 

plan. Early GMP summaries showed many basic issues still undefined, with planners juggling 

not only multiple proposals for Building 1 and conflicting parking plans but also the 

undetermined future of television station broadcasting from Building 13.21 Similarly, Turk 

commented that Carper’s draft HSR had been “prepared at a time when no significant planning 

decisions, concerning future site development, had been made.”22 Another cause of delay for 

the GMP was the region’s dissatisfaction with the Denver Service Center: Acting Regional 

 

17 Robert Carper, “Synopsis for Historic Structure Report, Architectural Data Section, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site,” DSC, Branch of Historic Preservation, April, 1978, with memo, 

Assistant Manager, Mid-Atlantic/North Atlantic Team, DSC (Robert L. Steenhagen), to Regional 

Director, NAR, May 2, 1978 (Charlestown: CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR: Relocation Master 

Armorer’s House). 

18 R. L. Carper, plans and measured drawings of Building 10, July, 1978 (Charlestown: CRM Division 

Files: folder: SPAR: Plans of Master Armorer’s House, Bldg. 10, 1978); Gatehouse (Building 33) and 

Fence, July, 1978; Main Arsenal (Building 13), July, 1978; and P. Dessauer (designed by R.L. Carper), 

plans and measured drawings of Commanding Officer’s House July, 1978 (Charlestown: CRM 

Division Files: folder: SPAR: Plans of Fence, Arsenal Bldgs, Commanding Officers House, 1978). 

19 Memos, Deputy Manager, HFC, to Regional Director, NAR, September 25, 1978 (SPAR: Lowenthal 

Files: fol. Historic Structures Report), and Regional Director, NAR (Jack E. Stark) to Assistant 

Manager, MA/NA Team, DSC, December 8, 1978 (Charlestown: CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR: 

Historic Structures Report). 

20 Memo, Assistant Manager, Mid-Atlantic/North Atlantic Team, DSC, to Regional Director, NAR, 

January 18, 1979 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. Historic Structures Report); memo, Chief, Planning and 

Design, NARO (Francis P. McManamon) to Chief, Cultural Resources, NARO, January 25, 1983 (CRM 

Division Files: folder: SPAR: Historic Structures Report). 

21 Memo, Jonathan Gray to Ross Holland, May 13, 1976 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. Pre-DCP Public 

Comment, 1976). 

22 Robert L. Carper and Richard G. Turk, [DRAFT] “Historic Structure Report, Architectural Data 

Section, Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” DSC, Branch of Cultural Resources, MidAtlantic/North Atlantic Team, Denver, January, 1983 (SPAR Central Files: H3017). 
Planning the Armory 

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120 

Director Calhoun found a 1980 draft “unacceptable,” badly organized, poorly edited, 

unresponsive to the region’s and the park’s views, its parking and access proposals 

“unworkable,” and moreover, behind schedule.23 A third cause was the Massachusetts 

Department of Education, which reviewed all documents involving cooperative agreements 

between the federal government and schools receiving federal funds: as the plan included a 

revised version of the cooperative agreement it “became lodged” there, wrote to a Denver 

official in 1986, and indeed had been “stalled” there since August, 1984 – despite the fact that 

the NPS had reached consensus with the college on the revised agreement.24

 It was the difficulty of renegotiating that agreement that led to the most protracted 

uncertainties and delays in planning. The three-year hiatus in the GMP process, starting at the 

beginning of 1980, was a direct result: uncertainty over the outcome of the negotiations simply 

brought planning to a standstill.25 Among unresolved issues was the question of parking and 

circulation. “It is unfortunate,” commented the region’s 1978 summary of issues, “to have to 

take an isolationist approach with regard to S.T.C.C.; but, at the moment, that appears to be the 

best strategy since cooperation cannot be ensured.”26 Under these conditions, park planners 

did their best to avoid making proposals that would preclude such cooperation but could not 

confidently advance their preferred solutions, which involved sharing facilities. At the 

beginning of 1980 regional officials asked the Denver planners to divide their planning 

alternatives according to whether the renegotiation efforts were successful or not – which was 

tantamount to admitting that crucial planning decisions could not be made until the question 

had been settled.27 Even after the planning process was restarted in 1983, delays in enacting the 

 

23 Memo, Acting Regional Director, NAR (Gilbert W. Calhoun), to Assistant Manager, DSC, January24, 

1980 (Boston Support Office: Compliance Files: fol. L7617 SPAR DCP PKG 101 & 103). 

24 Memo, Asst. Manager Eastern Team, DSC to Reg. Dir. NAR, January 30, 1986, covering memo, Supt. 

SPAR to Reg. Dir. NAR, n.d. ([DRAFT] Record of Decision to Select the Preferred Alternative and 

Finding of No Significant Impact General Management Plan) (Boston Support Office: Compliance 

Files: fol. L7617 SPAR DCP PKG 101 & 103). 

25 The plan is “held in abeyance pending the outcome” of negotiations: memo, Acting Regional 

Director, NAR (Steven H. Lewis), Superintendent SPAR, May 13, 1981 (Boston Support Office: 

Compliance Files, fol. L7617 SPAR DCP PKG 101 & 103). The task directive prepared to restart the 

process in 1983 similarly blamed the plan’s earlier failure on “unresolved issues with S.T.C.C. in 1980. 

(Task Directive, General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan Package No. 101, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site, prepared by Larry Beal, Anna Whit Watkins, and Michael Spratt, 

February 22, 1983 [draft - not recommended, concurred, or approved], p. 5 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: 

fol. GMP/DCP Task Directive).) Transmitting the draft Record of Decision in 1986, the Denver Service 

Center likewise explained that “the planning process was terminated pending a resolution of the draft 

cooperative agreement....” (Memo, Assistant Manager Eastern Team, DSC to Regional Director. NAR, 

January 30, 1986, covering memo, Superintendent SPAR to Regional Director, NAR, n.d. ([DRAFT] 

Record of Decision to Select the Preferred Alternative and Finding of No Significant Impact General 

Management Plan) (Boston Support Office: Compliance Files: fol. L7617 SPAR DCP PKG 101 & 103). 

26 Shary Page Berg (NAR), “Status Report on Springfield Armory Planning: Preliminary Identification 

of Issues and Options,” September, 1976, revised June, 1978 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. First Master 

Plan [CRBIB 406259]). 

27 Memo, Acting Regional Director, NAR (Gilbert W. Calhoun), to Assistant Manager, DSC, January 

24, 1980: Review of Assessment of Alternatives for “DCP” (Boston Support Office: Compliance Files: 

fol. L7617 SPAR DCP PKG 101 & 103). 
Planning the Armory 

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121 

agreement – this time caused not only by the Massachusetts Department of Education but also 

by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare – continued to hamper planning 

efforts: In 1986, an NPS official recorded his decision to “cease birddogging ” [sic]. HEW and 

alter the required Record of Decision so as to separate the cooperative agreement from the 

plan, “thus allowing the GMP to be completed....”28

PLANNING AT THE ARMORY: CONCEPTS

 Despite these obstacles, key aspects of the GMP had been settled before work stopped 

in 1980 and were consolidated during meetings on the Historic Structure Report the following 

year. “A lot of people have already decided what directions we should take at Springfield,” 

wrote Acting Regional Director Lewis in 1981. “It is a matter of formalizing and agreeing upon 

those decisions.”29 A basic decision was to limit most agency planning to the federal portion of 

the NHS. A second was to attempt to return the area’s historic buildings and landscape to their 

condition in 1968, just prior to the Armory’s closure in 1968, rather than simply preserving 

them as they were. A third was to place the collection over the historic site as a priority for 

planning, development, and interpretation. 

 The emerging orientation to the park’s twin resources of site and collection can be seen 

in a chart of planning alternatives prepared in spring 1980 and circulated for discussion the 

following year. Since the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act in 1970, agency 

planners had been required to evaluate the environmental impacts of their recommendations, 

as well as various alternatives to it. But aside from a required “No Action” alternative, they 

were free to choose the specific alternatives to be studied. At the Armory (despite the region’s 

request), the ones they presented in 1981 differed according to whether they emphasized the 

historic site or the gun collection. 

 In conceiving of the Armory’s options in this way the planners effectively pitted the 

park’s two resources, which Congress and the NPS had once been so careful to balance, against 

each other. In some areas (visitor use and interpretive core) they favored “Emphasis on Gun 

Collection and Arsenal,” in others (visitor access and parking) the “No Action” alternative. But 

nowhere did they recommend “Emphasis on Historic Site.” 

 

28 The full quotation is: “Today I decided to cease birddogging P. Wieczorek [an HEW official] and 

alter ROD [Record of Decision] to treat MOA as an ancilary [sic] matter protecting the SPAR as an 

Historic Setting – thus allowing the GMP to be completed & the MOA revisions to enhance the GMP 

when it can be completed.” See handwritten memo, signed and dated [Dave Clarke], April 18, 1986, 

“SPAR - GMP/EA/ROD” (Boston Support Office: Compliance Files: fol. L7617 SPAR DCP PKG 101 & 

103). 

29 Memo, Acting Regional Director, NAR (Steven H. Lewis), Superintendent SPAR, May 13, 1981 

(Boston Support Office: Compliance Files: fol. L7617 SPAR DCP PKG 101 & 103). 
Planning the Armory 

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122 

ALTERNATIVE 1 

(NO ACTION) 

ALTERNATIVE 2 

(EMPHASIS ON 

GUN COLLECTION & 

ARSENAL)

ALTERNATIVE 3 

(EMPHASIS ON 

HISTORIC SITE) 

VISITOR USE/ 

INTERPRETIVE 

CORE

 

Gun collection is 

dominant feature; no 

interpretation or use 

of the other features 

of the historic site. 

Arsenal and gun collection 

dominant features; within 

minimum interpretation 

and use of the historic site 

administered by the NPS.

Same as Alt. 2; but with 

broad interpretation and 

use oriented toward all 

of the National Historic 

Site. 

Table 3.1. Planning alternatives in 1981. 

 After work on the GMP resumed, presentations of alternatives deemphasized the stark 

choice presented here between site and collection. The draft and final plans of 1984 and 1986 

presented only two options, “No Action” and “Selective Restoration and Development of 

Specific Cultural Resources,” and described the preferred course of action neutrally as 

a“minimum level of development while preserving and maintaining the historic character of 

the armory as it existed in 1968.”30 But the tendency to put the collections over the site could 

still be seen, as in the plan’s description of the arms collection as the Armory’s “primary 

resource.”31 True, the approved plan called on the museum to present the “history and 

significance of the site” in addition to the arms collection. It also promised that visitors would 

be “encouraged to tour the remainder of Armory Square...,” and perhaps even Federal Square, 

the Watershops, or the railhead.32 But uncertainty over the new cooperative agreement, on top 

of the agency’s caution in exercising federal authority beyond the property line, continued to 

hamper real planning for the historic site and to favor focusing on the collection. 

 The planners’ disengagement from the nonfederal portion of the site was manifested in 

several ways. One was the application of management zoning, a standard planning technique 

for applying specific policies to particular parts of a park. The plan divided the “historic zone” 

(the federal portion of the park) into four management subzones but simply hatched out the 

“College-administered area” on the accompanying map33 (Fig. 3.1). The GMP team did not 

initiate this tendency to ignore the nonfederal portion of the park but merely codified what 

 

30 General Management Plan, Development Concept Plan, Environmental Assessment, Springfield Armory 

National Historic Site, “prepared with the assistance of Springfield Technical Community College,” 

NPS, August, 1984 [not approved], p. iii (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. GMP/DCP Drafts & Final 1979-

84 [CRBIB 405329]). 

31 Ibid. Same text in General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan, Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site, Massachusetts, National Park Service (prepared with the assistance of Springfield 

Technical College, Springfield, Massachusetts), approved July 29, 1986 (Herbert S. Cables, Jr., Regional 

Director, North Atlantic Region), p. 1. 

32 [DRAFT] General Management Plan, Development Concept Plan, Environmental Assessment, 

Springfield Armory National Historic Site, August, 1984 [not approved] [CRBIB 405329], p. iii (SPAR: 

Lowenthal Files: fol. GMP/DCP Drafts & Final 1979-84). 

33 General Management Plan, Development Concept Plan, Environmental Assessment, Springfield Armory 

National Historic Site, 1986, pp. 6 ff.
Planning the Armory 

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123 

was already becoming agency practice. In 1976 Regional Director Galvin had described the 

campus as lying “outside the National Park Service boundary,” and both the historical base 

map prepared for the Historic Structure Report in 1977 and the List of Classified Structures 

prepared in 1981 limited them to the federal sector of Armory Square.34

 The impacts of this approach became clear wherever the GMP addressed issues that 

necessarily involved the entire site. One was the crucial problem of parking and circulation. As 

long ago as 1967, the Evaluation Report had urged rerouting the park’s circuitous circulation 

path. More recently the region’s planners had also favored opening up new routes leading from 

the historic gates, now closed, at the bottom of the hill. Yet, the 1984 draft plan hedged on the 

issue, pointing to the unresolved cooperative agreement. The approved plan made it clear that 

circulation and parking would remain unchanged.35

 Interpretation was another area affected by the focus on federal property. Staff curator 

William L. Brown, III, saw the problem in 1977. Noting that the base map prepared for the 

Historic Structure Report omitted all of the buildings outside federal property, he commented 

that “it would be helpful to know to what use they are being put,” and he urged his colleagues 

to include the rest of Armory Square “in any interpretative planning.”36 The approved plan did 

make reference to the possibility of future wayside exhibits and walking tours outside the 

federal property line but devoted little attention to the resources there. 

 The planning approach represented by these decisions was undeniably pragmatic, but 

how faithfully it expressed agency policy was less clear. The 1978 policy on cultural resources 

called for Lists of Classified Structures “identifying all historic structures within the units of the 

National Park System that may meet the criteria of the National Register...or are elements of 

sites or districts that meet them”: it did not distinguish between federal and nonfederal land.37 

 

34 John Albright, Historic Structure Report: Historical Data and Historical Base Map, Springfield Armory 

National Historic Site, NPS, DSC, Historic Preservation Division, Denver, CO, May 1978 (SPAR: 

Lowenthal Files). 

35 General Management Plan, Development Concept Plan, Environmental Assessment, Springfield Armory 

National Historic Site, “prepared with the assistance of Springfield Technical Community College,” 

NPS, August, 1984 [not approved] , pp. x, 4, 7(SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. GMP/DCP Drafts & Final 

1979-84 [CRBIB 405329]); General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan, Springfield Armory 

National Historic Site, Massachusetts, National Park Service (prepared with the assistance of Springfield 

Technical College, Springfield, Massachusetts), approved July 29, 1986, p. 8 (Herbert S. Cables, Jr., 

Regional Director, North Atlantic Region). 

36 Memo, William L. Brown, III (Staff Curator, Division of Interpretive. Planning) to Alan E. Kent 

(Chief, Division of Interpretive Planning), June 1, 1977 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. Historic Structures 

Report). 

37 National Park Service, Management Policies, 1978, V, 4-5. The 1988 Management Policies similarly 

made no reference to ownership in connection with Lists of Classified Structures. A more recent 

definition, however, limits the contents of the LCS to structures in which the NPS “has, or plans to 

acquire, any legal interest.” Whether location within an authorized park boundary gives the NPS a legal 

interest for purposes of this policy is not clarified, but many agency officials evidently interpret “legal 

interest” as synonymous with “ownership interest.” (National Capitol Region, Office of Land, 

Resources, and Planning, “List of Classified Structures,” at www.nps.gov/nero/lrp/lcs.htm (accessed 

November, 2008). 
Planning the Armory 

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124 

 Figure 3.1. Management zoning (NPS: GMP/DCP, 1986). 

 
Planning the Armory 

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125 

Similarly the 1978 policy on park planning called for zoning “park lands,” without reference to 

ownership, to show where various management and use strategies would “best fulfill 

management objectives and achieve the purpose of the park”: GMPs were required to propose 

“management zoning for all lands and waters within parks.” The policy described four -

“primary management zones” appropriate to most parks: the Historic Zone “includes all lands 

managed primarily to preserve cultural resources or to commemorate historical subjects”: 

moreover, all lands on or eligible for National Register listing would “in most cases be zoned 

historic,” and the policy made “any change in this designation” subject to compliance with the 

Advisory Council’s procedures. At Springfield Armory the GMP team zoned the entire federal 

area historic. But agency policy suggests that they could also have included the college campus 

within the park’s Historic Zone.38

 Why did they not? The applicability of the policies in question to nonfederal lands was 

never explicitly made clear and, given the agency’s cautious approach to the entire question of 

federal authority, agency culture may have suggested a narrower interpretation of the text. Nor 

was Springfield the only park where this happened. The General Management Plan for Fire 

Island National Seashore, approved in 1977, similarly refrained from applying management 

zoning to the park’s extensive private landholding: there it was assumed that local zoning 

ordinances would accomplish federal management objectives for the nonfederal parts of the 

park. One might have made a similar claim for the cooperative agreement at Springfield. Yet, at 

Lowell National Historical Park, which relied on both cooperative agreements and local 

zoning to carry out federal policy, planners applied management zoning, and specifically 

Historic Zone designation, to non-federal property.39 Recalling the events at Springfield more 

than twenty years later, Charles Clapper, then associate regional director for Planning and 

Resource Preservation, believed it would have been possible to apply management zoning to 

the campus. But, he points out, “planning can be...a very political process.”40

 Though not perhaps as far-reaching as the decisions to emphasize the collections and 

deemphasize the federal portion of the site, the decision to return the buildings and setting to 

their 1968 condition also pointed to important consequences for the park. These concerned 

especially the Main Arsenal, Building 10, and the overall appearance of the cultural landscape 

(Fig. 3.2). With regard to the last, it meant specifically re-creating the original contours of the 

hillside that had been altered after the Armory’s closure, yet without rebuilding the original 

century terraces, rose garden, and pool that had been swept away before that date. This course 

balanced pragmatism with preservation theory. The post-1968 regrading had caused erosion, 

poor drainage, and an accumulation of trash: reconstituting the original topography would 

alleviate these problems without incurring the additional expense of a full reconstruction, 

which agency policy strongly discouraged in any case. 

 Applied to Building 10, the 1968 datum meant simply leaving it where it was, yet this 

marked a dramatic reversal from earlier plans which, ever since the original site was discovered 

 

38 National Park Service, Management Policies, 1978, II-3-4. 

39 Land Protection Plan: Lowell National Historical Park, approved 1984, pp. 8-10. 

40 Charles Clapper, recorded interview with author, March 24, 2009. 
Planning the Armory 

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126 

in 1971, had called for moving it. This was an assumption which virtually everyone shared. 

Relocating the house was part of the first cooperative agreement, and from 1976 through 1978 

map searches and archeological surveys sought to locate the original foundations.41 The reason 

for moving the house was simple: if not, it would be “torn down by the Community College,” 

which was an “unacceptable alternative.”42 But for the park’s first superintendent, Mohammed 

A. Khan, there was another consideration: once returned to its “proper location,” the house 

would “restore the historic scene of the 1870's within the NHS.”43 The region’s GMP team had 

a somewhat different perspective: responding no doubt to the agency’s general aversion to 

moving historic structures they would have preferred to leave it where it was and negotiate a 

maintenance agreement. However, they conceded that it would be “justifiable” to move the 

house in order to save it.44 As for the park’s second superintendent, Doug Lindsay recalled that 

moving the house “made a lot of sense” when he arrived.45 But by 1978, even as the cooperative 

agreement was being signed, he and others were beginning to question the assumption. 

Lindsay changed his mind when cultural resource experts from the “soft side” of the regional 

office visited the park. Standing at the site, regional historical architect Blaine Cliver told 

Lindsay, “‘we can’t do that: it’s going to create a historic scene that never existed.’” The 

problem was that when Building 10 had flanked one side of the Main Arsenal, Building 17 (the 

Paymaster’s House) had balanced it on the other. As recently as 1972 there had been talk of 

moving Building 17 as well,46 but when the college demolished it later that year, the 

opportunity was lost, and with it the chance to restore the original configuration. Thus Cliver 

pulled the props out from under one of Khan’s arguments. Lindsay recalls another argument 

against replacing Building 10: the unconfirmed yet credible story that the house had been 

moved in the first place to deprive the laundry and other backyard annoyances from the 

privileged position they had occupied in the foreground of the view enjoyed by the 

Commanding Officer and his wife from their front windows. 

 

41 See, e.g., memo, Regional Director (Jack E. Stark), NAR, to Superintendent, May 18, 1978 (SPAR: 

Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.); and memo, Debora K. Bauxar, Staff Archeologist, HP 

Division, DSC, to Assistant. Manager, Mid-Atlantic/North Atlantic Team, DSC, August 27, 1976, and 

SPAR Superintendent Mohammed A. Khan to Files, March 22, 1978 (both Charlestown: CRM 

Division Files: folder: SPAR: Relocation Master Armorer’s House). 

42 Memos, Assistant Manager, Mid-Atlantic/North Atlantic Team, DSC (Robert L. Steenhagen) to 

Regional Director NAR, April 28, 1978, and Superintendent Mohammed A. Khan to file, March 22, 

1978 (both SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. Master Armorer’s House). 

43 Memo, Supt. SPAR (Mohammed A. Khan) to Files, March 22, 1978 (Charlestown: CRM Division 

Files: folder: SPAR: Relocation Master Armorer’s House). 

44 Shary Page Berg (NAR), “Status Report on Springfield Armory Planning: Preliminary Identification 

of Issues and Options,” September, 1976, revised June, 1978, pp. 11-12 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. 

First Master Plan [CRBIB 406259]). 

45 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 

46 Letters, Lewis to Meredith Ingham, February 22, 1972; and Sarles to Lewis, March 3, 1972 

(Washington Office: NHL Program Files, fol. Springfield Armory). Lewis asks which side of the Main 

Arsenal to put Building 17 on; Sarles confirms southeast side. 
Planning the Armory 

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127 

Figure 3.2. Development Concept Plan (NPS: GMP/DCP, 1986). 

 
Planning the Armory 

128 

 The new outlook on Building 10 was being put into writing by the end of 1980. The 

amendments to the cooperative agreement proposed by Dwight Pitcaithley, the region’s 

cultural resources chief, required the college to “maintain Building 10...on its present site,” 

could “remain where it is.”47 The General Management Plan and, eventually, the amended 

cooperative agreement confirmed the new policy. 

 Like the new direction on the cultural landscape, the decision not to move Building 10 

accorded well with NPS policy but also had a pragmatic dimension. As the new position was 

developed in 1978, the building was undergoing a demotion of sorts. In 1978 the region’s 

planners noted that most respondents to their questionnaire had not thought the building “‘of 

major importance.’”48 Two years later, Pitcaithley wondered whether it deserved its status in 

the highest tier of significance or should be relegated to the second level, or perhaps allowed to 

“remain in the gray area between the two.”49 Lindsay recalls thinking that moving it would 

simply saddle the park with “another goddamn maintenance burden” without adding anything 

to interpretation. Meanwhile, the threat from the college was diminishing. By 1978 it had put 

up two large new buildings and gained approval for a third, completing the first round of 

proposed construction. Five years later, as Chapter Four will show, the college had accepted 

the fact that it would have to live with Armory Square. By the time the draft GMP was 

completed in 1984, the last of its new buildings was under construction, funding and 

enrollment were leveling off, and the likelihood that the college would ever need the site of 

Building 10 for new construction had become vanishingly remote. Neither side had any 

compelling reason to move Building 10 and no one opposed the change of policy. 

 The impact of the 1968 datum on the Main Arsenal was more controversial. It 

concerned the concrete loading dock which had been added to the main facade in 1941. This 

had once been considered an excrescence to be removed but, with the GMP, now became part 

of the historic scene to be retained (Fig. 3.3). Park staff told the planners they felt “very 

strongly that interpretive possibilities would be enhanced by removing the loading dock,”50 but 

the planners were unmoved. For them, the question was not one of mere correctness but also 

of character: the loading dock underlined the Armory’s industrial character, which was a key 

element of its authenticity. Besides, they noted, retaining the loading dock did not preclude its 

removal in the future, whereas the reverse was not true. 

The philosophy of authenticity espoused here had already become an important 

 

47 Robert L. Carper and Richard G. Turk, [DRAFT] Historic Structure Report, Architectural Data 

Section, Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” DSC, Branch of Cultural Resources, MidAtlantic/North Atlantic Team, Denver, January, 1983, “Building 10 Relocation,” p. 1 (SPAR Central 

Files: H3017) 

48 Shary Page Berg (NAR), “Status Report on Springfield Armory Planning: Preliminary Identification 

of Issues and Options,” September, 1976, revised June, 1978, p. 12 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. First 

Master Plan [CRBIB 406259]). 

49 “Draft: D Pitcaithley, December 19, 1980) (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department Files: fol. Revised 

Cooperative Agreement). 

50 HSR: Robert L. Carper and Richard G. Turk, [DRAFT] Historic Structure Report, “Architectural Data 

Section, Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” January, 1983, p. 1. Meeting: memo, Associate 

Regional Director, Planning & Resource Preservation, to files, June 12, 1981, attached to same. 
Planning the Armory 

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principle at the Armory. It had been tested in 1978 when an oversight committee in 

Washington, concerned with the impact of picnicking and lawn mowing at various NPS 

units, requested a report on NPS policies for maintaining the “integrity of the historic scene” 

at its historic areas. This prompted a Washington official to remind regional directors that it 

was NPS policy to protect cultural resources “‘in their historic form and appearance,’” and to 

eschew all attempts to “‘beautify,’ ‘improve,’ ‘enhance,’ or otherwise alter the appearance of a 

historic scene, through decorative plantings, lawn seeding, watering, landscaping, 

adornment, repainting, or any other action that does not accurately reflect the historic 

character of the resources or the historic scene as a whole.”51 In response, Superintendent 

Lindsay pointed out that, at the Armory, “casual picnicking” should be acceptable because it 

was “consistent with practices of Armory employees....” As for mowing, the only difference 

was that in the nineteenth century “wool-bearing mowers” had been used instead of 

machines.52

 A more significant test arose in 1984 when Dwight Pitcaithley angrily rejected the 

Denver Service Center’s design for a new entrance stair, needed to accommodate visitors to the 

Main Arsenal. It was precisely because the design “was artfully and professionally executed,” 

with a “pleasant, campus-like quality,” that Pitcaithley called it “totally out of keeping with the 

historic setting, at odds with the formal military architecture of the Armory itself, and based, 

apparently, on the mistaken notion that the entrance of the Armory should be more 

humanistic and inviting.” Again and again, he complained, “we confront designers from 

Denver who seem oblivious to the fact that we are an agency involved in historic preservation

and ignorant of the Service’s Management Policies and its underlying philosophy.” For 

Pitcaithley, it was not the designer who was at fault but rather the Denver Service Center, 

which failed to explain to new employees that the NPS was a “preservation agency,” or to 

introduce them to the “principles, policies, and philosophies on which NPS cultural resource 

management throughout the System is based.”53 Here Pitcaithley took his disagreement 

directly to the level of policy, and indeed his criticism was consistent with the GMP’s decision 

to leave the concrete loading dock in place, a decision which Pitcaithley himself helped shape. 

 

51 Policies on V-24-25 of NPS Management Policies notebook, quoted in memo, Associate Director, 

Management & Operations, to all regional directors, October 12, 1978 (SPAR Central Files: H3015 

Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). The committee in question was the Committee on Interior and Insular 

Affairs. 

52 Memo, Superintendent (Lindsay) to Acting Chief, Division of Cultural Resources, NAR, November 

2, 1978 (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

53 Memo, Acting Chief, Cultural Resources, NARO (Dwight Pitcaithley) to Associate Regional 

Director, Planning & Resource Preservation, NARO, April 18, 1984 (Charlestown: CRM Division Files: 

folder: SPAR: Pkg. 103 - Adaptive Reuse of Armory Building). 
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Figure 3.3. Building 13 (Main Arsenal): main entrance with historic concrete loading dock and wooden 

stairs added for visitors (photo: author). 

Figure 3.4. Site plan of park showing three levels of preservation controls (NPS: Northeast Museum 

Services Center, Charlestown, MA). 
Planning the Armory 

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131 

 During the same period another issue of historical authenticity arose over 

nomenclature. The 1967 evaluation report called the open space at the center of Armory 

Square the parade or parade ground, a usage followed in the National Register nomination 

and the 1978 cooperative agreement. Yet, Superintendent Lindsay’s 1979 Statement for 

Management called it the Green:54 the reason was his discovery, early in his tenure at the 

park, that the parade ground name was not historically accurate but had been “imported” by 

the “military buffs” within the NPS: the Armory was a manufacturing site rather than a 

military post, and the trees scattered across the open space would have made it impossible to 

parade troops. In fact, nineteenth century plans called the open space the Green, and early 

photographs show mature trees throughout the space.55 The change of name was officially 

adopted by 1983.56

 Despite the park’s striving for authenticity in many areas, the GMP accepted a 

revealing inconsistency. Within the federal area, or “Historic Zone,” the expensive landscape 

modifications envisioned by the “Minimum Development and Preservation” plan would not 

produce precise historical authenticity but only the “general appearance” of 1968.57 Outside 

the federal area, more importantly, the 1968 datum was a dead letter. At least three historic 

buildings had been demolished since 1968 and, by 1984, the third of the college’s massive 

intrusions into the historic central space of Armory Square was under construction. The 

illusion that the NPS could “maintain the armory [sic] as it was in 1968...”58 could be sustained 

only by turning a blind eye to the changes that had taken place immediately across the invisible 

boundary. If Armory Square was really, as the 1974 National Register nomination claimed, a 

“cohesive district,” and if it was true, as Deputy Director Dickenson affirmed, that it was “the 

entire Armory Square” that was “nationally significant,” then this was a significant 

inconsistency. 

 Though the General Management Plan underwent numerous internal reviews (68 by 

1984),59 it prompted little outside interest. Indeed the agency kept public involvement, 

 

54 Statement for Management, Springfield Armory National Historic Site, signed and dated Doug Lindsay 

as preparer, August 27, 1979 (but line for approval unsigned) (SPAR Central Files: A6419: Statement for 

Management). 

55 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. For a plan of c. 1820-24 and photos 

of c. 1880 and 1891, see NPS, Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, Cultural Landscape 

Inventory, 2004, Part 2a p. 11 and Part 2b, pp. 8,9. Lindsay points out that the name “Caserne,” as 

applied to Building 19, was also inaccurate, and for the same reason: it was historically used for storage 

and was known as the Long Storehouse. But in this case, the error was not so quickly corrected: 

Lindsay still used “caserne” in his 1979 Statement for Management, and subsequent planning 

documents continued to use the inaccurate usage until quite recently. 

56 Memo, Assistant Manager, Mid-Atlantic/North Atlantic Team, DSC (Gerald D. Patten) to NA 

Regional Director, March 23, 1983 (Cultural Resources Department Files: fol. Revised Cooperative 

Agreement). 

57 General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan, Springfield Armory National Historic Site, 1986, 

pp. 6 ff. 

58 General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan, Springfield Armory National Historic Site, 1986, 

p. 6 

59 Memo, Superintendent to Regional Director, NAR, May 30, 1984 (SPAR Central Files: D18). 
Planning the Armory 

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required by NEPA, to a minimum “due to the apparent lack of controversy.”60 The single 

public hearing was sparsely attended;61 only two letters were received, and agency officials 

characterized public response as “positive, if limited.” Yet the letters revealed disappointment 

with the “Minimum Development and Preservation” alternative chosen by the agency. The 

first, from the city’s commissioner for community development, was terse. It thanked the park 

for helping to “bring the Gun Museum into the mainstream of our vistor [sic] and convention 

activities” yet emphasized the city’s “wholehearted endorsement” of the rejected Alternative 3, 

the expansive, site-oriented alternative which the planners had described as offering “broad 

interpretation and use oriented toward all of the National Historic Site.”62 Springfield Central, 

describing itself as the “lead private sector agency responsible for the revitalization of 

downtown Springfield,” offered a sharper response. Director Carlo Marchetti pleaded for a 

“major development program” to enhance the Armory’s “economic development impact and 

its contribution to Springfield’s cultural community” – a program like that of the rejected 

Alternative 3 – and criticized the adopted plan for failing to “take full advantage of the 

Armory’s development potential.” Marchetti called not only for a new entrance to the park 

which would separate it from the college and highlight its identity but also for “restoration of 

the historic terraces, fountain and gardens,” and for moving Building 10. These steps Marchetti 

thought would bring to life the site’s “real story,” which was the “‘Grand National Armory’ 

theme.” In the scenario he imagined, “the magnificence of this setting, then, visually 

underscores the Armory’s important role in industrial and military development.”63

 Though Superintendent Lindsay assured the regional office that the “principal 

interest” of those at the public hearing was to foster tourism,64 Marchetti’s remarks pointed to 

a substantive disagreement over how to develop and interpret the Armory. To Marchetti, the 

“real story of the site” was the “‘Grand National Armory’ theme,” not the “Gun Museum.” 

Some NPS interpretive planners appeared to be saying something similar when they tried to 

emphasize the importance of the Armory’s regional role. Marchetti’s claim that restoring the 

“magnificence” of the Armory’s setting would highlight its historical meaning was defensible 

on its merits. 

 

60 Task Directive, General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan Package No. 101, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site, prepared by Larry Beal, Anna Whit Watkins, and Michael Spratt, 

February 22, 1983 [draft - not recommended, concurred, or approved], p. 6 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: 

fol. GMP/DCP Task Directive). 

61 Memo, Superintendent to Regional Director, October 19, 1984 (SPAR Central Files: D18). 

62 Letter, John J. Benoit (Commissioner, Community Development, City of Springfield) to Lindsay, 

October 16, 1984 (SPAR Central Files: D18). 

63 Letter, Carlo A. Marchetti, Executive Director, Springfield Central, to Lindsay, October 18, 1984 

(SPAR Central Files: D18). 

64 Memo, Superintendent to Regional Director, October 19, 1984 (SPAR Central Files: D18). 
Planning the Armory 

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133 

RENEGOTIATING THE COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT

 Though the planners might hatch out the campus on their maps, the federal and nonfederal portions of the park were intricately linked. The park depended on the college for 

utility services, and on a combination of Springfield police and campus guards for security. 

Park staff and visitors threaded their way through the college en route to the Main Arsenal. 

These interdependencies created recurrent challenges for park managers: even the simple act 

of installing a new gas pipeline required a formal agreement,65 and although low visitation 

figures kept conflicts over access and parking to a minimum, that could change if park 

managers succeeded in raising the numbers. Circumstances thus ensured that, quite apart from 

contention over the maintenance of the college’s historic buildings (to be discussed further in 

the next chapter), campus issues would never be far from park managers’ attention. 

 The 1978 cooperative agreement provided some structure for this engagement but few 

operational guidelines. In retrospect, Lindsay called it an “entirely defective instrument,” 

observing that there was “no way that any rational person could have administered that 

cooperative agreement”: it had been written by too many people with too many agendas.66 In 

any case, its renegotiation, an essential step in park planning, was itself a major focus of parkcollege relations for a number of years: “I don’t ever remember not working on the cooperative 

agreement,” as Lindsay put it. The NPS had started drafting revisions to the 1978 agreement 

almost as soon as it was signed. Nevertheless, in 1980, they suspended work on the 

Development Concept Plan because of the continuing uncertainties. “This negotiation process 

will take time,” wrote the region’s acting director, in what turned out to be an 

understatement.67 What motivated both parties to persevere, according to a college official, 

was precisely the “operational difficulties” that both were experiencing;68 according to park 

managers, “the practical realities of operating the site” called for amendments to “reflect more 

clearly the responsibilities and obligations of the signatories.”69

 The problems with the 1978 agreement were numerous. According to Lindsay, “the 

college hated it because it restrained them: it put an undue burden on them, for example, 

requiring maintenance that they said they could not afford”: he recalls that a major goal for the 

 

65 See, e.g., “Agreement,” signed by Joseph Deliso (Chairman, Board of Trustees, S.T.C.C.) and 

Leonard J. Collamore (Interim President), September 14, 1981 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: folder National 

Register Nomination). 

66 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 

67 Memo, Acting Regional Director, NAR, to Superintendent, May 13, 1981, attached to: Robert L. 

Carper and Richard G. Turk, [DRAFT] Historic Structure Report, “Architectural Data Section, 

Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” DSC, Branch of Cultural Resources, Mid-Atlantic/North 

Atlantic Team, Denver, January, 1983 (SPAR Central Files: H3017). 

68 Memo, William A. Baker (S.T.C.C. Dean of Administration to Peter A. Wieczorek, Director Federal 

Property Assistance, US Dept of Education, Boston), May 2, 1984 (SPAR: Cultural Resources 

Department Files: fol. Revised Cooperative Agreement). 

69 Letter, Clapper to Jordan Tannenbaum (ACHP), January 14, 1981 (SPAR: Cultural Resources 

Department Files: fol. Revised Cooperative Agreement). 
Planning the Armory 

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134 

NPS in revising the agreement was to remove its most irritating provisions.70 From the agency’s 

perspective it contained other flaws. One was the provision to move Building 10: as Lindsay 

puts it, this was now “contrary to park service policy: we weren’t going to do it, and yet there it 

was in the cooperative agreement.” Other problems could not be fixed simply by writing a new 

agreement. Lindsay recalling Dwight Pitcaithley remarking that “‘cooperative agreements are 

all handshake agreements: as long as both parties are cooperative, they work great. But they 

don’t carry any sanctions....’” The college was not a particularly willing cooperator, and its 

political power would have protected it from sanctions, even if any had been available. 

 Of “crucial concern” to NPS officials was Article IIb, which defined the college’s right 

to alter its buildings and grounds as well as the agency’s review role.71 They disagreed on how 

to amend it. While Regional Director Cables wished mainly to simplify the review process and 

limit the agency’s responsibilities, others wanted to tighten the standards. The original 

agreement divided the campus into two parts, setting a relatively strict standard of review for 

the parade ground and the buildings facing it and a looser standard for the area behind the 

front range of buildings on the northwest side. The agency now proposed “three levels of 

preservation control.” Level one, applying to the parade and the historic buildings defining its 

southeast and northeast sides, essentially prohibited any exterior alterations and required new 

plantings to be consistent in size and type with existing ones. Level two, applying to the historic 

houses behind the new college buildings (including Building 10) and to the long storehouse 

(Building 19), allowed “some exterior modification” to facilitate adaptive reuse as long as it did 

not “affect overall appearance in terms of qualities such as size, mass and spatial arrangement.” 

Level three, applying to everything else, permitted “more extensive exterior modifications” for 

adaptive reuse.72

 With minor refinements these changes were eventually adopted73 (Fig. 3.4). More 

problematic was the revision of the Section 106 review process. Under the original agreement, 

the college initiated the process by submitting its plans to the NPS, which reviewed them 

according to a standard summarized by Francis McManamon, a regional official: “impacts to 

be avoided and not concurred in by NPS include actions which will change the historical 

integrity of the parade ground and exterior appearance of historic structures fronting on it or 

 

70 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 

71 Memo, Associate Regional Director Francis P. McManamon, Planning and Resource Protection, to 

Chief, Division of Cultural Resources, NAR, October 2, 1979 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department 

Files: folder: SPAR: Statement for Management - 1979). 

72 Specifically, level one applied to the parade plus Buildings 5/6, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, the “remnant” of 27, 

and 29; level two to Buildings 7, 8, 9, and 19. Copy of 1978 Agreement with pages of “Proposed 

Amendments to Cooperative Agreement,” [nd] pasted to appropriate pages; and “Proposed 

Amendments to “Agreement Between the United States of America and the Commonwealth of 

Massachusetts” (March 27, 1978) (“Draft: D. Pitcaithley, December 19, 1980) (SPAR: Cultural 

Resources Department Files: fol. Revised Cooperative Agreement). 

73 “Memorandum of Understanding Between the United States of America and the Commonwealth of 

Massachusetts,” MU-1600-3-9001, s by John Burchell for Regional Director, Kevin M. Smith, DCPO 

Commissioner, Judith B. McDonough, SHPO, and [illegible] for S.T.C.C. (Chairman, Board of 

Trustees), and dated March 1, 1993, Article II.b. In the final version, Building 29 was dropped from 

Level 1 and Building 10 added to Level 2. 
Planning the Armory 

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135 

the exterior appearance of other historic structures in the Preservation Control Area.”74 Next, 

after concurring or not, the NPS prepared the required forms and submitted them to the 

Massachusetts State Historical Commission (the SHPO), which reviewed and ruled on them. 

 In 1979, McManamon proposed that the NPS take certain steps “to emphasize our 

cultural resource concerns to management and the College”: on the one hand, he called for 

more explicit preservation safeguards in the park’s Statement for Management; on the other, 

for a system by which the regional office could review college proposals.75 But a difficulty arose 

when officials noticed that the 1968 deed made HEW, rather than NPS, the concurring agency. 

The agreement would have to be rewritten to acknowledge HEW’s role without taking away 

the NPS’s “advisory/consultative function.”76 Yet, by 1982 HEW no longer existed, and 

although the new Department of Education had taken over its remaining Armory 

responsibilities, the Department rejected any additional responsibility for enforcing the state’s 

preservation obligations under the deed of transfer.77 Despite this reversal, the NPS still sought 

to give away its concurrence role. Dwight Pitcaithley recalls that the situation had become 

“very awkward.” The college needed extensive advice in architectural design and preservation, 

and the cooperative agreement bound the NPS to supply it, yet the region’s preservation office 

was “stretched thin” and simply could not afford to undertake the “lengthy negotiation” that 

so many buildings would eventually require. At Lowell NHP, by contrast, there was a 

dedicated staff person whose entire job was to resolve similar problems with owners inside the 

historic district. Lacking a similar capacity at the Armory, the NPS was unable to influence the 

college’s building projects in meaningful ways, yet was nonetheless forced to bring those 

projects forward to the SHPO. Not only was the paperwork burden substantial but the regional 

office found it compelled to “lobby” for projects it did not necessarily support and might even 

oppose. Motivated by a high level of “frustration” over this situation, the regional office sought 

to get “out of the middle” and let the college bring its own proposals directly to the SHPO.78

 Early in 1983, then, Regional Director Herbert Cables suggested giving the 

concurrence role to the SHPO, explaining that this would free the NPS to give the college 

technical assistance and “develop a spirit of cooperation and partnership with it in our 

 

74 Memo, Associate Regional Director Francis P. McMenamon, Planning and Resource Preservation to 

Chief, Division of Cultural Resources, NAR, October 2, 1979 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department 

Files: fol. Revised Cooperative Agreement). 

75 Memo, Associate Regional Director Francis P. McMenamon, Planning and Resource Preservation to 

Chief, Division of Cultural Resources, NA Region, October 2, 1979 (SPAR: Cultural Resources 

Department Files: fol. Revised Cooperative Agreement). 

76 Copy of 1978 Agreement with pages of “Proposed Amendments to Cooperative Agreement,” n.d. 

pasted to appropriate pages; and “Proposed Amendments to “Agreement Between the United States of 

America and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts “(March 27, 1978) (“Draft: Dwight Pitcaithley, 

December 19, 1980) - (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department Files: fol. Revised Cooperative 

Agreement). 

77 Letter, Peter A. Wieczorek Director, Federal Property Assistance - US Dept of Education, Region 1, 

Boston to Clapper, April 30, 1982 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department Files: fol. Revised 

Cooperative Agreement). 

78 Dwight Pitcaithley: recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 
Planning the Armory 

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136 

common goal of preserving the Armory’s historic buildings.”79 Would it also diminish the 

agency’s ability to manage the park? On paper, the change forced greater reliance on the 

SHPO’s decisions, placing park officials in a position analogous to that of a neighboring 

property owner even where congressionally authorized parkland was concerned. Yet as 

Pitcaithley put it, “We never had that ability”: the management structure created by the 

legislation and the cooperative agreement “sounded good” but gave the NPS very little ability 

to affect developments within the campus. In reality, then, the regional office “wasn’t giving up 

as much as it was simply realizing the reality of the situation that we had.”80

 Cables had been meeting with college administrators, and whether or not this idea 

actually came from them, it accorded well with their views. In 1984, the dean of administration 

remarked that the cooperative agreement was not strictly necessary since, if it expired, the site 

would be managed under the terms of the National Historic Preservation Act. Since this was the 

time when the GMP had become “lodged” within the state education department, he may 

simply have been suggesting a way to dislodge it. But Superintendent Lindsay responded 

angrily: he was “more than puzzled,” by the college’s apparent belief that a cooperative 

agreement was “optional.”81 Obviously Congress had not thought so. In hindsight, one may 

also point out that, if the college had been right, then inclusion within a unit of the National 

Park system would literally have meant nothing, since it would have brought no change to the 

college’s existing responsibilities. 

 Behind the college’s suggestion lay a lingering hostility to federal intervention, dating 

from the time the NPS had arrived as an unwelcome guest at the college’s birth. By 1983, as the 

following chapter will show, college officials were beginning to accept their preservation 

obligations, but confusion over their relationship with the National Historic Site persisted. On 

the one hand, college officials could concede that the NPS was legally required to “ensure the 

historical integrity of the National Landmark,” yet on the other they could refer to the college’s 

“54-acre campus,” implying that the National Park was part of the college campus rather than 

the other way around. To confuse things further, they could describe the “westerly section of 

the campus” as a “National Historic Landmark and Park.”82 What both parties implicitly 

agreed on was that there would be day-to-day cooperation on operational issues but a 

minimum of coordinated planning for the National Historic Site as a whole. 

 The new Section 106 process was written into the new cooperative agreement, which 

made all college proposals “subject to the concurrence of the Massachusetts State Historic 

Preservation Office following its review of the impact on the Green....” The only role the NPS 

 

79 Letter, Cables to Weslowski, February 25, 1983 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department Files: fol. 

Revised Cooperative Agreement). 

80 Dwight Pitcaithley: recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 

81 Memo, Lindsay to Pitcaithley, May 4, 1984 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department Files: fol. 

Revised Cooperative Agreement). The official at the Department of Education was Director Federal 

Property Assistance Peter A. Wieczorek, DOE, Boston. 

82 Springfield Technical Community College: Institutional Self-Study, submitted to New England 

Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc., Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, March 

1991, p. 155 (S.T.C.C.: President’s Office files).
Planning the Armory 

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137 

would play in this process was to “provide technical and professional assistance to the 

College” and to “expedite legislative compliance mandates” by serving as a liaison between the 

college and the Massachusetts Historical Commission. Moreover, the standard of review 

which the SHPO was now directed to follow – “impact on the Green”83 – was exceedingly 

narrow, which partially negated the impact of the tightened preservation controls. 

 The revised review process was put into practice by 1986, but negotiations over the 

cooperative agreement dragged on. It was not always clear which party caused the delays. In 

1989, Lindsay apologized for the time-consuming round of federal reviews and told President 

Andrew M. Scibelli he appreciated his “infinite patience in this matter.”84 Yet, the college often 

appeared uncooperative, as in March 1983, when the dean of administration arrived at a 

meeting with park officials a hour and a half late and without having read the draft 

agreement.85 Sometimes the college would appear to go along, then suddenly raise an 

objection. During the meeting at which Dean Baker arrived unprepared, he first read the 

agreement and then brought up a series of entirely new and potentially difficult issues. By June, 

the NPS had a draft which officials believed was “acceptable to all parties,” but at the end of 

that month Dean Baker responded to issues which college President Collamore had brought 

up internally three months earlier, raising more objections.86

 The fact was that the college had little to gain from renegotiating the agreement: more 

parking, perhaps more ball fields on the Green. It had more to lose from negotiating with an 

agency intent on tightening up its standards, and this was just as true after the changes adopted 

in 1986. If the existing agreement simply lapsed, the college believed that all federal 

interference apart from Section 106 would lapse with it. This may explain why, although 

Regional Director Cables asserted that both parties were dissatisfied with the existing 

agreement,87 it was always the NPS that went to the college with new drafts. 

 In the end, though, it was not the college that caused the longest delays. Two years after 

the U.S. Department of Education had declined to take any further interest in the agreement, 

Dean Baker submitted the latest draft to the department for review. Now the same official 

announced that the department had “several concerns...” and would not approve the amended 

 

83 “Memorandum of Understanding Between the United States of America and the Commonwealth of 

Massachusetts,” MU-1600-3-9001, signed by John Burchell for Regional Director Kevin M. Smith, 

DCPO Commissioner Judith B. McDonough, SHPO, and [illegible] for S.T.C.C. (Chairman, Board of 

Trustees), and dated March 1, 1993, Article II.b. 

84 Letter, Lindsay to Scibelli, January 23, 1989 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department Files: fol. 1978 

Cooperative Agreement). 

85 Memo, SPAR Superintendent Lindsay to Associate Regional Director, Planning & Resource 

Preservation, NAR, March 23, 1983 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department Files: fol. Revised 

Cooperative Agreement). 

86 Memo from Associate Regional Director Charles P. Clapper, Planning and Resource Preservation, 

NAR Region, to SPAR Superintendent, June 16, 1983, covering draft agreement (with blanks made out 

for 1983); and memo, Dean William Baker (S.T.C.C.) to President Collamore, June 27, 1983 (SPAR: 

Cultural Resources Department Files: fol. Revised Cooperative Agreement). 

87 Letter, Cables to Lenard [sic] Collamore (Acting Pres, S.T.C.C.), February 25, 1983 (SPAR: Cultural 

Resources Department Files: fol. Revised Cooperative Agreement). 
Planning the Armory 

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agreement until it could “review the proposed revisions in detail.” He warned the college: 

“Please do not under any circumstances execute the revised agreement with the National Park 

Service...until you receive authorization in writing from the U.S. Department of Education.”88

 For two years the NPS tried to extricate the agreement from the Department of 

Education, which was also holding up the transfer of the 1.97-acre parcel of land relinquished 

by the state under the terms of the first cooperative agreement.89 In April, 1986, the department 

finally responded, saying there was no legal reason for it to be a party to the agreement since it 

did not affect the state’s obligations to DOE.90 This was exactly what Education officials had 

told the NPS in 1983. It had taken officials two years to reach the same conclusion. 

 By the end of 1986, the NPS and the college were ready to sign the new cooperative 

agreement. But, early in 1987, the college discovered that it needed approval from the state’s 

Division of Capital Planning and Operations. The document was forwarded to the deputy 

commissioner. More changes followed. In July, 1988, the NPS prepared a new draft. At this 

point, agency officials did not even dare to alter the margins, so anxious were they not to 

precipitate further delays. The state agencies completed their review in September, 1989. More 

minor changes were made. Lindsay was now confident that the document would finally be 

signed. Yet, two and a half years later, park officials reported that the college was “still making 

an effort to get the 1988 agreement signed.” They did not succeed until March, 1993. By then, 

the NPS was drafting a new amended agreement, to take effect in 1998.91 

 

88 Letter, Wieczorek to Baker, May 9, 1984 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department Files: fol. Revised 

Cooperative Agreement). 

89 Letter, Cables to Bayard D. Waring (Secretary’s Regional Representative, DOE, Boston), February 

19, 1985, and memo, Cables to Director, October 2, 1985 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department Files: 

fol. Revised Cooperative Agreement). Sometime in 1985 or 1986, a letter was drafted from Interior 

Secretary Hodel asking Education Secretary Bennett to help end the delays. It is not clear whether it 

was sent. See letter, Donald P. Hodel, Secretary of Interior, to William J. Bennett, Sec Ed, n.d., n.s. 

(Boston Support Office: Compliance Files: fol. L7617 SPAR DCP PKG 101 & 103). 

90 Letter, David A. Cox (Acting Administrator for Management Services, DOE) to P. Daniel Smith 

(Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks) April 10, 1986 (SPAR: Cultural Resources 

Department Files: fol. Revised Cooperative Agreement). 

91 Both ready to sign: “Agreement Between the United States of America and the Commonwealth of 

Massachusetts,” n.s., n.d. (made out for signature in 1986), with covering letter from Cables to Andrew 

M. Scibelli (President, S.T.C.C.), October [corrected to December] 2, 1986. State DCPO: Letter, Joseph 

C. Sullivan (Associate Counsel, BRCC) to James J. Dowd (Assistant to President, S.T.C.C.), February 

27, 1987. New draft: “Agreement Between the United States of America and the Commonwealth of 

Massachusetts,” version titled in pen “Revisions Based on S.T.C.C.’s Suggestions,” and title altered in 

pen to replace “Agreement” with “Memorandum of Understanding,” and dated in pen, July, 1988; and 

memo, Acting Chief, Concessions, NARO, to Chief, Division of Cultural Resources, NARO, July 15, 

1988. Format requirements: memo, Agreements Coordinator, NARO (Gerald E. Swofford) to Chief, 

Division of Cultural Resources, NARO, August 9, 1988 (all SPAR: Cultural Resources Department 

Files: fol. Revised Cooperative Agreement). Final state review, confident: memo, Superintendent 

Lindsay to Regional Director, NAR, September 18, 1989 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department Files: 

fol. 1978 Cooperative Agreement). Spring 1992, new agreement: “Final Progress Report on 

Recommendations for Operations Evaluation” [May, 1992] (SPAR: Central Files: A2621 FY 92: Final 

Progress Report. Operations Evaluation); and fax cover sheet, Steve Beatty to Marie Rust, December 

18, 1992 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department Files: fol. MOU – S.T.C.C. Braim 03/05/98). 
Planning the Armory 

Armory 

139 

Figure 3.5. The museum as the main visitor experience and focus of interpretation: park historian 

Richard Colton anchors historical narratives to guns. 

 
Armory 
141 

CHAPTER FOUR

REHABILITATING THE ARMORY

 From the perspective of his successor, Steve Beatty, it was not so much Lindsay’s 

planning framework as his achievement in stabilizing and rehabilitating the Armory’s physical 

resources that really transformed the park.1 Certainly they left Beatty a markedly different 

park, and markedly different opportunities, than he had confronted. Lindsay carried out the 

first major rehabilitation of the cast iron perimeter fence. He also oversaw work on the 

Commanding Officer’s Quarters (Building 1). And he started a landscape maintenance 

program. But the project that above all transformed the park was the rehabilitation of the 

Main Arsenal (Building 13). And here, planning and building were most closely entwined. The 

Main Arsenal’s preponderant importance in the park’s development was due not only to its 

visual prominence but also to a series of planning decisions that made it the park’s dominant 

focus: decisions to emphasize the federal area, to highlight the museum, and to locate both the 

museum and the administrative offices in Building 13. The NPS began working on Building 13 

soon after the park was established; a major renovation project was launched in 1982 and 

completed in 1989; afterwards, work did not end but tapered off into smaller projects that 

continue today. 

 The same decisions that made the Museum’s renovation both critically important and 

complex made the treatment of the other federal buildings correspondingly less so. Their 

management became largely a matter of ad hoc responses to problems, requiring little overall 

coordination. Had the historic landscape been treated according to the plans developed in the 

1980s it would have been an exception to this pattern, for those plans called for major 

interventions: though the nineteenth century fountains and terraces would not be restored, 

the plan nonetheless involved reversing the substantial earthmoving which had been carried 

out after the Armory’s closure. But as little if anything was done to implement the plan’s 

ambitious goals, managing the landscape became similarly a matter of maintenance and minor 

changes, and this remained true even during the 1990s, when the agency and the region began 

to place greater emphasis on cultural landscape management. 

 The state-owned portion of the park presented an entirely different challenge. 

Relationships between park and college staffs were often cordial: each helped the other with 

security, lighting, signage, and other day-to-day matters. But when it came to preserving and 

rehabilitating the historic buildings, it was another story. At the end of the 1960s, what would 

become the park’s federal and state zones were in roughly equivalent condition, but over 

time they diverged more and more sharply. By the end of the 1980s the federal zone had been 

 

1

Steve Beatty, recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

142 

placed in good to excellent condition. On the campus side, some buildings had been restored 

but others were declining towards the point of no return. The spectacle of fine nineteenth 

century buildings sealed off to pedestrians behind hazard tape in some cases, completely 

open to the elements in others, displaying rotting woodwork and missing columns – and all 

of this in the middle of a national park – troubled park visitors and reflected badly on the 

system. Worse, it portended – and continues to portend – the loss of historic buildings 

considered valuable enough to merit designation as a National Historic Landmark and 

inclusion within a congressionally authorized National Historic Site. 

 How the park’s physical components have been treated is the subject of this chapter. 

The first section considers each element of the federal zone, the second section the college 

campus. 

THE FEDERAL ZONE

 The Evaluation Report of 1967 identified the cast iron perimeter fence as a key 

element (Figs. 1.8, 4.1, others), and all subsequent planning and documentation reports 

confirmed this judgment. Preparing for the NPS to take over the park in 1977, Arthur Allen 

ranked it as the park’s “absolute first priority.” It was equally obvious to Allen that the Main 

Arsenal would need attention as soon as the fence was secured. Neither was in very good 

condition. An entire section of the fence was missing, and there were smaller gaps as well, not 

only detracting from the historic fabric but also creating security problems.2 The Main 

Arsenal represented a far more complex challenge. Allen recommended repairing the roof, 

sanding and sealing floors, removing ivy from exterior walls, replacing window glass and door 

locks, installing a new elevator, repairing the tower clock, and providing additional fire 

escapes. The building’s systems were all “in bad repair or ineffective and in need of 

replacement.” Though it seemed “dry and well ventilated,” humidity testing was needed, 

especially in the basement where most of the guns were stored. There were problems of space 

usage and planning as well. Someday, Allen envisioned a “large library room with numerous 

bookshelves and tables” and microfilm readers. Meanwhile, there was a “pressing need” for a 

workshop: also useful would be an area where museum visitors could “study the various 

weapons from the study collection.” There had been talk of an office for Congressman 

Boland. At the same time, there was a good deal of space with no clear purpose or use. A plan 

was obviously needed.3

 The first few years of NPS stewardship were marked by ad hoc repairs and piecemeal 

 

2

 “Notes on Springfield Armory,” no signature, no date, [probably Arthur C. Allen, mid-March, 1977], 

p. 1 (Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

3

 “Notes on Springfield Armory,” no signature, no date, [probably Arthur C. Allen, mid-March, 1977], 

pp. 1-5 (Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

143 

upgrades. Temporary repairs were made to the fence in 1977,4

 but on the night of November 

25, 1979, a section of the fence on Byers St “broke loose and fell on an individual who 

sustained a broken leg.” The injured individual told the police he had been hanging on the 

fence while talking to friend. The park made more temporary repairs by the next morning. But 

Superintendent Lindsay called for a more thorough rehabilitation.5

 An inspection in 1980 

revealed serious problems. The cast iron was fracturing, many of the columns were cracked, 

spikes and other ornaments were broken. The park had been repairing the damage by bolting 

Figure 4.1. Gateway at State Street and Byers Street in 1967 (The Springfield Armory Project: coll. STCC). 

steel bracing to lose elements: “This is good, works, and is far better than welding. No 

welding should be done to historical elements.” But it was obviously a temporary measure, 

funds were not available for more far-reaching repairs. (The college’s section of the fence, it 

might be noted, was in no better condition: the college was planning to repair it.)6

 

4

 Robert L. Carper and Richard G. Turk, [DRAFT] “Historic Structure Report, Architectural Data 

Section, Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” DSC, Branch of Cultural Resources, MidAtlantic/North Atlantic Team, Denver, January, 1983, p. 203 (SPAR Central Files: H3017). 

5

 Memo, Superintendent to Acting Regional Director, NAR, November 26, 1979 (SPAR Central Files: 

D46 Fence). 

6

 “Trip Report,” Associate Regional Director, Planning and Resource Preservation (Francis P. 

Mcmenamon), to Chief, NA HP Center, January 3, 1980 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. Master Armorer’s 

House). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

144 

 The first interventions at Building 13 were equally discrete. Focused on systems, they 

had little impact on the building’s historic fabric. Lightning protection was installed in 1977,7

motion detectors in the second floor ceilings (where the collection had been moved) in 

1978,8 new gas and electric services to Buildings 1 and 13 in 1980-81.9 In 1982, the park began 

to bring the building into compliance with fire codes and to secure the gun collection, 

installing interior storm windows, adapting certain windows for ventilation or emergency 

exits, installing emergency signage as well as panic hardware and alarms on exit doors, and 

upgrading a basement stairway.10 Small improvements continued through 1983 and 1984: 

repairing a deteriorated attic truss,11 upgrading the security system, installing smoke and heat 

detectors and sprinklers. Chief Curator Ann Hitchcock noted that “the Superintendent is 

particularly cognizant of security and fire protection systems and needs, and has given these 

matters top priority.”12 In 1985, about 180 panes of double-strength glass were replaced at a 

cost of a little less than $4,300.13

 None of these improvements called for a great deal of planning, but that began to 

change in the mid-1980s with coordinated programs for both the fence and the Main 

Arsenal. The former was thoroughly rehabilitated between 1984 and 1987. The work 

proceeded in sections. By the spring of 1984, the 1,300-foot stretch along Byers Street had 

been largely completed – “repaired, sandblasted, and given one coat of zinc paint,” and in 

 

7

 Purchase order for lightning protection for Armory Museum and Commandant’s House, July 11, 

1977 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. Lightning Protection 1977). 

8

 “Assessment of Effect on Cultural Resources” (Form XXX, for expansion of security system), signed 

Regional Archeologist, Regional Historian, Regional Historical Architect (Cliver), approved by 

Regional Director Stark, dated January 4, 1978 (Charlestown: CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR - 

Security System, Armory Museum). 

9

 Letter, Charles P. Clapper (Associate Regional Director, Planning & Resource Preservation) to 

Patricia Weslowski, Ex. Dir. MHC, February 9, 1981, memo, Clapper to Superintendent, March 2, 

1980; letter, Clapper to Weslowski, June 18, 1981; memo, Associate Regional Director to 

Superintendent, July 27, 1981 (all SPAR: Central Files: H42 106 Review Windows/Sash); Kathleen W. 

Fiero, Archeological Survey of a Proposed Electrical Line Corridor, Springfield Armory National Historic 

Site, Springfield, Massachusetts, Denver Service Center, Branch of Cultural Resources, MidAtlantic/North Atlantic Team, Denver, CO, April, 1982 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Reference 

Collection). 

10 “Assessment of Actions Having an Effect on Cultural Resources” (Form XXX), signed Craig Cellar 

(for Doug Lindsay), March 1, 1982 (SPAR Central Files: H42 106 Review Windows/Sash); and 

invitation for bids, June 14, 1982 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: Daily Log...Interior Rehab Building # 13); 

and documents relating to interior rehab of Building 13 (Lowenthal Files: Documents - SPAR 

Correspondence CX 1600-2-9004). 

11 Memo Associate Regional Director, Planning and Resource Preservation, NAR, to Supterintendent, 

July 28, 1983 (SPAR Central Files: H42 106 Review Windows/Sash). 

12 Ann Hitchcock (Chief Curator, Curatorial Services Branch, WASO), “Trip Report, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site (SPAR), July 20, 1984 (Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR 

through 1988). 

13 North Atlantic Region, “Completion Report: Replace Double-Strength Glass in the Main Arsenal 

and in the Commanding Officer’s Quarters,” August, 1985 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: Completion 

Reports). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

145 

spots two or three coats – at a cost of about $121,000.14 Next, in 1984-85, came the 726-foot 

length along Pearl Street. This was more problematic, as the concrete base was badly 

deteriorated in places. Nevertheless, a contract was let in the fall of 1984 at $149,800.15 The 

following spring Park Historian Larry Lowenthal was awarded the Springfield Historical 

Commission’s Preservation Award for his management of the work.16 Last came the section 

along State Street, including the gates at the corners of Pearl and Byers Streets. This was 

largely finished by the fall of 1987: the total cost was about $180,000.17

 By the mid-1980s, the planning framework for the rehabilitation of the Main Arsenal 

was clear. The decision of the GMP to place the park’s administrative offices there provided 

one piece of the building’s program. The Interpretive Prospectus laid down another when it 

identified the exhibits as the park’s “prime interpretive experience.” The Collection 

Management Plan provided a third: reorganized and upgraded collection storage. Two other 

elements were also certain: the Blanchard lathe and the Organ of Muskets would continue to 

be the museum’s largest displays (Figs. 4.2-3). The Organ of Muskets was a towering double 

gun rack made in the 1830s to hold over a thousand flintlock muskets: it was what 

Longfellow invoked in the opening of his famous poem to peace, “The Arsenal at 

Springfield”: 

This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, 

Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;... 

The lathe had been described as the “first pattern replicator enabling the mass production of 

gun stocks” and was a key piece of the Armory’s industrial history.18

 As certain as that these impressive objects would remain was that the rest of the old 

exhibits would be swept away. According to the NPS’s chief curator, Ann Hitchcock, they 

were “old and not in the best condition,” featuring “old dissimilar cases and displays offering 

little in the way of security and interpretation.” Essentially they were little more than “‘open 

 

14 Memo, Orville W. Carroll, (Project Coordinator, NAHPC) to Chief, Historic Preservation, NAR, 

May 7, 1984. See also memos Carroll to Nancy Tansino, May 31, 1984 (two memos of same date) (all 

SPAR Central Files: D46 Fence). 

15 Memos, Orville C. Carroll, NAHPC, to Chief, Historic Preservation, NAR, May 7, 1984; and to 

Nancy Tansino, May 31, 1984; Lump Sum Contract for Rehabilitation of Cast Iron Fence, approved 

Nancy R. Tansino and dated. June 5, 1984; Letter, Tansino to New England General Welding Co., Inc., 

Springfield, June 28, 1984 (all SPAR Central Files: D46 Fence). 

16 Letter, Dawn L. Williams (Staff person, Springfield Historical Commission) to Larry Lowenthal, n.d. 

[spring, 1985] (SPAR Central Files: A82 Special Events FY 1991-1996). 

17 “Rehabilitation of Cast Iron Fence and Gates,” 2 sheets of drawings by O. W. Carroll, dated 

December 1984; memos, Orville W. Carroll to Sandra Ridley, Contracting– NARO, April 2, 1985; to 

Chief, Historic Preservation, NAR, January 3, 1986; and to Karen Klam, Contracting Officer, NARO, 

March 14, 1986; letter, Samuel H. Reck (Contracting Officer) to Anchor Industries, Fitzwilliam, NH, 

April 10, 1986; memo, Michael Fortin, Project Supervisor, to Contracting Officer, NARO, September 

14, 1987 (all SPAR Central Files: D46 Fence). 

18 Organ and lathe: Division of Museum Services, Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory, 

March, 1977 [prepared by Betsey Bradley, Barclay Rogers, Richard Rattenbury, Arthur C. Allen], p. 4. 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

146 

on open pegboard” or “completely exposed” to dust, dirt, inappropriate handling, theft, 

excessive sunlight, and glaring fluorescent light.19 In sum, the exhibits were in urgent need of 

revision. They are old and faded, poorly designed, and many lack adequate labels. There is 

no unifying theme or organization. Many of the objects are improperly displayed from the 

standpoint of conservation and security.20

 Superintendent Lindsay assumed that, with the strong support of a Congressman as 

powerful as Boland, the rehabilitation and the new exhibits would be quickly funded and 

carried out.21 It did not happen that way. In June, 1982, the park approved a design concept 

presented by an exhibit design company in Alexandria, VA, including display cases, lighting, 

graphics, a “center demonstration platform, planked flooring, two special demonstration 

pedestal stands,” and “perimeter systems,” at a total construction and installation cost “in the 

$200,000 range.”22 Nothing further was heard from outside consultants, and six months later 

the chief of exhibit planning and design at the Harpers Ferry Center explained the Center’s 

process to Superintendent Lindsay.23 But almost within days the plan hit an obstacle: a 

“push-back of construction money to 1986 or 1987.”24 The Main Arsenal would not open on 

schedule. Worse, the park would “have to live with the present exhibit area for another 4 - 5 

years.” 

 Reacting quickly, Lindsay instructed his staff to “make a concentrated effort to 

upgrade the exhibit area as best we can with local resources.” The result was a series of 

temporary exhibits which opened in January, 1986: virtually everything in them was done at 

the park, from the development of interpretation themes through the selection of objects to 

the production of labels, graphics, and case designs.25 To Chief Curator Hitchcock these 

stop-gap exhibits were “an improvement in terms of information content, but they lack the 

 

19 Interpretive Prospectus. Springfield Armory NHS, September, 1980, p. 2; and Division of Museum 

Services, Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory, March, 1977 [prepared by Betsey Bradley, 

Barclay Rogers, Richard Rattenbury, Arthur C. Allen], p. 38. 

20 Ann Hitchcock (Chief Curator, Curatorial Services Branch, WASO), “Trip Report, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site (SPAR), July 20, 1984” (Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR 

through 1988). 

21 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 

22 Letter, William C. Reed, VP, Design and Production Incorporated (Alexandria, VA), to Lindsay, June 

25, 1982 (SPAR: Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of 

Museum Exhibits); see also letter, Reed to Harvey Davies (Contracting Officer, NPS, Boston), May 24, 

1982 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum 

Exhibits). 

23 Memo, Chief, Division of Exhibit Planning and Design, HFC (Robert C. Johnsson [sic]) to 

Superintendent, December 10, 1982 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, 

and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 

24 Memo, Superintendent to Chief, Visitor Services, January 10, 1983 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 

Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 

25 Concentrated effort: memo, Superintendent to Chief, Visitor Services, January 10, 1983. Done inhouse: Memo, Superintendent to Regional Director, NAR, January 8, 1986 (both: SPAR Central Files: 

D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

147 

quality of design and installation that HFC will be able to provide.”26 Lindsay saw them 

differently. What had begun as a “cure for the not-very-secure exhibits bequeathed to us by 

the U.S. Army” had matured into “entirely new interpretive exhibits which have added 

immeasurably to our ability to tell the Springfield Armory story.” The exhibits were “well 

received” by visitors at the opening, according to Lindsay, and the Sunday Republican

dedicated a feature article to the event.27

 Later in 1986, the rehabilitation project hit a new obstacle when the Denver Service 

Center announced that its Armory funding had been slashed by a million dollars. $573,000 

was now cut from the $1,840,000 budget for exhibit-related construction. Other cuts came 

from the remainder of the$4,617,000 renovation budget: new foundation drains, sewers, and 

an elevator were eliminated, while various construction items in the basement and second 

floor were “deferred,” including a shop, office, storage and machine gun rooms, 

improvements to the library, perimeter insulation, and “HVAC distribution system” to the 

second floor.28

 The cuts to the HVAC system were problematic. Apart from the exhibits, no aspect 

of Building 13 received more attention than its environmental systems. In the fall of 1984, 

following a life cycle cost analysis, the Denver Service Center had decided to air condition 

the collection storage, library, and conference room, not the remainder of the basement and 

second floor. The main floor, housing the exhibits, was more complicated. Experts identified 

three options: a fully air conditioned museum space; minimum air conditioning for the room 

plus individual control of temperature and humidity in the exhibit cases; and airconditioning of part of the museum space, with sensitive specimens grouped there.29

Regional curator Edward Kallop preferred the second option, but the regional office asked 

for the addition of air filtration to the library. Options now proliferated, and the life cycle 

analyses became more complex. In March, the region asked Denver to consider a sixth 

option: air conditioning the entire first floor and half of the second, while relying on portable 

 

26 Ann Hitchcock (Chief Curator, Curatorial Services Branch, WASO), “Trip Report, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site (SPAR), July 20, 1984” (Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR 

Through 1988). 

27 Memo, Superintendent to Regional Director, NAR, January 8, 1986 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 

Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 

28 Memo, Assistant Manager, Eastern Team, DSC, to Regional Director, NAR, November 20, 1986 

(Charlestown: CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR Pkg. 103H, Life Cycle Cost Comparison); entire 

project cost: “Deferred Construction Items - FY87, ‘Rehabilitation of Museum’,” [n.d.] (Charlestown, 

CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR Pkg. 103 - Adaptive Reuse of Armory Building). 

29 Memo, Assistant Manager, Northeast Team, DSC, to Regional Director, NAR, November 5, 1984 

(Charlestown, CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR Pkg. 103 - Adaptive Reuse of Armory Building). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

148 

Figure 4.2. One of the Main Arsenal’s most important exhibits: the Organ of 

Muskets (photo: author). 

 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

149 

Figure 4.3. Another of the Main Arsenal’s most important exhibits: the Blanchard lathe 

(photo: author). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

150 

humidification-dehumidification units in the storage areas.30 All of this planning was 

interrupted by the budget cuts, and the systems were left incomplete. 

 The push-backs and cuts did not completely halt work on the Main Arsenal. The 

tower clocks were rehabilitated in 1987, Plexiglas installed on third-floor windows and new 

steam lines installed early in 1988.31 But major work did not resume until March 1988. The 

building was then closed to both public and staff. It reopened in September 1989. 

Figure 4.4. Layout plan of exhibits in Main Arsenal, early 1990s (NPS: Northeast Museum 

Services Center, Charlestown, MA). 

 

30 “Trip Report,” Staff Curator Ed Kallop, NARO, December 10, 1984; memo, Associate Regional 

Director Clapper to Assistant Manager, Northeast Team, DSC, December 12, 1984; memo, Assistant 

Manager, Northeast Team, DSC, to Regional Director, NAR, March 6, 1985; memo, Associate 

Regional Director Clapper to Regional Director, March 19, 1985 (all Charlestown, CRM Division Files: 

folder: SPAR Pkg. 103 - Adaptive Reuse of Armory Building). 

31 Memo, Assistant Manager, Northeast Team, DSC, to Supervisory Architect, Williamsport Training 

Center, May 13, 1985 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. Tower Clock Restoration); memo (“Trip Report”), 

Kenneth Bennett (Project Architect, Historical Architecture Section, Branch of Design, Eastern Team) 

to Assistant Manager, Eastern Team, DSC, June 4, 1987 (Charlestown, CRM Division Files: folder 

SPAR Pkg. 103 - Adaptive Reuse of Armory Building; Form XXX for removal and reconstruction of 

S[outh] clock face, signed and dated April 8, 1987 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. Tower Clock 

Restoration); memo, Associate Regional Director, Planning & Resource Preservation to 

Superintendent, April 8, 1987 (SPAR Central Files: H42 106 Review Windows/Sash); face Sheet for 

Completion Report, s and dated April 7, 1988 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. PX1930-8-0011 Bay State 

Glass Co); face Sheet for Completion Report, signed and dated April 7, 1988 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: 

fol. PX1930-8-0026 Bay State Boiler, Inc). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

151 

 The new exhibits, whose evolution and content are discussed in the next chapter, 

were well received by the public. Their architectural setting, encompassing 12,000 square 

feet, was ambitious yet architecturally restrained (Figs. 4.4-5, 5.1), eschewing the 

contemporary look of “chrome and plastic” in order to “retain the historic character of the 

arsenal,” including its original flooring, pressed tin ceilings, slender cast iron columns, and 

above all the spacious openness of the first floor which conveyed “a feeling for the building’s 

historic use as a warehouse.” In fact, that openness was not so much preserved as restored, as 

recent corridor and office walls were removed. Security, preservation, and aesthetics also 

combined to make the display cases as transparent as possible. However, some practical 

compromises were necessary. Enclosures were carved out of the open main space for 

bathrooms and an audiovisual theater, while “operational efficiency” required construction 

of a centrally located information desk and sales counter.32 Still, the agency was “committed 

to saving as many of the structure’s interior architectural features as possible,” and apart 

from these spatial interventions, impacts on the historic fabric were limited to functional 

necessities like new doors, triple glazing on the windows, plumbing, air conditioning, and 

movement sensors.33

 The reopening of the Main Arsenal in 1989, after a two-year closure, marked a 

milestone in the Armory’s history, giving the park not only a refurbished architectural 

centerpiece but also an attractive and updated interpretive focus. Yet unmet needs kept 

Building 13 at the center of attention for many more years. In fact, a list of funded projects 

prepared in 1998 showed that maintaining the building and protecting its collections – tasks 

not always easily separated – accounted for $274,000 out of a cumulative total of $337,800 in 

project funding awarded to the park.34

 The problems were various. For example, repairs to the fire escapes, dropped from 

the rehabilitation because of the cost of disposing of hazardous waste, were carried out in 

1991 at a cost of just under $35,000.35 Security was a major concern. During the summer of 

1991, the firm of Dean, Tucker Shaw carried out a museum security analysis at seven NPS 

sites, including the Armory. That fall, hardware and software modifications were made to fix 

the “most glaring problems with the existing system.” The work apparently consisted of 

upgrading the video security system. But the system’s capacity was limited and some of the 

improvements would become obsolete as soon as a new system of “multiplex monitoring” 

 

32 Interpretive Prospectus. Springfield Armory NHS, September, 1980, pp. 5-6. 

33 Form XXX, certified and dated by Regional Archeologist, Regional Historian Pitcaithley, Regional 

Historical Architect, June-July, 1987 (dated but not signed for Regional Director; with cover memo, 

Assistant Manager, Northeast Team, DSC, to Superintendent June 8, 1987 (SPAR Central Files: H3015 

Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

34 “RMP, FY-98,” n.d. (SPAR Central Files: D18 FY 98 RMP). 

35 “Springfield Armory Fire Escape Restoration: Completion Report,” prepared by Lou M. Trojan and 

Lisa Zukowski, Project Coordinators, October 15-November 6, 1991 (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. 

Sites Maint., Pres. 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

152 

Figure 4.5. View of the permanent exhibits in the Main Arsenal (photo: author). 

was adopted. So the work was stopped.36 The following year, the region’s chief of resource 

protection and visitor management found that the two main threats to the collection 

continued to be “fire and theft/vandalism.” Even though the latter had been “partially 

addressed” by acquisition of a system for detecting intrusions, the system was monitored by a 

single receptionist who was also busy greeting visitors and handling sales. Moreover, to 

counter an attempted theft, the receptionist would have to dial up the city police on the 

telephone. Hand-held portable radios and a silent alarm system with a concealed switch by 

the reception desk could help.37 That year, the region put together a package of over $30,000 

in regional and national funds to upgrade the security systems.38

 

36 Security analysis: Modification of Contract, effective July 19, 1991; glaring errors: memo, 

Superintendent to Regional Director., September 4, 1991; see also requisition, signed Beatty, 

September 4, 1991, and memo, Superintendent to Regional Director, December 13, 1991; work 

stopped: memo, Superintendent to Chief, Design and Construction Branch Peter Woodbury (NAR) 

and Historical Architect Richard Crisson, NAR, October 20, 1992 (all SPAR Central Files: D3415 

Buildings (Constr./Maint.)). 

37 Memo, Chief, Division of Resource Protection and Visitor Management, NAR, to Regional Director, 

NAR, May 1, 1992 (Regional Curator Files: folder: SPAR CMP). 

38 Memo, Associate Regional Director Robert W. McIntosh, Jr. to SPAR Superintendent, February 21, 

1992 (Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

153 

 Along with security concerns, environmental problems were especially persistent. 

One concerned light levels within the museum. During the rehabilitation, Lindsay had 

opposed dark shades for the exhibit spaces because, although he understood the effects of 

light on wood and textiles, he “hoped to keep ambient light levels up while reducing 

incidental and UV lights.” So while UV filtering Lexan was installed over the windows, 

“visible light remain[ed] unchecked.” Regional Curator Maounis agreed to visit the museum 

after it opened to see if this solution was working acceptably.39 In March, 1990, he found that 

light levels on the exhibits were within an acceptable range with the exception of one 

temporary exhibit case, for which he recommended installing a dark Mylar shade over the 

nearest window.40 By 1993 park staff had installed filters over some of the fluorescent tubes, 

reducing ultraviolet light, and cloth shades controlled sunlight in the library. “The object 

collection is fairly well protected...,” commented Museum Technician John Kwaitkowski, yet 

the Collection Management Plan recommended installing solar shades. Kwaitkowski thought 

that additional shades and filters would also be helpful with the library and photo 

collections.41

 There were other environmental concerns. In 1990, the Landmark Facilities Group 

of East Norwalk studied the storerooms where, since the previous year, part of the drawings 

collection of the Olmsted NHS had been kept. They found conditions fairly stable but 

marred by humidity and summer heat. Plans were made to extend the first floor HVAC 

system up to the store room,42 and in 1992 money was budgeted to design a “super insulated 

storage facility” on the third floor.43 Yet the basic air conditioning system still presented 

major problems. The second floor system was simply “inoperable.” Lindsay made repeated 

requests for help. The Denver Service Center “finally agreed” to send a team to inspect and 

make recommendations. They arrived in the summer of 1991 and urged immediate repairs.44

But in 1993, poor humidity control was still identified as a major challenge, harming both the 

 

39 Memo, Chief, Division of Cultural Resource, NAR (John Maounis) to Regional Curator, NAR (“Trip 

Report”), June 16, 1989 (Charlestown, Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 

40 Memo, Regional Curator (John Maounis) to Chief, Division of CRM, March 30, 1990 (“Trip 

Report,” March 21, 1990) (Charlestown, Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 

41 Memo, John Kwiatkowski, SPAR Museum Technician, to Martha Bernholz, October 13, 1993 (SPAR 

Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

42 Landmark Facilities Group, Inc., East Norwalk, “Assessment of Environment, Springfield Armory, 

Storage Room,” May, 1990, with cover letter, Ernest A. Conrad, P.E., to Diana Alper (Museum 

Specialist, Olmsted NHS), May 17, 1990 (Charlestown, Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 

1989 –). 

43 Memo, Associate Regional Director Robert W. McIntosh, Jr. to SPAR Superintendent, February 21, 

1992 (Charlestown, Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 

44 Memo, David Price to John Guthrie, June 20, 1991 (Charlestown, Regional Curator Files: folder: 

Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

154 

Armory and Olmsted collections.45 A Park Collections Profile completed that year or the 

following listed completing the HVAC system as one of three top priorities for the collection. 

 A separate environmental problem concerned the high-security area in the basement 

where machine guns, the “most dangerous portion of the collection,” were stored.46 To save 

money the dehumidifier programmed for the space had been eliminated, 47 and by 1991 rust 

and mold were appearing on some weapons. The region’s mechanical engineer visited the 

site early the following summer and found relative humidity in the storage room hovering at 

about 85%, a very high level. A dehumidifier installed by the park had proved to be much too 

small. More seriously, deterioration in the brick foundations and poorly weather-stripped 

windows were allowing moisture to enter. He advised the park to dig a trench outside the 

foundation wall, pull off all of the interior wood paneling, and install vapor barriers and 

masonry sealants, but these were expensive repairs.48 Three years later the same engineer 

visited again to assess the same problem. He found similar conditions (although as it was 

October, the humidity was only 72%) and made the same recommendations, though he now 

added that, as an “absolute minimum,” four new dehumidifiers should be installed with 

drainage to the exterior.49

 Of all the issues left unresolved by the rehabilitation project, only one visibly affected 

the exterior of the building. The planning decision to establish 1968 as the reference point for 

restoration and maintenance meant accepting the 1941 concrete loading dock as a 

permanent feature of the building. It was not a convenient or welcoming entrance for 

visitors. In 1984, Dwight Pitcaithley had rejected the Denver Service Center’s efforts to make 

it more appealing in favor of historical authenticity. But still the entrance continued to 

challenge park managers. At some point, a wheelchair lift and wooden stairway were 

attached to the northwest face of the tower, but in 1995 these were shifted to the southeast 

side: the change would “improve and provide for a safer visitor flow” and would ensure that 

the lift, liable to freeze in the shade, remained usable throughout the winter.50

 

45 Statement for Management. Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts

[February, 1993], (copy lacks signatures on recommended (Superintendent) and approved (Regional 

Director) lines), p. 11 (SPAR Central Files: A6419: Statement for Management). 

46 Memo, Superintendent Beatty to Chief, Engineering & Maintenance Division, NAR, April 17, 1991 

(SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

47 Memos, Chief, Division of Cultural Resource, NAR (John Maounis) to Regional Curator, NAR (Trip 

Report), June 16, 1989, and David Price to John Guthrie, June 20, 1991 (Charlestown, Regional Curator 

Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 

48 Memos, Superintendent Beatty to Chief, Engineering & Maintenance Division, NAR, April 17, 1991 

(SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.); and Regional Mechanical Engineer to Chief, 

Engineering and Maintenance, NAR, July 2, 1991 (SPAR Central Files: D3415 Buildings 

(Constr./Maint.)). 

49 Memo, Regional Mechanical Engineer Frederick W. Bentley, NAR, to Chief, Division of 

Engineering, NAR, October 7, 1994 (SPAR Central Files: D46 Fence). 

50 Letter (request for concurrence with determination of effect), Acting Regional Director Chrysandra 

L. Walter to MHC Executive Director Judith McDonough, March 15, 1995 (SPAR Central Files: 

H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

155 

 If the Main Arsenal continued to demand much of the park’s attention after 1989, 

other elements of the historic site also required continuing care. Though rehabilitated, the 

perimeter fence remained vulnerable not only to deterioration but also to injury, as in 1989, 

when a car crashed through the Byers Street fence, damaging two sections and a supporting 

column. The Building Conservation Branch of the CRC made repairs the following year, 

under the supervision of C. Thomas Ballos. Lowenthal, now acting superintendent, praised 

the BCB’s work, noting that it was “much more complex and intricate than might appear at 

first.”51

 Maintaining the perimeter was challenging in other ways. The sidewalks adjacent to 

the fence belonged to the city, but as is typically the case, local law required property owners 

to maintain them (Figs. 4.6-7). At the Armory, the fence was accompanied for much of its 

length by the original red brick pavements, and while they were beautiful and historic, they 

were also “generally in bad condition.” Yet as a matter of policy the Armory accepted “no 

responsibility for maintaining” them, and staff was instructed to do nothing beyond 

occasionally removing grass, weeds, and trash from the base of the fence, and this only to 

protect the fence.52 In 1992, the park’s position appeared to soften: describing “overgrown 

walks with waist high growth and woody plants....,” it sought funds from the region’s new 

Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation to determine how best to control weeds, remove 

piles of sand and earth, and maintain small planting areas.53 However, it appears that the 

request was not granted, and the park was still followed established policy in 1995, when 

Superintendent Beatty recorded that “the only maintenance we currently do on the city 

owned property is occasional litter pickup and weed control,” undertaken once again simply 

“to protect NPS property.”54 It was not that the park was more selfish than other property 

owners: as a federal agency the NPS was not normally authorized to spend public funds on 

non-federal property. 

 The park’s failure to maintain the sidewalks blew up in 1995 when the city issued 

violations and sought to fine the park for hazardous sidewalks, dilapidated curbs, and piles of 

 

51 Memo, Acting Superintendent Lowenthal to Regional Director, NAR, August 24, 1990 (SPAR 

Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). See also “Completion Report, Repair to the Byers Street 

Fence,” prepared by C. Thomas Ballos, September, 1990 (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., 

Pres.). 

52 Memo, Associate Regional Director, Planning & Resource Preservation, to files, June 12, 1981, 

attached to: Robert L. Carper and Richard G. Turk, [DRAFT] “Historic Structure Report, 

Architectural Data Section, Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” DSC, Branch of Cultural 

Resources, Mid-Atlantic/North Atlantic Team, Denver, January, 1983 (SPAR Central Files: H3017). 

53 Two Requests for Technical Assistance from the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, with 

cover memo, Superintendent to Regional Director, NAR, September 11, 1992 (SPAR Central Files: 

H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.) 

54 Fax memorandum, Superintendent to Regional Solicitor, April 12, 1995, attached to notices of 

violation (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

156 

litter and debris.55 The facts were not in dispute. “Sidewalk is hazardous,” conceded Beatty, 

“with loose bricks and potholes. Curbs are falling over and missing.” In fact, the 

deterioration of sidewalks and curbs was even “becoming an issue for the park”: if it reached 

the point of endangering the fence, it would compromise not only a major historic feature 

but also the park’s “primary security device.”56 Now the agency’s regional solicitor stepped 

in, reminding the city that the NPS was both unable to maintain the city-owned sidewalk and 

exempt from city fines.57 

 That solved the immediate problem but did not fix the sidewalk. Beatty thought he 

had a solution: three years earlier, the city had been prepared to donate the historic sidewalks 

to the park, and there had been discussions about operational issues such as how to provide 

municipal police, fire, and emergency service to federal property.58 The transfer had not 

taken place: Beatty still wanted the sidewalks, though “not in current condition.”59

Figures 4.6, 4.7. Sidewalks at Byers and State Streets in 2002 (National Park Service: Cultural Landscapes 

Inventory, Part 2b, 2004). 

 

55 Two notices of violation, Department of Code Enforcement, April 11, 1995 (SPAR Central Files: 

H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

56 Fax memorandum, Superintendent to Regional Solicitor, April 12, 1995, attached to notices of 

violation (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

57 Letter, Anthony R. Conte, Regional Solicitor, to Robert T. Troy, Deputy Director, Department of 

Code Enforcement, April 12, 1995 (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

58 Two Requests for Technical Assistance from the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, with 

cover memo, Superintendent to Regional Director, NAR, September 11, 1992 (SPAR Central Files: 

H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

59 Fax memorandum, Superintendent to Regional Solicitor, April 12, 1995 (SPAR Central Files H3015 

Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

157 

 The problem of the perimeter remained unsolved and indeed became more 

complicated. In 1998, Beatty was forced to ask the city’s director of water and sewer to 

reconnect the storm sewer lines at the corner of Byers and State Street, which had been 

disconnected when the city had made a grade change to State Street, the major traffic artery 

that climbs the hill from downtown: “Runoff from the Gatehouse road inside the park has 

caused erosion of sidewalks, and undermining of the concrete drive in front of the Armory 

gate.”60

 Building 1, the Commanding Officer’s Quarters, remained a puzzle for other reasons. 

In the park’s early years its treatment followed the same pattern of repairs and upgrades as 

the other structures: installation of lightning protection in 1977, upgraded utilities in 1981-

82, replacement of asbestos pipe insulation with fiberglass in 1985, patching and painting of 

interiors, replacement of window glass, storm sashes,61 and new boilers in 1994.62 But in 

contrast to the fence or Building 13, no comprehensive treatment followed these minor 

interventions. The problem with Building 1 was that no one knew what to do with it (Fig. 

4.8). During the early years there was talk of furnishing the first floor as a house museum and 

offering the second floor to civic or community organizations. The house museum idea soon 

faded away, but the idea of leasing the property continued to seem attractive, perhaps 

because of the 1980 amendments to the National Historic Preservation Act, which authorized 

the leasing of certain historic park buildings. Early in 1981, Superintendent Lindsay 

identified the Commanding Officer’s House and Building 10 as eligible for the new leasing 

program, and in 1983 the Historic Structures Report reported that it might be “leased to 

community groups or enterprises” once the park’s administrative offices had moved to the 

 

60 Memo, Superintendent Beatty to Director of Water and Sewer, City of Springfield, February 24, 1998 

(SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

61 Purchase order for lightning protection for Armory Museum and Commandant’s House, July 11, 

1977 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. Lightning Protection 1977); North Atlantic Region, “Completion 

Report: Remove Asbestos Pipe Insulation in Commanding Officer’s House, Replace with Fiberglass 

Type Insulation, Commanding Officer’s House,” September, 1985; North Atlantic Region, 

“Completion Report: Paint Walls, Ceiling, Woodwork and Doors, Commanding Officer’s House,” 

November, 1985; and North Atlantic Region, “Completion Report: Replace Double-Strength Glass in 

the Main Arsenal and in the Commanding Officer’s Quarters,” August, 1985 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: 

Completion Reports). 

62 Project Documents for Replacement of Gas-Fired Steam Heating Boilers at Springfield Armory 

National Historic Site, North Atlantic Regional Office, August 24, 1994 (SPAR Central Files: D5023 

Heating and Cooling). The boiler replacement pointed to larger difficulties in upgrading mechanical 

systems. The “historic heating system” had been “partially replaced” by the Denver Service Center 

when “doing the new utility work in 1981-82.” But in 1987 park staff reported that the old radiation 

units, which had not been replaced, were beginning to cause “serious problems.” Meanwhile, regular 

and extensive repairs were gradually degrading the system: a boiler repair contractor estimated that 

replacing the system would cost over $10,000, and advised that it should be done before next heating 

season. The work was tentatively scheduled for that August but either did not take place or did not 

solve the problem. (See memos, Superintendent to Associate Regional Director, Management and 

Operations, February 20, 1987; and Chief, Engineering and Maintenance, NAR, to Superintendent 

March 2, 1987: SPAR Central Files: D5023 Heating and Cooling.) 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

158 

Main Arsenal.63 By 1984, however, Lindsay had become convinced that neither structure was 

eligible for leasing.64 Why the Commandant’s House was taken off the list can only be 

surmised, but it may have been the leasing program’s restriction to buildings unrelated to the 

park’s main purpose. 

 With leasing off the table, Building 1’s future was more uncertain than ever, and the 

park planning of the 1980s did not really clarify it: indeed the draft GMP, completed about 

the time the leasing idea fell through, remarked only that the question needed a decision.65

The agency continued to invest in systems and finishes but did not make costly 

improvements like handicapped access that would have been needed to open the building to 

the public.66 Without a public purpose, or indeed any clear purpose, the building’s main 

value was as a reservoir of space for whatever needs arose. Thus in 1987, when the Main 

Arsenal closed for renovations, Lindsay moved the basement conservation laboratory to the 

old kitchen and firearms were treated there for the next two years. In 1989 Olmsted NHS, 

whose collection storage facilities were being rebuilt, reached an agreement with Lindsay and 

the region to set up a temporary processing lab on the second floor. These episodes, more 

fully discussed in Chapters Five and Six, were temporary and provisional in nature. The 

Olmsted processing lab was dismantled in 2006, and as of three years later the building was 

essentially unoccupied: the spacious double parlor was furnished with inexpensive 

conference tables, a few pieces of old office furniture were scattered about the upstairs 

rooms, and some plastic Christmas trees nestled under the attic stairs. The building remained 

in generally sound condition, but the corrosion of its elaborate iron gallery was beginning to 

present a significant conservation problem.67

 It was not lack of an agreed purpose that held back the intended restoration of the 

cultural landscape but lack of resources. The job of returning the landscape to its 1968 

condition would have been enormous (Figs. 3.2, 4.9), and it was perfectly evident during 

Lindsay’s tenure that many other needs came first. That did not mean the landscape posed 

no challenges. Like other park elements the grounds were in poor condition, and the new 

park lacked basic maintenance equipment like chain saws and mowers. Obtaining these 

things and setting up a maintenance program were needs Lindsay addressed early on. 

 

63 Robert L. Carper and Richard G. Turk, [DRAFT] Historic Structure Report,”Architectural Data 

Section, Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” January, 1983, p. 3. 

64 Memos, Superintendent to Chief, Division of Cult Resources, NAR, February 11, 1981; and to 

Regional Director, NAR, October 15, 1984 (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

65 [Draft] General Management Plan, Development Concept Plan, Environmental Assessment, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site, August, 1984, p. 4 [CRBIB 405329] (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. 

GMP/DCP Drafts & Final 1979-84). 

66 For access issues, see Robert L. Carper and Richard G. Turk, [DRAFT] “Historic Structure Report, 

Architectural Data Section, Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” January, 1983, “Handicapped 

Access” p. 1 (SPAR Central Files: H3017); and General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan, 

Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Massachusetts, 1986, pp. 9, 11. 

67 Memo, David Arnold to Doug Cuillard, September 22, 2004 (Cultural Resources Division files: fol.: 

Quarter One - SPAR). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

159 

 The situation changed after about 1989. By then the General Management Plan was 

complete, the terms of the new cooperative agreement settled if not signed, and a rehabilitated 

Building 13 reopened to the public. The park could take on new priorities, and external factors 

encouraged managers to focus on the cultural landscape. By the mid-1980s the NPS was beginning 

to study the preservation of historically or culturally significant landscapes, developing new 

theoretical approaches as well as management tools, such as the cultural landscape report, a 

comprehensive study covering the identification, evaluation, and recommended treatment of 

historically significant landscapes.68 In 1990 the North Atlantic Region launched a Cultural 

Landscape Program and in 1991 founded the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation. The 

center began to offer financial and technical assistance to parks within the region. Proposals were 

assessed competitively, and parks had to meet three criteria: important landscape resources had to 

be at risk; rescue efforts had to require assistance in landscape maintenance or historic Olmsted 

Figure 4.8. Early studies of reuse alternatives for main floor of Building 1 (NPS: Northeast Museum Services 

Center, Charlestown, MA). 

 

68 See Ned Kaufman, Sagamore Hill,..., and David Grayson Allen, Final Draft, Administrative History: 

Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Chapters 7 and 10, March, 1998). The term cultural 

landscape report was introduced by Robert Z. Melnick in 1984. 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

160 

landscape preservation planning; and projects could demand no more than two weeks of work by 

staff.69

 Springfield Armory responded promptly to the new opportunity. Of seven project 

statements developed by the Armory in 1991 and related to cultural resources, three focused 

on the landscape: a Cultural Landscape Report, a Treatment Plan, and Landscape Restoration.

These proposals suggest that park staff sought to think comprehensively about the landscape, 

and in fact, Acting Superintendent Lowenthal was imagining a significant restoration. His 

preference was for a full restoration, but an alternative was to focus on the upper levels of the 

site, where both visitor attention and erosion were most intense; even this would cost 

hundreds of thousands of dollars.70 The focus on the cultural landscape continued. With all 

but the landscape returned to its 1968 condition, park managers explained in 1993, they now 

hoped to finish the job, restoring both the landscape’s appearance and its historic use, giving 

the community “an area in which to picnic, read, etc.... That year the park listed cultural 

landscape restoration as the first of five major issues facing the park.71 It also made a brief 

effort to raise $1.22 million for the historic landscape from a combination of federal, state, 

and private funds.72 

 A second call for proposals to the Olmsted Center went out in 1992, and within 

weeks the Armory responded with two, but they were for modest interventions: help in 

creating a plan for restorative pruning of the park’s shrubbery, which had received “only 

minimal pruning for several years and is out of control,” and for an annual pruning program 

to maintain the shrubbery after its restoration.73 The proposals were not funded,74 but the 

 

69 Memo, Acting Regional Director (Marie Rust) to Superintendents, NAR, February 6, 1992 (SPAR 

Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

70 “Resource Management Plan,” prepared by Larry Lowenthal, approved by Acting Regional Director, 

May 21, 1991 (SPAR Central Files: D18 (filed loose)). In 1984, according to the plan, the Denver 

Service Center had estimated the partial restoration proposal at $222,000. 

71 Statement for Management. Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts

[February, 1993], (copy lacks signatures on recommended (Superintendent) and approved (Regional 

Director) lines), p. 10 (SPAR Central Files: A6419: Statement for Management). 

72 “A Campaign for the Successful Restoration of the Arsenal of Freedom, n.d. [92-93], pp. 2, 4, 5, 7) 

(SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

73 Cover memo, Superintendent to Acting Regional Director, NAR, March 5, 1992, attached to Request 

for Technical Assistance from the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation for Annual Landscape 

Maintenance Plan, and Request for Technical Assistance from the Olmsted Center for Landscape 

Preservation for Restore Landscape Maintenance Program (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites 

Maint., Pres.). 

74 Not funded: Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation, FY92 Technical Assistance Project List, 

with cover memo, Acting Regional Director to Superintendents, NAR, April 27, 1992; Olmsted’s 

assistance: Request for Technical Assistance from the Olmsted Center for Historic Landscape 

Assessment (with cover memo from Superintendent to Regional Director, September 11, 1992); 

Superintendent Beatty: Request for Technical Assistance from the Olmsted Center for Landscape 

Preservation for Annual Landscape Maintenance Plan, and Request for Technical Assistance from the 

Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation for Restore Landscape Maintenance Program (all SPAR 

Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

161 

Center evidently helped in some way, for later that year the Armory commented that 

Olmsted’s assistance had “started the park toward restoring a neat appearance and preparing 

a Landscape Maintenance Plan.” However, the Armory now pointed out that the result of 

carrying out the plan would be merely to perpetuate existing conditions, which were “only 

partially correct” in relation to the 1968 goal. Thus the park’s next step was to seek help 

preparing a Historic Landscape Assessment, essentially an intermediate step towards what 

Superintendent Beatty called a full historic landscape report and treatment plan. Again, the 

request was not funded.75 The park tried once more in 1995, this time for help pruning lowhanging or dead branches from the site’s old and historic trees – a practice consistent, the 

proposal emphasized, with the Armory’s historical practice of pruning for “visitor safety and 

effect.” The park proposed to augment its own maintenance crew with a bucket truck, 

chipper, and three to four maintenance employees borrowed from other parks, at a cost of 

$8,000. Again the request was not funded.76

Figure 4.9. Fountain and pool between Commanding Officer’s Quarters (Building 1) and Main Arsenal 

(Building 13) ca. 1950 (NPS: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Part 2b, 2004). 

 

75 Memo, Regional Director NAR to Superintendents January 13, 1993 (SPAR Central Files: H3019 

Special Studies (Hist.)).. 

76 Project Statement (updated March 3, 1995), attached to “1995 Request for Technical Assistance from 

the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation” (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

162 

 While larger landscape ambitions remained out of reach, the Armory continued to 

carry out routine landscaping and maintenance work. In 1994-95, for example, “roads and 

walkways throughout the Park” (i.e. the federal portion of the park) were repaired and 

resurfaced and sprinklers near the Main Arsenal replaced, at a cost of a little over $145,000.77

Park managers also grappled with some of the more puzzling implications of the 1968 

restoration goal. One concerned a disused tennis court, a concrete slab just west of the Main 

Arsenal. It had entered the List of Classified Structures by 1981, when an Inventory Report 

noted that it had been built about 1932 and was “one of the earliest work relief projects at the 

Armory.” As the report also noted, the tennis court was in poor condition.78 “This park,” 

wrote Superintendent Lindsay when he reviewed the list, “continues to be astounded by the 

official attention devoted by the Regional Office to this concrete slab....”79 For Regional 

Historian Dwight Pitcaithley it was a matter of principle, similar to the Main Arsenal’s 

concrete loading dock: “it was there during the historic period,” and he felt strongly that it 

should be recognized as part of the historic cultural landscape.80 When the list was updated 

in 1994, the tennis court was still on it, prompting Superintendent Beatty to ask the regional 

office to consider removing it, as it had “no real interpretive or historic value.”81 It not only 

remains on the updated LCS of 2006 but is listed there as belonging to the highest category of 

importance: “MUST BE PRESERVED AND MAINTAINED.”82

THE CAMPUS

 The college campus comprised well over half of the National Historic Site, including 

all of the parade ground, the buildings on three sides, and the entire access route followed by 

visitors and staff. Everything that visitors surveyed from the entrance to the Main Arsenal 

belonged to the college. That included some of the park’s most badly deteriorated buildings 

as well as some of its most intractable management problems. 

 As already described, the relationship between the NPS and the college was 

grounded in the cooperative agreement, which in turn was based on the park’s authorizing 

legislation. In practice, decisions relating to the college campus turned out to demand almost 

constant attention from the park’s superintendent and staff, partly because of extensive 

 

77 “Completion Report, Repair and Resurface Park Roads,” submitted May 10, 1995, approved by 

Superintendent, May 24, 1995 (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

78 “Classified Structure Field Inventory Reports” for Tennis Court, August 20, 1981 (Charlestown, CRM 

Division Files: folder H3017 - Springfield Armory). 

79 Memo, SPAR Superintendent to Associate Regional Director, Planning and Resource Preservation, 

NAR, February 10, 1982 (Charlestown, CRM Division Files: folder H30 Springfield Armory – Park 

General). 

80 Dwight Pitcaithley: recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 

81 Memo, Superintendent to NARO/CRM LCS Team, February 22, 1994 (SPAR Central Files: H3017)... 

82 See Appendix E. 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

163 

interconnections in areas like utilities and services, partly because of shortcomings in the 

cooperative agreement, and partly because of friction over the treatment of historic 

buildings. There was plenty of day-to-day cooperation. But former superintendents Lindsay 

and Beatty both recall having to be constantly alert for sudden, unannounced, and 

unauthorized college operations that could quickly damage historic buildings or landscape 

features. Sometimes the college simply did not think to obtain permission first: even when it 

did, it expected rapid approval.

 The NPS’s ability to manage this complicated situation was circumscribed in several 

ways. The cooperative agreement ceded “administrative jurisdiction” over the campus to the 

college; moreover, the agency believed its underlying constitutional authority was weak. 

Even if the agency had not sought to cultivate a good relationship with the college, the 

politics of the situation would have discouraged blunt assertions of power. Superintendent 

Lindsay learned quickly about the college’s political power:83 Edmond Garvey, its founder, 

was an admired and influential figure. Edward P. Boland was one of the most powerful 

Congressmen in Washington. The college also had easy access to legislative leaders in 

Boston, like Ways and Means Chairman Anthony M. Scibelli, whose nephew became college 

president in 1983. The State Historic Preservation Office added another factor: an arm of the 

governor’s office, the SHPO was the arbiter of Section 106 reviews, including not only 

projects proposed by the college but also those of the park itself, so that in effect the NPS 

relied on the state for many important decisions. Yet the NPS’s regional office had a “tough 

relationship” with the SHPO, which tended to distrust the agency’s motives and to look 

askance at its proposals.84 Finally, the NPS’s complex internal structure may have added to 

the difficulty of pursuing a consistently assertive line with the college. 

 The difficulties of the situation were revealed in a stream of day-to-day decisions 

about the campus buildings. An early incident occurred in 1979. The college had just 

renovated Building 8 as an admissions office, and president Geitz now asked Superintendent 

Lindsay for permission to demolish the porch, noting that it was “badly deteriorated,” would 

be costly to repair or replace, and in any case was not part of the original building.85 Lindsay 

graciously offered to refer the request to the agency’s historic preservation office in Boston.86

Yet, he did not support the college: completing the required assessment of the proposal’s 

effect on cultural resources a few days later, he noted that “preservation of the historic 

appearance of these buildings was a key objective throughout the legislative history of the 

park,” and reminded state preservation officials that “the lengthy time needed to establish 

the park was in part due to the controversy of this control by the National Park service over 

 

83 Douglas Lindsay: recorded interview, March 19, 2009. 

84 Dwight Pitcaithley: recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 

85 Letter, Robert C. Geitz (President, S.T.C.C.) to Lindsay, June 28, 1979 (Charlestown, CRM Division 

Files: folder: SPAR - Springfield Com. College, removal of porch...). 

86 Letter, Lindsay to Geitz (President, S.T.C.C.), July 3, 1979 (Charlestown, CRM Division Files: folder: 

SPAR - Springfield Community College, removal of porch...).
Rehabilitating the Armory 

164 

the college’s facilities.”87 Later that summer, Lindsay reported to the college that the NPS 

preferred “repair and restoration” to removal of the porch, but that it went “beyond our 

jurisdiction” to “formally review” its removal.88 The latter statement was incorrect, and a few 

months later the regional office told the college so: a closer look at the cooperative 

agreement had showed that the NPS could, in fact, “review and concur or not with proposed 

actions affecting the exterior appearance of Buildings 7, 8, and 9.” And in this case, the NPS 

did not concur: the porch was a “historic element of the structure and scene.” Instead of 

granting permission to tear it down, the agency would provide technical advice on repairing 

and restoring it.89

 Apart from confusion on the agency’s part, the incident shows that the college was 

prepared to submit requests to the NPS and that the NPS was willing to deny them in favor of 

preservation. Yet by the early 1980s the agency’s review process was changing, as suggested 

by another incident in 1984. Construction of the new Biological Science Building was 

underway, and college officials realized the college would soon face a “very serious 

problem...the perennial one of inadequate parking facilities....” They turned to the park for 

help in “obtaining permission for the College to use a section of the Green” for construction 

parking. The college promised to fence the area and to “return it to its former condition.”90

This time, Lindsay did not offer to submit the request to the regional office but instead 

advised the college to apply directly to the SHPO, who would “coordinate the response” with 

the regional office.91 The college did so, but the application proved to be for construction 

staging rather than parking. It was only now that the NPS commented, finding the proposal 

acceptable on certain conditions.92 The SHPO approved the proposal.93

 

87 Form XXX, “Assessment of Effect on Cultural Resources, signed Lindsay, dated July 18, 1979 

(Charlestown, CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR - Springfield Community College, removal of 

porch...).

88 According to letter, Acting Regional Director Gilbert W. Calhoun to S.T.C.C. President, Geitz 

February 11, 1980 (Charlestown, CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR - Springfield Community College, 

removal of porch...).

89 Letter, Acting Regional Director Gilbert W. Calhoun to S.T.C.C. President Geitz (February 11, 1980 

(Charlestown, CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR - Springfield Community College, removal of 

porch...).

90 Letter, S.T.C.C. Acting Dean of Admin Services Robert J. Donoghue to Lindsay, August 13, 1984 

(Charlestown, CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR - Parking).

91 Letter, Lindsay to Donoghue, August 24, 1984 (Charlestown, CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR - 

Parking).

92 Proposal: letter, Donoghue to Patricia Weslowski (SHPO), August 30, 1984; NPS comments: letter, 

Pitcaithley (title cut off page) to Joseph Orfant (MHC), September 19, 1984 (both: Charlestown, CRM 

Division Files: folder: SPAR - Parking). The NPS’s conditions were that the Green not be used for 

parking and that the college attractively fence off the construction site, and re-sod and re-landscape 

the area, within which as many as fifteen trees might be killed.

93 Letter, Executive Director and SHPO ValTalmage () to Donoghue, October 17, 1984 (Charlestown, 

CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR - Parking).
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165 

 The ruling suggested the limitations of federal preservation law as a tool for park 

management. The state had pledged in the cooperative agreement not to sponsor or permit 

“any use of the Preservation Control Area that is inconsistent with...public visitation to and 

enjoyment of the area.”94 Obviously the construction activity would impair public visitation 

and enjoyment, yet the ruling did not address this point. The SHPO could have done so, as 

the procedures for Section 106 reviews included similar standards, yet the SHPO did not 

have to. The point is not that the decision was incorrect, or that the NPS would have made a 

different one, but simply that the agency had put itself in a role that was no more than 

advisory in matters that directly concerned the administration of a national park: in relying 

on the SHPO’s management of Section 106 it had diminished its own ability to manage the 

Armory and to ensure that the intent of the cooperative agreement was met. 

 The difficulties of management under these conditions can be further observed in a 

two incidents that took place in 1986-87. Building 15 was now nearing completion, and the 

contractor was storing construction materials in or next to Building 10. Lindsay feared the 

building was being “mistreated,” so Regional Director Cables asked State Historic 

Preservation Officer Valerie Talmage to ask the state’s Division of Capital Planning and 

Operations to “exercise a bit more caution in allowing construction equipment and supplies 

in and around this historic structure.” In making this request Cables described Building 10 as 

“adjacent” to NPS property but did not mention that it was actually within a unit of the 

National Park system.95 This was no mere oversight. Approving the college’s request to install 

lighting on the parade ground in 1987, the SHPO stated that “the project location is listed in 

the National and State Registers of Historic Places” but, like Cables, did not mention that it 

was located within a unit of the National Park system.96 More troublingly, it appears that the 

NPS had not even been informed of the application, for a few months later, Regional 

Director Cables protested and asked the SHPO to notify the park of future college requests 

so that the comments of his staff could be “factored into” the SHPO’s determinations. He 

also took the opportunity to remind Talmage that the NPS, as “administrator” of the Main 

Arsenal “that borders the west end of the Parade Ground,” was “interested in changes to the 

college buildings and grounds that may affect the site’s historic character.” Stressing the need 

to protect “the site’s structural and spatial integrity” from adverse affects, he noted that the 

Armory was “not only listed in state and national historic registers, but was also designated a 

National Historic Landmark in 1960.97 But, he did not mention its location within a national 

 

94 “Agreement Between the United States of America and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” 

signed and dated March 27, 1978, Art. II.c. Emphasis added.

95 Letter, Cables to MHC Executive Director Talmage, April 15, 1986 (Charlestown, CRM Division 

Files: folder: SPAR, Bldg. #10...).

96 Letter, MHC Executive Director Valerie A. Talmage to Scibelli, June 2, 1987 (Charlestown, CRM 

Division Files: folder: SPAR Parade Ground lighting S.T.C.C.).

97 Letter, Cables to MHC Executive Director Valerie A. Talmage,), October 27, 1987 (Charlestown, 

CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR Parade Ground lighting S.T.C.C.).
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166 

park. Perhaps he believed it was irrelevant to a Section 106 review. Yet a 1980 Advisory 

Council decision in Lowell had noted not only adverse effect on a National Register district 

but also specifically on the national park. 

 In all of these incidents, the NPS had to balance the desire to cultivate the college’s 

good will with the need to uphold preservation standards. Lindsay’s maneuvering on the 

porch of Building 8 has already been mentioned. A similar issue arose in 1991, when the 

college asked for guidance on repairing the porch of Building 14, the Middle Arsenal: the 

sandstone-on-brick base was slumping and the college proposed to replace it with poured 

concrete. Rather than simply rejecting this as unacceptable, NPS historical architect Richard 

Crisson offered to provide “more definite plans and more detailed cost estimates.” It 

appeared the college would accept these, and Acting Superintendent Lowenthal thanked the 

Building Conservation Branch, remarking that “This is a good chance to have some input, 

keep channels of communication open, etc.”98 Park superintendents liked to be helpful 

whenever they could, as in 1994, when the college asked for rapid approval to replace the 

roof and two doors on Building 35.99 Within two days, Beatty conferred with the region’s 

Cultural Resources Center, talked with the college’s director of facilities, and put the 

agency’s approval in writing.100 “It is a pleasure sharing the National Park Service Site with 

you,” the college’s director of facilities wrote to Superintendent Beatty on another 

occasion.101 A good personal relationship could help the superintendent dispose of the 

innumerable small matters, like fire hydrants and message boards that required his attention. 

At times the college may have taken advantage of the park’s goodwill. Sometimes haste and 

poor planning prompted requests to bend the rules. Thus in August, 1998, work on a utility 

trench was delayed due to backlogged material delivery and then “suddenly scheduled” for a 

date less than a week away. The college needed to have the work done almost instantly in 

order to have new heating and air-conditions ready by the start of classes, and the park now 

received an “urgent request” to prepare and submit Section 106 documentation. Though the 

college lacked “all information necessary to implement the 106,” the park nonetheless made 

and supported the request, arguing that the required archeological survey should be waived 

 

98 Letter, Crisson to S.T.C.C Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds Franklin L Cliffort, October 22, 

1991, and memo, Acting Superintendent Lowenthal to Steve Spaulding, BCB, January 15, 1991 (both 

SPAR Central Files: H3019 Special Studies (Hist.)) 

99 Letter, S.T.C.C. Director of Engineering Services Michael J. Cichonski to Beatty, December 20, 1994 

SPAR– Central Files: D3415 Buildings (Constr./Maint.)). 

100 The ruling was that the NPS would accept the new roofing because it was not visible to the public. 

Though the doors were in full public view, the Cultural Resources Center recommended approval “as 

long as the visual integrity is maintained.” Letter, Beatty to Cichonski, December 22, 1994 (SPAR 

Central Files: D3415 Buildings (Constr./Maint.). 

101 Letter, S.T.C.C. Director of Facilities Victor T. Focosi, to Beatty, November 21, 1994 (SPAR Central 

Files: A 44 Ad. Extorg S.T.C.C. - Never Destroy). 
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167 

because previous investigations suggested a low likelihood of encountering valuable remains. 

The request was granted.102

 At other times, it seems that not only the college but also other state agencies forgot 

that the park was more than a mere neighbor: the 1987 incident, in which the college 

neglected to inform the park of its proposal for new lighting on the parade ground, was not 

an isolated incident. In 2003, Superintendent Cuillard became frustrated by the failure of the 

college or its consultants to provide the necessary Section 106 documentation for stabilizing 

and renovating Buildings 5/6 and 11. “Time is short,” he reminded the college’s facilities 

manager, and “in spite of numerous meetings between DCAM, STCC, OMR, MHC and HPS, 

Mr. Krabbendam and DCAM have apparently misunderstood that any Section 106 

submission involving the buildings on the S.T.C.C. Campus must also be submitted to the 

park’s Section 106 Team.103

THE CONDITION OF THE CAMPUS

 The overriding issue shaping the interactions of park and college was the condition 

of the college’s buildings. Their survival had long been a concern, and the NPS had made 

early but unsuccessful efforts to ensure their long-term maintenance. In 1978, when the 

college was seeking permission to demolish the two officers quarters and construct Building 

15, the agency tried to add an amendment to the deed by which the property had been 

transferred to the state, requiring the college to maintain ten key buildings at a standard 

“sufficient to minimize the possibility of natural or man caused deterioration or 

destruction.”104 The amendments were not accepted. The following year, Lindsay recorded 

in his Statement for Management that NPS officials were worried that the college’s 

maintenance funding “may not be sufficient at all times to adequately preserve the historic 

resources on their portion of the site.”105 The Statement for Management was not approved. 

 At first, NPS officials worried more about outright demolition than protracted 

neglect, but as time went on, deterioration began to loom larger as a threat. A fundraising 

leaflet prepared in 1992 or 1993 spoke of “...propped-up porticos and crumbling steps,” of 

 

102 Letters, Superintendent Steven M. Beatty to Judith B. McDonough (SHPO), August 12, 1998, and 

McDonough to Roberts, August 13, 1998 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Office Files: fol. S.T.C.C. - 106 

10/1998). 

103 Email, Superintendent Cuillard to S.T.C.C. Facility Manager, Victor Focosi (February 5, 2003 

(SPAR Central Files: A 44 Ad. Extorg S.T.C.C. - Never Destroy). 

104 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Federal Property Assistance Program – 13.606, 

“Draft Case Report for a Variety of Proposed Actions Affecting Armory Square of Springfield Armory, 

Including Demolition and Construction Actions (signed by Donald Branum, Regional Environmental 

Officer, and dated April 7, 1978), Appendix I, “Draft Amendments to HEW-MASS Deed,” pp. 1-2 

(SPAR: Lowenthal Files: HEW Draft Case Report 1975). The buildings were Nos. 5/6, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 

16, 19, 27, and 29. 

105 Statement for Management. Springfield Armory National Historic Site, signed and dated Doug 

Lindsay, August 27, 1979, as preparer (approved line unsigned) (SPAR Central Files: A6419: Statement 

for Management). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

168 

the “critical need for stabilization and renovation.” Many of the college buildings, it 

reported, had “fallen into extreme, almost hazardous disrepair.”106 In 1997, Beatty castigated 

the college for the “deplorable and shameful neglect” of its historic buildings and even made 

addressing it a requirement for renewing the cooperative agreement.107 Seeking funds in 

2003, the college described Buildings 5/6 as “succumbing to progressive deterioration as a 

result of deferred maintenance.” No longer watertight, the structure had suffered severe 

water damage; animals, birds, and vandals had entered freely and exacerbated the damage. 

Without massive intervention, warned the college, the building’s survival was 

“questionable.”108

 Of more immediate concern to park officials than the buildings’ survival was the 

“negative image for visitors” their deteriorated condition created.109 In 1999, Superintendent 

Beatty told state legislators that “the obvious exterior deterioration and safety hazards of this 

[Building 11] and adjacent historic structures cause constant public comment...,” forcing 

Beatty and his staff to respond almost daily to the criticisms of visitors who blamed the NPS 

for their condition.110 The deterioration was all too obvious. Visitors had to pass some of the 

worst buildings on their way to the museum, and even within Armory Square, it could hardly 

be hidden. Indeed the series of wayside exhibits installed in 1988 inadvertently called 

attention to the problem by including sign panels on Buildings 10 and 19, two important yet 

badly decayed structures: though located on walkways near the Main Arsenal, the panels 

offered “a good view” towards the buildings in question.111 

 Though there was never any doubt that the college and the state were responsible for 

the campus’s deterioration, the buildings’ condition at the outset is no longer entirely clear. 

In 2003, President Scibelli actually insinuated that the Army was actually to blame for the 

condition of Buildings 5/6, claiming that during the “closing years” of the Armory’s existence 

 

106 “A Campaign for the Successful Restoration of the Arsenal of Freedom, n.d. [92-93], p. 2 (SPAR 

Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

107 Letter, Beatty to Scibelli, December 1, 1997 (SPAR Central Files: A-4415 MOU between the USA 

and Commonwealth of MA). 

108 Save America’s Treasures, FY 2003 Application for Historic Preservation Fund Grants to Preserve 

Nationally Significant Intellectual and Cultural Artifacts and Historic Structures and Sites, signed 

Andrew M. Scibelli, dated March 18, 2003 (SPAR: Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. 

Springfield Armory). 

109 Statement for Management. Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts

[February, 1993], copy lacks signatures on recommended (Superintendent) and approved (Regional 

Director) lines (SPAR Central Files: A6419: Statement for Management). 

110 Letter, Beatty to Thomas Finneran (Massachusetts State Senate), August 23, 1999 (identical letters to 

4 other state senators and 13 members of Massachusetts House of Reps) (SPAR Central Files: A 44 Ad. 

Extorg S.T.C.C. - Never Destroy). 

111 “Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Wayside Exhibit Proposals,” prepared by HFC, Division 

of Wayside Exhibits, written by Olin Nave, Wayside Exhibit Planner, signed by [illegible], Chief, 

Division of Wayside Exhibits, d. December 27, 1985 (SPAR: Central Files: D6215 Planning, 

Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

169 

the “previously superb level of Army maintenance declined.”112 Contemporary evidence 

provides at best ambiguous support for this accusation. It is true that, in 1963, one Springfield 

resident cited “signs of long neglect” along the north side of Armory Square: “the litter and 

neglect of the grounds which were apparently not cleared of leaves et cetera last Fall, reflects 

carelessness in maintenance....At one time every portion of this property was well cared for 

and, indeed, was a show place in the heart of the city.”113 Yet NPS staff, checking on the 

condition of the National Historic Landmark in 1959, had found it in “excellent” 

condition.114 Later, in 1965, Massachusetts Governor John A. Volpe (who had once been a 

contractor) assured Defense Secretary McNamara that he had personally examined the 

Armory and that “the maintenance there has been really unbelievable.”115 Most interesting 

was the judgment of NPS staff making a routine inspection in 1969 that “nothing in the way 

of periodic maintenance appears to have been done yet by the college on either the Middle 

or West Arsenals and we feel their condition may be described as only fair.”116 They found 

the Main Arsenal, now in the care of the nonprofit museum, “in no better condition.” These 

statements cut both ways: on the one hand, the college’s lack of maintenance was flagged as a 

problem long before the park was established; on the other, if the condition of these 

buildings had been truly excellent in 1967, it is hard to see how two years of neglect would 

have reduced it to merely “fair.” 

 In sum, glowing reports of Armory Square’s condition at the end of the Army’s 

tenure should probably be taken with a grain of salt. Yet the evidence does not point to 

widespread neglect or deterioration before the college arrived in 1967. The West and Middle 

Arsenals were not in such poor condition that the college could not put them immediately to 

use, the former as a Student Union, the latter as classrooms and offices. It was after 1978, in 

any case, that the condition of the campus began to divert ever more dramatically from the 

federal sector. By 1989 the NPS had put substantial sums into restoring the Main Arsenal, the 

fence, and Building 1, while Victor Focosi, taking up his duties as college director of facilities 

at about that time, encountered a “tremendous, overwhelming challenge: crumbling exterior 

 

112 Save America’s Treasures, FY 2003 Application for Historic Preservation Fund Grants to Preserve 

Nationally Significant Intellectual and Cultural Artifacts and Historic Structures and Sites, signed 

Andrew M. Scibelli, dated March 18, 2003 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield 

Armory). 

113 Letter, Christine M. Pratt to The President, April 3, 1963 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: 

fol. Springfield Armory). 

114 National Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings, Form 10-317: Springfield Armory, signed and dated, 

Charles E. Shedd, Jr., Historic Sites Historian, November 4, 1959 [1 p.] (Washington Office, NHL 

Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

115 “Hon. Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense, meets with Massachusetts Congressional 

Delegation at the Pentagon Building, Washington, D.C., on Saturday, February 27, 1965” [transcript of 

meeting], p. 27 (SPAR Archives). 

116 Registry of National Historic and Natural Landmarks, Report of Biennial Visit to Springfield Armory, 

Armory Square, Springfield, Mass., of September 18, 1969 (by Edwin W. Small, Assistant to Director, 

NERO) (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 
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170 

masonry in “just horrible” condition; buildings whose copper leaders had been stolen and 

never replaced, leaving water washing down the walls; a “mishmash” of “old factory wiring” 

and “antique” sprinkler systems; leaking roofs and rotting woodwork.117 

 Why did the college allow the campus to fall into such disrepair? According to 

Dwight Pitcaithley regional officials at the time were convinced that the “very significant” 

preservation problems of the campus were “well beyond the fiscal capabilities of the 

college.”118 In 1987 President Scibelli offered a similar explanation, blaming the state’s 

“‘awesome and often confusing’” capital funding system and arguing that consistent 

maintenance funding would have prevented the deterioration.119 Five years later the college 

blamed the problem on “drastic cuts in state funding” that had “eliminated” its ability to 

provide “even a minimum level of stabilization.” These explanations had merit, and many 

years later both Scibelli and former Physical Plant Manager Victor Focosi continued to 

emphasize the difficulty of obtaining state funding. Yet the “drastic cuts” blamed in 1992-93 

were recent: at worst, they exacerbated a longstanding problem, one moreover that had 

developed even as the college grew in size, prestige, and funding: by 1992, indeed, S.T.C.C. 

was the most comprehensive institution in the state’s community college system and one of 

the largest, with over 6,000 day and evening students, 41 different associate degree programs, 

and four 1-year certificate programs. Nor was the capital budgeting system, despite its 

shortcomings, entirely to blame. The college had been well funded: over the previous twentyfive years, the state had invested more than $50 million in its physical plant. The problem was 

that none of that funding had gone into the historic buildings. And that was no accident but 

the result of conscious decisions to spend money elsewhere. The college said as much: 

It was the intent of the original Master Plan to remove all of the existing buildings 

on the site and replace them with new facilities. This decision led to a lack of 

funds for the maintenance of those buildings to be destroyed. The end result was 

serious deterioration in their physical condition, externally and internally.120

 College officials maintained that it was not until the cooperative agreement was 

actually signed in 1978 that they realized “the initial master plan would have to be revised.” 

The result, as even they admitted, was that for the first eleven years of the college’s history 

not a penny was appropriated for the historic buildings, even for basic maintenance: the first 

repairs were not made until 1979.121

 

117 Victor Focosi, recorded interview with author, June 1, 2009. 

118 Dwight Pitcaithley, recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 

119 Phyllis Andreoni, “S.T.C.C. hopes to restore historic buildings,” The Morning Union, Springfield, 

April 14, 1987 (Clipping in Boston Support Office, SPAR Planning File: fol. untitled). 

120 Springfield Technical Community College, The Five-Year Plan, 1982-1987, [1983], pp. 356-357 

(S.T.C.C. President’s Office Files). 

121 Springfield Technical Community College, “Long Range Capital Plans and Budget Requests for 

Fiscal Year 1985,” October 3, 1983, pp. 9-10 (S.T.C.C. President’s Office Files). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

171 

 The change in attitude, when it finally came, was slow but real. In 1972, when 

President Geitz pointed to the “beautiful campus” as one reason for the college’s success, he 

meant the Master Plan and the new buildings: though the college had been “renovating all 

usable space on Armory Square for classrooms, laboratories, and offices,” these 

improvements were “only temporary.”122 In 1991 the college offered a very different 

assessment: now “the original Armory structures and grounds...enhanced and fostered the 

image of a bucolic college campus,” the Parade Ground provided “the aesthetics of a college 

quadrangle,” and “the brick construction of the original Armory buildings, complete with 

ivy, reflect the character of traditional New England academic buildings.”123 If the new 

appreciation did not translate directly into genuine stewardship, at least it was not 

inconsistent with it. 

 It was under President Collamore, around 1983, that the college first acknowledged 

the problem of the deteriorating campus. A Capital Plan prepared that year conceded that 

the parade ground had “deteriorated to the point where it is filled with weeds and other 

plantings not suitable for a proper Parade Ground” and that the college faced several 

hundred thousand dollars in emergency repairs simply on the exteriors of the historic 

buildings.124 Describing the NHL designation and the “joint occupancy” arrangement with 

the NPS and as a “mixed blessing,” the college’s five-year plan noted that the situation 

imposed “constraints” that had to be “clearly understood by all concerned if we are to avoid 

unnecessary delays in improving our facilities” to meet college goals.”125 Though hardly a 

warm endorsement of the park, the plan at least acknowledged it, and it also explicitly 

rejected previous college policy, claiming that the failure to accept the “constraints” of the 

site had “jeopardized the College’s growth.” The new plan called for “renovation and 

restoration” of many existing Armory buildings. President Scibelli, Collamore’s successor, 

continued the new direction. He worked hard to improve relations with the NPS. And his 

concern for the historic campus was sincere.126 “‘It’s a shame what has happened to the older 

buildings on our campus,’” he told the press in 1987. “‘This didn’t have to happen. If we had 

put out a few thousand dollars every year from the beginning, our campus would be in good 

shape today.”127

 

122 President’s Five Year Report, S.T.C.C., [1972] (S.T.C.C.: President’s Office files). 

123 Springfield Technical Community College: Institutional Self-Study, submitted to New England 

Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc., Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, March 

1991, p. 155 (S.T.C.C.: President’s Office files). 

124 Springfield Technical Community College, “Long Range Capital Plans and Budget Requests for Fiscal 

Year 1985,” October 3, 1983, p. 12 (S.T.C.C.: Presidents’ Office files). 

125 Springfield Technical Community College, The Five-Year Plan, 1982-1987, 1983, p. 354 (S.T.C.C. 

President’s Office files). 

126 Andrew M. Scibelli: recorded interview with author, June 4, 2009. 

127 Mary Ellen O’Shea, “S.T.C.C. to Map $14 Million Job to Restore Historic Buildings,” Springfield 

Daily News, April 13, 1987 (clipping in Boston Support Office, SPAR Planning file: fol. untitled). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

172 

 By 1983 college officials understood both the urgency and the magnitude of the 

maintenance challenge. As they explained to state funding authorities, “If the old buildings 

are allowed to deteriorate as they are now doing, the college will not be able to fulfill its 

original purpose and the land [and] buildings may be lost.” They embraced the new vision 

with enthusiasm, arguing that rehabilitation would be “cheaper than any new construction” 

and pointing to pilot projects which had shown “what can be done on [sic] refurbishing these 

historic buildings to meet our needs.” In sum, the college assured state officials, “We will be 

able to demonstrate that you can blend the old and the new and provide our graduates with 

the most dynamic and exciting campus in Massachusetts! – and all within a historic site”128

 Four items in the college’s new Capital Plan related to preservation. First were 

exterior repairs. Funding had already been secured to paint the trim on about 2,000 

windows, and “emergency roof repairs” were underway. But in consultation with the NPS, 

the college had also accepted the need for about $350,000 worth of “emergency repairs” to 

Buildings 5/6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 19, and 27, covering both woodwork (“rotting”) and stone 

stairs and stoops (“crumbling and in dire need or [sic] repair”). The second item was the 

renovation and restoration of Buildings 15/16, at a cost of $1,780,000 –“minimal when you 

consider the cost of constructing brand new facilities to house these disciplines.” The third 

concerned the restoration and adaptive re-use of Building 19 at about the same cost: “It will 

be a perfect example of adapting these historic buildings for educational purposes.” The 

fourth was to repair the perimeter fence, which was in danger of collapsing and injuring 

passersby as a section of the NPS-maintained fence had recently done. The cost would be 

$579,000: by using the specifications already developed by NPS the college could save “a 

considerable amount of time, effort, and cost....” 

 Despite these ambitious proposals, the plan revealed that progress towards the 

college’s new preservation goals would be slow. Major utility improvements would have to 

be made before work could even begin. Moreover, construction had not yet started on the 

one “major new academic building” carried over from the original Master Plan, Building 15. 

The state board had made it the “number one priority”; the Board of Regents ranked all of 

the disciplines to be housed there as “high priority.”129

 In fact, the college’s commitment to preservation remained ambivalent at best, as the 

long list of priorities presented in the Capital Plan made clear. The first was Building 15, 

“vitally needed” to support the college’s “leadership role in Technical and Allied Health 

education.” Priorities 2 through 4 encompassed upgrading existing elevators throughout the 

campus, improving access to buildings in order to comply with federal requirements, 

improving utility distribution systems, upgrading energy conservation, acquiring land, and 

constructing a parking lot. Item 5, exterior repairs to historic buildings, was the first 

preservation project. Sixth came renovation of Building 27 as a Learning Resource Center. 

 

128 Springfield Technical Community College, Long Range Capital Plans and Budget Requests for Fiscal 

Year 1985, October 3, 1983, pp. 14-15 (S.T.C.C.: Presidents’ Office files). 

129 Ibid., pp. 354-358. 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

173 

Priorities 7 and 8 returned to preservation (renovation and restoration of Buildings 15/16 

and 19), 9 and 10 focused on athletics (including more new construction), and 11 returned 

once more to preservation (repairs to the fence).130 Though argued with compelling urgency 

and enthusiasm then, preservation needs did not score very well in competition with other 

building priorities. They did slightly worse in the plan’s accompanying budget requests, 

which demoted “repair and restoration of exteriors of historic buildings” to Priority 6 (below 

Building 15, handicapped access modifications, secondary utility distribution, a new parking 

facility, and “Roof, Gutter and Downspout Maintaintence [sic]....”):131 the remaining 

preservation items scored lower still. To make matters still worse, investment of any kind in 

the physical plant was a low priority for the college by this time: a list of twelve college-wide 

goals compiled in 1991 included only one relating to the campus – “to maintain a modern 

physical plant” – and that scored dead last.132 With six power plant technicians, two 

carpenters, one painter, one electrician, and no plumber to look after a million square feet of 

space, Victor Focosi’s facilities department was distinctly understaffed.133

 The gap between rhetoric and actual spending revealed by policy statements is 

confirmed by the recollections of two key figures, Andrew Scibelli and Victor Focosi, who 

served as director of facilities from the late 1980s until 2008. Focosi, who was born and bred 

in Springfield during the Armory’s glory days, remembers feeling a “tremendous feeling of 

responsibility” for the Armory as a historic site, and his concern for the old buildings was real 

and constant. Yet Focosi’s main responsibility was maintaining and upgrading the campus 

“for the mission of the college” – not for historic preservation. He estimates that over a 

fifteen-year period about 10 to 15% of the facilities budget, or perhaps $4-4.5 million, was 

spent on upgrading the historic buildings. This was only slightly more than was spent about 

1999 in removing lead and asbestos from Building 27. Even when the focus was on the 

historic buildings, the major concerns were “fire, health, and safety,” rather than protection 

of historic features.134 Basic infrastructure needs for items like updated wiring, sprinklers, 

and removal of asbestos were substantial. Scibelli’s account is similar. Increasingly frustrated 

by the buildings’ deterioration, he sought to excite the interest of state officials and 

legislators in the campus’s plight and reminded the state of its legal commitment to maintain 

the buildings. But like Focosi he never forgot where the college’s priorities lay. Given the 

scarcity of money, the “built-in conflict” between preservation and the college’s other needs 

 

130 Springfield Technical Community College, “Long Range Capital Plans and Budget Requests for 

Fiscal Year 1985,” October 3, 1983, pp. 6-13 (S.T.C.C.: Presidents’ Office files). 

131 “Capital Facility Budget Requests,” Form CFB-2, appended to Springfield Technical Community 

College, “Long Range Capital Plans and Budget Requests for Fiscal Year 1985,” October 3, 1983, 

(S.T.C.C.: Presidents’ Office files). 

132 Springfield Technical Community College: Institutional Self-Study, submitted to New England 

Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc., Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, March 

1991, Appendix 1A (S.T.C.C.: President’s Office files). 

133 Victor Focosi, recorded interview with author, June 1, 2009. 

134 Victor Focosi, recorded interview with author, June 1, 2009. 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

174 

often forced him to “put the buildings in the background.” Indeed, he says, even if he could 

have taken the state funding for Building 15 and used it instead to rehabilitate all of the 

historic buildings he would not have done so: Building 15 was a “no-brainer.”135 

 If the hypothetical choice between Building 15 and the historic campus never arose, 

others did. In spring 1987 President Scibelli rolled out plans for a $150,000 state-funded 

master plan study to guide the renovation of nineteen historic buildings, including a 

$14,000,000 “‘preservation project’” to rehabilitate the eight buildings most in need of work 

(Fig. 4.10). One of those was Building 19. “It’s a slum,’” he remarked, “‘especially in contrast 

to the new buildings behind it....I’d like to see the thing painted and sandblasted, at the very 

least.’”136 Little came of the preservation initiative. Yet just three days before the roll-out, 

STCC announced that it had spent $1.1 million to acquire a former motel building which had 

been in use as a dormitory and student dining space (Fig. 4.11). The building would now be 

demolished in order to “ease a parking crunch” by providing 320 new parking spaces for 

students.137 Unlike the preservation project, this effort was successful: in due course the 

motel was demolished and the parking spaces provided. 

 Reluctance to spend money on the historic buildings was not the only factor 

impeding their rehabilitation. Though the original Master Plan had been put aside, no clear 

plan for using the historic Armory Square had taken its place. Nor did the college need all of 

the space it could rehabilitate: in fact, it appeared to have overbuilt, so that by 1987 its ratio of 

space to students exceeded that permitted by the state. Rather than occupying the vacant 

buildings, NPS officials feared that the college might have to consolidate space, leading to a 

“push to abandon whatever historic buildings they are now using in favor of the new 

construction [i.e. Building 15].”138 Certainly the college revealed considerable uncertainty 

about how to use the buildings. In 1987 Scibelli announced that Building 11, “now vacant and 

unusable,” would be rehabilitated for day care and early childhood education. Yet when it 

was eventually restored it was for college offices. This pattern was more pronounced at 

Building 19, the vast and dilapidated storehouse whose 765-foot-long arcaded facade and 

100,000 square-foot bulk stretched behind the college’s new buildings to the north of the 

parade ground (Figs. 1.10, 4.12). 

 When Scibelli became president in 1983 he found Building 19 being used to stable the 

city police department’s horses. He also found “trouble brewing”: federal officials had 

objected that this was a misuse of property intended for educational purposes, and they 

threatened to take it back. The horses were gone by 1984 or 85, leaving the building once 

 

135 Andrew M. Scibelli, recorded interview with author, June 4, 2009. 

136 Mary Ellen O’Shea, “STCC To Map $14 Million Job to Restore Historic Buildings,” Springfield Daily 

News, April 13, 1987; and Phyllis Andreoni, “STCC hopes to restore historic buildings,” The Morning 

Union, April 14, 1987 (clippings in Boston Support Office: SPAR Planning File: fol. untitled). 

137 Mary Ellen O’Shea, “STCC To Raze Former Motel,” Springfield Daily News, April 10, 1987 (clipping 

in Boston Support Office, SPAR Planning File: fol. untitled). 

138 Memo, Chief, Cultural Resources Harrison, NAR to SPAR Superintendent, November 9, 1987 

(Boston Support Office, SPAR Planning File: fol. untitled). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

175 

again vacant.139 The 1983 Capital Plan had announced big plans for it: “ideally suited for 

multi-purpose functions which are vitally needed on this campus,” its renovation would 

combine “the ‘Quincy Market Concept’ and a ‘Trombe Wall’ for energy savings” into “the 

most exciting Student Center in the nation!” The first floor was big enough to accommodate 

the entire student service operation, including admissions, registration, counseling and 

guidance, and financial aid, the second for administrative offices which would be moved 

from Building 16. Rehabilitating Building 19, in short, would meet critical space needs 

identified in the original Master Plan while providing “a perfect example of adapting these 

historic buildings for educational purposes.”140 Yet within a few years, the student center had 

apparently been forgotten and “obsolete college equipment” was being stored there 

instead.141 Announcing the restoration study in 1987, Scibelli suggested the ground floor 

could be used for parking, upstairs perhaps for occupational education. The following year 

Congressman Boland sought Congressional funding for a feasibility study to assess the 

building’s potential for reuse. The college now sought to assess the building’s potential as an 

advanced technology training center. And President Scibelli was in a hurry.142

 Interior was not at first very supportive: the work had a “low priority within the 

Service,” in part because the building was neither owned nor used by the NPS. Under the 

circumstances, Interior pointed out, the funding request “runs counter to the President’s 

goal of reducing the large Federal deficit.”143 Nevertheless, Congress approved the 

measure,144 giving the NPS $100,000 for a joint NPS/college initiative in which the agency 

would produce a historic structure report and would recruit and manage an 

architectural/engineering firm to produce feasibility and suitability reports.145 By 1991 the 

 

139 Andrew M. Scibelli: recorded interview with author, June 4, 2009. Scibelli recalls that it was the 

regional office of the NPS that objected. However, the nature of the objection and the threat make it 

more likely that it was the Department of Education, enforcing the terms of the 1968 deed of release. 

140 Springfield Technical Community College, “Long Range Capital Plans and Budget Requests for 

Fiscal Year 1985,” October 3, 1983, pp. 11-12. (S.T.C.C.: President’s Office files). Though the plan 

explicitly acknowledged the need to preserve Building 19, it is unclear how a trombe wall would have 

been compatible with this goal, since the technology called for affixing large panels to the exterior of 

the building. 

141 Department of the Interior, fact sheet on proposed amendment, “Provide planning funds for the 

rehabilitation of Building 19, Springfield, Massachusetts,” June 3, 1988 SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. 

Sites Maint., Pres.). 

142 Letter, Andrew M. Scibelli to Cables, October 4, 1988, and Cables to Scibelli, November 9, 1988 

(Charlestown, CRM Division Files: folder SPAR “Caserne” bldg....). 

143 Department of the Interior, fact sheet on proposed amendment, “Provide planning funds for the 

rehabilitation of Building 19, Springfield, Massachusetts,” June 3, 1988 (SPAR Central Files: H3015 

Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

144 Fiscal 1991 Budget Briefing Statement, SPAR, February 7, 1989 (SPAR Central Files: H3019 Special 

Studies (Hist.)). 

145 Task Directive, CRM Division, NAR, for Historic Structures Report – Building 19 (Caserne), 

December 14, 1990. See also Notice of Award to Einhorn Yaffee Prescott, September 26, 1991 (both 

SPAR Central Files: H3019 Special Studies (Hist.)). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

176 

Historic Structure Report had established that the building was “‘...stable but deteriorated. 

Years of deferred maintenance and inattention to the building’s historic integrity” had led to 

water infiltration, pigeons, illegal dumping, harsh weathering, and vandalism. The building 

was suffering from a “severe case of rising dampness,” drainage was blocked by a “defunct 

gutter system,” cars and tracks carelessly parked on an asphalt apron extending right up to 

the walls had caused “trauma to the brick piers,” and so forth. The good news was that “most 

situations can be rectified,” and the experts gave the college a basic Maintenance Plan to 

prevent the existing damage from worsening past the point of reparability.146

 By June 1992 the firm of Einhorn Yaffee Prescott of Albany, NY, responsible for the 

feasibility and suitability study, 147 was able to present two options for the technology center, 

now called the Western Massachusetts Center for Advanced Technology, or WMCAT (Fig. 

4.13). Both would fully occupy Building 19, but Option B would also annex Building 32 by 

fitting a circulation spine into the intervening notch, thereby gaining enough additional space 

to accommodate a small student center in Building 19.148 Although the NPS signed off on the 

work, the project ground to a halt when no response could be extracted from college officials 

for months.149 When they did finally respond, it was to change the program once more. The 

need for a student center was now “acute” and in fact had “evolved as the top priority for 

development”: the Western Massachusetts Center for Advanced Technology had been 

demoted to a “long term goal.” The reason for this sudden reversal, never explained at the 

time, was that in 1992 Scibelli had begun negotiations with Digital Equipment Corporation to 

take over Federal Square, the historic complex adjacent to Armory Square, as the S.T.C.C. 

Technology Park. The deal was concluded in 1996, and the Western Massachusetts Center 

for Advanced Technology was established in Federal Square as the Springfield Enterprise 

Center. For this expansion, which brought the college an additional 460,000 square feet of 

buildings plus additional, “desperately needed” parking, state funds were available: through a 

deal with the legislature Scibelli obtained a state commitment to pay one third of the 

Technology Park’s operating costs, or $1.2 million per year.150

 

146 HSR condition report summarized in Einhorn Yaffee Prescott (Albany), Feasibility Study: Final 

Report, for Building 19, Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts, August, 

1993, pp. 33 ff. (SPAR Central Files: H3019 Special Studies (Hist.)); and “Immediate or Preliminary 

Recommendations,” prepared by Richard Crisson, October 22, 1991 – SPAR Central Files: H3019 

Special Studies (Hist.)). 

147 Einhorn Yaffee Prescott (Albany), Feasibility Study (50% draft phase) for Building 19, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts, June 15, 1992 (SPAR Central Files: H3019 

Special Studies (Hist.)). 

148 Contents of 50% report summarized in Einhorn Yaffee Prescott (Albany), Feasibility Study: Final 

Report, for Building 19, Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts, August, 

1993, pp. 3 ff. (SPAR Central Files: H3019 Special Studies (Hist.)). 

149 Letter, Richard C. Crisson (Historical Architect) to Larry Linder, Einhorn, Yaffee, Prescott, Albany, 

November 2, 1992 (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

150 Andrew M. Scibelli, recorded interview with author, June 4, 2009. 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

177 

 Meanwhile, the study of Building 19 was restarted. WMCAT was dropped, and the 

final report presented a new scheme for a student center to occupy almost half of the 

building, including a dining facility capable of serving 500-600 students, lounge and game 

room spaces, an art gallery, student services such as an information desk, ID office, 

equipment rental, lockers, copy facilities, and study areas, office space for the director of 

Student Activities, student government and the campus newspaper, meeting spaces for 

women’s groups and clubs, and a sales kiosk and space for off-campus vendors. Assuming 

that the remainder of the building, still earmarked for WMCAT, would remain indefinitely 

vacant the consultants presented two cost estimates for it, one calling for a fully restored 

exterior, the other for plywood panels to seal the blank windows of the empty half (Fig. 

4.14).151 

 The study had set out to determine whether it was feasible to adapt and reuse 

Building 19 and had concluded that it was. For a little over $6.2 million, the college could 

have a magnificent student center within a fully stabilized building exterior; by economizing 

on the window treatments, the immediate cost could be reduced to $5.5 million. To the 

architects, the conclusion was clear: the student center reuse was “highly feasible, reasonable 

in cost, and readily suited to the unique character of this important historic structure.... The 

goals of historic preservation and appropriate reuse are served equally well by this proposed 

renovation.”152 The park too was “pleased and impressed” by the study, which combined 

“sensitivity to the historic value of the structure with an imaginative approach to its 

prospects.” Beatty did not care what use the college put the building to as long as it was 

“physically feasible” and did not “threaten historic resources.” Einhorn Yaffee Prescott’s 

plan met these conditions,153 and since it had been developed in response to the college’s 

programmatic directives, one might have anticipated some action. Yet in 2009 Building 19 

remained vacant, deteriorating in the midst of a National Historic Site. 

 If the college’s investment priorities and lack of programmatic planning discouraged 

genuine preservation efforts, state budget cutbacks began by the late 1980s to make real 

improvement even more remote. Until about 1987 the state’s community college system 

enjoyed “dynamic growth” in funding, with Massachusetts ranking high among the states for 

educational spending. But during the next two years all spending other than mandatory 

salary increases dropped by 35 per cent. Building 15, completed in 1987, proved to be the 

state’s last major capital investment at S.T.C.C. After 1989, as the state’s economy slowed, 

appropriations declined yet further, to the point where the college had to increase student 

charges and even impose a Fiscal Crisis Surcharge Fee in the spring of 1990. In 1991 the 

college could stated that fiscal cutbacks had “severely limited the capital funds available for 

 

151 Ibid., pp. 1, 3, 4, 12, 70, 71. 

152 Ibid., pp. 2, 71. 

153 Memo, Superintendent Beatty to Historical Architect Crisson, CRC, April 15, 1993 (SPAR Central 

Files: H3019 Special Studies (Hist.)). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

178 

Figures 4.10, 4.11. Two sides of the college’s building program. President Scibelli 

announces a rehabilitation effort (above) and the razing of a motel to create new student 

parking (below) (newspaper clippings, NPS: Boston Support Office). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

179 

campus renovations, repairs, and preventive maintenance. Other than relatively minor inhouse renovations, no major construction projects have been funded since or are 

contemplated in the near future.”154

 It was not only the quantity of state dollars but also the formulae for distributing 

them that were adverse to preservation. Until the late 1980s, funding was highly political, 

based on personal connections. This was a system that benefitted the well-connected 

Springfield college, and indeed Building 15 commemorated it: the name given to it in 1988, 

Scibelli Hall, referred not to president Andrew M. Scibelli but to his uncle Anthony M. 

Scibelli, who as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee had played a critical role in 

getting the college established (Deliso Hall commemorated another early political backer). 

As president, Andrew regularly enlisted his uncle in helping the college.155 The system began 

to be depoliticized with the creation of the Board of Regents of Higher Education in 1981, 

after which the state legislature no longer individually funded each school,156 but Scibelli 

dates real change to the end of the decade. Victor Focosi, who arrived as director of facilities 

at that time, recalls rigid state formulae that awarded funding according to educational need 

and square footage per student and that treated the physical plants of all colleges as 

equivalent, whether they were National Historic Landmarks or new cinderblock buildings. 

Under such a system Armory Square’s preservation needs could hardly be met, and Scibelli’s 

efforts to entice or shame Boston officials into carrying out their legal responsibilities for the 

campus met with little success. The irony was that, just as college leaders became genuinely 

interested in preservation, conditions in Boston blocked their efforts. 

 If the state would not fund restoration, the NPS was not above helping the college 

raise money. After initial reluctance, the agency supported Boland’s request for 

Congressional funding for Building 19. Whether in carrying out the Historic Structure Report

and managing the consultant studies, in working with state officials in 1987 to influence and 

contribute expertise to the state study, or in reviewing and providing technical assistance on 

any number of day-to-day building projects, the NPS also devoted substantial staff resources 

to helping the college meet its preservation needs. Later, the agency broadened its 

fundraising approach beyond Congress. In 1992 or 1993, anticipating the Armory’s 

upcoming bicentennial, the park collaborated with the college in rolling out a “Campaign for 

the Successful Restoration of the Arsenal of Freedom.” This sought to raise $9,765,000 from 

federal, state, and private funding. The NPS compiled a three-part list of rehabilitation needs 

covering both federal and college sectors of Armory Square. At over $4.4 million, the college 

projects amounted to the largest share and included $2 million for exterior repairs to 

 

154 Springfield Technical Community College: Institutional Self-Study, submitted to New England 

Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc., Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, March 

1991, pp. 155, 167 (S.T.C.C.: President’s Office files). 

155 Andrew M. Scibelli, recorded interview with author. 

156 Springfield Technical Community College: Institutional Self-Study, submitted to New England 

Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc., Commission on Institutions of Higher Education, March 

1991, p. 167 (S.T.C.C.: President’s Office files). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

180 

Building 19, $560,000 for Building 11, and $650,000 for Building 14. The appeal also 

mentioned plans to adaptively reuse Building 19 (as a student center and WMCAT), as well 

as two other “currently non-usable buildings”: Building 5/6 (Center for Business/Industry 

Development) and Building 11 (day care and early childhood education). Projects to be 

jointly undertaken by the NPS and the college added a further $2,675,000 and included $1 

million to repave roads and sidewalks and $1.6 million to complete the restoration of the iron 

fence.157

 Little if anything came of the campaign, and by 1997 the agency’s strategy had shifted 

again. Both the park and President Scibelli felt “grave concern” over the condition of 

Building 5/6 and 11. But while the park prepared an “appeal to the federal government 

through Congressman Neal,” Scibelli was working on an appeal to the state and, worried that 

state officials might refuse to help if they thought Washington was doing so, he asked the 

NPS for a support letter “forcefully stating their concern about the neglect of these 

buildings” yet not mentioning the simultaneous federal request.158 Together the park, 

college, and Friends of the Springfield Armory invited Congressman Neal, state legislators, 

and influential citizen to a tour designed to “heighten awareness” of the sorry state of 

Buildings 5/6, 11, and 19. Beatty’s Springfield Armory Museum invited Congressman Neal, 

state legislators, and influential citizen’s letter to one participant exemplified the new 

strategy, which was to “remind the Commonwealth of Massachusetts of its obligations to 

historic preservation.” No longer the guilty party, the college was now the deserving 

petitioner for state aid.159

 In 1999 an appropriation appeared on the state legislative agenda, and Beatty strongly 

supported it. But in the end the legislature cut the requested $1.4 million appropriation in 

half. It was an ironic outcome, noted Beatty, as the new cooperative agreement, signed just 

two days earlier by the state, accorded the highest preservation priority to the very buildings 

affected by the funding cut. “...[T]he neglect of the Commonwealth,” he concluded, “even to 

minimally maintain these structures in accordance with multiple agreements has been a 

disappointment.... [T]he Commonwealth has done little in 30 years to preserve these highly 

visible, historic properties on State Street.”160

 

157 “A Campaign for the Successful Restoration of the Arsenal of Freedom, n.d. [92-93], pp. 2, 4, 5, 7) 

(SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

158 Letter, S.T.C.C. President Andrew M. Scibelli to Chief of Visitor Services Joanne Gangi, September 

25, 1997 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Department Files: fol. MOU – S.T.C.C. Braim 03/05/98. 

159 Letter, Beatty to Fran Gagnon (Springfield), August 18, 1998 (SPAR Central Files: A82 FY 99 Special 

Events). 

160 Letters, Beatty to Gale D. Candaras (Mass House of Reps), April 22, 1999 (identical letters to 4 

senators and 11 other representatives), and Beatty to Thomas Finneran (Massachusetts State Senate), 

August 23, 1999 (identical letters to 4 other state senators and 13 members of state House of 

Representatives) (SPAR Central Files: A 44 Ad. Extorg S.T.C.C. - Never Destroy). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

181 

Figure 4.12. Building 

19: Existing elevation 

(Einhorn, Yafee, 

Prescott, Feasibility 

Study) 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

182 

Figure 4.13. Building 19: 

plan of upper floor for reuse 

as Western Massachusetts 

Center for Advanced 

Technology 

(Einhorn, Yaffee, Prescott, 

Feasibility Study). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

183 

Figure 4.14. Building 19: 

plan of ground floor for 

reuse as Student Center 

(Einhorn, Yaffee, 

Prescott, Feasibility 

Study). 

 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

184 

 In more recent years, these fundraising efforts have achieved mixed results. In 2001, 

with the NPS’s support, the college obtained $5.7 million of state funding for “major Facility 

Manager repairs” to Buildings 5/6, a pair of officer’s quarters standing adjacent to the Main 

Arsenal on the right-hand side of the parade, and Building 11, the West Arsenal, which stands 

immediately beyond it. According to the college, Building 5/6 was “decrepit,” its survival 

“questionable”; Building 11 was not in much better shape. The funds allowed the Office of 

Michael Rosenfeld, Inc., to be retained to carry out a feasibility study, but this showed that 

the funding was insufficient to cover both buildings: the best that could be done was to 

stabilize Building 5/6, to have it “sealed and encased; in effect, mothballed.” By 2002, the 

college was trying to divert a substantial portion of the appropriated funds to Building 19, but 

a new non-profit group, the Friends of Springfield Armory, protested, calling the minimal 

stabilization plan for Building 5/6 “unacceptable” and noting that Building 5/6 stood “in a 

higher priority zone than 19.” The NPS also protested, calling for the preservation and full 

restoration of Building 11, as outlined in Rosenfeld’s proposal, and opposing the state’s 

minimal stabilization proposal for Building 5/6 as a “a ‘band aid’ approach” and a betrayal of 

previous commitments.161 The state’s Department of Capital Asset Management replied that 

only $714,000 of the total funding was firmly tied to Building 11, none tied to Buildings 5/6. 

 So matters stood until the following spring, when the college applied to the federal 

Save America’s Treasures program for a grant to make up the difference – $219,714 out of a 

total project cost of $556,499 – between the unpopular stabilization option and a full exterior 

restoration of Building 5/6. The proposal spoke vaguely about proposed uses for the 

building: an alumni relations or career services office, or perhaps residential space for visiting 

scholars or officials.162 The application was denied. As of 2007, Building 11 has been 

handsomely repaired and is occupied by college offices (Fig. 4.15). But Building 5/6 

continues to deteriorate, its rotting porch sealed off behind hazard tape (Figs. 4.16-17).

ANOTHER LOOK AT THE QUESTION OF FEDERAL AUTHORITY

 As of 2008, the campus presented a mixed picture. In addition to the success with 

Building 11, Building 16 is fully occupied by college offices: following the launch of a 

campaign to repair its 570 wood windows in 2004, a consultant praised “the dedication of 

 

161 Letter, J. Douglas Cuillard to Jennifer Campbell (Massachusetts Department of Capital Asset 

Management), August 7, 2002, and Save America’s Treasures, FY 2003 Application for Historic 

Preservation Fund Grants to Preserve Nationally Significant Intellectual and Cultural Artifacts and 

Historic Structures and Sites, signed Andrew M. Scibelli, dated March 18, 2003 (both Washington 

Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield Armory). 

162 Save America’s Treasures, FY 2003 Application for Historic Preservation Fund Grants to Preserve 

Nationally Significant Intellectual and Cultural Artifacts and Historic Structures and Sites, signed 

Andrew M. Scibelli, dated March 18, 2003 (Washington Office, NHL Program Files: fol. Springfield 

Armory). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

185 

Figure 4.15. A preservation success: the elegantly restored Building 11 in 2005 (photo: author).

STCC officials to preserving the wood windows in their historic buildings.”163 Yet, Building 

10 (Fig. 4.18) is in hardly better condition than Building 5/6, while Building 19 portends 

disaster (Figs. 4.19-22). Open to the weather, pigeons, and vandals, its cavernous spaces 

continue to be filled with miscellaneous objects, many of them apparently junk and some 

probably flammable. Its brick piers continue to crumble. This decay, which if not arrested 

can lead to only one conclusion, is taking place within the congressionally authorized 

boundaries of a National Historic Site. It may then be appropriate to conclude this discussion 

by reviewing the question of federal authority over authorized parklands. With regard to 

Building 19, the NPS may be in a stronger position today than legislators or officials imagined 

when they projected the park and drafted the initial cooperative agreement in the 1970s. 

NPS officials negotiated the first agreement on the assumption of limited federal 

authority over nonfederal land. Galvin and Utley believed the park’s authorization had little 

impact on the preservation of the campus; Galvin even said that HEW was the only federal 

agency with any power over the college. This view appeared to be confirmed in 1981 when 

the regional office asked the Interior Department’s regional solicitor to clarify the “nature of 

federal jurisdiction” at the Armory. On the basis of “information available to this office,” he 

 

163 Letter, Epsilon Associates Senior Planner Douglas J. Kelleher to Deputy SHPO Brona Simon, 

March 10, 2005; see also letter, Cuillard to Rubenzahl, November 24, 2004, Specifications for wood 

window restoration, drawings by Margo Jones Architects, November 24, 2004, (all SPAR Central Files: 

A 44 Ad. Extorg S.T.C.C. - Never Destroy). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

186 

replied that “this property consists of approximately 5.3 acres of land which was transferred 

to the National Park Service by donation from the City of Springfield in 1978, after a deed of 

release was executed between the City and the United States....”164 Since there had been no 

cession of jurisdiction from state to federal government, the solicitor concluded that the 

agency had “proprietary jurisdiction only”: that is, the same authority that any owner 

enjoyed over his own property. The solicitor’s opinion did not address the status of the stateowned college campus, as its existence had not been acknowledged. 

 The cession question was cleared up in 1984 when Massachusetts enacted legislation 

ceding to the United States “concurrent jurisdiction” over NPS units within the state..165 This 

meant that the federal government now shared jurisdiction with the state over many aspects 

of individual behavior within the site and could both make and enforce regulations on 

Figure 4.16. Building 5-6 (photo: author). 

 

164 Memo, Regional Solicitor, Northeast Region (Department of the Interior) to Regional Director, 

NPS, February 25, 1981 (SPAR: Superintendent’s files: folder: Jurisdiction). Any correspondence or 

memos attempting to clear up the misunderstanding has not survived in either the files of the NPS or in 

those of the regional solicitor’s office; nor has the regional office’s initial letter requesting the 

information. 

165 Commonwealth of Massachusetts, An Act Ceding to the United States of America Concurrent 

Jurisdiction over Units of the National Park Service in the Commonwealth, approved December 18, 1984 

(copy in files of Department of Interior, Northeast Regional Solicitor’s Office). See also letter, Acting 

Director Mary Lou Grier to Governor Michael Dukakis, March 5, 1985 (SPAR: Superintendent’s files: 

folder: Jurisdiction).
Rehabilitating the Armory 

187 

driving, picnicking, theft or defacement of property, and so forth. Still, it did not directly 

address the most important question. Cessions of jurisdiction sometimes by implication

covered nonfederal as well as federal land within national park units, but here the act, by 

specifically mentioning lands and buildings “provided and administered by the National Park 

Service,” appeared to exclude the campus, over which the NPS had already ceded 

“administration jurisdiction” to the state through the Cooperative Agreement. This was the 

opinion given by Interior’s regional solicitor when Superintendent Beatty raised the question 

in 1992: the campus, he advised, was not under the concurrent jurisdiction of the federal 

government but solely under that of the state.166

 Had federal authority been based exclusively on such cessions, the question would 

now be answered: there was no such authority because there was no cession. But by 1984 a 

series of court cases had shown that cession was no longer the sole or even the primary basis 

for federal authority: the Constitution’s Property Clause provided a firmer foundation. The 

Property Clause states: “The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful 

Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United 

States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of 

the United States or of any particular State.”167 After the first of this series of cases, in 1976, 

public lands expert and legal scholar Joseph L. Sax commented that the NPS seemed 

uncertain about its authority under the property clause.”168 Twenty-five years later another 

legal scholar could still observe that Property Clause had “escaped widespread attention” 

and that, “curiously, the courts and commentators have paid little attention to the federal 

government’s power over its own property....”169 For park managers, the Property Clause had 

remained a sleeping giant. If it ever awoke, it would be a giant indeed. The Supreme Court 

observed in 1976 that “the power over the public land thus entrusted to Congress is without 

limitations.”170 Legal scholars have noted that the courts have interpreted the Property 

Clause power broadly on almost every occasion when it has been invoked. These cases 

conclude that the federal government possesses both proprietary and sovereign powers over 

its property, can regulate activities on privately owned lands that affects its lands, and 

exercises the equivalent of the police power in this area. The courts of appeals have further 

 

166 Memo, Regional Solicitor Anthony R. Conte to Superintendent, April 2, 1992 (DOI, Regional 

Solicitor’s Office files)

167 U.S. Constitution, Art. 4, Sec. 3, Cl. 2.

168 Joseph L. Sax, “Helpless Giants: The National Parks and the Regulation of Private Lands,” Michigan 

Law Review 75 (1976-77): 250. 

169 Peter A. Appel, “The Power of Congress ‘Without Limitation’: The Property Clause and Federal 

Regulation of Private Property,” Minnesota Law Review 86 no. 1 (2001-02): 7, 3. 

170 Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U.S. 529 (1976): at 539 (quoted in Eugene R. Gaetke, “Congressional 

Discretion Under the Property Clause,” Hastings Law Journal 33 [1981-82]: 381 [hereafter cited as 

“Congressional Discretion”]). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

188 

Figure 4.17. Columns are missing from the Victorian verandah of Buildings 5-6. Netting keeps visitors away 

from the rotten porch floor (photo: author). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

189 

extended the reach of the Property Clause to cover private activities that occur on stateowned lands.171

 Two major cases, in 1897 and 1927, laid the groundwork for modern views on the 

Property Clause and federal authority over nonfederal lands. In the first, Camfield v. United 

States,

172 private parties had erected fences which, because of the checkerboard arrangement 

of federal and private parcels in the vicinity, had the effect of closing off a substantial amount 

of public land. The individuals argued that because their fences were built entirely on private 

property they lay beyond the reach of federal action. The Court rejected this view and held 

that the fences violated the federal law prohibiting owners from blocking access to public 

land. The federal government, explained the Court, had both proprietary and sovereign 

powers over its lands. In its proprietary role, the federal power of the states: it could therefore 

legislate against fences because they interfered with congressional policy for the lands in 

question.173

 In United States v. Alford,

174 the Supreme Court resolved what Blake Shepard called a “far 

easier question.”175 After a campfire built by Alford on nonfederal lands set fire to a nearby 

national forest, the U.S. indicted him for violating a statute against building and failing to 

extinguish fires on or near federal lands. The Supreme Court held the statute constitutional. 

According to Justice Holmes, “Congress may prohibit the doing of acts upon privately owned 

lands that imperil the publicly owned forests.”176 That is, the federal government could 

regulate activity not only on but also “near” federal land if it threatened to harm that land. 

 Together, wrote Joseph L. Sax in 1976, “the Alford and Camfield cases establish 

unambiguously that the property clause permits federal regulation of private land....”177

Writing in 2001, Peter A. Appel agreed: “the Court announced that the federal government 

had police power over activities that harm federal property even when the regulated activities 

occurred wholly on privately owned lands within states admitted to the Union.”178 Alford had 

established that the Property Clause could be invoked against actions on private land that 

threatened direct harm to federal property. Camfield went beyond physical harm to establish 

that Congress could regulate conduct on nonfederal property that “frustrates a 

 

171 Appel, op. cit.:4. 

172 167 U.S. 518 (1897). 

173 For a discussion of Camfield and Alford, see inter alia, Appel, op. cit.: 63 ff. 

174 (274 U.S. 264 (1927). 

175 Blake Shepard, Comment: “The Scope of Congress’ Constitutional Power Under the Property 

Clause: Regulating Non-Federal Property to Further the Purposes of National Parks and Wilderness 

Areas,” Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review 11 (1983-84): 497. 

176 (274 U.S. 264 (1927) at 267, quoted in Appel, op. cit.: 66. 

177 Sax, op. cit.: 252. 

178 Appel, op. cit.: 66. 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

190 

Figure 4.18. The elegant Grecian woodwork of Building 10 is rotting, a missing column base has been 

replaced by a stack of wooden boards, a sandstone step is overturned. There is nothing to protect the 

entrance porch from the impact of a carelessly driven car. These conditions, photographed in 2005, had 

not changed in 2009 (photo: author). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

191 

congressional policy” for that land: “accurately read,” as Eugene R. Gaetke explained in 1981, 

“the property clause rationale of Camfield is that Congress may make those regulations 

‘needful’ to effectuate its policies for the use of federal property, even if those regulations 

govern conduct on nonfederal property.”179

 Neither NPS officials nor constitutional scholars showed much interest in these 

distant cases, or in Property Clause jurisprudence, in the early 1970s. But growing threats to 

the parks were beginning to call attention to the Property Clause as a tool for regulating 

nonfederal land. Parks with significant nonfederal components (like the Armory itself) were 

proliferating: in response to an Interior Department directive concerning the Land and Water 

Conservation Fund, the NPS set out in 1982 to write a Land Protection Plan for all park units 

containing non-federal land. At the same time, external threats to parks were multiplying. 

Even some of the vast western parks, which had initially enjoyed substantial buffer areas of 

federal land, were threatened by activities outside their borders. As examples, Sax pointed in 

1976 to a private entrepreneur’s plan to build a 300-foot-tall observation tower adjacent to the 

battlefield at Gettysburg Military Park, timbering near Redwoods National Park in California, 

a proposal for a theme park next to Manassas National Battlefield Park, demands of 

landowners to build utility lines across federal lands in Cape Hatteras National Seashore in 

order to power summer homes, plans for a major airport next to the Everglades, and a 

proposed nuclear power plant just outside the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.180 The 

“State of the Parks” study submitted by the NPS to Congress in 1980 noted that more than 

half of all reported threats to parks stemmed from sources outside the parks themselves.181

 A second factor that triggered new interest in the Property Clause was a Supreme 

Court decision in 1976 reaffirming and expanding its power. Kleppe v. New Mexico182

addressed a constitutional challenge to the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 

1994, which protected these animals both on and off the public lands. After a rancher with a 

federal grazing permit complained of the federal government’s refusal to remove some of 

them from a water source on federal lands, the New Mexico livestock authorities removed 

and sold them. When the United States in turn complained, the state sued the federal 

government, arguing that the statute was unconstitutional. The Court upheld it. Although wild 

horses and burros were normally regulated by the state, the Court found that federal 

regulation superseded the state’s where it affected federal land. Even in the absence of a 

cession of jurisdiction, the Property Clause gave Congress the power to legislate respecting 

 

179 Eugene R. Gaetke, “The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act of 1978: Regulating Nonfederal 

Property Under the Property Clause,” Oregon Law Review 60 (1981): 158, 172-73 (hereafter cited as 

“Boundary Waters”). 

180 Sax, op. cit.: 240-241. 

181 National Park Service, Office of Science and Technology, “State of the Parks, May, 1980: A Report to 

the Congress,” reprinted in Larry M. Dilsaver, ed., America’s National Park System: The Critical 

Documents (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994), p. 406. 

182 426 U.S. 529 (1976). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

192 

Figure 4.19. Broken windows marred Building 19's 

impressive facade in 2005 (photo: author). 

Figure 4.20. At street level, Building 19's brick piers were 

crumbling (photo: author). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

193 

Figure 4.21, In 2005, Building 19 (exterior photo) was open to weather, pigeons and vandals, its 

interior used for storage of miscellaneous objects. In 2009 the concrete barriers were gone, 

leaving the brick piers unprotected from cars and trucks (photos: author). 

Figure 4.22. In 2005, Building 19 (interior photo) was open to weather, pigeons and vandals, its interior 

used for storage of miscellaneous objects. In 2009 the concrete barriers were gone, leaving the brick piers 

unprotected from cars and trucks (photos: author). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

194 

federal lands, and when it did so, the federal law “necessarily overrides conflicting state laws 

under the Supremacy Clause.”183 While the Court, according to Shepard, “acknowledged that 

the Property Clause did not authorize an exercise of general federal control over state public 

policy, it nonetheless asserted that the Clause did permit ‘an exercise of the complete power 

which Congress has over particular public property entrusted to it.’”184

 Just as important as this affirmation of federal authority over state regulation where 

federal land was affected was the Court’s finding that the Property Clause power was not 

limited to preventing physical damage to federal property: damage to federal land was a 

sufficient but not a necessary basis for Congressional regulation.185Even where no damage was 

anticipated, Sax wrote, the Court showed that Congress could legislate for ecological 

balance.186 And while the facts of the case concerned actions on federal land, the Court itself, 

referring to Camfield, stated in dicta that “the power granted by the Property Clause is broad 

enough to reach beyond territorial limits.”187

 According to Harry R. Bader, Kleppe “laid the foundation for modern Property Clause 

case law.”188 Now that the clause’s power had been clearly established, Sax wrote, 

“congressional passivity in the face of serious threats to the parks” would truly constitute an 

“abdication of a fundamental legislative responsibility” to protect lands held in trust for the 

citizenry.189 In the same spirit he called on the NPS to cease relying on the relatively 

ineffective Cession Clause for authority. At Fire Island, he took issue with the Interior 

Department, arguing that direct federal zoning of nonfederal land might stand on the basis of 

the Property Clause if the NPS determined it was an appropriate tool for protecting the area’s 

congressionally determined uses. Moreover, if Congress itself made that determination, he 

thought it highly unlikely that the Court would disagree. With respect to inholdings in 

general, Sax argued that Congress could and should give the NPS “authority to exercise the 

general police power to the full extent necessary to maintain the parks for the purposes for 

which Congress established them.”190

 Two decisions of the Eight Circuit Court, in 1977 and 1981, soon expanded the 

Property Clause’s utility for regulating activities on nonfederal land. In United States v. 

Brown,

191 a defendant was convicted for hunting ducks on the waters within Voyageurs 

National Park in Minnesota. Noting that Minnesota’s regulations permitted duck hunting, 

 

183 426 U.S. 529 (1976): at 543, quoted in Appel, op. cit.: 76. 

184 Shepard, op. cit.: 500-501. 

185 Shepard, op. cit.: 500. 

186 Sax, op. cit.: 253. 

187 426 U.S. 529 (1976): at 538, quoted in Shepard, op. cit.: 502. 

188 Harry R. Bader, “Not So Helpless: Application of the U.S. Constitution Property Clause to Protect 

Federal parklands from External Threats,” Natural Resources Journal 39 (1999): 195. 

189 Sax, op. cit.: 245, 259. 

190 Sax, op. cit.: 253, 265. 

191 552 F.2d 817 (8th Cir. 1977). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

195 

and that the waters within the park were state rather than federal property, the hunter argued 

that the federal ban on hunting in national parks was unconstitutional as applied to these 

waters. Yet the court upheld the regulation, finding that there had been an implied cession of 

jurisdiction to the federal government, and that even absent such a cession, the Property 

Clause gave the U.S. the right to supersede state regulations.192 Relying on Camfield, the 

decision held that “the Property Clause gives Congress authority to regulate the waters for the 

protection of the park lands and to prevent interference with the purpose for which the lands 

were acquired.”193

 The court reached a similar decision in State of Minnesota by Alexander v. Block.

194

Here the State of Minnesota had challenged the constitutionality of the federal government’s 

restrictions on motorized travel across non-federal lands and waters within the Boundary 

Waters Canoe Area. This 1.1 million acre area had been designated by the Forest Service 

within the Superior National Forest in a series of actions during the 1920s and 1930s. With the 

passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964 it had been incorporated into the new system of 

federally designated wilderness areas, but with the special proviso that motorboats would 

continue to be allowed on the area’s roughly 160,000 acres of navigable lakes and streams. 

Relying on the Property Clause, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Act of 1978 sought to 

resolve decades of controversy over this policy by prohibiting motorboats on most of the 

state-owned lakes wholly or partly within the boundaries, thereby superseding state 

regulation on state land. In Block, the court upheld the measure’s constitutionality.195

 In Brown and Block, the Eighth Circuit Court referred to Kleppe for “guidance” while 

acknowledging that the specific issue presented by both cases was one that the Supreme Court 

had expressly declined to address in Kleppe. In Brown, the court described that issue as 

“whether the Property Clause empowers the United States to enact regulatory legislation 

protecting federal lands from interference occurring on non-federal public lands or, in this 

instance, waters.”196 The Brown court made it clear not only that the Property Clause did so 

but also that this power went beyond Congress’ authority to protect federal lands from direct 

physical harm: in light of Congress’ stated policy for the land, the court held, the regulations at 

issue were “valid prescriptions designed to promote the purposes of the federal lands within 

the National Park.”197 The Block court, stressing its consistency with the earlier ruling, 

underlined this point, adding that the regulations in Brown were “necessary to prevent 

significant interference with the use of the park and the purposes for which it had been 

established.”198 In Shepard’s words, the Block court built on Brown, Camfield, and Kleppe to 

 

192 Gaetke, “Boundary Waters”: 178-179. 

193 552 F.2d 817 (8th Cir. 1977): at 63, quoted in Gaetke, “Boundary Waters”: 179. For Brown, see also 

Bader, op. cit.: 196 ff. 

194 660 F.2d 1240 (8th Cir. 1981). 

195 Gaetke, “Boundary Waters”: 161 ff. For Block, see also Bader, op. cit.: 197 ff. 

196 552 F.2d 817 (8th Cir. 1977): at 822, quoted in Shepard, op. cit.: 505. 

197 552 F.2d 817 (8th Cir. 1977): at 822-23, quoted in Shepard, op. cit.: 506. 

198 660 F.2d 1240 (8th Cir. 1981): at 1249, quoted in Shepard, op. cit.: 511-512. 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

196 

conclude that “Congress had the constitutional power to regulate conduct on non-federal 

land that interfered with the intended purposes of federal property.”199 Nor were those 

purposes limited to the area legislation: the decision also noted that “Congress, through the 

Act, has brought the regulation of the BWCAW in line with that of other wilderness areas, 

thus recognizing that historically the use of motor vehicles could not be reconciled with 

retaining a primitive wilderness area.”200 In other words, it was not merely Congress’s specific 

intentions with regard to the Boundary Waters but also its general policy for wilderness areas 

that had to be considered. 

 Writing immediately after Block, Eugene R. Gaetke stressed the Property Clause’s 

“enormous” potential for regulating conduct on nonfederal land in support of federal 

purposes or policies.201 Shepard thought that should particularly interest the NPS,202 and he 

took up Sax’s campaign for vigorous federal efforts to fulfill the NPS’s protective mandate. In 

contrast to the agency’s “extremely narrow” view of its constitutional authority to regulate 

nonfederal land, he suggested that Brown and Block “provide the Park Service with a 

constitutional basis for regulating activity on non-federal property when necessary to 

promote the purpose of the government lands under its domain,” and he argued for a “more 

aggressive federal policy regarding the protection of national parks and wilderness areas.”203

More recently, Harry R. Bader has urged the development of general rules to guide the 

regulation of state and private property under the Property Clause power. He suggests that 

this regulation should be focused on nonfederal land located within the boundaries of 

designated conservation units or entirely surrounded by federal lands: one advantage of such 

an “inholding rule,” he notes, would be to put potentially affected owners on notice, since “as 

an inholder, one would rationally expect possible federal regulation....”204

 Without the Property Clause, the NPS has been relatively powerless to protect the 

nonfederal portion of Armory Square from neglect and deterioration. The agency could 

criticize, cajole, argue, negotiate, encourage, flatter, inform, and assist. It has done these 

things. But it could not enforce or sanction. Property Clause jurisprudence gives the NPS 

authority to do more, should it wish to, because it suggests that Interior’s authority to ensure 

the protection of historic resources on the campus exists independent of and prior to the 

specific terms of the cooperative agreement. Looking at the Armory from the perspective of 

the Property Clause, it is clear that the deteriorated condition of Buildings 5/6, 10, and 19 not 

only threatens physical harm to adjacent federal property but also frustrates Congressional 

policy for the park. That policy, as set forth in the authorizing legislation, is to “assure the 

historical integrity of the site”; according to the NPS Organic Act, it is to conserve its “historic 

 

199 Shepard, op. cit.: 512 (emphasis in original). 

200 660 F.2d 1240 (8th Cir. 1981): at 1251, n. 21. 

201 Gaetke, “Congressional Discretion”: 81-82, 390, and n. 52. 

202 Shepard, op. cit.: 514. 

203 Shepard, op. cit.: 514, 517. 

204 Bader, op. cit.: 201, 203. 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

197 

objects” and provide for their public enjoyment so as to “leave them unimpaired for the 

enjoyment of future generations.” The decay and possible destruction of Building 19 and 

other historic buildings – structures important enough to merit National Register and 

National Historic Landmark listing – is plainly incompatible with this policy. If it is found to 

be allowable under the cooperative agreement, then the agreement itself must fail to meet the 

statutory standard “to assure the historical integrity of the site” and thus must be incompatible 

with Congressional policy. But in fact, the decay of the historic buildings appears to violate the 

agreement as well as to frustrate Congressional policy. The agreement’s “intent and purpose” 

is to provide not only for “the Board’s administration of the Preservation Control Area” but 

also for “preservation of the historical integrity of that portion of the national historic site 

included therein.” It stipulates that the Board will “preserve the appearance of the exterior of 

the historic structures” within the Preservation Control Area.205 These are affirmative 

obligations. The severe deterioration of historic structures is incompatible with them. The 

Property Clause gives the NPS authority to ensure that these obligations are met. 

 At least in theory it does. Despite the “enormous” power – the power “without 

limitations” – of the Property Clause, there are many unresolved questions about how it might 

be applied in a case like the Armory. In Kleppe the Supreme Court observed that “the furthest 

reaches of the power granted by the Property Clause have not yet been definitively 

resolved.”206 One important question concerns the limits of federal authority to regulate state 

activities conducted on state land. Although the Circuit Court decisions following Kleppe 

affirmed broad federal power with respect to nonfederal land, the court noted in Block that 

the restrictions it upheld regulated the activities of private individuals – rather than the state 

itself – on state property. Moreover, it noted that federal regulation of state land might require 

a different analysis than that of state water.

207 Shepard and Bader have offered some guidance 

in exploring this territory. Shepard interpreted the Block decision to imply that “federal 

regulation of state land may, in some circumstances, constitute a regulation of the State as a 

State,” and he argued that the recent cases “cast doubt upon the power of a state even to resist 

a federal regulation of state activity.”208 In similar vein, Bader has written that “almost any 

state activity, even the most traditional of police power endeavors, fall before the Property 

Clause if the activity poses a significant impediment to federal land management objectives.” 

He cites a district court decision upholding the NPS’s refusal to permit the state of West 

Virginia to spray pesticides on state land within the New River Gorge National River without 

first obtaining an agency permit – even though less than ten percent of the area’s 63,000 acres 

is actually in federal ownership. He also notes that the perception of the federal government’s 

long extraterritorial reach has led some states to cooperate with the federal government in 

planning so as to avoid litigation later: as an example, Bader cites Alaska’s 1993 Wolf Predator 

 

 

205 1978 Agreement, Article I, and 1993 Memorandum of Understanding, Article I. 

206 426 U.S. 529 (1976): at 539, quoted in Gaetke, “Boundary Waters”: 166. 

207 Shepard, op. cit.: 529-531. 

208 Shepard, op. cit.: 531-531 (emphasis in original). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

198 

Figure 4.23. Building 19: 2009 (photo: author). 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

199 

Control Plan.209 The implication for the Armory is that, at a minimum, the mere threat of 

federal efforts to exercise the Property Clause power might encourage the State of 

Massachusetts to voluntary meet its preservation responsibilities. 

 A second problem concerns the distinction between natural and cultural resources. 

Previous Property Clause decisions have all concerned protection or access wild land and 

associated natural resources: the NPS has not yet employed it to protect cultural resources 

such as historic buildings, and its use at Springfield would be precedent-setting. As nothing in 

the Constitution, the decisions, or NPS policy explicitly limits the Property Clause power in 

this way, the reason may have more to do with agency culture, perhaps with a long-established 

habit of valuing the system’s natural resources more highly, or being willing to incur greater 

political risks to defend them. Yet historic resources need be regarded as step-children of the 

National Park Service. As early as 1889 Congress authorized the Department of the Interior to 

protect the ruins of Casa Grande. It authorized the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National 

Park to protect a Civil War battlefield the following year and through the Antiquities Act of 

1907 gave the executive branch power to declare historic and prehistoric structures national 

monuments – all before the National Park Service was established in 1916. Reorganizing the 

executive branch in 1933, Congress gave the service all of the national monuments, 

battlefields, and war memorials, thereby creating the modern park system. With the 

Preservation of Historic Sites Act two year later, Congress gave the NPS full authority to 

survey, document, restore, reconstruct, rehabilitate, preserve, maintain, commemorate, 

operate, manage, and interpret historic and archaeological sites and buildings. If the Property 

Clause power applies to wilderness protection and access, then presumably it applies also to 

the historic buildings of Springfield Armory. 

 A third problem at Springfield is the difficulty of countering demolition by neglect. It 

is relatively easy to enjoin the destruction of a historic building when it is intentional and 

sudden, involving bulldozers and wrecking balls. It is much harder to prevent destruction 

when it results from the absence of maintenance, when the loss of historic materials and 

features takes place gradually, and when the final collapse or conflagration appears to be 

accidental. Yet even in this situation there may be remedies. The Property Clause suggests that 

the NPS’s authority to protect park assets and carry out park policy at the Armory may not be 

limited to the terms of the cooperative agreement: if the agreement is not achieving its 

purpose, the NPS could impose regulations containing maintenance standards or expressly 

prohibiting demolition by neglect. It could seek an injunction to compel the college to seal if 

not restore Building 19. If the college and state prove unwilling to safeguard it, and if they 

neither need nor can use it for the educational purposes for which it was transferred to state 

ownership, then the NPS could seek to transfer the asset (and the burden of restoring it) back 

to federal ownership. The federal government could then stabilize the building and, if and 

when the college needs it, lease it back to the state. At a minimum, a serious federal effort to 

adopt these measures might help initiate the kind of negotiations described by Bader, and that 

could mean the difference between saving and losing park resources. 

 

209 Bader, op. cit.: 198, 200. 
Rehabilitating the Armory 

200 

 One reason the “full extent of the Property Clause’s reach” has not yet been 

determined, points out Robert L. Glicksman, is that “the government has been reluctant to 

assert it.”210 Former Associate Regional Director Charles Clapper explains that the officials 

responsible for parks are, and must be, extremely sensitive to the authority contained in the 

authorizing legislation,211 and absent a clear signal from Interior’s lawyers, that authority does 

not appear to extend to a vigorous assertion of the Property Clause power. Regarding that 

power, an NPS planner explains further that “it is not an authority that we use routinely, 

particularly if there are other solutions to an issue available”: it is reserved for “very serious 

inside or adjacent to the boundary issues”; it is “the remedy of last resort.” Still, he adds that it 

has been 

judiciously used by NPS in situations where there is a direct 

nexus between an action within the boundary or on adjacent 

lands with a resulting impact of real importance on the park, e.g., 

potential impairment of park resources or truly significant 

impacts affecting the visitor experience.212

Springfield Armory seems to meet this test. The campus lies within a congressionally 

authorized park boundary. There is a direct nexus between the decay of historic buildings and 

the impairment of park resources. Visitors have testified over the years to the effect of 

deteriorated buildings on their experience of the park. The problem is indubitably serious. 

Other remedies have not worked. While they might work in the future, for Building 19 

especially, time is running out. 

 

210 Robert L. Glicksman, Modern Public Land Law in a Nutshell (St. Paul, MN: Thomson/West, 2006): 47. 

211 Charles Clapper, recorded interview with author, March 24, 2009. 

212 Terrence D. Moore (Chief of Park Planning and Special Studies Northeast Region), email to Paul 

Weinbaum, April 21, 2009, shared with the author courtesy of the recipient. 
201

CHAPTER FIVE

THE COLLECTIONS

 The history of the Armory’s collections is the history of efforts, first, to grasp and 

describe them; second, to preserve them; and finally, to define their relationship to the 

Armory and the national park system as a whole. The difficulties stemmed in part from their 

sheer size and complexity. What did they contain? Should they grow? How should they be 

organized, exhibited, interpreted, and conserved? These challenges were heightened by 

several factors that made the Armory’s collections distinctive. Like many kinds of museum 

objects, the care and display of guns presented specific challenges, including the 

interchangeability of minute parts and the hidden damage from explosions and chemical 

residues. In addition, guns posed challenges that other museum objects did not, especially 

with regard to security, safety, and illicit copying. Guns also brought their own constituency, 

with its own expectations. The collections’ unusual history created further challenges: 

assembled by the Army for purposes quite different from those of a public museum, they 

brought traditions of connoisseurship and management which were quite different from 

those of the National Park Service. The resulting difficulties were exacerbated by the decade 

of relative neglect which preceded the park’s establishment. Further problems stemmed from 

the terms of the NPS’s agreement with the Army, which gave the Army continued ownership 

and influence without financial responsibility. 

 Finally, there were institutional challenges within the National Park Service itself. 

The NPS was not primarily a museum agency: though collections (some as important and 

challenging as the Armory’s) had played a prominent role at many parks since the agency’s 

earliest days, it was settled policy that they were subordinate to their sites and were to be 

managed accordingly, that is, with an eye toward supporting park goals rather than 

maximizing their own value.1

 Until the 1980s official policy was especially discouraging 

toward the acquisition of large archives – a major component of the Armory’s collections – 

and although the service was making significant steps towards building up and 

professionalizing its museum capacity, the agency’s position as a collections manager was 

significantly different from that of private sector museums or of the Smithsonian Institution. 

The Armory’s collections challenged NPS thinking on many points. Though they were 

 

1 For the history of museums in the NPS, see Ralph H. Lewis, Museum Curatorship in the National Park 

Service 1904-1982, Washington, DC, National Park Service, Curatorial Services Division, 1993 (online 

at www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/curatorship/toc.htm; consulted 12/08), and Ann 

Hitchcock, “NPS Museums 1904-2004," [2004], online at www.nps.gov/history/museum/centennial 

(Consulted 12/08). 
The Collections 

202 

rooted in the site, park staff on occasions argued that the collections’ importance 

transcended the Armory itself, that the park existed primarily for the sake of the museum 

rather than vice versa, and that the agency’s goal should be to preserve and develop the 

collection to its highest potential. 

 These questions have resonated through the Armory’s history as a national park. Did 

the park have adequate curatorial control over its collections? Did agency officials or park 

staff, conservators or gunsmiths, know best how to care for them? Should they be managed 

according to NPS policies, Armory traditions, or the aspirations of private museums? When 

should agency expertise override the expectations of U.S. Army? 

GAINING CONTROL OVER THE COLLECTIONS

 It was the sheer size of the collection that struck everyone first. The collection is “my 

primary responsibility,” wrote Chief Curator Arthur C. Allen in 1977 after a week spent 

“poking around and asking innumerable questions,”“and it poses an absolutely staggering 

problem stemming from its sheer bulk.”2

 The Collection Management Plan written that year 

said the same thing. Conserving the weapons would be a “monumental task,” wrote its 

authors, who included Allen: “the sheer numbers are staggering....” The collection’s storage 

and record-keeping needs were just as outsized. The effect on the park’s budget 

requirements was immediate. Though as yet no one knew for certain the collection’s “size or 

extent,” it was already clear that “the costs of curating the Springfield collection are going to 

seem enormous” – “higher than usually encountered” at national parks, which (the planners 

were careful to point out) the agency had made “abundantly clear” to Congress. The effect 

on staffing was just as evident. So “formidable” were the Armory’s curatorial requirements, 

wrote the planners, that “all parties must reconcile themselves that it will take many people to 

do the job.” To reach a “minimum standard,” the park would need a chief curator at GS-12 

level, a clerk/typist, a museum curator GS-9/11 and a museum specialist (conservator) at GS9/11 level, two museum technicians, a part-time museum aid, and an undetermined number 

of museum interpretive staff.3

 The Collection Management Plan written by the visiting experts in 1977 represented 

the agency’s first formal effort to grasp the situation, but everyone involved knew it was not 

enough. The planners recommended that a more detailed “Scope of Collection Statement” 

be drafted describing the collection’s contents and laying out policies for acquiring or 

deaccessioning objects. Like the Collection Management Plan itself, this recommendation 

reflected both agency policy and conditions at the park. Pressure on parks to define the 

scope of their collections had begun in the 1940s, motivated as much by a desire to control as 

 

2

 “Notes on Springfield Armory,” no signature, no date, [probably Arthur C. Allen, spring, 1977] 

(Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR Through 1988). 

3

 Division of Museum Services, Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory, March, 1977 

[prepared by Betsey Bradley, Barclay Rogers, Richard Rattenbury, Arthur C. Allen], pp. 4, 23, 42, 46. 
The Collections 

203 

to encourage their growth. In 1974 Arthur Allen, chief of the newly organized Division of 

Museum Services, called the regional curators into conference and obtained a consensus in 

favor of creating tighter statements of scope at every park. When this initiative met with 

bureaucratic resistance, the division began preparing collection management plans and using 

them to establish the scope of collections. In 1978, the preparation and approval of scope of 

collection statements was written into the agency’s management policies and in 1980, 

following Congressional scrutiny of the agency’s management of cultural resources, newly 

appointed Chief Curator Ann Hitchcock began to place high priority on the preparation of 

these statements.4

 At the Armory, the need to define the collections was acute. The collection 

management plan team had admitted that “No one is certain of the size or extent of the 

weapon collection at Springfield Armory.” It might contain ten to twelve thousand weapons, 

at least 30,000 “major museum objects,” perhaps over 100,000 items in total. In addition to 

guns made at the Armory, the plan listed several thousand modified or experimental parts of 

weapons, crew served weapons, over 825 edged weapons, “flags, uniforms, documents, 

military hardware, historical photographs, books, and historic furniture,” 10,000 or so 

miniature figures, the famous Organ of Muskets, and the Blanchard lathe.5 Before defining 

the scope of what the collection should have, Allen pointed out the new park would have to 

find out what it already possessed. That meant carrying out a thorough inventory. Later, it 

could progress to a catalog and, finally, to a list of conservation priorities.6

 In museum practice, inventories and catalogs are quite different things. An inventory 

is a list of what is physically present within the museum, based on actual inspection. A catalog 

is a more detailed description of each object in the collection, including information on its 

history, design, manufacture, current condition and whereabouts, and how it came into the 

collection. Unlike a catalog, which may require years of patient research, an inventory is 

relatively straightforward. There were reasons; however, why creating an inventory at the 

Armory was both unusually challenging and unusually important. One was the lack of 

reliable existing documentation. In the view of the agency’s Division of Museum Services, the 

Army had “demonstrated a colossal lack of interest in these weapons collections since 

leaving the site in 1968. No inventories, no conservation work, no memoranda of 

concern....”7

 Nor had the curatorial work performed by the Army before that date laid a 

strong foundation: the Army’s catalog was “incomplete,” its records “often incorrect...” a 

 

4

 Ralph H. Lewis, op. cit., pp. 293-295. 

5

 Division of Museum Services, Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory, March, 1977 

[prepared by Betsey Bradley, Barclay Rogers, Richard Rattenbury, Arthur C. Allen], p. 4. 

6

 “Notes on Springfield Armory,” no signature, no date, [probably Arthur C. Allen, spring, 1977], p. 5 

(Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

7

 Memo, Chief, Division of Museum Services (Arthur C. Allen) to Chief, Division of Reference 

Services, HFC, March 9, 1977 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 

1988). 
The Collections 

204 

NPS curator recalled some years later: “The Army cards are relatively useless.”8

 As for the 

non-profit museum which took over in 1968, it had been completely unable to fill the gap in 

basic collection management. 

 As the NPS surveyed the scene in 1977, then, the most recent inventory remained the 

one carried out by the Army as it hurriedly prepared to depart almost a decade earlier. That 

inventory formed the basis of the Bailment Agreement itemizing the objects to be loaned to 

the non-profit museum. And this agreement remained the basic object list for the park as well 

as the “controlling property list” for the Army’s chief of military history.9

 The agreement was 

not only flawed but outdated. And by 1977, Allen was virtually certain that at least fifty pieces 

listed therein had been lost, stolen, or misplaced.10 It was essential to find out exactly what 

was coming into the care of the National Park Service. 

 Other factors complicated the creation of an inventory. The second floor presented a 

“disorganized miscellany of weapons parts, exhibit materials, archival material, and 

furniture.”11 The Benton Collection was there, but so were smaller collections and individual 

pieces on loan, whose ownership was not in all cases clear. Upstairs there was even a “large 

collection of junk and broken furniture” which apparently belonged to nobody. Before an 

inventory could even be attempted, the entire second floor would have to be cleared out. 

 Later that year, a “hurried inventory” was carried out: it confirmed Allen’s suspicion 

that there were discrepancies with the Bailment Agreement.12 It also caused the first of 

several controversies over conservation that would roil the park. As Doug Lindsay recalled 

years later,13 Arthur Allen had persuaded the park’s first Superintendent Mohammed A. 

Khan to put each firearm in a sealed plastic bag as it was inventoried. Curator Bill Meuse 

objected strenuously, pointing out that the bags would create micro-environments in which 

moisture would build up and harm the objects. The disagreement ignited a “conflagration” in 

Boston: the regional office backed Meuse. 

 

8

 Comments of Don McTernan on second draft of CMP, attached to memo, Superintendent to Staff 

Curator, CMP Program, NAR, April 6, 1993 (SPAR Central Files: H1415). 

9

 Memo, Lindsay to Ann Hitchcock, February 24, 1986 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. 

Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

10 Memo, Chief, Division of Museum Services (Arthur C. Allen) to Chief, Division of Reference 

Services, HFC, March 9, 1977 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR Through 

1988). 

11 Division of Museum Services, Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory, March, 1977 

[prepared by Betsey Bradley, Barclay Rogers, Richard Rattenbury, Arthur C. Allen], p. 28. 

12 Junk upstairs: “Notes on Springfield Armory,” no signature, no date, [probably Arthur C. Allen, 

spring, 1977], p. 5 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR Through 1988). Clear out 

second floor: Division of Museum Services, Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory, March, 

1977 [prepared by Betsey Bradley, Barclay Rogers, Richard Rattenbury, Arthur C. Allen], pp. 33-ff. 

1977 inventory: no direct record of the inventory appears to survive, but it is referred to in memo, 

Lindsay to Ann Hitchcock, February 24, 1986 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial 

SPAR through 1988). 

13 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 
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205 

 “Words can hardly express the progress that has been made with the firearms 

collection since my last visit,” wrote Arthur Allen a year or so later. “No longer are all those 

fine rifles stacked in random piles in the dust and steam of a humid basement.” Except for 

the automatic weapons, the gun collection was “now in its rightful place, with good 

organization, on the second floor.” Books and archives were being organized in a library 

alcove on the second floor. The entire basement had been cleaned. Of course, much work 

still needed to be done “to continue with such an enormous collection: cataloguing, 

disassembly, cleaning, and restoration.”14 Now, however, reality began to impinge on 

planning, and in place of the logical sequence of steps which Allen had outlined, tasks began 

to be carried out simultaneously as need or opportunity dictated. Conservation work in 

particular was moved forward. By November, 1978, the park had almost completed a new 

preservation laboratory and waited only the signing of the interagency agreement with the 

Armory before beginning work on “cleaning, preservation and cataloguing.”15 Firearms were 

in fact being treated by the beginning of 1979, driven partly by the long-term needs of the 

collection as a whole but partly also by the short-term pressure of plans for new exhibits: the 

controversies over their treatment are discussed below.16

 While trying to establish curatorial control over the collection, the Armory was 

simultaneously expanding it. Doug Lindsay recalls that he came to the Armory in 1978 with 

the assumption, later modified, that “the park was all about the collection.”17 This had not yet 

been formally defined through a scope of collection statement, and there was a general 

understanding that it was a “live” collection – that is, it would grow through acquisitions. 

Lindsay talked with a Colonel Brophy about donating his rifle collection, one of the best in 

the world; even the National Rifle Association, strapped for funds in the wake of 1960s 

antagonism to guns and facing the possible closure of its museum, considered donating its 

collection to the Armory. One major accession was made. In 1979, the region agreed to 

accept the Victor A. Friend Collection as a gift from Tufts University: it had “special 

relevance to the history and development of firearms” as presented at the Armory, where 

indeed it had been stored on loan since before the NPS took over. Before approving the gift, 

the university’s trustees had to assure themselves that conditions imposed by the original 

donor would not be violated. An early version of the donation agreement gave the university 

 

14 Memo (“Trip Report”), Chief, Division of Museum Services, to Regional Director, NAR, August 7, 

1978 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum 

Exhibits). 

15 Memo, Superintendent (Lindsay) to Chief, Branch of Museum Services, HFC, November 2, 1978 

(Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

16 W. Meuse, “Work Sequence for Cleaning, Treating and Cataloguing Objects in Curatorial 

Laboratory,” draft, January 3, 1979: copy in David H. Arnold (comp.), “A Concise History of 

Preservation at SPAR,” (first written 2001; version updated to September 11, 2003) (Conservation 

Department Files – Binder: Preservation at SPAR) (henceforth referred to as Arnold, Conservation 

binder). 

17 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 
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206 

the right to inspect the collection periodically, but the NPS (some of whose professional staff 

had unsuccessfully opposed a similar provision in the Army agreement) persuaded Tufts to 

drop this clause. The final agreement, in Regional Curator Edward Kallop’s words, gave a 

“slightly freer hand” to curatorial staff: in fact, it gave the NPS “complete responsibility” for 

the collection’s care and display while binding the agency to “maintain and preserve the 

collection in the best interests of the collection and of Springfield Armory National Historic 

Site,” and to maintain its catalog records in the Armory’s permanent file, “according to the 

standard museum records practice of the National Park Service.”18

 The park’s collecting activities were not universally supported. Conservator Edward 

McManus, who encountered the park during the summer of 1979, shortly before his arrival 

in the regional office, recalls that the collections were changing shape “haphazardly,” without 

a clear plan. On the one hand, they were growing through acquisitions of modern weapons 

that were not very selective, while the case could at least be made that the collection should 

be closed, or at least narrowly focused on weapons produced at the Armory. On the other 

hand, park staff wanted to get rid of some objects, like Japanese armor, that had long been 

part of the Armory’s collection. McManus regarded this lack of clear direction as one of the 

major problems related to the collection in the park’s early years.19

 Meanwhile, the need to establish basic curatorial control over the collections 

remained pressing. One complicating factor was the presence of numerous items that the 

Army had simply left behind. Though not part of the collection the NPS was not authorized 

to discard them because they still belonged to the Army. In 1983, the Army’s Historical 

Services Division made arrangements to have the Tennessee National Guard send a truck to 

pick up some of them. Others were transferred to the US Army Depot in Pueblo, CO, or 

allocated to other Army museums: to the Nebraska National Guard Historical Society, the 

Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor at Fort Knox, KY, the National Infantry Museum at 

Fort Benning, GA, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, OH, and so forth. Included 

were such items as 20mm. automatic guns, rifle mounts, a linker delinker, tripods, electric 

drives and feeders, sight mounts, instrument lights, several Russian guns, a German recoil 

assistor [sic], some French and Japanese armor, and a nose cannon for a World War I French 

airplane. A few items were marked for disposal, such as a screwdriver handle and a wooden 

target.20

 Despite these withdrawals, many of these items remained, and it was not until 2000 

that a new interagency agreement gave the park “‘daily custodial care,’” of objects which the 

 

18 Letter, Kallop to Joseph J. Lambert (Overseer and Secretary to the Corporation, Tufts University), 

May 21, 1979; and (special relevance and agreement terms) [DRAFT] “Donation Agreement Between 

Board of Trustees Tufts University and National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior,” n.s., 

n.d., preamble and Secs. 3-6 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

19 Edward McManus, recorded interview with author, March 25, 2009. 

20 Letter, David L. Lemon (Colonel, MPC, Chief, Historical Services Division), to Lindsay, August 24, 

1983 (SPAR Central Files: A4415 Interagency Agreement...Army). 
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207 

Army had “‘abandoned on site.’” Even this did not end the confusion caused by noncollection objects: the following year, assuming the detritus stored on the third floor was part 

of the Armory museum, NPS Chief Conservator Sara Wolf criticized the park for neglecting 

its collection.21 The fact that the Armory by this time was also using the third floor to store 

collections of discarded objects for other parks only added to the confusion. 

 NPS policy required annual inventories of all museum collections, but the large 

number of firearms imposed a special burden at Springfield. For most collections, a 

statistically valid sample was considered sufficient, but not for firearms: as “controlled 

property,” these had to be fully inventoried every year.22 In addition, the interagency 

agreement gave the Army the right to demand a complete inventory of the Benton collection 

(now renamed Accession 2) anytime it wished. And it regularly exercised this right. When it 

did so in 1984 the park had difficulty responding: the processes of accessioning and 

cataloguing, as well as the actual records, were “somewhat scattered at present.”23

 Nonetheless, Lindsay recalls that the park had gained “control of the collection” by 

about that date.24 His major tool for doing so was computer cataloging. About 1982, the 

regional office invited three parks to take part in a pilot program in which, through a contract 

with a company called Data Point, each would receive a desktop computer and database 

software. Lindsay, who had a background in computer work, volunteered. He had a 

cataloging program designed and found a high school student to do the keypunching. He and 

Bill Meuse designed a computerized record card which would facilitate the immediate 

recording of each object’s essential registration data while postponing the remaining 

cataloging information until later. 

 Meanwhile, the NPS was taking important steps towards cataloging its collections. As 

early as the 1930s, the agency had begun seeking to standardize park museum records, 

introducing a service-wide record system in 1956, but it was not until 1977 that funds were 

authorized for a national catalog.25 Now in 1984, responding in part to Congressional 

pressure to demonstrate accountability in caring for cultural resources, the agency 

introduced new Service-wide cataloging standards. All parks would be required to adopt a 

new computerized catalog format: each park’s catalog would be entered into a national 

computer database known as the Automated National Catalog System, or ANCS. Initially, 

 

21 Emails, Wolf to Arnold, March 1, 2001, and Arnold to Wolf, March 9, 2001 (copies in Arnold, 

conservation binder, nos. 57, 58). 

22 Memo, Regional Director, NAR, to Superintendents, January 28, 1993, with attached cover memo, 

Superintendent to Acting Regional Director NAR, October 28, 1993 (SPAR Central Files: H1817 

Acquisitions, Gifts, Loans (Accessions)); and National Park Service, Cultural Resource Management 

Guideline, Release No. 5, 1997, Ch 9, D.3.a. 

23 Ann Hitchcock (Chief Curator, Curatorial Services Branch, WASO), “Trip Report, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site (SPAR), July 20, 1984”) (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. 

Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

24 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 

25 Ralph H. Lewis, op. cit., pp. 208, 257, 304. 
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208 

this created new complications for the Armory, for although Lindsay had sat on the ANCS 

steering committee from about 1982, and Chief Curator Ann Hitchcock had approved of the 

park’s work, the Armory’s computerized catalog card did not match the new agency 

standard: it had been designed for compatibility with the Army Property Book and the 

Bailment Agreement. Moreover, by 1984 Meuse and his department had completed (and had 

filed at the Harpers Ferry Center) no fewer than 2,700 catalog cards in the Armory’s new 

format, corresponding to about one quarter of the weapons collection, and had entered 

another 3,000 records into the computer in the same format. The problem of converting the 

park’s catalog entries to the ANCS standard now arose: though Lindsay requested help in 

1984, the work of conversion would extend over many years.26 In 1988, an updated version 

of ANCS was installed on a computer at the park,27 but as of 1991, about 2,500 objects were 

still catalogued in pre-ANCS format, while more than half of the collection remained entirely 

uncataloged. Warning that the situation might constitute a violation of legal requirements for 

collections responsibility, Acting Superintendent Lowenthal called for a “major project” to 

catalog the remainder and update the non-conforming records.28 Even so, only about 2,500 

objects were cataloged in the current ANCS format as of 1999.29

 Meanwhile, the need for regular inventories created its own problems. In October 

1985, the park finished registering the objects in Accession 2 (the Benton Collection) but – as 

Allen had predicted – found discrepancies with the Bailment Agreement of 1968. In fact, five 

new discrepancies had appeared since the “hurried inventory” of 1977. Curator Stuart Vogt 

discussed the “accountability problem” with the Army’s chief curator and tried to work out a 

“complete and final resolution” of the discrepancies. In essence, the NPS wanted the Army to 

agree that its listing of accession 2 was “complete and accurate” and accept it as the “official 

property list,” replacing the obsolete Bailment Agreement. But the Army said it could do 

nothing before certain staff changes took place the following year.30 The problem remained 

unsolved and the inventory burden continued. In 1988-89, the staff took advantage of the 

museum’s temporary closure to carry out a “comprehensive inventory and reorganization of 

 

26 Chief Curator’s praise: Ann Hitchcock (Chief Curator, Curatorial Services Branch, WASO), “Trip 

Report, Springfield Armory National Historic Site (SPAR), July 20, 1984. “Armory format and 

cataloging progress; memo, Doug Lindsay to Ed Kallop, n.d. [dated in pen, November 29, 1984] 

(Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

27 Memo, Manager, Collections Accountability Project (Linda A. Towle) to Chief, Division of Cultural 

Resources, January 13, 1989 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989). 

28 Resource Management Plan, prepared by Larry Lowenthal, approved by Acting Regional Director, 

May 21, 1991 (SPAR: Central Files: D18 (filed loose)). The plan does not state the number of objects 

cataloged in ANCS format. 

29 Resource Management Plan, Springfield National Historic Site, prepared by Randall l. Ross, facility 

manager, recommended by Superintendant Beatty, February 1, 1999, p. 5 (SPAR Central Files: D18 

1999 Resource Management Plan). The plan does not state the number of objects remaining 

uncataloged in ANCS format. 

30 Memo, Lindsay to Ann Hitchcock, February 24, 1986 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. 

Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 
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209 

the collection..., some 9000 items.” They made a big push to correct poorly maintained 

records for both the Army and the Tufts collections, the museum’s two major accessions. 

And in February, 1990, with new Curator Don McTernan now in charge, the effort 

concluded with the report that two weapons from the collection could not be accounted for: 

in addition, two reproductions, not technically part of the collection but stored with it, were 

missing.31

 Given the size of the collections and the years of uncertainty surrounding its 

contents, this could be considered a successful outcome. Nevertheless, the inventory process 

had revealed new problems, some of which could not be blamed on the Army: the previous 

curator had made “many confusing and incomplete entries in the accession book” and had 

entered “incomplete documentation in the accession folder.” The park needed to upgrade its 

own techniques for receiving and recording accessions.32

 After the 1991 inventory, Superintendent Beatty remarked to the regional director 

that the annual inventory constituted an “ongoing problem” for the park. The problem, of 

course, was the “inordinately high” number of controlled objects in the collection – 6,157 

specimens, according to the 1993 inventory. In view of the Armory’s “minimal staff 

situation,” it was an understatement to say that the inventory was a “labor intensive 

exercise.”33 Beatty proposed to replace the annual complete inventory with monthly 

random-sample inventories carried out throughout the year. The region’s response was 

encouraging, and the last complete physical inventory of controlled property was carried out 

in 1993: it required two people working for three months. Monthly random inventories were 

started in 1995 and transferred to ANCS+, the updated version of the national catalog 

system, in 1997.34 Even then, however, the Army continued from time to time to demand 

item-by-item inventories of Accession 2 and sometimes insisted on their completion as a 

precondition for carrying out its own responsibilities, as in 1998, when it refused to renew 

the loan agreement until a new inventory had been carried out.35

 The burden of updating the inventory has thus remained unusually onerous for the 

Armory, complicated both by the Army’s continued involvement and the special 

requirements imposed by guns. Yet by the 1990s park staff had attained a level of curatorial 

 

31 Memo, Superintendent, SPAR, to Regional Director, NAR, March 23, 1990 (Charlestown: Regional 

Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 

32 Memo, Regional Curator (John Maounis) to Chief, Division of CRM, March 30, 1990 (“Trip Report, 

March 21, 1990”) (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 

33 Beatty: memo, Superintendent (Beatty) to Regional Director, NAR, October 1, 1992 (SPAR: Central 

Files: H1415); specimens: Inventory of Museum Property, with attached cover memo, Superintendent 

to Acting Regional Director NAR, October 28, 1993 (SPAR: Central Files: H1817 Acquisitions, Gifts, 

Loans (Accessions)); encouraging: memo, Regional Curator, NAR, to SPAR Superintendent, August 16, 

1993 (SPAR: Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 

34 Management Officer [Frank Seng], NPS, Washington, DC, Management Review of the Springfield 

Armory, June 25, 1998, p. 7. 

35 Letter, Judson E. Bennett, Jr., to Roberts, May 4, 1998 (SPAR: Central Files: A-4415 MOU). 
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210 

control over the collection far higher than that enjoyed at the park’s establishment. Even 

some lingering uncertainties have been resolved. One concerned outstanding loans to other 

institutions. In 1988, Larry Lowenthal wrote to request the return of objects which the Army 

had loaned to the Smithsonian years earlier.36 The inquiry was inconclusive, but by 2000 

Washington officials had concluded that these objects should remain at the Smithsonian and 

that efforts to retrieve them should be dropped.37 More troubling than outstanding loans 

were stolen weapons. In 2003, the park announced proudly that the FBI had recovered an 

extremely rare and valuable 1839 Musketoon stolen from the Armory in 1958. This was the 

“first recovery of a number of antique weapons stolen from the Museum” that year: a park 

press release noted that “many other weapons” had been stolen during the collection’s 

history as an Army museum. Had the collection’s previous owner been a private collector or 

not-for-profit museum, the NPS might have been tempted to write off such losses. But there 

was no statute of limitations on the theft of property from the federal government, and so the 

list of stolen items was equivalent to a list of open cases. In 2003, the park announced that it 

was actively seeking a number of missing weapons, including 7 carbines, a derringer, a 

musket, two single-shot pistols, six semi-automatic pistols, five revolvers, a rifle-musket, a 

submachine gun, and a cavalry saber.38

THE LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE

 Though it was the gun collection that dazzled them, NPS staff recognized from the 

outset that the museum contained much more. The library and archive had “survived by 

chance,” in the sense that no specific provision for papers and books had been made when 

the Armory closed. By that time, the Army had already sent many of its historical records to 

the National Archives in Washington, DC. so that what remained in Springfield was “by no 

means complete or continuous.” It may have been material that was simply left behind, or it 

may have been material that was judged to be non-archival, that is, not scheduled for transfer 

to the National Archives. In any case, what the NPS encountered in 1971 was whatever had 

been “hastily gathered in by the museum curator when the Army left Springfield,” and it had 

hardly been arranged or cataloged due to the lack of staff time. Still, it was an important 

repository, containing a significant part of the Armory’s collection of maps and drawings, 

some technical reports, important manuscript collections including those of John C. Garand 

and John D. Pederson, a general reference library, a “sizable collection of army manuals,” a 

 

36 Letter, Larry Lowenthal to Edward Ezell (Curator, Military History, Smithsonian), October 27, 1988 

(SPAR Central Files: H1415). 

37 According to Sara Wolf (recorded interview of December 2, 2008), who cites this decision as an 

important element in the briefing she received in 2000 from Chief Curator Ann Hitchcock before 

undertaking the Armory’s new Collection Management Plan. 

38 First recovery: letter, Cuillard to Hon. Richard Neal, September 9, 2003; the rest: News Release, 

“Historic Firearm Returned to Armory Museum,” September 26, 2003 (SPAR Central Files: A82 FBI 

Recovery of antique stolen SPAR firearm). 
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211 

“working photo collection,” and “technical movie films and oral history interviews, 

emphasizing former employees.”39

 The library and archive posed distinct challenges. On the one hand, encountering the 

park in 1977, Arthur Allen called the reference library “inadequate” and proposed a program 

to acquire essential publications. On the other, he believed that it was the “rather large 

collection of rare books and drawings stored upstairs” – and not the guns – that posed the 

museum’s most pressing maintenance and preservation priority.40

 Though it later became less uncommon, the presence of such a large archival 

collection in a park museum was still somewhat anomalous in 1977. “The Park Service as a 

rule approached the collection of archival and manuscript materials with cautious restraint,” 

notes Ralph H. Lewis in his study of NPS museums. The agency’s Museum Handbook, 

published in 1967, pointed out that the “special staffing and facilities” required by large 

archives went “beyond the proper functions of the Service.” As a result, large collections of 

papers, even when closely associated with sites, were frequently lodged at nearby libraries or 

historical societies. Lewis cites the examples of the Adams NHS (donated to the NPS in 

1946), whose associated papers went to the Massachusetts Historical Society, the SaintGaudens Memorial (authorized in 1964), whose papers went to the Dartmouth College 

Libraries, and Hubbell Trading Post (authorized in 1965), whose papers were deposited on 

loan to the University of Arizona Library following their donation to the NPS in 1970.41 The 

Armory’s archive is not without parallel: the papers at Edison NHS (home designated in 

1955, laboratory proclaimed in 1956) are even more extensive. Another parallel sometimes 

cited is the large collection of documents, drawings, and photographs associated with the 

Olmsted family of landscape designers and housed at Olmsted NHS. But this site was not 

authorized until 1979, five years after the Armory’s authorization and a year after its 

establishment: moreover, the NPS had expressed great reluctance to acquire the Olmsted 

archive. At the agency’s request, the legislation authorized it to turn the management of the 

archive over to an outside group, and the agency continued to seek one for a year before 

finally accepting the burden of running it. At the Armory, little attention appears to have 

been given to the archive ahead of authorization: although the planners used it for research, 

the draft master plan of 1971 did not discuss its care, nor was its ultimate disposition 

considered as part of the legislative debate. 

 Once it had captured their attention, the library and archive never left the minds of 

park staff or agency planners. By 1984, the staff was engaged in a three-year project to 

 

39 Encountered in 1971: memo, Frank B. Sarles, Jr. (Staff Historian) to Chief Historian, May 4, 1971 

(Washington Office, Park History Files: fol. SPAR, Correspondence 1967-75); remaining quotations: 

“Access Policy for Research Library & Use of the Small Arms Collection,” effective October 1, 1991 

(Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: SPAR CMP). 

40 Notes on Springfield Armory,” no signature, no date, [probably Arthur C. Allen, spring, 1977], p. 5 

(Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

41 Ralph H. Lewis, op. cit., pp 275-276. 
The Collections 

212 

inventory the photo collection and improve its storage.42 Four years later, Superintendent 

Lindsay could report that 24,492 individual items, or 70.5 linear feet of archival material, had 

been catalogued.43 In 1991, Larry Lowenthal noted the need for roughly $15,000 to conserve 

historic photographs. An agenda of “problems/issues SPAR would like to see addressed” by a 

new Collection Management Plan, prepared at roughly the same time, listed “library 

collection issues” alongside the park’s buildings as areas of special concern. In preparation 

for the Armory’s bicentennial, in fact, the park was planning to appeal to the community for 

documents, so that “this collection may increase dramatically....”44 In 1994, the top three 

priorities identified by Superintendent Beatty for regional Museum Collections Preservation 

and Protection Program (MCCP) project funding concerned the cataloging and preservation 

of the archive’s historic photographs, maps, and drawings.45 By 1999, the majority of the 

archival collection had at least been lot catalogued, at least apart from the photographs.46 In 

2000, the Northeast Museum Services Center launched a Photograph Collection 

Documentation Project, coupling park funds with Backlog Cataloging Funds from 

Washington: this would involve processing and entering into the national computer database 

about 5,600 photographs produced between 1930 and 1968. It was the fourth and final phase 

of a multi-year project to catalog the photograph collection.47

 The high priority accorded the archival collections by park staff and agency officials 

had important consequences for the museum’s organization and management. In 1990 

Steven Ourada, heading a collections accountability team, noted that the Armory differed 

from most parks “in that the research collection has grown apart from the museum collection 

and now stands alone.”48 The archive did indeed stand apart, with its own deed of gift and its 

 

42 Ann Hitchcock (Chief Curator, Curatorial Services Branch, WASO), “Trip Report, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site (SPAR), July 20, 1984” (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. 

Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

43 Memo, Superintendent (Lindsay) to Regional Director, NAR, Year End Report for FY88 Cataloging 

Money, September 21, 1988; and (award) memo, Regional Director, NAR (Herbert S. Cables, Jr.) To 

Superintendent, February 16, 1988 (SPAR Central Files: H1415). It appears that a regional award of 

$2,500 to “Finish Cataloging Historic Collections” was used for this purpose. 

44 “Problems/issues SPAR would like to see addressed during CMP visit,” n.d. (Charlestown: Regional 

Curator Files: folder: SPAR CMP). 

45 Memo, Supt to Regional Director NAR, May 26, 1994 (SPAR Central Files: H1817 Acquisitions, 

Gifts, Loans (Accessions)). 

46 Resource Management Plan, prepared by Larry Lowenthal, approved by Acting Regional Director, 

May 21, 1991, p. 17 (SPAR Central Files: D18 (filed loose)); and Resource Management Plan, Springfield 

National Historic Site, prepared by Randall l. Ross, facility manager, recommended by Superintendent. 

Beatty, February 1, 1999, p. 5 (SPAR: Central Files: D18 1999 Resource Management Plan). 

47 Task Directive (Northeast Museum Services Center), “FY 2000 Photograph Collection 

Documentation Project,” prepared by Michelle Ortwein, Curator, April 5, 2000 (approved, signed and 

dated by Cuillard, Vietzke, April-May, 2000) (SPAR Central Files: H1817 Acquisitions, Gifts, Loans 

(Accessions)). 

48 Memo, Archivist, Collections Accountability Team, NAR (Steve Ourada), to Regional Curator, NAR, 

April 25, 1990 (“Trip Report, April 12, 1990”) (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial 

SPAR 1989 –). 
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213 

own reporting line, for unlike the museum staff, who reported directly to the superintendent, 

the library reported to the park historian. A major staff reorganization in 1992 resolved this 

inconsistency, simultaneously expanding the Museum Services Division and splitting it into 

two sectors, a Collection Division and a smaller Library/Archive Division, both reporting to a 

new chief or museum curator.49 

 This change responded both to the library and archive’s importance within the park 

but also to a number of problems which Steven Ourada, now carrying out a regional initiative 

to evaluate archival holdings, listed that year. Some were internal: non-historic mingled with 

historic material, none of the library collections entered into ANCS, a general lack of indices 

and finding aids, no clear listing of archive and manuscript collections. Others were 

structural: the park’s governing documents did not adequately address the library, which 

lacked a mission statement, scope of collections statement, and policy documents controlling 

access, acquisitions, and deaccessions. Yet other problems were procedural: in the absence 

of clear, agency-compliant policies, accession decisions were made by discussion, with 

Historian Lowenthal having the final say. The problem was not the quality of the decisions, 

for the staff was highly knowledgeable: it was that, without clear guidelines, that quality 

could not be dependably replicated, nor could decisions be defended from an “appearance 

of subjectivity.” Moreover, noted Ourada, the current library system depended on the 

“accumulated knowledge of the staff,” a reservoir of intuitional memory which had never 

been codified in documents. “Clear, concise guidelines,” he urged, “composed and refined 

through discussion, [sic] and practice are basic elements of strong institutions whether they 

be museums, libraries, or archives. Additionally, these materials must be accounted for 

according to NPS policy.”50 Obviously the reorganization could not solve all of these 

problems, but it might at least foster better coordination with the other parts of the museum. 

Nevertheless, Lowenthal opposed the move. Seeing it mainly as an imposition of a new 

management layer, he argued for the “continued independence of the library”: what both 

branches needed, he urged, was “more technical help.”51

 Though many challenges remained, great progress had been made by the mid-1990s 

towards gaining curatorial control of all the collections. In 1977, museum planners had 

confessed to uncertainty about what the collections contained. By 1993, a synopsis could list 

the contents with fair precision: 

 

49 Reorganization Plan for Springfield Armory National Historic Site, n.d., with cover memo, 

Superintendent to Regional Director, April 13, 1992 (SPAR: Regional Curator Files: folder: SPAR 

CMP). 

50 Memo, Regional Archivist, NAR (Steven Ourada), to Acting Regional Curator, NAR, March 6, 1992 

(concurred by Chief, Division of Cultural Resources and ART, Planning & Resource Preservation, 

March 19, 1992), pp. 4-5 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: SPAR CMP). 

51 Memo, Regional Archivist, NAR (Steven Ourada), to Acting Regional Curator, NAR, March 6, 1992 

(concurred by Chief, Division of Cultural Resources and Associate Regional Director, Planning & 

Resource Preservation, March 19, 1992), p. 6 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: SPAR 

CMP). 
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214 

 • History collection: 10,850 objects; 

 • Archival collection: 2,350,000 items; 

 • Archeological collection: 3,768 items; 

 • Objects on display: 1,267.52

While tabulations of the collection continued to vary,53 and archival cataloging continued to 

prompt some controversy, it seems safe to say that agency staff no longer felt broad 

uncertainty over the collection’s scope and contents. 

ARCHEOLOGY AT THE ARMORY

 The presence of an archeological collection at the Armory may come as a surprise. It 

did not arise from the Armory’s mission but rather from the need to comply with the 

National Historic Preservation Act, which required an archeological investigation to be 

carried out whenever federally permitted construction work disturbed the soil of a property 

listed on the National Register. In the case of national parks, whatever emerged from the 

trenches and test pits would be added to the park’s collection. Rather than being a 

consciously assembled collection, then, or the product of a campaign of archeological 

excavations carried out for research purposes, the Armory’s archeological holdings were the 

result of salvage archeology: material unearthed during a series of construction projects 

beginning in 1980. 

 In 1980-81, the NPS proposed to provide new gas service to Buildings 1 and 13, as the 

existing steam system was judged to be unreliable and possibly unsafe. The new line was to 

follow the exact route of the existing utility lines, so that little or no impact on archeological 

resources was anticipated. A few months later, however, the agency proposed installing new 

electrical lines to Buildings 1 and 13 as well. This time, though a “minimum of ground 

disturbance” was anticipated, 23 shovel test pits were dug along the proposed 650-foot route 

of the proposed line. The excavators looked for evidence of any structures, for example of 

the schoolhouse, ice house, greenhouses, or residences known to have existed at one time, 

but found none “except for utility-related pipes and drains.” Although they did retrieve 

cultural material from the pits, this proved to be a jumble of eighteenth and nineteenth 

century fragments, leading the excavators to conclude that the material had been brought 

onto the site along with topsoil used for fill. They concluded the utility trench would have no 

 

52 Draft data sheet, December 16, 1993 (SPAR Central Files: H1415). 

53 For example, the NPS’s “Museum Centennial 1904-2004" website lists the Armory’s total collections 

at 530,416 items. The discrepancy is likely due to different methods of counting archival items. For the 

sake of consistency, this figure is used below for the purpose of comparison with other NPS 

collections, for which the same source is used. See www.nps.gov/history/museum/centennial/index 

(consulted 12/08). 
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215 

significant impact on cultural resources. The State Historic Preservation Officer concurred 

with the agency’s determination.54

 After the survey was completed, the excavated material was shipped to the Denver 

Service Center where it was analyzed and an Excavation Report published. The following 

year the fragments, now reconstituted as a “collection,” were returned to the Armory, where 

they entered museum storage as Accession No. 46. Meanwhile, regional mandates relating to 

archeology were growing stricter. In 1981, the region’s Division of Cultural Resources 

launched an Archeological Collections Management Project, intended to “catalog and 

reorganize archeological collections within the NPS system in a standardized and systematic 

manner.” And in 1985, as part of a region-wide collections accountability project, program 

staff undertook to determine the number of uncatalogued archeological collections held at 

each of the region’s parks. The Armory was judged to have one of the region’s “small and 

well documented collections” and was not regarded as a serious problem. Nevertheless, in 

May, 1988, the 641 artifacts excavated from the electric line survey were taken out of storage 

and shipped for further processing to the Eastern Archeological Field Laboratory at the 

Charlestown Navy Yard outside Boston. The result was a new report, written in 1990, which 

restated the conclusions of the 1982 report while correcting a few small errors.55 

 The park soon confronted a more serious archeological problem than any presented 

by the 1981 survey. In 1984, anticipating major construction on Building 13, the Denver 

Service Center retained American University, under an existing cooperative agreement, to 

carry out an archeological survey in order to locate and avoid disturbing any “remnants of 

physical development and activity areas....” Research, to include not only digging but also 

ground penetrating radar, maps, and secondary sources, was completed by August 1984. 

Eleven out of twelve test plots yielded “significant cultural deposits,” including evidence of 

two structures north of the Arsenal dating from c. 1820 and 1833. The researchers concluded 

that Colonel Ripley’s decision to import a good deal of fill had preserved cultural features by 

burying them. The placement of the Main Arsenal’s proposed new drainage system would 

“seriously impact” some of these features.56

 

54 Letter, Charles P. Clapper (Associate Regional Director, Planning & Resource Preservation) to 

Patricia Weslowski, Executive Director MHC, February 9, 1981, memo, Clapper to Superintendent, 

March 2, 1980; letter, Clapper to Weslowski, June 18, 1981; memo, Associate Regional Director to 

Superintendent., July 27, 1981 (all SPAR Central Files: H42 106 Review Windows/Sash); Kathleen W. 

Fiero, Archeological Survey of a Proposed Electrical Line Corridor, Springfield Armory National Historic 

Site, Springfield, Massachusetts, Denver Service Center, Branch of Cultural Resources, MidAtlantic/North Atlantic Team, Denver, CO, April, 1982 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Reference 

Collection). 

55 Louise M. DeCesare, Archeological Collections Management at the Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site, Massachusetts, ACMP Series No. 6, Division of Cultural Resources Management, North 

Atlantic Regional Office, 1990 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Reference Collection). The information on 

the ACMP is taken from p. [1]. 

56 Existing agreement: modification to Cooperative Agreement with American University, July 2, 1984 

(Charlestown: CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR - Pkg. 103 Archeology...); intent and methods: 

“Agreement [sic] No. 9 to Cooperative Agreement CA-2000-4-0001 between National Park Service and 
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216 

 In compliance with the region’s Archeological Collections Management Program, an 

Excavation Report was drafted in 1987, as the Denver Service Center prepared to catalog the 

resulting collection, estimated at no less than 11,000 artifacts.57 But the program quickly 

unraveled. American University archeologists had estimated that only 2,000 artifacts would 

need curation, leading to a significant budget shortfall which the extra work imposed by the 

agency’s adoption of ANCS only compounded. There were far worse problems. The artifacts 

and records were stored in American University’s basement lab; the lab flooded; everything 

had to be moved, not once but twice. Some artifacts, a great many field records, and all of the 

photographs were destroyed. On top of that, the Denver Service Center accused the project 

archeologists of squabbling, exercising poor supervision, keeping inadequate field notes, and 

possibly committing errors in excavation. Project personnel kept changing. Finally, there 

were problems of analysis: American University’s archeologists insisted that certain small 

pieces of flint were rare and important Paleo-Indian artifacts, whereas the Denver Service 

Center’s experts believed they had positive evidence that they were nothing more than old 

gun flints. The find would be important if genuine; if not, an embarrassing blunder. When the 

university archeologists refused to back down, the DSC had to “forcibly remove” the 

assertions from the final report.58

 “It is obvious,” concluded Lindsay in 1989, “that this was a study incompetently 

performed and a contract incompetently administered.” He suggested leaving it in draft 

form, “not finalized or ‘approved.’”59 No copy was found during the research for this 

administrative history. 

 After this, archeology proceeded more uneventfully at the Armory, stirred only by 

the college’s last-minute requests for building permits. In 1991, an archeologist from the 

region’s Archeology Branch monitored the excavation of a 320-foot long gas main trench 

crossing both college and NPS property. She saw two historical features: steam pipes at the 

west end of the trench and a brick sewer capped with red stone at the east end. Only one 

artifact was found: “a heavily corroded, square-head, cut nail (1840-1885).” It was “not 

 American University”, signed and dated July 2, 1984 (SPAR Central Files: A 4415 Cooperative 

Agreements); findings: Richard R. Sacchi (Staff Archeologist, Department. of Anthropology, American 

University), Interim Report, Archeological Investigations, Springfield Armory National Historic Site, 

Package No. 103), August, 1984 (Charlestown: CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR - Pkg. 103 

Archeology...). 

57 Louise M. DeCesare, Archeological Collections Management at the Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site, Massachusetts, ACMP Series No. 6, Division of Cultural Resources Management, North 

Atlantic Regional Office, 1990, p. 2 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Reference Collection). 

58 Memo, Staff Archeologist, DSC-EAA (Dana C. Linck), to Chief Eastern Applied Archeology, DSCEAA, n.d. [August 25, 1989] (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). See 

also memo, Staff Archeologist, DSC-EAA (Dana C. Linck), to Chief Eastern Applied Archeology, DSCEAA, August 27, 1989 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 

59 Memo, SPAR Superintendent Lindsay to Regional Director, NAR, August 7, 1989 (Charlestown: 

Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 
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217 

recovered.”60 In 2000, archeologists at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst 

conducted archeological testing for proposed utility lines and a playground on the campus 

and, on federal property, for proposed communication lines and repair work on the Byers 

Street gate. They found no native artifacts, no significant archeological deposits or features.61

DEFINING THE COLLECTION

 The reorganization of the Armory’s collections clarified the management 

relationships among them. But the museum posed more fundamental questions. What were 

the nature and purpose of the collections? What was their relationship to the site? What 

public should they serve, and how? 

 Addressing these questions, the Collection Management Plan of 1977 used a striking 

term: “arms library”62 This was a concept the NPS inherited from the museum that preceded 

it, and to the agency’s planners it mainly meant that the collection should be “broad in scope 

and encyclopedic in content.” Thus they warned against “dilution...into a typical war 

museum collection.”63 But when in 1981 Superintendent Lindsay posed a sharp choice – 

“Museum versus Library of Arms” – it became clear that what was at stake was more than the 

collection’s scope. Before the NPS took over, according to Lindsay,64 visitors often came to 

the museum with the express purpose of taking the guns apart in order to study them, 

sometimes even taking parts home with them. And the museum had supported this practice. 

“The Park position on this issue is quite clear,” added Lindsay: “The collection has been here 

at Springfield Armory for over a century, and during that entire time it has been used as a 

reference collection – a library of arms.” Visitors still came from all over world, wanting to 

use the collection “as a reference source,” and these visitors were a key part of the Armory’s 

public. 

They come to look, to handle, to study, to disassemble, to photograph, to look for 

interior features or markings, to measure or to compare. They do not want to look at the 

pieces through glass – they want ‘hands on’. In essence, they wish to use the collection as it 

 

60 Leslie A. Mead, “Archeological Monitoring of a Gas Main Trench, Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts,” NPS, Archeology Branch, Cultural Resources Center, NAR, 

Boston, December, 1991 - (Charlestown: CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR: 1991 Archeological 

Monitoring...). 

61 Timothy L. Binzen and Margaret Kelly, “Archaeological Site Reconnaissance and Intensive 

(Locational) Survey for Proposed Utility, Steam, and Communication Lines and Other Construction at 

the Springfield Armory, Springfield, Massachusetts,” December, 2000 (SPAR Central Files: H42 

Section 106 Bldgs 5/6, 11). 

62 Division of Museum Services, Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory, March, 1977 

[prepared by Betsey Bradley, Barclay Rogers, Richard Rattenbury, Arthur C. Allen], p. 7. 

63 Division of Museum Services, Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory, March, 1977 

[prepared by Betsey Bradley, Barclay Rogers, Richard Rattenbury, Arthur C. Allen], p. 7. 

64 Memo, Lindsay to Kallop, September 2, 1981 (copy in Arnold, conservation binder, no. 32). 
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218 

has always been used – for reference. Adding that the Army required the collection to be 

available for study, he hinted that the NPS might not be able to restrict this traditional 

practice.65

 At stake, then, was an idea of the collection which Lindsay believed the park had 

inherited along with the museum’s traditional public of gun enthusiasts. This idea differed in 

important ways from the norm within the National Park Service, or indeed among 

professionally accredited museums, few if any of which would have allowed their valuable 

objects to be handled this way. NPS museums shared the profession’s belief that assuring the 

preservation of valuable artifacts was a primary responsibility. But they also added some 

particular views on the role of museums within the parks. Since the 1920s, NPS policy had 

declared that collecting should be focused on the geographic area of the park and limited to 

objects needed to tell the park’s story, or to illuminate the features for which it had been 

established.66 To define the collection as a library of arms was simultaneously to subordinate 

the museum’s preservation function to its public service role and to detach it from the park’s 

interpretive or exhibition needs. This was what Lindsay seemed to be advocating. 

 The library idea, and the tinkering that went along with it, may have inspired Lindsay 

to make another proposal. Precisely because guns are delicate mechanical assemblages – and 

because those assemblages contain explosions which sometimes damage or destroy them – 

many valuable firearms were in lamentable condition. But tinkering could fix them. “... [W]e 

are badly in need of parts for the older weapons,” wrote Lindsay in 1978 – screws, sights, 

barrel bands, and so forth, with which to repair damaged or incomplete specimens. It was 

hard to find parts on the market, but Lindsay pointed out that many NPS units “have what 

are commonly known as ‘junkers’ in their study collections” – weapons too badly damaged to 

use or restore, good only for “canibalization [sic] of parts to restore other weapons of a like 

pattern.” Why not, he proposed, ask “all National Parks (not just military ones)” to transfer 

their junkers and surplus weapons to the Armory in order to help with the “restoration of 

vital pieces in our display collection”? The Armory could serve as a clearinghouse, which 

would have the added advantage of relieving the parks of a “curatorial burden.”67 In fact, 

Arthur Allen had made a similar proposal the previous year, when he suggested designating 

the Armory as a service-wide place for parks to send living-history weapons for annual 

repair, cleaning, and swapping of parts as necessary.68 Regional Curator Edward Kallop liked 

Lindsay’s proposal and, in November 1978, passed it along to the Division of Museum 

 

65 Memo, Lindsay to Kallop, September 2, 1981 (copy in Arnold, conservation binder, no. 32). 

66 Ralph H. Lewis, op. cit., see esp. p. 292. 

67 Memo, Superintendent Lindsay to Chief, Branch of Museum Services, HFC, November 2, 1978 

(Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

68 “Notes on Springfield Armory,” no signature, no date, [probably Arthur C. Allen, mid-March, 1977], 

p. 4 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 
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219 

Services at Harpers Ferry with his endorsement; receiving no response, he repeated his 

recommendation a month later.69

 For an agency with well over a hundred museum collections, the idea of a 

clearinghouse had an obvious attraction. Yet the timing of the Armory proposal was 

unfortunate. The clearinghouse idea had first emerged within the NPS in 1940 with a 

proposal to circulate lists of natural specimens, either desired or excess, among the parks. It 

resurfaced in 1959 with a proposal to assign clearinghouse functions to the regional curators, 

who would match up the lists of wanted and excess objects and stimulate exchanges. This 

was what would now be called a virtual clearinghouse, in that it would never contain any 

objects: rather, the specimens would move directly from park to park. But the agency also 

had experience with physical storehouses for unwanted objects. Thus in 1937 the curator at 

Colonial National Historical Park, having skimmed off the few guns he wanted from a 

donated collection of over a hundred, sent the rest to the agency’s Eastern Museum 

Laboratory in Washington. This function was expanded and regularized in 1966, when the 

temporary move of central museum staff to offices in Springfield, Virginia, opened up new 

storage space. Parks soon began to send unusually large items there, and the repository 

became known as the Museum Clearing House. In 1978, it was moved to Harpers Ferry and 

placed under the Division of Museum Services. This was just the moment when Lindsay and 

Kallop made their proposal and early the following year the chief of Museum Services ruled 

against it, arguing that it would duplicate functions the division was already providing.70

Ironically Ann Hitchcock, the newly created chief curator, would halt the acceptance of 

surplus objects three years later, as a prelude to terminating the Clearing House’s role as a 

repository.71

 By then, Lindsay’s view of the Armory collection was changing. He himself would 

reject the library of arms idea, concluding that “the less [physical] contact people had with 

that collection, the better off we were.”72 The reason was security. “The real problem with 

gun buffs,” Lindsay had learned, “is they love guns.” Specifically, Lindsay had discovered 

that one of the things that happened when gun lovers took weapons home with them was 

that they did not come back in the same condition – or at all. The same characteristic of guns 

that made a parts repository feasible was causing a recurrent and serious problem with the 

collection: the replacement of unique experimental parts – a key feature of the collection for 

scholars – with “plan vanilla” substitutes. Visitors even attempted to make switches within 

the museum. In fact, Lindsay now understood that the collection had been significantly 

damaged by the virtually “unfettered access” offered for a decade by the Springfield Armory 

 

69 Memos, Ed Kallop, November 21, 1978, and December 26, 1978. (Charlestown: Regional Curator 

Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

70 Memo, Chief, Division of Museum Services to Regional Director, NAR, February 22, 1979 (copy in 

Arnold, conservation binder, no. 21). 

71 Ralph H. Lewis, op. cit., pp. 279, 298-302. 

72 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 
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220 

Museum. Thus he began to clamp down on public access to the guns. When the new museum 

opened, he “made provision for one small room with a bare desk, no cabinets and no 

drawers; two chairs.” A staff member would bring in a single weapon at a time and would 

remain with the researcher. 

 By the late 1980s, written rules codified the new, restrictive access policies.73 They 

explicitly discouraged general reading in the library and archive and controlled research 

tightly as well. The rules required researchers to make appointments well in advance, to state 

precisely which weapon they wished to examine and why, and to estimate the time needed 

for their research. Museum staff would evaluate each request individually, and the outcome 

would depend on all of these factors, plus the fragility of the requested specimen. Once at the 

Armory, researchers would have to work at all times under the “direct supervision” of a 

professional staff member. To prevent damage to internal parts, disassembly was forbidden. 

Removing catalog tags for photography was forbidden. Taking detailed measurements of 

Class III weapons was forbidden. The implicit promise of open access, which Lindsay had 

found being practiced at the park and had initially accepted, thus gave way to the assumption 

that the objects had to be protected from visitors. 

 The rejection of the library of arms idea could also be seen in the park’s conservation 

programs, discussed below, and in the design of its permanent exhibition. The new 

exhibition was, first and foremost, a reaction against the old displays, with their “case after 

case of guns.”74 But because it took so much longer than anticipated, its development 

followed a double arc, first tracing the evolution of Lindsay’s thinking about guns, people, 

and the park, and then a devolution driven by cost cutting. 

 Arriving at the Armory, Lindsay recalls that his first impression was that “the park 

was all about the collection.... If we had designed that park the year I got there, it would have 

been wall-to-wall guns, trust me.”75 But after studying the Armory’s history and talking with 

Larry Lowenthal and others, he “realized that the important story...was actually the 

industrial side, and the role of a national armory in bringing the new nation into a local 

community.” And so by 1983, exhibit planners had decided to supplement the mandatory 

displays of guns with “interpretive exhibits,” custom-built U- or L-shaped structures 

presenting the armory’s history, relating the “manufacture of particular arms to military 

 

73 “Interim Statement of Policy Governing Access to and Use of the Small Arms Collection,” no 

signature, no date, (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988); 

“Research Library, Access Policy,” n.d., and “Interim Statement of Policy Governing Access to and Use 

of the Small Arms Collection,” n.d., both attached to memo, Staff Curator, SPAR (William E. Meuse), 

to Superintendent, SPAR, December 7, 1989 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial 

SPAR 1989 –). 

74 [Draft] General Management Plan, Development Concept Plan, Environmental Assessment, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site, 1984, p. 3 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. GMP/DCP Drafts & Final 1979-

84). 

75 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 
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221 

events.”76 The themes included the evolution of military small arms, the history of the 

Armory, the manufacturing process, the “Genius of Springfield Armory” (e.g. 

interchangeable parts, mass production, the Blanchard lathe, and so forth), “Freaks and 

Oddities” (weapons deformed by accident, or simply “odd guns”), and the “Toy Soldier 

Collection.” Outside the main exhibit space, graphics mounted on the landing of the great 

tower stair would show its use as a loading dock, and “point out that the building could 

house 300,000 muskets.”77

Figure 5.1. View of the permanent exhibits in the Main Arsenal (photo: author). 

 The exhibit designers did not forget the collection’s traditional public, the “gun 

buffs.” The point of the Freaks and Oddities display was to demonstrate “good gunmanship.” 

And in addition to the “interpretive exhibits” there would be “display exhibits” 

incorporating the historic gun racks (or perhaps replicas) and satisfying the enthusiasts who 

 

76 Memo, Chief, Division of Exhibit Planning and Design, HFC (Johnsson) to Superintendent, April 20, 

1983 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum 

Exhibits). 

77 Memo, Chief, Division of Exhibit Planning and Design, HFC (Johnsson) to Superintendent, April 20, 

1983 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum 

Exhibits). 
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222 

came to see “case after case of guns.” The information desk would have a “wood surface that 

will not damage the rare weapons shown to visitors,” while a “comfortable lounge area” 

adjacent to the desk would accommodate “those persons who accompany the gun buffs, but 

are not themselves interested in guns.”78 Lindsay recalled the plan as a tripartite scheme: a 

“soft side” which “told the interesting stories about the institution and the people who 

worked in it;” a “hard side,” where a thousand or so weapons were displayed for the “gun 

nuts”; and, separating the two, a “lounge...for the poor wives and girlfriends who had to sit 

there for two hours while their buddies went to the gun nut section.”79

 In the end, budgetary pressures defeated Lindsay’s hopes for ambitious computer 

animations and videos: “the cost ran us into static, typical glass cases...,” he recalls, and the 

final installation came to look like a conventional museum display. In the end, the exhibits 

placed less emphasis on the site’s industrial history than the 1983 plan proposed, and more 

on the evolution of weapons. On the other hand, some of the concessions to the gun 

enthusiasts were also dropped. The lounge area remained, but guns would not be presented 

to visitors on the wooden counter. And apart from the Organ of Muskets there would be no 

open gun racks. The exhibit had remained largely in the mold of a gun collection. But it was 

no longer a library of arms. 

 Twenty years after the museum’s reopening in 1989, Lindsay rated the exhibits 

“about as good as you could do under the circumstances.” At the time, he was “delighted to 

report that the reception has been entirely favorable....” The local papers were 

complimentary, as they had been of his makeshift temporary exhibits in 1986. “It is such a 

great relief,” continued Lindsay, “to know that we have succeeded in finding the appropriate 

level of interpretation for such a technical and potentially dry subject.”80 Still, satisfaction 

was not universal: some arms enthusiasts complained that not all of the weapons were on 

display, and that the cases hid one side of the guns.81

 By the time of the reorganization in 1992, the museum/library of arms question had 

been effectively settled: the Armory’s collections would be treated according to museum 

standards. But the guns continued to present some special museological challenges. One was 

the danger they posed. Lindsay was surprised by the number of loaded guns he and his staff 

found in the collection: it was a “very scary” situation.82 “The very first thing to be done with 

an artifact is to MAKE SURE IT IS UNLOADED,” directed the park’s Artifact Preservation 

 

78 Memo, Chief, Division of Exhibit Planning and Design, HFC (Johnsson) to Superintendent, April 

20, 1983 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of 

Museum Exhibits). 

79 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 

80 Memo, Superintendent to Manager, HFC, October 2, 1989 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, 

Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 

81 Statement for Management. Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts

[February, 1993], (copy lacks signatures on recommended (Superintendent) and approved (Regional 

Director) lines), p. 11(SPAR Central Files: A6419: Statement for Management). 

82 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 
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223 

Guide in 1987.83 Even in 1992, after almost fifteen years of NPS stewardship, museum staff 

still called for a “systematic and complete search for loaded weapons in storage.”84 Loaded 

guns might also enter the museum from outside, since visitors sometimes brought their own 

weapons in order to compare them with a museum specimen or discuss them with a curator. 

The practice was forbidden, but given the nature of guns and their collectors, Management 

Officer Frank Seng concluded in 1998 that it was probably inevitable. A metal detector 

caught most guns at the entrance; panic buttons were installed at the front desk and in the 

research room in 1992. Still, given that it was probably impossible to keep all guns out of the 

building, Seng believed the real challenge was to distinguish potential troublemakers from 

harmless rule breakers.85

 The mechanical intricacy of guns, which both necessitated and allowed the swapping 

of parts, posed other curatorial challenges. The relative ease with which their working parts 

could be modified or even replaced made it especially important for curators to attend very 

closely to their details. This was particularly true of the Armory’s collection, which contained 

experimental or developmental weapons whose minute yet significant distinctions were 

nearly invisible. To the museum expert (or visitor) nourished on Impressionist paintings or 

baroque tapestries, guns were often difficult to distinguish from one another. But as one 

expert reported after examining the collection, “These weapons are highly individualized.”86

In order to reduce the confusion created by repairs made with available spare parts, Regional 

Curator Maounis recommended in 1990 that all gun parts be individually catalogued. 

Following standard NPS policy he also recommended cataloguing reproductions as museum 

property, not to elevate their value but simply to create an unequivocal record for future 

museum staff.87

 The practice of copying was another potent source of confusion. Art museums 

traditionally admitted copyists because copying the works of great artists was recognized as 

an essential part of artistic training, and it is extremely difficult to pass off a copy of a 

Rembrandt or a Renoir as a genuine work. Copying guns is different. One problem is that it 

may produce an illegal weapon, since with sufficient information a determined gunsmith can 

convert a gun copied from a legal semi-automatic into an illegal automatic weapon. To avoid 

complicity in such illegal conversions, the park moved its automatic weapons into the high-

 

83 “Springfield Armory NHS: Artifact Preservation Guide,” 1987 [attributed By David Arnold to 

William Meuse], n.p. 

84 Draft Action Plan, for inclusion in final CMP, attached to memo, Janice Hodson to Steven Beatty, 

November 4, 1992 (SPAR Central Files: H1415). 

85 Panic button: Draft Action Plan, for inclusion in final CMP, attached to memo, Janice Hodson to 

Steven Beatty, November 4, 1992 (SPAR Central Files: H1415); the rest: Management Officer [Frank 

Seng], NPS, Washington, DC, Management Review of the Springfield Armory, June 25, 1998, p. 12. 

86 Memo, “SPAR Weapons Survey,” Bart Rogers to Regional Curator, NAR, May 26, 1992 (SPAR 

Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 

87 Memo, Regional Curator (John Maounis) to Chief, Division of CRM, March 30, 1990 (“Trip Report, 

March 21, 1990”) (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 
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224 

security storage area in the basement and forbade visitors from drawing or measuring them.88

A second problem is that copying can lead to the proliferation of unauthorized 

reproductions or fakes. In 1989, Staff Curator Meuse asked for guidance about the growing 

number of requests for access “from people whose obvious intention is to create a fake of a 

valuable collector’s item.” He gave the example of a man who admitted that he wanted to 

measure a rare and valuable Trapdoor Marksman Rifle (worth $40,000) in order to upgrade 

his “normal run-of-the-mill” Trapdoor (worth $200) and sell it – without disclosing the 

weapon’s history – for a substantial profit.89

 The NPS recognized this problem as early as 1977, when Museum Services chief 

Arthur Allen noted that it was getting harder and harder to distinguish the authentic guns 

from the fakes. The problem had developed during the previous decade, when many 

companies began making reproductions. As a solution, Allen proposed to invite all 

manufacturers to “place one example of everything they make on deposit here at Springfield 

so that in essence we will have a ‘sealed pattern’ of each such specimen.” This would not only 

help future park curators to identify fakes but would also provide a “ready reference of 

reproduction military hardware” for other parks organizing “military living history 

programs.”90 More than a decade later, however, Meuse proposed a different solution. “Just 

as we should have no complicity in the making of illegal automatic weapons,” he told John 

Maounis, “I feel that we should have no complicity in the production of faked weapons of 

great value.” Before the NPS arrived, Meuse noted, the measuring and copying of weapons 

had simply not been allowed (a statement that seems to conflict with Lindsay’s idea of the 

collection as a library of arms). Though he understood that a public museum could not 

restrict access in this way, what he really wanted was a basis on which to do so. Supervisory 

Curator Don McTernan agreed.91 But little could be done. Chief Curator Ann Hitchcock 

suggested requiring researchers to stamp their reproduction parts. Regional Curator John 

Maounis suggested requiring them to sign an agreement stating that they would not modify 

weapons based on their research at the Armory. The best that could be hoped for, in his view, 

was to discourage misuse: it could not be prevented.92

 

 

88 Memo, Regional Curator (John Maounis) to Chief, Division of CRM, March 30, 1990 (“Trip Report, 

March 21, 1990”) (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 

89 Memo, Staff Curator, SPAR (William E. Meuse), to Superintendent, SPAR, December 7, 1989 

(Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989). 

90 “Notes on Springfield Armory,” no signature, no date, [probably Arthur C. Allen, mid-March, 1977], 

p. 4 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

91 Memo, Staff Curator, SPAR (William E. Meuse), to Superintendent, SPAR, December 7, 1989, with 

annotation by McTernan (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989). 

92 Memo, Regional Curator (John Maounis) to Chief, Division of CRM, March 30, 1990 (“Trip Report, 

March 21, 1990”) (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 
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CONSERVATION AT THE ARMORY

 Of the many dimensions of the Armory’s museum work, conservation was perhaps 

the most strongly affected by the special requirements of guns. Twice during the Armory’s 

history within the NPS, its conservation programs became the subject of serious controversy. 

And on both occasions a central question was whether the conservation of guns should 

follow different standards than that of other museum objects. 

 From the beginning, conservation at the Armory was recognized as “a monumental 

task”: as the Collection Management Plan remarked in 1977, “The sheer numbers are 

staggering....” Two years later, Arthur Allen confirmed that the Armory had a “massive 

weapons conservation problem”: at least 15,000 objects “require constant conservation 

care.” Museum planners called for “individual” and “highly organized” treatments, including 

“special techniques” and controls to prevent the interchange of parts. They recommended a 

specific sequence of steps for each object: first, examine, photograph, and produce a 

condition report; second, disassemble and record hidden markings; third, remove corrosion, 

reassemble, and apply catalog number. At an average of two days per weapon, the planners 

estimated that to apply this minimal treatment – which did not include any allowance for 

serious conservation problems – to the entire weapons collection would require almost one 

hundred man-years of labor. Yet, many of the guns needed attention immediately in order to 

arrest deterioration. The “most logical approach to future conservation work,” they 

recommended, would be to “establish a preservation treatment laboratory on site.” 

Equipping one would cost almost $35,000.93

 By 1978, as we have seen, the park had a laboratory, and conservation work was soon 

going forward under the direction of Curator William Meuse. This was not, however, a fully 

equipped, modern conservation lab. According to Lindsay, the first lab was little more than a 

rudimentary workspace on the first floor of the Main Arsenal, where visitors could observe 

the curators working.94 This was “not a good idea,” he recalls, largely because of security 

concerns, and so he had the shop moved to the basement. Even then, Conservator Ed 

McManus recalls that it “wasn’t a conservation lab” but rather a “collections maintenance 

facility.”95 That was well and good, but within a year the work being done there was sparking 

controversy, especially with Arthur Allen. Meuse and Allen strongly disliked each other 

personally.96 But Allen’s objections reflected the trend to professionalize conservation which 

 

93 Allen: Memo, Chief, Division of Museum Services, HFC (Arthur Allen), to Regional Director, NAR 

(attn: Regional Curator), March 12, 1979 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, 

Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits); planners: Division of Museum Services, 

Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory, March, 1977 [prepared by Betsey Bradley, Barclay 

Rogers, Richard Rattenbury, Arthur C. Allen], pp. 23-24. 

94 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 

95 Edward McManus, recorded interview with author, March 25, 2009. 

96 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 
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was underway within the agency and with which Allen was closely associated. Influenced by 

developments at the Fogg Museum in Boston, the NPS had begun to adopt the new scientific 

methods of object conservation at the end of the 1940s and waged an internal campaign of 

professionalization throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The Division of Museums had set up 

centralized conservation laboratories at the Harpers Ferry Center in 1970, and the operation 

had enjoyed steady growth in staff and budget, by 1979 reaching eight professional 

conservators and two conservation technicians, plus support staff, operating in no less than 

seven specialized labs. That year, Allen recognized the enterprise’s importance by creating a 

Branch of Conservation Laboratories at Harpers Ferry. Meanwhile, professional 

conservation work was spreading throughout the agency, with the establishment of a 

conservation lab at the Western Archeological Center in 1977 and the appointment of metals 

conservator Edward McManus as objects conservator for the North Atlantic Region shortly 

afterwards.97 McManus arrived in Boston as an “advocate for conservation,”98 and an 

energetic one. He organized two-week training courses for park staff, called “The Critical 

Eye,” promulgated conservation standards, visited parks throughout the region, and helped 

those with the most critical needs complete conservation assessments of their collections. 

 For Allen, part of the problem in Springfield was that Meuse, though “an outstanding 

curator of firearms,” was neither trained nor titled as a conservator.99 The fact that he was 

treating objects represented a threat to the efforts he and McManus were making to 

professionalize the field. Given the collection’s “paramount importance,” Allen argued, “its 

care must not be relegated to someone who is not professionally trained.” Even the 

conservation lab should wait until a trained metal conservator was in place. McManus recalls 

that he too was disturbed by the situation: beyond the professional impropriety, he thought 

the park was placing too much emphasis on treating individual specimens – for example, 

every weapon in the Organ of Muskets – and not enough on gaining curatorial control and 

assuring high preservation standards for the collection as a whole.100 In addition, McManus 

was disturbed by the potential for conflicts of interest with Meuse’s personal activities as a 

gun collector, a situation he calls “ethically incorrect.” There was a further problem: 

according to Allen, the core responsibility of a curator was to create and maintain a catalog: 

giving the Armory’s imperative need to gain control over the collections, “nothing, repeat 

nothing, can be more important than cataloguing everything on hand....” In view of Meuse’s 

expertise, Allen was prepared to allow “some relaxation of the usual separation between 

curatorial and conservation duties,” yet he also had substantive concerns about Meuse’s 

 

97 Ralph H. Lewis, op. cit., pp. 342 ff. 

98 Edward McManus, recorded interview with author, March 25, 2009. 

99 Memo, Chief, Division of Museum Services, HFC (Arthur Allen), to Regional Director, NAR (attn: 

Regional Curator), March 12, 1979 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, 

and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 

100 Edward McManus, recorded interview with author, March 25, 2009. It is not clear whether the 

concerns McManus recalls arose in 1979 or somewhat later. 
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conservation method. That method, as former Superintendent Doug Lindsay recalls, was to 

disassemble the weapon, wash down the metal parts in a soapy solution, and allow them to 

dry in a warm area. Meanwhile, Meuse would wipe down the wooden stocks with cleaning 

rags and a little alcohol.101 After reviewing Meuse’s work, Allen wrote, “I no longer can 

support such cleaning operations as I observed.” Though some recently cleaned muskets 

“look very good, there could be problems.” Unable to get a clear answer as to what the stocks 

had looked like when new, he suspected Meuse had over-cleaned them, removing their 

patina and drying out the wood. McManus recalls having the same concern. All in all, Allen 

believed the park was facing an emergency, and with Lindsay’s agreement, he proposed to redescribe an existing staff vacancy as a Metals Conservator/ Museum Specialist (GS 9/11), and 

to fill the position as quickly as possible.102

 Allen’s memo reverberated. Lindsay called it “snotty.” But Regional Curator Kallop 

was not so sure. He dispatched conservator Edward McManus (based for a few more 

months in Washington) to the Armory to report on conditions there.103 Meanwhile Meuse, 

opposed to hiring a new metals conservator, mounted a spirited defense of his own 

approach, consulting with other curators and informing Lindsay of their support for his 

position. Bob Fisch, curator at West Point, reportedly told him what the museum needed was 

not another chief but “more ‘Indians,’...more bodies with just plain muscle for elbow grease 

and not too much in the brains department.” Emil Schnorr of the George Walter Vincent 

Smith Museum in Springfield reportedly told Meuse, “You are the Curator, and you make 

the decisions.”104 Later that fall, McManus reported to Kallop that he saw no evidence of 

over-cleaning, that “most of the metal appeared to be in excellent condition...,” that the 

cleaning treatments he observed were mild and “commendable in this circumstance,” and 

that the staff showed “sensitivity and appreciation for the collection.” McManus described 

Meuse’s work as “essentially a house keeping procedure. The fact that it is well planned and 

carefully executed also makes it excellent conservation.”105

 

101 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 

102 Memo, Chief, Division of Museum Services, HFC (Arthur Allen), to Regional Director, NAR (attn: 

Regional Curator), March 12, 1979 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, 

and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 

103 Memos, Supt (Lindsay) to Regional Curator, NAR, June 15, 1979 (SPAR: Regional Curator Files: fol. 

Curatorial SPAR through 1988), and Ed Kallop (NAR Curator) to Lindsay, June 12, 1979 (SPAR 

Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 

104 Memos, Curator, SPAR (W. E. Meuse) to Superintendent, June 15, 19, and 19, 1979 (SPAR Central 

Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). The other 

expert was Craddock Goigns, head of the Military History Section of the Smithsonian. 

105 Memo, Edward McManus (conservator) to Edward Kallop, November 16, 1979 (SPAR Central 

Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). In an 

interview thirty years later, McManus did not recall this memorandum but did remember being 

concerned about “harsh treatment” of the weapons, including the use of sand-blasting equipment and 

the consequent damage to or removal of original coatings on metal surfaces. (Recorded interview with 

author, March 25, 2009). 
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228 

 From Superintendent Doug Lindsay’s perspective, it was also necessary 

conservation.106 He approved the work on the assumption that the new permanent 

exhibition would be installed much sooner than in fact proved to be the case, and in the 

belief that roughly a thousand guns – in addition to the roughly six hundred comprising the 

Organ of Muskets – would have to be cleaned and conserved very quickly. As the staff 

worked their way through the guns, they found severe problems: guns fired and never 

cleaned, guns suffering internal corrosion, guns still loaded. Meuse’s solution, essentially a 

simplified version of NPS practice, was designed to process a large number of guns quickly 

and safely. Meuse did not actually do most of the work himself: that was done by another 

curator, Joe Polcetti, who had been inherited from the Springfield Armory Museum, Inc., 

and by Rich Harkens, an instructor at the college who was adept with all things mechanical 

and whom Lindsay hired part time at the park. The work was done in the basement 

laboratory until the Main Arsenal was vacated for rehabilitation in 1987, at which time 

Lindsay had the kitchen of the Commanding Officer’s Quarters fitted up as a temporary 

workshop.107

 Many years later, Conservator David Arnold would conclude that Allen had been 

right about over-cleaning and drying of wood. Yet, in retrospect, Lindsay defended Meuse’s 

treatment: given that the stocks had mostly been treated with linseed oil, rubbing them down 

with a little alcohol “to take off the wax and dust residue” did not seem to be a big problem. 

Besides, there was the looming deadline of the new exhibition to consider. And no one – 

neither Harpers Ferry nor the regional office – was offering to take the burden off the park’s 

hands. 

 McManus’s positive assessment put the controversy to rest. But disagreement 

returned in 1981 when Lindsay proposed to advertise for a gunsmith. Again Kallop consulted 

with McManus, now working for the regional office. And he endorsed McManus’s position, 

which was that any action that significantly affected the condition of an object “in a museum 

collection” was, by definition, a form of “conservation,” and that conservation was practiced 

by professional conservators – not by gunsmiths. What made conservators preferable was 

not necessary better training or ability but rather their obedience to a professional code of 

ethics that stressed their “obligation towards the physical integrity of the object.” Meuse’s 

work also once again came under fire. Though the curator had written commendably of 

“‘minor repair or restoration work,’” Kallop had heard him talk of 

‘cannibalizing’ which falls under ‘restoration’ but which in actuality, if I’m 

right, is taking a part from one weapon and adding it to another. This 

 

106 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 

107 Doug Lindsay, recorded interview with author, March 19, 2009. 
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procedure disturbs conservators since in the process the integrity of the first 

piece is sacrificed to create what then is no longer an ‘original’ artifact.108

 Kallop urged the park to “concentrate on preservation maintenance,” which Allen’s 

Division of Museum Services also emphasized. But Lindsay replied heatedly, reminding 

Kallop of the chaotic way in which conservation and cataloging had evolved at the Armory. 

Given its history, Meuse was “providing basic weapons maintenance” to the collection. “The 

only time we have replaced missing parts or effected any repairs has been if such was 

absolutely necessary to insure the continued integrity of the piece” or to put together a 

complete specimen for display. As for cannibalizing, the museum had accumulated a vast 

number of “junkers,” given to the museum for no other purpose than to be taken apart for 

spare parts.109 It was in this context, significantly, that Lindsay argued for treating the 

collection as a library of arms: in support, Lindsay pointed to the special nature of guns, 

traditions of collecting, and the Armory’s history; on the other side, the agency responded 

with references to accepted museum practices and agency norms. 

 Given the controversies that surrounded conservation work at the Armory, it is 

reasonable to ask why the regional office did not help the park prepare a conservation 

assessment, the new tool that McManus was popularizing. The reason seems to be that many 

park collections were in far worse shape. McManus explains that he could carry out no more 

than one or two per year and that the priority was based on need.110 With many park 

collections in the care of rangers who had no training whatsoever and for whom collections 

management represented but one responsibility among many, the mere presence at the 

Armory of a recognized expert like Meuse immediately put the park in a higher bracket. 

Moreover, compared to some other park collections, the weapons at Springfield were in 

relatively good condition and despite concerns over cataloging and preparation of 

inventories, many parks enjoyed far less control over their collections. 

 After 1981, controversy again subsided. Subsequent assessments of the park’s 

conservation work were consistently complimentary. One was carried out in 1987, when 

McManus reported that the park’s staff was “very skilled and knowledgeable. Their 

equipment, materials and techniques meet professional standards” – an important point 

because most of the objects to be included in the planned new exhibits were scheduled to be 

treated at the Armory. A second assessment occurred in 1989, when Regional Curator John 

Maounis visited the Armory for the first time. “Bill Meuse has been stabilizing the weapons 

for some years,” he wrote. “His approach is very conservative, appropriately so. The 

treatments are well documented. His expertise should be made available to other curators in 

the region.” Maounis even suggested that the region should ask Meuse to teach a training 

 

108 Memo, Ed Kallop, NAR, to Doug Lindsay, August 5, 1981 (copy in Arnold, conservation binder, no. 

31). 

109 Memo, Lindsay to Kallop, September 2, 1981 (copy in Arnold, conservation binder, no. 32). 

110 Edward McManus, recorded interview with author, March 25, 2009. 
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230 

session as part of one of its training courses. “In any case, I will certainly call on him for 

advice with weapons collections.” A third assessment took place in 1992, as part of a fouryear project to survey the condition of collections throughout the North Atlantic Region. 

After physically handling about two percent of the weapons and casually viewing about 80 

percent of the remainder, museum official Bart Rogers had some criticisms: a “recurrence of 

dust, dirt, corrosion, oil and grit” in many objects, imperfect housekeeping, and minor lapses 

in storage conditions. But on the whole, Rogers concluded that the collection had “fared well 

since coming under the NPS umbrella.”111

 Meuse left the Armory about 1989. His conservation functions were not replaced. 

Upgrading storage conditions, an example of the kind of preservation maintenance favored 

by Allen and McManus, was the only conservation item included in the park’s 1993-94 list of 

major collection needs. Once a looming challenge, conservation appeared to have moved far 

down the official list of concerns. An assessment carried out six years later described the 

collection’s condition as generally “good,” despite humidity in the basement and the lack of 

air conditioning on the second floor. All 1,200 exhibited items had “received careful 

preservation treatments.” The remaining 7,000 guns were “clean, and most have internal 

preservation coatings.”112

 Despite this generally positive assessment, in 1992 Bart Rogers urged the region to 

carry out the recommendation of the 1977 Collection Management Plan by hiring a 

conservator to perform “continued cyclical maintenance....A collection of this magnitude 

needs a specialist devoted to caring for the collection.”113 And in the summer of 2000, David 

Arnold arrived at the park as its first professionally trained conservator. Arnold brought a 

new eye to old issues, including the conservation methods of the Meuse era. He described 

Meuse’s 1987 treatment recommendations as being “out-of-date as of 2001 review – 

especially cleaning.” He believed Arthur Allen had been right in 1979. In Arnold’s view, 

Meuse had ignored advice and “and as a result ‘skinned’ a large number of guns in the 

collection...” – that is, gone beyond cleaning off surface dirt to remove much of the patina of 

age, as well as original finish, from wooden gunstocks: “look for the pale guns in the Organ of 

Muskets,” he advised. Arnold also stigmatized the experts Meuse called in for his defense as 

 

111 Memos, Edward McManus (conservator) to Myra Harrison (Chief DCR, NARO), May 5, 1987 

(Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 1988); Chief, Division of Cultural 

Resource, NAR (John Maounis) to Regional Curator, NAR (“Trip Report,” June 16, 1989”) (SPAR: 

Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –); Bart Rogers to Regional Curator, NAR, May 

26, 1992 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of 

Museum Exhibits). 

112 Park Collections Profile, n.d. [1993-4] (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maintenance, 

Preservation; and Resource Management Plan, Springfield National Historic Site, prepared by Randall l. 

Ross, facility manager, recommended by Superintendent. Beatty, February 1, 1999, pp. 5-6 (SPAR 

Central Files: D18 1999 Resource Management Plan). The other priorities listed in the “Park Collections 

Profile” were completing the ANCS collections documentation and completing the HVAC system. 

113 Memo, Bart Rogers to Regional Curator, NAR, May 26, 1992 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, 

Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 
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“connoisseurs and not conservators,” lacking formal training and for the most part using 

even worse methods than the Armory: of one, Arnold remarked, he “learned his craft as an 

apprentice and had no formal training as a conservator and lacked having sufficient 

knowledge of material science to justify even his own practices.” Arnold’s judgment was 

severe: “Not hiring a conservator on the basis that Meuse knew enough to supervise gun 

treatment was a huge mistake. Documentation was poor, undocumented changes in the 

standard treatment occurred, and virtually all will have to be re-treated because of this costsaving efficiency.”114

CURATORIAL RESPONSIBILITY, CUSTODY, AND OWNERSHIP

 Under the terms of the 1978 agreement with the Army, the NPS had “curatorial 

responsibility” for the Benton collection. Though this was sufficient for most day-to-day 

activities, it did not amount to a free hand with the collection, for the agreement also 

required the agency to meet Army standards: anything that did not meet those standards had 

to be negotiated. It also allowed the Army to inspect the collection or demand a complete 

inventory at any time. Sometimes these terms created confusion. In 1984, planning for the 

new Armory exhibitions, Regional Director Gerald Patten assured the Army’s chief curator: 

“Because the U.S. Army owns the small arms collection..., design work will be guided by 

military standards for collection conservation and for environmental performance.” He 

requested copies of all pertinent Army regulations. But a staff member in the Cultural 

Resources Division asked, “Must our design work be guided by military standards?” The 

answer was no: Patten had written in error, thinking he was merely carrying out Lindsay’s 

promise to solicit the Army’s input. Regional curator Kallop tactfully assured Lindsay that, in 

future, “our conservators will provide the ‘conservation standards’ desired....”115 The 

difficulties posed by the agency’s enforced relationship with the Army went beyond 

misunderstandings. The Army regularly exercised its right to demand inventories. This not 

only strained the Armory’s small staff but led to disagreements because the NPS was 

convinced that the Bailment Agreement of 1968 contained errors. Even if it had been 

accurate in 1968, weapons had gone missing during the ten years between the Army’s 

departure and the agency’s arrival. As long as the Bailment Agreement continued to be 

accepted as the baseline for inventories, it would be difficult if not impossible to resolve 

disagreements about the contents of the collections. In 1986, the park and the Washington 

office of museum services asked the Army to accept the park’s latest inventory as the “official 

 

114 Handwritten annotation to “Springfield Armory NHS: Artifact Preservation Guide, 1987,” in 

Arnold, conservation binder; notes by D.A. on Table of Contents, Arnold, conservation binder, pp. 4-5. 

115 Letter, Gerald Patten (Regional Director) to Michael L. Vice (Deputy Chief Curator, CMH), 

May 10, 1984; memo, Patten to Vice, May 10, 1984, with handwritten note s by [illegible]; and 

handwritten note s. Ed Kallop , n.d. (all Charlestown: CRM Division Files: folder: SPAR Pkg. 103 - 

Adaptive Reuse of Armory Building). 
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232 

property list.”116 But the problem remained unresolved. And even after 1993, when the park 

alleviated the controlled-property burden by moving to monthly random-sample 

inventories, the Army continued to demand item-by-item inventories of accession 2. 

Sometimes it put the completion of such inventories ahead of other necessary business, such 

as the renewal of the loan agreement. At times, relationships became strained, and it did not 

help that the Army’s manner could seem high-handed. “A member of my staff will contact 

you before June 1, 1998,” Army curator Bennett informed SPAR curator James Roberts in 

1998, “and coordinate the inventory.... [T]he inventory must be completed no later than 

October 1, 1998.”117 Within the National Park Service, colleagues did not talk this way with 

one another: even memos from superiors were generally more respectful. In part, the 

problem was simply the difference in institutional cultures. But NPS officials did not take 

orders from the Army, however politely phrased, a fact which these communications 

sometimes seemed to forget. 

 Because the Army had refused to transfer ownership to the NPS, or even loan the 

collection in perpetuity, NPS and city officials sometimes worried that it might leave town. 

This fear arose in 1992, as civic interests were preparing to celebrate the Armory’s 

bicentennial. Carlo Marchetti, director of Springfield Central, asked Congressman Neal for 

help in persuading the Army to transfer permanent ownership to the park. But though the 

Army’s chief curator assured Neal that “the U.S. Army has no plans to remove any of the 

Springfield Armory Collection...,” the Army still refused to transfer title: the collection was a 

“highly significant and important part of the Army’s heritage,” and the loan agreement 

provided “checks and balances” to ensure that it was well maintained. 

 At least, concluded Neal, it had been useful to get the Army on record.118 But the 

response did not put fears to rest. The park’s 1993 Statement for Management proposed full 

ownership of the collection as a “management option,” yet simultaneously worried that the 

Army might transfer the weapons back to Washington, D.C., where it was planning a new 

military museum. If this happened, the site would lose about three quarters of its 

collection.119 Moreover, as Supervisory Museum Curator James A. Roberts noted in 1998, 

 

116 Memo, Lindsay to Ann Hitchcock, February 24, 1986 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. 

Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

117 Quoted in Memo, James D. Roberts to Jim Weiner (Solicitor, DoI), December 22, 1998 (SPAR 

Central Files: A 4415 – Interagency Agreement....Army). 

118 Letters, Marchetti to Neal, Neal to Marilyn Merrill (Congressional Liaison Specialist, NPS) and Col. 

Jim Littig (Office of Army Liaison), Neal to Marchetti, and R. Cody Phillips (Acting Chief Curator) to 

Neal, all between March 4 and April 10, 1992; in Management Officer [Frank Seng], NPS, Washington, 

DC, Management Review of the Springfield Armory, June 25, 1998, Appendix 5. 

119 Statement for Management. Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts

[February, 1993], (copy lacks signatures on recommended (Superintendent) and approved (Regional 

Director) lines), p. 11 (SPAR Central Files: A6419: Statement for Management). 
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233 

the possibility that the collection might be withdrawn threatened the agency’s ability to 

manage the site in compliance with Congress’s direction.120

 These fears were not groundless. In 1998, Armory staff noted that the Army was 

taking “a renewed and serious interest in the management of their resource.”121 This time, 

indeed, the treat was real. In fact, from the Armory’s perspective it looked like the perfect 

storm.122 The Army had announced plans to develop a major new museum of its own at Fort 

Belvoir in Washington, D.C., and to populate its exhibits partly with objects taken from other 

Army museums – and also from NPS units including Springfield. At the same time, the 

interagency agreement with the Armory was due for renewal. In conversation, Army officials 

took the line that, as the Army never actually abandoned property, it could revoke the loan of 

1978 any time it wished simply by showing up at the Armory with a convoy of trucks and 

carting away the collection. It was half in jest, yet Superintendent Beatty and Supervisory 

Museum Curator Roberts took the threat seriously. In fact, the Army told Roberts (in his 

words) it intended to “tighten the loan agreement...from 10 year renewal period to 2 year 

renewal, with the possibility of removing some of the collections.” 

 Confronted with these threats, park staff evidently decided the best defense of the 

loan agreement would be a good offense, and so, instead of settling for less, the agency asked 

for more. With the help of NPS Management Officer Frank Seng and Interior Department 

Solicitor Jim Weiner, a meeting was arranged with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the last of 

the park’s original sponsors still in Congress and now one of Washington’s most influential 

figures. In July, Kennedy called on Army Secretary Louis Caldera to respect the wishes of 

Congress by “promptly executing a permanent loan....” Reminding him that he had helped 

pass the authorizing legislation, Kennedy told Caldera that the Army’s failure to give the NPS 

“permanent control” of the collection violated the promise of the 1978 cooperative 

agreement and was “directly contrary to our congressional intent, which is that the National 

Park Service will operate the site and serve as its federal custodian, accountable for its 

contents in perpetuity.”123

 A few months later, having heard nothing further from the Army, Curator Roberts 

proposed that the park “act proactively to modify the agreement....”124 And so in September 

1998, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt sent Caldera the signed text of a revised agreement, 

 

120 Memo, James D. Roberts to Jim Weiner (Solicitor, DOI), December 22, 1998 (SPAR Central Files: A 

4415 – Interagency Agreement....Army). 

121 [Case for amending GMP], prepared by Joanne Gangi, May 4, 1998 (SPAR Central Files: D18 GMP 

Amendment 5/4/98). 

122 This account is based partly on the recorded interviews of former Superintendent Steve Beatty and 

Supervisory Museum Curator James D. Roberts on May 28 and May 29, 2009. Significant episodes are 

undocumented in the written record. 

123 Letter, Senator Edward M. Kennedy to Louis Caldera (Sec Army), July 16, 1998 (SPAR Central Files: 

fol. A44 Memoranda of Understanding). 

124 Memo, James D. Roberts to Jim Weiner (Solicitor, DOI), December 22, 1998 (SPAR Central Files: A 

4415 – Interagency Agreement....Army). 
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234 

asking him to enact it by adding his signature. The new draft was much more favorable to the 

NPS. Instead of “curatorial responsibility,” it granted the NPS “exclusive custody, control 

and responsibility” for the collection. And in place of a ten-year term, it extended the 

agreement “for so long as its underlying authorization shall exist.” In other words, it could be 

amended only by the mutual consent of both parties, while nothing short of new legislation 

could nullify it.125

 Eighteen months later, the agreement still “languished in the Army – without 

action....” Three departments had reviewed and approved it, but it would still have to pass 

through four more layers of bureaucracy before it reached the desk of the Secretary. The 

agreement he signed on June 2, 2000, was strikingly close to the one Babbitt had sent him 

almost two years earlier. The Army deleted the word “control” from its grant of authority to 

the NPS and gave itself special rights to access the collection. But it also permitted the NPS to 

loan objects for up to two years without prior Army consent, which was more than the 

agency had asked for.126

 Why did the Army sign an agreement so favorable to the NPS and so contrary to its 

own wishes? Former Superintendent Beatty believes Frank Seng’s role was “critical,” citing 

not only his aggressive advocacy for the park but also the longstanding relationship with the 

Army which allowed him to “trade favors” with the Judge Advocate General’s office. He also 

credits a line of argument that Seng and Solicitor Jim Weiner introduced. They explained 

that the NPS could actually protect the collection more securely than the Army itself, 

because as a part of an NPS museum the weapons were subject to strict controls on treatment 

and disposal, whereas as Army property they were subject to nothing more stringent than the 

general rules covering government property. Finally, Beatty notes that Weiner slipped the 

crucial clause forbidding unilateral renegotiation into the agreement without fanfare and 

speculates that it may have passed unnoticed by the Army. Roberts agrees with this last point 

and goes farther, observing that staff at the Army’s Center for Military History were angry 

with Army Secretary Caldera for signing the agreement without consulting them: Roberts 

believes they still harbor designs on the collection. As for Weiner’s winning argument, 

Roberts thinks it was useful mainly for giving the Army an ex post facto justification for 

signing the agreement. 

 Whatever tipped the scales, Beatty believes the agreement was vitally important for 

protecting not only the Armory but also other NPS collections. At Springfield itself, Roberts 

credits it with easing the park’s difficult relationship with the Army and notes that in 2006 the 

Army for the first time made substantial contributions to the collection’s care, providing 

about $250,000 to help purchase new storage equipment which the park was having difficulty 

funding through the NPS. 

 

125 Interagency Agreement Between Department of the Army and Department of the Interior, signed Bruce 

Babbitt and dated September 16, 1998, Secs. 2 and 12, with cover letter, Babbitt to Caldera, September 

16, 1998 (SPAR: Central Files: A4415 – Interagency Agreement...Army). 

126 Interagency Agreement Between Department of the Army and Department of the Interior, signed and 

dated June 27, 2000, Secs. 2, 4, and 5. 
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 What the agreement evidently did not do was end the Army’s interest in the 

collection. In some ways, even while granting the NPS “exclusive custody and 

responsibility,” it sanctioned and formalized that interest through creation of a joint 

collection committee representing both the park and the Army’s Center of Military History. 

This new entity was tasked with addressing issues “such as, but not limited to, accession, 

loan, or de-accession actions requiring concurrence or approval by the parties and any 

Collection accounting adjustments.” The committee, not the NPS, would now determine 

whether any “Army-originated item” was “excess” to the collection and could be returned to 

the Army.127 According to Roberts, the measure was proposed by Chief Curator Ann 

Hitchcock as an “olive branch” to the Army, and he believes it streamlined decision-making. 

But obviously it had the potential for other outcomes, as the Army’s intervention in the 

park’s Collection Management Plan demonstrated.

THE 2005 COLLECTION MANAGEMENT PLAN AND THE QUESTION OF UNIQUENESS

 Of the puzzles posed by the Armory’s collection, none was more basic than what 

position it, and the Armory itself, occupied within the national park system. “The National 

Park Service has never undertaken a project of this curatorial magnitude,” wrote the authors 

of the park’s first Collection Management Plan, who included Chief Curator Arthur Allen, in 

1977. “The Park Service,” Regional Staff Curator Edward Kallop wrote two years later, “is 

not normally accustomed to owning a site where the object collections are more significant 

than the structures which house them. That Springfield Armory is an exception is obvious 

and we need to pursue the site’s development with this in mind.”128 Arthur Allen and the 

authors of the park’s first Collection Management Plan had said much the same thing three 

years earlier when they warned agency officials about the collection’s enormous budgetary 

needs. 

 It was one thing to point out that the Armory’s collection was unusually large and 

important, quite another to argue that it and it alone formed the core of the park, even its 

raison d’être. Nevertheless, by the 1980s this claim was increasingly heard. Springfield 

Armory was “essentially a museum,” wrote Historian Larry Lowenthal in 1987. “Being more 

of a museum than a regular National Park...,” began a memo from Curator Meuse in 1989.129

In 2001, Armory conservator David Arnold went farther. Describing the park’s efforts to 

 

127 “Interagency Agreement Between Department of the Army and Department of the Interior,” signed 

and dated June 27, 2000, Sec. 8. 

128 Division of Museum Services, Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory, March, 1977 

[prepared by Betsey Bradley, Barclay Rogers, Richard Rattenbury, Arthur C. Allen], p. 42; memo, Staff 

Curator, NAR (Ed Kallop) to Superintendent, SPAR, November 20, 1979 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 

Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 

129 Memos, Lowenthal to Cindy Kryston, NAR, November 9, 1987 (SPAR Central Files: fol. K1817: 

Long Range Interpretive Plan) and Staff Curator, SPAR (William E. Meuse), to Superintendent, SPAR, 

December 7, 1989 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 
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secure sufficient resources to “allow it to function as the museum that it really it [sic] is,” he 

charged that the agency had “yet to acknowledge in any significant way that SPAR is a 

MUSEUM with a large, world-class collection that is an important part of our nation’s 

heritage – and therefore worthy of being preserved in the same way collections have been 

treated within the Smithsonian group of museums in Washington, D.C.” Arnold argued that 

the collection made the Armory literally unique within the National Park Service: that no 

other unit within the entire national park system was analogous to the “SPAR museum”: 

SPAR is a full-blown museum, not a presidential birthplace with 

an attached gift shop or your average park wayside. It is not 

simply a historic site, and frankly I doubt anyone would bother 

coming here were it not for the Benton Small Arms Collection.130

 The implication of these claims, that the Armory’s buildings and grounds were of 

secondary importance, conflicted with the legislative record, which revealed Congress, the 

Interior Department, and the NPS in agreement that the park’s two resources, site and 

collection, were equally valuable, their preservation equally important. Nevertheless, 

different branches of the agency had found it useful over the years to stress the collection’s 

importance. Early on, the agency’s museum staff and planners did so in order to justify 

unusually large budget requests to Congress. Allen and his staff may also have found that 

doing so supported their efforts to gain increased stature for collections management within 

the agency. In the 1980s, park staff used the argument to justify focusing more of the park’s 

effort on the collections, even at the expense of the site: thus the General Management Plan, 

which had emerged through a process of shifting attention from the site to collection, called 

it “the primary resource at the site.”131 Yet Arnold – along with other park staff – appeared to 

advance the claim of uniqueness for a different reason. The context was a heated controversy 

that erupted over the preparation of a new Collection Management Plan in 2001. Within that 

process he was not the first to claim that Springfield’s collections made it unique: 

Superintendent Cuillard had already done so at the very start of the planning process.132 He 

and Supervisory Curator Roberts continued to insist on the point long after both sides had 

staked out their positions, for it underpinned the park’s contention that it should be 

effectively exempt from agency policy in key areas of collections management. 

 

130 Email, Arnold to Wolf, March 9, 2001 (copy in Arnold, conservation binder, no. 58) 

131 General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan, Springfield Armory National Historic Site, 

Massachusetts, National Park Service (prepared with the assistance of Springfield Technical College, 

Springfield, Massachusetts), approved July 29, 1986 (Herbert S. Cables, Jr., Regional Director, North 

Atlantic Region), p. 1. 

132 A page of notes on the meeting records: “Raises issue that this park is different because it is a 

museum. Get other examples of that within Region.” (“SPAR pre-CMP visit, November 30, 2000” 

[page of unsigned and undated notes] (Northeast Museum Services Center: SPAR CMP Project Files: 

fol. SPAR CMP - Correspondence 2001-). 
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 The park needed a new Collection Management Plan to replace the outdated one of 

1993 and to provide a basis for a new General Management Plan which the park’s new 

superintendent, Doug Cuillard, was preparing to begin. CMPs are written by teams of 

experts in the different branches of museum practice, and Louis Hutchins, Senior 

Curator/Historian at the Northeast Museum Services Center, was picked to lead the team.133

It was his first such assignment, and he turned to Gay Vietzke, Acting Director of the 

Northeast Museum Services Center, and John Maounis, Deputy Associate Regional Director 

for Cultural Resources, for guidance. The subject areas to be covered were typical of CMPs 

and included the collection’s scope and acquisition policies, maintenance of records, public 

access policies, storage, fire and theft protection, staffing, exhibits, and conservation. Experts 

in all but one of these areas would be chosen from the region. But conservators in the 

region’s Northeast Museum Services Center and also at the Harpers Ferry Center asked to be 

excused because of prior disagreements with Armory staff that might color their views, and 

so Hutchins and Vietzke recruited Sara Wolf, then chief conservator in the Washington 

office. Wolf had just joined that NPS: she sought counsel from Chief Curator Ann Hitchcock. 

 The process began in the normal way with a week-long site visit to the Armory in 

February, 2001. Unfortunately a severe snowstorm limited the time that the team was able to 

spend at the park to less than twenty hours, but phone calls and follow-up visits by individual 

team members helped make up for lost time. After the site visit, the team members disbanded 

to write their own chapters, which were then assembled and submitted to the park. In April, 

2001, the team presented its findings and recommendations to park staff in a meeting at the 

Armory. 

 Had the process continued to unfold along the usual pattern, the planning team 

would then have produced a second draft, which would have included detailed 

recommendations, an action plan, and recommendations for funding. There would have 

been a second opportunity for park review, following which the team would have presented 

a final plan for the superintendent’s signature. But at the April meeting, the draft met bruising 

criticism. The substance of the disagreements is discussed below, but the tone was important 

too: so severe and personal were the attacks that Hutchins blamed himself for not walking 

out with his entire team, and afterwards, when Superintendent Cuillard invited the team 

back for a second meeting, he declined. Communication continued between park staff and 

the CMP team, but it was not until April 2002, that Hutchins received a formal written 

response from Superintendent Cuillard.134 This amounted to a rejection of many key points 

 

133 The following account is based on recorded interviews with Louis Hutchins and Sara Wolf, 

conducted at the Northeast Museum Services Center on December 3, 2008, and on unrecorded 

conversations with James Roberts and Dave Arnold held at the park on numerous visits during 2006-

2008. Specific references to one or the other (or to printed sources) are added only where the source of 

a particular statement might otherwise be unclear. 

134 Memo, Superintendent SPAR to Louis Hutchins, April 23, 2002. Other formal responses from the 

park included a memo from Archivist Dru Bronson-Geoffroy (“Collection Management Plan Draft 

March 2001”) and a marked copy of the draft plan from Supervisory Curator James Roberts (all 

Northeast Museum Services Center: SPAR: CMP Project Files: memos, Fol. SPAR CMP - 
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in the draft and a request for substantial changes to its recommendations. By this point, 

Hutchins was convinced that the park would never implement the plan, no matter how many 

adjustments the team made: preparing the customary action plan and funding 

recommendations seemed pointless. Instead, as a courtesy to Superintendent Cuillard, now 

approaching retirement from the Service, the team made minor revisions to the draft and 

resubmitted it as a final plan, which the Superintendent approved in November 2005.135

 Why did the process go wrong? Hutchins says it was an “issue of personalities.” To 

Wolf, the problems were “all personality driven.” Yet both also argue that deep 

disagreements over policy lay behind the personality differences. At the simplest level, the 

question was whether the Armory would emphasize a preservation maintenance approach to 

collections care (the region’s preference) or one more focused on treating individual objects 

(the park’s preference). Two chapters of the draft plan proved particularly controversial. 

One concerned the conservation of the weapons collection, the other the management of the 

archives. 

 The chapter on conservation was titled “Collections Preservation and Maintenance,” 

and the choice of words was significant. As the plan explained, NPS policy “specifies 

preventive conservation as the basis of collections care.” In other words, the preferred 

approach was to focus on “non-interventive actions” that could prevent damage from 

occurring. Such steps included managing the environment by controlling light levels, 

reducing ambient dust, ensuring optimum temperature and humidity, and guarding against 

abrasion or other damage in storage and handling.136 Treating objects to reverse or halt 

deterioration was a last resort. This was essentially the same policy direction that Regional 

Conservator Ed McManus recalls attempting to assert during the 1980s.137

 Like McManus, the CMP team believed the park’s conservation program was not 

following this policy. The Armory’s new conservator, David Arnold, was disassembling and 

treating guns in a new conservation lab which the park had set up at considerable expense. 

Yet, the plan charged, the park had paid “insufficient attention” to “providing a basic level of 

collections care” in areas like environmental controls, storage conditions, pest management, 

and basic housekeeping. Moreover, the park’s conservation efforts were highly selective: for 

example, while a relatively small number of firearms received individual attention, hundreds 

of miniature military figurines languished “in generally poor condition,” “piled in file 

cabinets and cardboard boxes.” In short, while “sophisticated conservation” was “laudable,” 

 Correspondence 2001- ). Curator David Arnold’s email correspondence with Sara Wolf was collected 

by Arnold in a binder in the park’s conservation department files. 

135 NPS, Northeast Museum Services Center, Collection Management Plan: Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts, November, 2005 (approved by Superintendent, November 10, 

2005). 

136 NPS, Northeast Museum Services Center, Collection Management Plan: Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts, Draft, March 2001, p. 57 (Northeast Museum Services Center: 

SPAR: CMP Project Files). 

137Edward McManus, recorded interview with author, March 25, 2009. 
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the plan charged that the park lacked the “comprehensive preservation and conservation 

program” to justify it. Its recommendations were harsh: an immediate halt to the treatment of 

firearms and the expansion of the conservation lab and, over the longer term, the 

development of new conservation procedures “that meet NPS policies of minimal 

treatment.”138

 Calling Arnold an “exceptionally gifted conservator” who “garners high praise from 

within the profession,” Wolf emphasized that there was “nothing wrong with what Dave is 

doing” as such. The problem was that he was undertaking conservation treatments at all. This 

conflicted with the agency’s “preservation and maintenance” policy as Wolf understood it 139

– and indeed as Ed McManus recalls understanding it more than twenty years earlier. For 

Wolf, the question had two aspects: what was best for the collection and also what was 

allowed under agency rules. At the April meeting, she explained that “the core of the issue is 

how you do basic collection care and preservation – we need to do what we are restricted to 

by the NPS.” In interpreting policy, consistency was important: explaining her opposition to 

the Armory’s conservation lab, she noted that it was the only one in the system and that the 

Service generally opposed them. Doing things in the proper order was important too. In an 

exchange with Superintendent Cuillard, she conceded that the issue was essentially one of 

timing, or what Cuillard called prioritization, and she agreed that the park could continue 

taking guns apart as long as it gave priority to “basic conservation.” As she explained much 

later, there was a proper “progression” to be followed. It began with a collection 

management plan, proceeded to a conservation survey, and concluded by treating individual 

objects as a “last resort.”140 The park had jumped the gun. 

 Arnold defended his position vigorously, backed by Roberts and Cuillard. One 

reason was that his assessment of the weapons’ overall condition was considerably more 

negative than Wolf’s: his criticisms of earlier treatments have already been noted, and he also 

worried about the impacts of a 1938 fire. Arnold also disputed the team’s assessment of the 

park’s efforts to improve storage and environmental conditions. Finally, he argued that 

disassembling guns did not conflict with the agency’s policy of preservation and 

maintenance. Indeed the nature of guns made this step essential, for the apparently wellpreserved exterior of a firearm might conceal deadly corrosion or crystallization. “Please 

 

138 Ibid., pp. 57, 68-69. 

139 “Close-Out Meeting, April 5, 2001: Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” and email, Wolf to 

Cuillard, April 6, 2001 (Northeast Museum Services Center: SPAR: CMP Project Files: fol. SPAR CMP 

- Correspondence 2001-). 

140 Consistency: email, Arnold to Wolf, February 28, 2001 (copy in Arnold, conservation binder, no. 56);

prioritization: “Close-Out Meeting, April 5, 2001: Springfield Armory National Historic Site” 

(Northeast Museum Services Center: SPAR CMP Project Files: fol. SPAR CMP - Correspondence 

2001-); interview: recorded interview with Sara Wolf, December 3, 2008. 
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understand – the practice of disassembling, cleaning and coating historic firearms is a 

STABILIZATION treatment, not a restoration,” he explained.141

 In June 2001 – months after giving the NPS “exclusive custody, control and 

responsibility” for the collection – the U.S. Army joined the fray. That month, the chief 

conservator of the Army’s Center for Military History assessed the collection and announced 

that the Army contested both the plan’s assessment that the collection was in “stable 

condition” and its recommendation to suspend conservation work. Whatever NPS policy 

might dictate, the Center “interpret[ed] preservation in its broadest sense to include 

maintenance and above all, stabilization and conservation of the collection....Under the 

terms of the Interagency Agreement, the Army does not desire, but rather it expects 

Springfield Armory to accept curatorial responsibility to stabilize and conserve the 

Collection in accordance with its mandate....”142 The quarrel escalated. On April 18, 2002, 

Army Chief Curator Bennett ordered Superintendent Cuillard to submit hand receipts, as 

required “when historical artifacts are issued on loan to other Federal agencies.” The 

following month, relying on Army regulations, he appointed Cuillard “Artifact Responsible 

Officer to assume direct responsibility for all historical artifacts and works of art assigned to 

his custody, for the Springfield Armory.” He issued the Superintendent extraordinarily 

detailed instructions on how to fill out and return the required hand receipts, in effect 

treating him as if he were an Army employee. This put Cuillard in what must have been an 

awkward position. He strongly opposed the plan’s conservation recommendations – indeed 

on April 23 he had sent Hutchins his detailed and final list of objections – yet being treated 

this way was intolerable. He declined to accept the Army’s designation as Artifact 

Responsible Officer, pointing out that this would contravene not only the 2000 agreement 

but also the intent of Congress in authorizing the park. Moreover, he informed the Army that 

he could not sign anything presupposing that the collection was “‘on loan’ from the Army...” 

because the new agreement said nothing about loans but “clearly states that exclusive 

custodial responsibility for the collections resides with the National Park Service....” Behind 

the scenes, the regional office supported Cuillard’s contention that the Center for Military 

History was “wrong in its attempt to treat the SPAR collection as a subsidiary of the Army 

museum system....”143 Meanwhile, the CMP team declined to alter its initial findings. 

 The second area of controversy was the archival collection. Disagreement centered 

on what might seem an arcane disagreement over cataloging methods. Park staff had recently 

retrieved a large collection of so-called aperture cards – IBM punch cards bearing film 

 

141 Email and written correspondence between Sara Wolf (NPS-WASO-CSD) and David Arnold, 

February 23 - March 9, 2001 (copies in Arnold, conservation binder, nos. 53-58). 

142 Memo, Judson E. Bennett, Jr. (Chief Curator of the Army) to Cuillard, August 27, 2001 (SPAR 

Central Files: fol. A44 Memoranda of Understanding). 

143 Letter, Judson E. Bennett, Jr. (Director of Army Museums) to Cuillard, April 18, 2002; memo, 

Bennett to Cuillard, May 9, 2002; instructions on hand receipts; letter, Cuillard to Bennett, June 14, 

2002: all attached to memo, Cuillard to Maounis (Dpt. ARD CRM), September 30, 2002 (SPAR Central 

Files: A4415 Interagency Agreement...Army). 
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images of weapons parts – from a dumpster. The park had then bought expensive equipment 

and software to read and catalog the cards. Archive staff was now doing so. To the CMP 

team, this was yet another example of misplaced priorities. Confronted with evidence144 that 

95 percent of the museum’s half-million-item collection (including much of the archive), was 

still uncataloged, the team argued that best practices as well as NPS policy called for 

cataloging at the series level before recording the details of individual items. Park staff 

retorted that items like the aperture cards were useless unless individually cataloged, but the 

CMP team also pointed to other unmet needs, such as improvements to archival storage 

conditions. In sum, the CMP urged park staff to defer time-consuming projects like 

cataloging the aperture cards and focus on basic collection needs.145

 Though apparently separate, the two controversies were clearly linked. In both areas, 

the CMP team’s critique reflected a consistent preference for preservation maintenance, 

planning, and centralized interpretation of agency policy. The park’s position was consistent 

too, in its preference for working directly with individual objects without waiting for 

preliminary planning and preventive maintenance to be completed, and for park-level 

decision-making on policy. This consistency was not surprising, given that both conservation 

and archives reported to a single head, the Supervisory Curator. Yet these preferences had 

already been noted during the park’s early days. 

 While some of the triggers for conflict related specifically to the Collection 

Management Plan, others had arisen as early as 1979. These conflicts, especially over 

conservation, were not only substantive and procedural in nature but also structural. In his 

study of museum curatorship in the NPS, Ralph Lewis notes that the agency had developed 

two distinct sets of curators, performing separate functions. One operated and maintained 

park museums, while the other – based in regional and central offices – focused on “museum 

policies, standards, and specialized skills necessary to meet Service goals and obligations.”146

A similar situation had arisen in conservation. Where parks could not afford their own 

professional staffs, the system brought obvious benefits, and indeed it was designed with just 

 

144 The figure was based on the park’s 2000 Collections Management Report, which showed 22,311 

objects catalogued out of a total of 524,408. Supervisory Curator Roberts points out these numbers 

were erroneous. The following year’s report showed 257,945 objects catalogued out of a total of 

530,381. Collections Management Reports for 2000 and 2001 (SPAR: Cultural Resources Division files). 

145 NPS, Northeast Museum Services Center, Collection Management Plan: Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts, Draft, March 2001, pp. 35-36 (Northeast Museum Services 

Center: SPAR: CMP Project Files). Footnoting the Armory’s 2001 Collection Management Report, the 

CMP recorded (p. 35) that 5% of the museum’s total collection, or 22,311 items, had been cataloged 

while 95% of its 502,097 items remained uncataloged. The cataloging backlog included items 

transferred from the U.S. Army to the NPS, such as furnishings; Armory records; the collection of 

miniature soldiers; memorabilia; archival material acquired in connection with the 1994 anniversary; 

the oral history collection; and the records of the National Historic Site. The last two categories had 

not yet been accessioned. 

146 Ralph H. Lewis, Museum Curatorship in the National Park Service 1904-1982, Washington, DC, 

National Park Service, Curatorial Services Division, 1993 (online at 

www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/ 

curatorship/toc.htm), p. 322 (consulted 12/08). 
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these parks in mind. Even where there was a resident curator, the system could work well. 

Ideally, explains Charles Clapper, who served as Associate Regional Director for Planning 

and Resource Preservation from 1978 to 1990, the regional and park curators worked “hand 

in glove”: the park curator knew the collection best, while the regional curator, who was 

likely to be the more senior of the two, knew where to find funding and how to follow agency 

guidelines.147 But both McManus148 and Clapper acknowledge that the possibility of conflict 

arose wherever parks had professional staffs, and especially where these held strong opinions 

about how to manage their collections. Each park was a separate “fiefdom,” in McManus’s 

words, and so as Clapper puts it, relationships could easily devolve into a question of “who 

has the power” – would it reside at the regional level or within the park? 

 At the Armory these conflicts had become pronounced long before the 2005 CMP 

team began its work. Clapper recalls curator Bill Meuse as a man with “strongly held 

opinions” on how the collection should be cared for: these views became “classic situations 

for conflict between the regional office and the park.” It was not simply a question of whose 

views were stronger or would prevail: parks and regional offices saw the world from different 

perspectives and approached decision-making with different priorities. In Clapper’s view, 

the role of the regional office was to “take the broader perspective,” and at the Armory that 

frequently cast disagreements as conflicts between the interests of the agency and the 

collection. “These materials must be accounted for according to NPS policy,” wrote archivist 

Steven Ourada in 1992.149 Years earlier, Lindsay’s clearinghouse proposal had been turned 

down because agency officials deemed that it conflicted with other agency priorities; the 

park was also required to conform to the agency’s computer catalog standards and inventory 

policies. These dynamics could have been found at other parks, but some Armory staff felt 

they were exacerbated by the nature of the park’s collections. Steve Beatty, superintendent 

from 1990 through 1998, felt that many agency officials disparaged the Armory as a mere gun 

museum and felt a “very strong anti-gun influence” within the regional office.150 Though he 

did not think this affected the agency’s budgetary support for the park, it did translate into a 

lack of support for program initiatives like school educational programs. 

 Not all of the agency’s efforts to impose its will were marked by conflict, but Clapper 

and McManus, both of whom who knew the park from its earliest years, regarded relations 

between the Armory and the region as being unusually conflictive, and the conflicts tended 

to center on the management and care of collections. This was a history of which both Wolf 

and Hutchins were aware as they began their work on the new Collection Management Plan. 

 Given the history of tension with the regional office, it makes sense to review the 

balance of benefits and burdens that accrued to the park through the agency’s efforts to 

 

147 Charles Clapper, recorded interview with author, March 24, 2009. 

148 Edward McManus, recorded interview with author, March 25, 2009. 

149 Memo, Regional Archivist, NAR (Steven Ourada), to Acting Regional Curator, NAR, March 6, 1992 

(Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: SPAR CMP). 

150 Steve Beatty: recorded interview, May 28, 2009. 
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243 

manage it as part of a regional or national system. There were many benefits to imposing 

agency standards, especially when backed up by money. The Armory’s permanent exhibits, 

designed by the Harpers Ferry Center, furnished a good example. On the one hand, the 

Armory wielded far less control over the project than an independent museum would have 

exercised – the limits of park influence were suggested by one official’s remark that the most 

important contribution park staff could make during the final review was to examine the 

“interpretive facts” for accuracy and conformity with accepted usage.151 On the other hand, 

for a museum burdened with antiquated exhibits, a poorly catalogued collection, a building 

in urgent need of renovation, a small staff, and a demonstrated inability to raise its own 

operating funds, this loss of control was surely a fair price to pay for professional-quality 

exhibits. 

 In other areas, the balance between park autonomy and agency policy was less clear, 

especially where it concerned the collection’s relationship to the historic site. It was a 

cornerstone of agency policy that park collections existed to support and explain the sites 

where they were located. Yet the argument that the Armory’s collections were unique 

implied also that the park should be considered an exception to this rule and that its 

collection deserved to be development independently from its site. The tensions this 

produced can be seen in the history of efforts to define the park’s collections. In 1977, Arthur 

Allen suggested considering whether the collection should be limited to “only those weapons 

manufactured at Springfield,” even though this would “reduce the collection’s significance” 

as “the ‘world’s largest collection of small arms’.” [sic]152 The question was not merely 

academic, for the curator of the non-profit Armory museum had advised the NPS that the 

gun collection had “nearly doubled in the past twenty-five years” and would probably 

continue to grow.153 The Collection Management Plan prepared at this time did consider the 

limitation proposed by Allen, and warned against “dilution of the important and historic 

firearms collection into a typical war museum collection.”154 The 1985 Scope of Collections 

Statement offered a clearer definition. The park’s “fundamental theme,” it stated, was the 

Armory’s role as “an industrial site devoted to the design and manufacture of military 

weaponry.” The collection would therefore “stress the military shoulder arms which were 

the primary ordnance mission of Springfield Armory.” The museum would place “lesser 

emphasis” on “handguns, automatic weapons, edged weapons and other weapons with 

 

151 (Memo, Chief, Division of Exhibit Planning and Design, HFC (Robert C. Johnsson) to 

Superintendent, December 10, 1982 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, 

and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 

152 Memo, Chief, Division of Museum Services (Arthur C. Allen) to Chief, Division of Reference 

Services, HFC, March 9, 1977 (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: fol. Curatorial SPAR through 

1988). 

153 Tom Wallace, quoted in Shary Page Berg (NAR), Status Report on Springfield Armory Planning: 

Preliminary Identification of Issues and Options, September, 1976, revised June, 1978, p. [1 (SPAR: 

Lowenthal Files: fol. First Master Plan [CRBIB 406259)]. 

154 Division of Museum Services, Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory, March, 1977, p. 7. 
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244 

which Springfield Armory was only peripherally involved.” The exhibits would serve 

primarily to support the park’s interpretive themes, and secondarily to support scholarly 

research.155

 This was a good summary of agency policy. Yet it did not resolve the question, for 

other policy documents pointed in a different direction. The Interpretive Prospectus was 

little more than a museum plan, focusing almost exclusively on the museum and the content 

of the exhibits. Still other documents were simply unclear. The Draft Collection Management 

Plan of 1992 described the collection as consisting primarily of “weapons manufactured, 

developed, tested, and collected by the United States Army from 1794 to 1968” – a definition 

which was not untrue yet which failed to establish any connection to the site beyond the 

museum’s location there. The CMP cited the Interpretive Prospectus approvingly and called 

the collection the “primary basis for the park’s interpretive programs,”156 leaving it uncertain 

whether the collection would be a resource for interpreting the park or the subject of park 

interpretation. 

 Other aspects of park management revealed the same tension between the collection 

as adjunct or prime attraction. One was the long-standing practice by which agency planning 

was largely restricted to the federal portion of the park. Effectively this enhanced the 

museum’s importance, and the emphasis was heightened by the agency’s allocation of 

resources. The rehabilitation of Building 13 for use as a museum absorbed the agency’s entire 

effort for many years. Even a decade after it was completed, a list of 65 agency-funded 

projects revealed that $274,000 out of a total of $337,800, or over 80 percent of awarded 

funds, had gone to improving Building 13 and protecting the collections. These figures 

reflected agency decision-making as much as park priorities, for a list of 58 projects for which 

funding had been requested but denied revealed a much more balanced approach: only 46% 

of requested funds ($2,803,200 out of $6,010,700) were slated for Building 13 and the 

collections.157

 The unresolved tension over the museum’ role within the park formed the 

background for other policy differences. One concerned the crucial matter of conservation 

staffing and facilities. Although the 1977 CMP had called for an on-site conservator and Bart 

Rogers in 1992 had reiterated the recommendation, by the end of the 1990s the regional 

office was opposed to the idea. The park had demonstrated its independence by going ahead 

anyway and even attempted to define the region’s priorities for it, asserting the existence of 

an undocumented need for a regional or service-wide firearms lab which it proposed to serve 

 

155 “Scope of Collections Statement,” prepared by Stuart Vogt (Curator, SPAR), dated November 18, 

1985 (recommended by Superintendent Lindsay, Concurred by Regional Curator Kallop, Approved by 

Regional Director Lewis, all between November 1985 and February 28, 1986) (SPAR Central Files: 

H1415). 

156 “Draft Collection Management Plan, Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” Branch of 

Museum Services, Division of Cultural Resources Management, NARO, June, 1992, pp. 4, 7 (SPAR 

Central Files: H1815). 

157 “RMP, FY-98,” n.d. (SPAR Central Files: D18 FY 98 RMP). 
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by expanding its new lab. By the time the CMP process got underway, then, the park was 

entrenched in opposition to the regional office. On the other side, the CMP team started with 

the presumption that the park had to be reined in. In Boston, John Maounis had briefed 

Hutchins and Wolf on the region’s opposition to the conservation lab and coached them to 

resist pressure from the park to address its merits in the CMP. In Washington, Ann 

Hitchcock had briefed Wolf on other policy transgressions committed or threatened by the 

Armory.158 Moreover, Wolf understood her charge as identifying the areas where the park 

was not in compliance with agency policy and correcting them: as she later explained, “My 

marching orders were policy,” and when it came to interpreting policy, she believed her boss 

was rather inflexible. 

 The stage was therefore set for a clash. And once the issues were joined, neither side 

backed down. The CMP team declined to return to Springfield for a second meeting; the 

park waited more than a year before submitting its formal comments, and when these 

arrived, in the form of a “statement of principle” from Superintendent Cuillard, they 

amounted to a line in the sand, reiterating the park’s position on all of the most contentious 

issues. On the other hand, the park did not produce the technical justification that Wolf had 

challenged Arnold to write, giving the CMP team justification for sticking to its original 

position. In any case, as Wolf explained, a planning team was under no compulsion to 

“change recommendations to suit a park’s agenda, particularly if that agenda is in conflict 

with NPS policies and priorities.” In the end, as we have seen, Hutchins decided to curtail the 

planning process, believing that the plan would never be implemented: by this time, as Wolf 

later explained, “we knew it was a doorstop.”159

 The CMP did not explicitly rebut the claim that the Armory was a unique park. But it 

did quash the Armory’ effort to set its own course, clearly signaling that the agency, rather 

than the park, would decide on policy. The park may have paid a price for its contumacy. 

Though both Wolf and Hutchins stressed that implementation of collection management 

plans was purely voluntary, and that the agency did not punish failure to do so, both believed 

that the park’s refusal to accept direction deprived it of support that the agency was eager to 

offer.160

 In the wake of the controversy, it may be useful to review the evidence both for and 

against the claim that the Armory’s collections were unique and that this fact made the 

Armory an exceptional park. Informally, regional officials have sought to rebut this argument 

 

158 According to Wolf and Hutchins (recorded interviews, December 3, 2008), Hitchcock’s concern 

was that the park might seek to recover weapons formerly in the Armory collection but ceded by 

agreement to other agencies. 

159 Memo from Cuillard: memo, Superintendent SPAR to Louis Hutchins, April 23, 2002; under no 

compulsion: memo, Sara J. Wolf (Director, Northeast Museum Services Center) to Superintendent, 

SPAR, January 30, 2003, marked “DRAFT” (both Northeast Museum Services Center: SPAR: CMP 

Project Files: fol. SPAR CMP - Correspondence 2001-); curtail: recorded interviews with Hutchins and 

Wolf, December 3, 2008. 

160 Recorded interviews, December 3, 2008. 
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in at least three ways. First, they contend that there is no such thing as a “typical” park: “every 

park is unique,” as Hutchins puts it. Second, they point out that other parks also have large 

and important collections, including some in the region, like the Frederick Law Olmsted and 

Longfellow National Historic Sites, both near Boston, the Edison NHS and Morristown 

National Historical Park in New Jersey, and St. Gaudens NHS in New Hampshire. Third, 

they argue (in Wolf’s words) that the Armory “both is and isn’t a museum.” A true museum is 

a multi-faceted institution that does much more than care for a collection, points out Paul 

Weinbaum, who served as Chief of the Museum Division at the Statue of Liberty National 

Monument from 1974 to 1981. Sara Wolf agrees, pointing out that in areas like rotating 

exhibits, public programs, research, and publications, the Armory has not risen markedly 

above other park museums: the park’s disappointing visitation figures, discussed in the 

following chapter, may support this contention. To Hutchins, the great frustration is that the 

Armory’s potential as a museum has “not been realized.” Rather than a fully formed museum, 

Wolf suggests, the Armory might better be understood as “pretty much just a collection of 

guns.”161

 How successful Springfield Armory has been in carrying out the multiple functions of 

a museum is to some extent a matter of opinion and can only be judged in relation to the 

obstacles the park has faced. Ironically, some of those obstacles have been created by the 

agency itself. Arriving at the Armory in 1990 with a mandate to build audiences, 

Superintendent Beatty was disappointed to discover that the new permanent exhibit was 

“basically static,” conceived in the manner of a park visitor center rather than a museum 

exhibit.162 “Most museums are not static,” he observes. On the contrary, “a museum has to 

operate” with temporary exhibits in order to retain the interest and loyalty of its public. Yet 

NPS policies not only gave the Armory a static exhibit but ensured that it would be many 

years, if not decades, before it could be replaced or even substantially modified. 

 In contrast to disagreements about the Armory’s overall success as a museum, the 

claim that its collections are unique is more straightforward. Factors like the size and 

importance of the collections, as well as the specific challenges they present to collections 

managers and conservators, can be measured and placed within the context of the agency’s 

history.163

The National Park Service has had collections from the beginning. The agency’s first 

director, Stephen T. Mather, called in 1920 for museums to be established in every park. The 

earliest park museums focused on natural history and archeology, but from the 1930s historic 

sites began to increase in number, and some contained important collections. Meanwhile, 

museums were gaining importance in other ways. A Museum Department was created in 

 

161 Wolf and Hutchins, recorded interviews, December 3, 2008; Paul Weinbaum, conversation with 

author in 2008. 

162 Steve Beatty, recorded interview, May 28, 2009. 

163 The facts brought forward in the following paragraphs are drawn from the accounts of Ann 

Hitchcock, op. cit., and Ralph H. Lewis, op. cit. 
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1935, and by 1939, 114 parks had museums. Further recognition came in 1956 with the 

launching of Mission 66, an ambitious ten-year program of capital improvements which 

included the construction of elaborate visitor centers, often designed around exhibit spaces. 

The establishment of the Service’s two system wide support facilities, the Harpers Ferry 

Center (1968) and Denver Service Center (1970), represented further acknowledgment of 

the agency’s museums. 

 Meanwhile, the collections were growing. A 1959 survey estimated that 135 parks 

maintained collections totaling over 2.3 million items; a 1976 survey documented over 9 

million specimens; in 2004, Chief Curator Ann Hitchcock estimated that the system’s parks 

contained over 105 million museum objects, of which 65.1 million were archival and 

manuscript items, 34.5 million were archeological items, and 3.4 million were historical items 

including furnishings, costumes, fine arts, and firearms. (By way of comparison, the 

Smithsonian Institution in 2009 claimed to have something over 136 million objects 

distributed among 19 museums and 156 affiliate museums.164) 

 Park collections spanned a wide range. Among the largest and most important were 

the geological specimens at Grand Canyon, the 14,000 tree snails at Everglades (considered 

the largest and most complete collection in the world), and San Francisco’s National 

Maritime Museum, with 15,000-25,000 items, including historic ships and the largest 

maritime research library on the west coast. At Jamestown Colonial NHP, an archeological 

find in 1967 added about 250,000 specimens to the park’s already large collection. The 

natural specimens at Great Smoky Mountains National Park were important in their own 

right but became more so in 1976 when UNESCO’s designation of the park as a biosphere 

reserve made them part of an international baseline measure of environmental conditions. 

Historic house museums, of which there were about 200 by 1993, also frequently had large 

and important collections. Some came to the NPS with thousands of manuscripts, books, 

furnishings, paintings, sculptures, textiles, and small decorative objects: because of their 

associations with the sites and with important individuals, these collections had a value above 

and beyond that of the individual objects. Examples included Adams NHP (about 9,500 

items associated with the family), the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt NHS (7,700 items 

donated with the house), Theodore Roosevelt’s estate of Sagamore Hill (about 6,600 familyassociated items), and the Carl Sandburg Home NHS (nearly 38,000 documents and 

furnishings belonging to the house). Other important NPS collections include the Frederick 

Law Olmsted NHS, with photographs, landscape plans, and drawings associated with the 

great landscape architect’s work; and the Edison NHS, which contains not only personal 

items used by the inventor and his family at home but also lab furnishings and equipment, 

prototypes of Edison products, notebooks, correspondence, blueprints for products, 

photographs, sound records on cylinders and discs, and library materials. 

By the end of the twentieth century, then, NPS parks contained many important 

collections, and they presented a broad range of conservation and management challenges. 

 

164 www.si.edu/about (consulted April 2009). 
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248 

Given the differences in their contents (not to mention in the method and accuracy of 

inventories), comparisons of numbers are at best of limited value. Yet object counts do 

provide a rough yardstick. Those contained in the following table (Fig. 5.2) compare the 

Armory to other park collections mentioned by regional officials as well as some cited for 

their importance by Ralph H. Lewis. They are rounded to the nearest thousand: archives, 

measured in linear feet, to the nearest foot.165 These numbers suggest that the Armory’s 

collections, compared to other NPS museums, were large yet not exceptionally so. 

Park Archeology History Other Total Archives 

(LF)

Adams NHP 42,500 24,300 100 67,000 82

Colonial NHP 1,278,800 4,800 0 1,283,700 140

Edison NHS 800 364,000 100 365,000 3,383

Grand Canyon NP 278,700 30,600 71,300 381,000 318

Great Smoky Mountains NP 114,400 23,900 139,400 278,000 277

Hubbell Trading Post NHP 54,600 36,500 7,200 98,000 165

Longfellow NHS 34,000 27,800 100 62,000 394

Morristown NHP 24,000 54,600 200 79,000 174

Ocmulgee NM 2,359,700 200 300 2,360,000 107

Frederick Law Olmsted NHS 1,800 7,200 700 9,700 717

Sagamore Hill NHS 600 20,300 200 21,100 66

Saint-Gaudens NHS 600 9,200 200 10,000 28

Carl Sandburg NHS 54,700 1,100 600 56,300 147

Springfield Armory NHS 9,100 10,600 0 19,700 308

Statue of Liberty NM 38,300 43,000 400 81,700 633

Figure 5.2. Size of Selected Park Collections in 2008 

 

165 The figures, taken from the 2008 Collection Management Reports posted on the NPS intranet site, 

were supplied by Sara Wolf. Numbers compiled by the Museum Management Program and available 

on the public website at http://home.nps.gov/applications/museum/selectpark.cfm (consulted 

December, 2008) do not distinguish among types of collection, or between objects and archives. 
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249 

 As for the importance of the Armory’s collection, its preeminence among collections 

of American shoulder arms is generally conceded. But Ralph H. Lewis’s measured 

assessment hints at the difficulty of translating this into an agency context. Comparing the 

Armory collection to the Fuller Collection at Chickamauga Battlefield, which (he notes) 

Harold Peterson had called the “‘finest and most complete’” in the world for documenting 

the history of American shoulder arms, Lewis described the Armory’s collection as 

“paralleling Fuller’s in scope and far exceeding it in size” and predicted that it would 

“doubtless assume first place in significance as well as size among park museum collections 

of this subcategory.”166 The key phrase is “collections of this subcategory.” The NPS manages 

other collections that are preeminent within their fields, including some that (like the 

Armory) transcend the level of mere park museums. In this context, again, the Armory 

appears to be highly important but not unique. 

 A third way of assessing the Armory’s collection is through the challenges they 

offered to curators and conservators. Certainly the weapons posed unusual problems as 

museum objects. The army’s ownership also created special difficulties. And the collection’s 

care had undeniably led to a high level of controversy. But seen within a regional context, 

the curatorial and conservation challenges presented by the collection do not seem to have 

been uniquely severe. This is at least was the perspective of Ed McManus, who was involved 

with the collection as regional objects curator from 1979 through 1989. Despite concerns 

about over cleaning and lack of curatorial control, he did not feel the Armory was among the 

parks most in need of assistance. The Statue of Liberty required a great deal of attention, 

mostly because of the centennial celebrations. At Roosevelt-Vanderbilt NHS, objects 

required special attention because of a fire at the park. Saint-Gaudens had an unusual 

collection of fine art objects. At Acadia there was no staff at all to take care of the collections. 

At Edison NHS, the conservation issues including not only the care of one-of-a-kind objects 

but also decisions about how to handle old bottles of chemicals: while these were historical 

objects in their own right, many of the chemicals had changed over time and some were now 

toxic and volatile.167 Within this context – at least by 1979 – the Armory’s collections 

appeared to be in fairly good condition: reasonably well catalogued, stored, conserved, and 

looked after. Advocates for the collection could argue that it deserved more attention, but 

not because its needs were unique: on the contrary, if the care it received was inadequate, 

that was not because its merits were unrecognized but because there were simply too many 

important collections looking for too few dollars. 

 While the uniqueness argument seems unconvincing today, it was not so easily 

dismissed when it was first brought forward in 1971. On the contrary, agency officials in both 

Harpers Ferry and Washington promoted it, and it is important to consider why. Several 

 

166 Ralph H. Lewis, op. cit., pp. 281-282. The Fuller collection had come to the NPS in 1954 and was 

housed at Chickamauga Battlefield NP. It included at least 320 shoulder arms plus about 50 bayonets, 

nearly 100 gun parts, cartridges, and other equipment, as well as Fuller’s comprehensive scholarly 

notes. 

167 Edward McManus, recorded interview with author, March 25, 2009. 
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reasons suggest themselves. First, the big natural and archeological collections at the western 

parks were very far away, and their management traditions offered few useful precedents for 

the Armory: in general, expertise in caring for historical collections was much scarcer within 

the agency than for archeological or natural collections. Second, although the system 

contained many important historic structure museums, officials did not see the Armory’s 

collection in this frame: as noted in Chapter 2, they compared it instead to such recent 

initiatives as the Museum of Westward Expansion in St. Louis, or Philadelphia’s 

Independence Visitor Center. Seen thus, its size and management needs loomed large 

indeed. Third, some of the important collections cited by today’s regional officials were not 

yet part of the system in 1971: Saint-Gaudens NHS (authorized in 1964 but not established 

until 1977), Longfellow NHS (established 1972, authorized 1974), and Olmsted NHS 

(authorized 1979). The Armory’s collection not only seemed, but actually was, more 

exceptional in 1971 than thirty years later.

 Finally, museum officials seem to have been deeply affected by their first impressions 

of the Armory. They found a collection in disarray: thousands of rifles stacked in a humid 

basement, irreplaceable specimens haphazardly displayed, rooms full of documents and 

books hastily salvaged from the Army’s departure, inadequate collection records. 

Uncertainty over the size and contents of the archives can only have increased the sense that 

this was a collection in desperate need of care. 

 If these factors were not sufficient justification, external considerations were also 

encouraging agency officials to stress the outsized challenges presented by the collection. 

One was the state of the agency’s museum programs at this time, for despite the important 

collections which it already held, the NPS was not well prepared to care for the Armory’s 

weapons and documents. Lewis points out that, despite major strides in museum 

management, the agency’s traditional emphasis on exhibits and interpretation had only 

begun to shift towards collection management during the late 1960s, and it was not until 1975 

that the first collection management plan was prepared (at Hubbell Trading Post NHS in 

Arizona). In 1964, only twelve parks had full-time curatorial positions, and though by the 

1980s more than forty professional curators worked at parks, concerns about qualifications 

and working conditions remained acute and indeed had reached a head during the late 

1970s. Between 1964 and 1980, Lewis remarks, “the gap seemed to widen between Service 

museum standards and what park museums could actually achieve in consequence of both 

collections and visitation growing much faster than local staffing.”168 As for conservation, Ed 

Kallop recalls that when he left the private sector museum field and joined the NPS early in 

the 1970s he found that conservation was “strictly an interpretation function for the service, 

and any conservation that occurred was strictly to be exhibit-related”:169 a collection like the 

Armory’s would certainly challenge that model. Agency officials then were justified in 

 

168 Ralph H. Lewis, op. cit, pp. 323, 325-327. 

169 Interview of 1995, quoted in David Grayson Allen, The Olmsted National Historic Site and the 

Growth of Historic Landscape Preservation (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2007), p.53. 
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251 

claiming that the Armory’s collections called for an exceptional level of support. A final 

factor in favor of this view was the political anxiety surrounding the entire Armory question, 

which put regional officials, the director, and key members of Congress repeatedly on edge. 

In light of strong political pressure towards acquiring the Armory, whatever management 

problems it might present, professionals on staff may have found it only prudent to alert top 

officials and legislators to the collection’s outsized needs. 

 The story of Olmsted NHS, sometimes adduced as an important example of a park 

brought into the system because of its collections, corroborates the sense that the emphasis 

placed on the challenges of the Armory’s collection during these years was both genuine and 

well-founded.170 The NPS’s reluctance to take on Olmsted has already been mentioned in 

Chapter 2. The reason was precisely the agency’s anxiety over the responsibility of managing 

the collection. That anxiety emerged in 1973 with the first House bill, which included a 

clause calling for the creation of an advisory committee to help the NPS in the unfamiliar 

area of “control, protection, and conservation” of drawings, prints, books, documents, and 

related technical equipment. As the park’s historian, David Grayson Allen, remarks, 

“concern over the collection and the issues it posed would frame the history of this 

legislation for years to come.” That concern emerged again with Congressional hearings in 

1976, when the agency asked Congress to defer action: although Director Everhart admitted 

that the NPS had the necessary curatorial services, the agency afterwards claimed that its lack 

of experience with collections would make it difficult to add Olmsted to the system. That 

year, instead of acting, Congress directed the NPS to study (in Senator Edward Kennedy’s 

words) “the costs of preserving the documents.” Even after the study was completed in 1979, 

the NPS continued trying to give the archives to another federal agency, while some within 

the service, including regional curator Ed Kallop, thought the site should become part of a 

private-sector research center rather than a national park. Seen in light of the Olmsted story, 

then, the question is not why the NPS placed such a heavy emphasis on the Armory’s 

challenges but why the agency did not simply oppose its acquisition, as it initially did with 

Olmsted. 

 In sum, the claims advanced concerning the collection made sense in the context of 

the 1970s. Over time, the context changed. More parks with large and complex collections 

entered the system, including Olmsted NHS. And from the late 1970s the system itself made 

great strides towards developing its collection management and conservation capacity, as 

collection care was detached from its traditional subservience to interpretation and exhibits, 

professionals like Ed Kallop and Ed McManus built up strong regional programs in the 

 

170 David Grayson Allen, The Olmsted National Historic Site and the Growth of Historic Landscape 

Preservation (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2007), p. 17 ff., 26, 30, 36. 
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252 

Figure 5.3. Firearms stand in historic gun racks in the vast second floor storeroom (photo: author) 

northeast, and a centralized division of museum services was created in Washington. But 

instead of responding to these trends, the argument that the Armory’s collections made it 

unique simply gathered strength, to the point where it came into direct conflict with basic 

NPS policy, as with the suggestion that the collection transcended the site and deserved to be 

developed independently of it. Meanwhile, a pattern of controversy between the Armory and 

the region, focusing on collections management and conservation, was being established. A 

couple of decades after the Armory’s establishment it could be said that, if the agency still 

failed to provide the highest level of care that the Armory’s collections deserved, the failure 

did not reflect lack of caring or expertise but rather of resources, not only for the Armory but 

for all of the service’s many outstanding collections. 

 The 2005 Collection Management Plan effectively settled the disagreement over the 

Armory’s uniqueness. And in 2008, new Superintendent Michael Quijano-West closed the 
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253 

Armory’s conservation lab. The immediate reason was health and safety concerns arising 

from a combination of fumes and flammable chemicals in close proximity to both offices and 

collection storage areas. This was a situation which might be expected to concern QuijanoWest, who was trained as a law enforcement ranger and performed this role at the Armory in 

addition to being Superintendent. The park’s conservation needs were not neglected: before 

closing the lab, Quijano-West received the regional office’s assurance that conservators in 

the private sector would be available to continue any necessary work on a contract basis; 

immediately afterwards, a better solution was found when the Harpers Ferry Center’s metals 

conservation laboratory expressed interest in having David Arnold work there.171 Whatever 

the reasons, the closure removed a major source of friction with the regional office and 

perhaps signaled a more collegial relationship. 

 Quijano-West’s new approach went further. “This site is not just a museum,” he said 

in 2009: in the past, the museum had “dominated everything in a manner that we don’t see in 

most national park units,”172 and both the management of the historic site and the park’s 

relationship with the public had suffered as a result. Unlike some of his predecessors he 

rejected the exceptionalist argument and sought to move the Armory closer to NPS norms, 

not only by devoting more attention to the historic site but also by developing something like 

a typical NPS visitor center, where staff can orient visitors to the park’s offerings – including 

but not limited to the museum. Quijano-West understood that some museum professionals 

would view this as a demotion yet argued that his efforts to “open up the site” and better 

accommodate park visitors “were not taking away from the museum.” On the contrary, he 

hoped the new approach would attract more visitors to the park, and ultimately to the 

exhibits. 

 In the past, the Armory sought to focus effort and resources on the collection and in 

some ways the region tacitly supported this approach, even while rejecting some of its 

premises. The result has been to demote the historic site and, arguably, diminish the sense of 

the park as a coherent whole. Yet this strategy has not produced the great museum that its 

curators and conservators envisioned. The question now is whether park staff and agency 

officials can work together to sustain an important collection, develop an under-appreciated 

historic site to its full potential, and bind the two in a convincing relationship – all with 

inadequate resources.

 

171 Michael Quijano-West, telephone interview with author, January 8, 2009. 

172 Quijano-West, telephone interview with author, January 8, 2009. 

255

CHAPTER SIX

INTERPRETING THE ARMORY AND SERVING ITS PUBLICS

National parks operate under a double mandate: to preserve irreplaceable resources 

and to make them available to the public for education and enjoyment. Interpreting the 

resources through exhibits and educational programs, and providing visitor services ranging 

from parking to informational leaflets, are some of the ways in which parks satisfy the second 

part of their mandate. The two parts – protection and public use – are not always in balance, 

and the NPS has often been accused of inadequately protecting, even damaging, resources in 

its zeal to serve the public. This has not been a problem at the Armory. Threats to the park’s 

resources have not come from public use but from the state’s neglect of the historic buildings 

it owns and from the NPS’s inability to fund the highest level of collection care. Moreover, 

while the park has often worked diligently to serve people – park visitors, gun collectors, 

school children, researchers, the civic community of Springfield, web browsers, and other 

national parks – at other times park priorities and agency policies have combined to produce 

an inward focus, relegating interpretation and visitor services to secondary importance. Thus 

the park has focused on caring for a collection of undoubted importance yet of limited 

interest to the broad public; has foresworn management responsibility for most of the park’s 

acreage and historic buildings; and has conserved the rest in ways which occasionally 

frustrated the best hopes of park interpreters. The decisions that produced these results were 

not taken out of hostility to the public: rather, in many cases they sought to implement best 

practices in the management of historic resources, and their impacts on interpretation, 

visitor services, and public engagement were largely unintended. Thus a recently retired park 

employee could claim in all sincerity that the park’s most important consideration was its 

visitors; that as a unit of the National Park Service it could be no other was. 1

DEFINING THE GOALS AND LIMITS OF INTERPRETATION

 If both the collection and the historic site presented unusual challenges as the NPS 

took over the site at the end of the 1970s, interpretation seemed relatively straightforward. In 

hindsight, it is clear that the simplicity was deceptive: interpreting a collection of firearms 

housed on the edge of a college campus would prove to be anything but simple. Yet the 

park’s interpretive prospectus, completed in 1980, gave little hint of any difficulty in telling 

the Armory story. It explained that the park’s “fundamental theme” was the Armory’s role as 

 

1

 John McCabe, recorded interview, August 17, 2007. 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

256

an “industrial site devoted to the design and manufacture of military weaponry.”2 It put forth 

three major goals: to promote “understanding of the historic significance of the Springfield 

Armory and its products”; to use the collection to show the evolution of military small arms; 

and to “illustrate Springfield Armory’s role in industrial history.”3

 Outside the interpretive planning process itself, meanwhile, key decisions were being 

made which would circumscribe park interpretation in ways not visible in these 

pronouncements and which would ripple through the park’s relationships with the public. 

Foremost was the identification of the Main Arsenal and the collection as the park’s “Visitor 

Use/Interpretive Core.” As related in Chapter 3, this decision involved the rejection of at 

least two interpretive options which would have encompassed more of the site and presented 

a broader story. One was labeled by the planners “Emphasis on Historic Site.” The other, 

even more inclusive, would have cultivated a “much broader understanding of armory” by 

interpreting all of Armory Square.4

 Despite the decision to focus on the Main Arsenal and the weapons collection, these 

other options did not immediately disappear. Two years later, park planners considered the 

possibility of interpreting not only “several structures and the landscape on STCC property” 

but even the watershops, Federal Square, and “other off-site historic resources....”5

 Yet again, 

the option finally chosen was “Emphasis on Gun Collection & Arsenal.” 

 According to the official record of decision, what had been rejected was “the full 

development of interpretive facilities both on the armory grounds and in the city.” William L. 

Brown, staff curator for interpretive planning, had glimpsed this trend as early as 1977 and 

regretted it, advising that the nonfederal buildings of Armory Square “should be included in 

any interpretive planning.” The Main Arsenal, he pointed out, was merely where weapons 

were stored: telling the Armory story required interpreting also the buildings where they 

were made.6 Yet in the end, not merely the non-federal portion of Armory Square but even 

the rest of the federal zone largely disappeared from interpretive planning. By 1998, the idea 

 

2

 “Scope of Collections Statement,” prepared by Stuart Vogt (Curator, SPAR), dated November 18, 

1985 (approved 1985-1986), p. 1 (SPAR Central Files: H1415). 

3 Interpretive Prospectus. Springfield Armory NHS, September, 1980, p. 4 

4

 Chart attached to Robert L. Carper and Richard G. Turk, [DRAFT] “Historic Structure Report, 

Architectural Data Section, Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” 1983 (SPAR Central Files: 

H3017). 

5

 Task Directive, General Management Plan/Development Concept Plan Package No. 101, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site, prepared by Larry Beal, Anna Whit Watkins, and Michael Spratt, 

February 22, 1983 [draft - not recommended, concurred, or approved], p. 5 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: 

fol. GMP/DCP Task Directive). 

6

 Memo, William L. Brown, III (Staff Curator, Division of Interp. Planning) to Alan E. Kent (Chief, 

Division of Interpretive Planning), June 1, 1977 (SPAR: Lowenthal Files: fol. Historic Structures 

Report). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

257

of offering interpretation in the Commanding Officer’s House had been tacitly dropped.7

“Associated elements” of the site, such as the Master Armorer’s House, gatehouse, walks and 

paths, and fence would be “stabilized, maintained, and made available for interpretation as 

needed” – meaning that nothing would be done in the foreseeable future to interpret them.8

 Other resource management decisions also tended to work against interpretation. 

Thus the decision to restore the park to its 1968 condition, based on historic preservation 

considerations, led to the retention of the Main Arsenal’s concrete loading dock over the 

objections of park staff, who told planners they felt “very strongly that interpretive 

possibilities would be enhanced” by removing it.9

 The concrete-slab tennis court, which also 

contributed little to interpretation, likewise remained. 

 Park access was another area where key decisions did not support interpretation or 

visitor services. Interpreters recognized very early that the park’s unpleasant and poorly 

marked public access route presented a serious obstacle to serving the public. “Entry to the 

park is very confusing and very dangerous,” commented the Draft Interpretive Prospectus in 

1979: the main gate was shared with STCC, and the circuitous route around the backs of the 

Parade Ground buildings produced both “visitor disorientation and safety hazards.”10 Yet 

the final prospectus (1980) omitted the entire topic. In a similar vein, the General 

Management Plan acknowledged the problem yet concluded that little or nothing would be 

done about it. 

 The problem of public access continued to vex both interpreters and civic 

stakeholders like Carlo Marchetti, executive director of Springfield Central, who argued in 

1984 that a separate entrance to the park was “essential.”11 Yet sixteen years later, marketing 

consultant Marc A. Breslav – retained to help the park increase visitation – confronted the 

same confusions and the same hazards. Driving up to the Armory, Breslav had gotten the 

impression that the complex sat on top of a hill. But on arriving, “you don’t get that sense. 

Instead you drive through endless parking lots, confused as to where to go. You pass 

buildings in disrepair reflecting poorly on NPS even though they are not part of the site” 

(Figs. 6.1-4). Breslav reached the same conclusion as Marchetti: the park needed its own 

 

 

7

 Management Officer Frank Seng: it is “on hold until funds are available to rehabilitate the structure 

interior to provide a safe and secure environment for staff, public, and museum objects” (Management 

Officer, NPS, Washington, DC, Management Review of the Springfield Armory, June 25, 1998, p. 4). 

8

 [Draft] Memo, Supt. to Regional Director, n.d. [April, 1986] (SPAR Central Files: D18). 

9

 Memo, Associate Regional Director, Planning & Resource Preservation, to files, June 12, 1981, 

attached to Robert L. Carper and Richard G. Turk, [DRAFT] “Historic Structure Report, Architectural 

Data Section, Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” January, 1983. 

10 Draft Interpretive Prospectus. Springfield Armory NHS, April, 1979, p. 2 (SPAR: Lowenthal files). 

11 Letter, Carlo A. Marchetti, Executive Director, Springfield Central, to Lindsay, October 18, 1984 

(SPAR Central Files: D18). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

258

Figure 6. 1. The public entrance to Springfield Armory NHS begins at this unwelcoming signpost, 

proceeds past a college security checkpoint and a lengthy series of parking lots and speed bumps before 

leading around a sharp corner into the open space of the parade ground (photo: author).
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

259

Figure 6.2. Visitors to the national park enter Armory Square in front of S.T.C.C.’s main building enjoying a 

view favored by the college as an emblem for official publications (photo: author). 

Figure 6.3. If the park’s identity is reticent, that of the college is forthright (photo: S.T.C.C.).
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

260

entrance. He had a solution: “Open the Byers Street Gate Soon and with Fanfare.” Doing so 

would open the park up to the community and reconnect it to downtown.12

 In fact, park officials and agency planners had considered reopening the 

Byers Street gate on more than one occasion. But it was a difficult problem to safely 

siphon traffic out of the flow of State Street, into the narrow Byers Street, and then 

immediately through the gate and up the hill. It had not been done.13 2001, the NPS 

actually repaired the Byers Street gate, but Superintendent Cuillard assured President 

Scibelli, who was anxious about campus security, that the NPS had “no intention” of 

opening it to the public.14 Rather than a tool for improving interpretation or visitor services, 

then, the Byers Street restoration appeared to be an act of pure resource conservation, and 

today the problem of visitor access remains unsolved. 

 Even though everyone agreed that the museum was the “prime interpretive 

experience,”15 the question had still to be settled whether the collection would primarily 

support the park’s interpretive themes (as the Interpretive Prospectus suggested) or, 

conversely, become the main focus of park interpretation (as the 1984 draft General 

Management Plan implied).16 Gradually, as the collection came to be seen as the site’s raison 

d’être, the question was settled in favor of the latter position. Though NPS policy treated 

interpretation as a distinct activity from either collection or resource management, at the 

Armory there was pressure to redefine it as an activity supporting the collection, as in most 

private sector museums. For much of the park’s early history most of its effort was focused 

on Building 13 and the museum, and although the new permanent exhibits represented a 

much broader outlook than the ones inherited by the NPS, the park’s broader interpretive 

themes remained distinctly secondary. The presentation of guns remained dominant, the 

Armory in its entirety was represented only by a single large model, its history as an industrial 

enterprise or a political organism was hardly explored, and its role in regional culture and 

economy was almost entirely absent. 

 The tendency of collection needs to take precedence over broader interpretive goals 

was further developed in the 1992 draft Collection Management Plan, which placed the 

collections at the center of, rather than in service to, the park’s interpretive programming. 

Responding to the draft, Chief of Visitor Services Joanne Gangi remarked that “Interpreters’ 

use of collection and archives is not really spelled out....” She asked the museum to grant 

 

12 [Marc A. Breslav], “Summary of Recommendations,” inscribed “Master Plan One” and dated June 1, 

2000; and memo, Marc A. Breslav (Public Relations, Advertising and Marketing) to Joanne Gangi, 

September 26, 2001 (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. Marketing Plan) 

13 Recorded interviews with Doug Lindsay, Steve Beatty, and Charles Clapper. 

14 Letter, Cuillard to Andrew Scibelli, (SPAR Central Files: fol. A44 Memoranda of Understanding). 

The rehabilitation work also included the brick pavers, concrete drive, and lighting. 

15 Interpretive Prospectus. Springfield Armory NHS, September, 1980, p. 5. 

16 [Draft] General Management Plan, Development Concept Plan, Environmental Assessment, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site, August, 1984 [not approved] [CRBIB 405329], see e.g. p. 7 (SPAR: 

Lowenthal Files: fol. GMP/DCP Drafts & Final 1979-84). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

261

interpretive staff access to collection materials in order to develop programs, giving them 

“priority over research that does not directly serve the park.”17

 The development of an ambitious interpretive program was further impeded by a 

technical decision. Though the museum had been identified as the focus of visitor 

interpretation, it had been designed to be “self-interpreting.”18 This meant that, unlike many 

house museums which could only be visited with a tour guide or docent, it required little staff 

to operate. Indeed the “minimum interpretive program,” a measure used administratively to 

provide a benchmark for program performance, consisted merely of providing enough staff 

to operate the information desk (which had a security as well as an interpretive function) 

during public hours. In 1990-91, this meant eight hours each day on all but three days 

Figure 6.4. After passing Building 16, the entrance route to the National Park proceeds through a long series of 

college parking lots around the backside of the green (photo: author). 

 

 

17 Memo, Joanne to Steve, July 16, 1992 (SPAR Central Files: H1815). 

18 Annual Statement for Interpretation, FY 1991, prepared November 1990 (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: 

fol. SPI 1990). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

262

Figure 6.5. Site plan of wayside exhibits (NPS, 1986). 

of the year.19 An analysis carried out in 1992 showed that visitation patterns were consistent 

with the concept of a self-interpreting museum: 85% of park visitors used informationoriented and/or non-personal services only. That is, they walked through the exhibits or 

requested research assistance from the museum of library staff. Only 10% of visitors 

attended public programs that were personally conducted by a park staff member. A further 

5% were categorized as non-program users, presumably including casual strollers or 

picnickers.20

 Designing the park’s interpretive core to be self-interpreting was a good way to 

economize on staff, but it also limited the park’s capacity to expand on what the exhibits had 

to offer. In 2000 the Long Range Interpretive Plan reaffirmed the museum’s status as the 

park’s “primary interpretive facility” yet also noted that “the exhibits do not function well 

interpretively”: without help from staff “basic park stories are hard to grasp....” In particular, 

themes like the “impact of firearms on society and the Armory on industrial history, on the 

lives of individual workers, and on the history of Springfield” were hard to tease out.21

 

 

19 Ibid.

20 Annual Statement for Interpretation, FY 1992, approved by Beatty, dated 12/18, 1992, sec. II.3 (SPAR: 

Visitor Services Files: fol. SFI FY 1992). 

21 Long Range Interpretive Plan: Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” 2000, p. 37. 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

263

INTERPRETIVE PROGRAMMING UP TO 1989 

 Despite these limitations, some interpretive programs were developed and offered, 

and a few even took interpretation beyond the Arsenal. The 1980 Interpretive Prospectus 

called for interviews to document the Armory’s recent history, and in 1982 the park hired 

oral historian Barbara Higgins Aubrey to collect them. With Larry Lowenthal, Chief of 

Visitor Services and a professional historian, she circulated a questionnaire to former 

employees, asking about people’s period of employment at the Armory, the jobs they had 

held, unusual projects they had been involved in, interesting incidents, other family members 

who had worked at the Armory, and so forth. And in 1983 they began interviewing them, 

starting with the oldest. The program was designed to gather “a great deal of information on 

the ‘human’ side of the Armory – attitudes, work experience, personal recollections, perhaps 

some details about well-known individuals,” all of which Lowenthal believed was “vital to a 

fuller understanding of the Armory’s history.” As he put it, the park was “responsible for 

collecting and preserving the history of the entire Armory.” By 1989, as the program was 

winding down, Lowenthal had interviewed 77 people and generated 94 one-hour tapes. As of 

1998, the collection held 110 interviews, most them transcribed, together with some 

associated papers.22 

 Even after the program formally ended, efforts to maintain ties with former Armory 

workers continued a while longer. In 1991, Joanne Gangi-Wellman organized “Common 

Bonds,” an “Evening of Appreciation” co-sponsored with the Springfield Armory Historic 

Association. The association had been founded in 1967 as a vehicle for members to “keep in 

touch with former Armoryites” after the closure. Since 1986, the Association’s members had 

funded an annual John C. Garand award of $100 to a student from Roger L. Putnam 

Vocational High School who excelled in machine work. The program organized for 

“Common Bonds” included dinner and tours of the museum and library. The invitation list, 

drawn from Springfield and nearby towns, included people like Janet Nurczyk of 

Haydenville, secretary in procurement from 1941 to 1968; or Roger Turgeon of Chicopee, 

personnel director from 1940 to 1968. There were couples who had worked together at the 

Armory, like Harriet Atwood of Longmeadow, a draftsman during World War II, and her 

husband Irving, who had worked for 25 years as a design engineer; or William McGill of 

Holyoke, general foreman from 1940 to 1967, and his wife Olga, who had worked from 1942 

to 1943 rifling pistol barrels; or Norman and Helen Smith of Springfield: “Norman 1940-66 

 

22 Project launch, 1998 contents: “Springfield Armory NHS Oral History Guide” – photocopy, no 

author, no date, no publication info. (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. Oral Histories); questionnaire, 

program intent: “Survey Questionnaire: Oral History Program,” n.d. [April, 1983?], with attached letter 

to prospective participants in oral history program, Larry Lowenthal to [blank], April, 1983 

(Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –); 1989 contents: Memo, 

Historian, SPAR (Larry Lowenthal), to Chief Historian, January 27, 1989 (SPAR Central Files: H1415). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

264

Figure 6.6 A wayside exhibit panel in front of the Main Arsenal in 2003 (NPS: Cultural Landscapes 

Inventory, 2004, Part 2b) 

shop boy to machine operation, precision tool and cutter, on to apprentice tool maker 

instructor. Met wife at SPAR. Helen 1943-44 Production Oper. [sic] M-1.” 23

 The evening proved to be a swansong. At the July picnic the following year, Mary C. 

Beard, the association’s founder and still its secretary/treasurer, announced her resignation. 

No one was willing to take over: the organization held one last get-together in December, 

1992, and disbanded. “Mary has kept us all together all that time,” reminisced the 

association’s last mailing.24

 The second initiative was a series of interpretive sign panels, or (in NPS terminology) 

wayside exhibits (Figs. 6.5-6) These were intended to interpret the entire National Historic 

Site, and the project demonstrated both the agency’s effort to grapple with the entire site and 

the constraints imposed by its split ownership. The plan was developed by the Harpers Ferry 

Center’s Division of Wayside Exhibits and presented to the park for review at the end of 

 

23 “Common Bonds” program: program and invitation list for “Common Bonds, National Park Service 

and Springfield Armory Historic Association: An Evening of Appreciation, April 17, 1991” (SPAR: 

Central Files” A82 Special Events FY 1991-1996); Association’s history: “Background: Springfield 

Armory Historical Association” [1 page typewritten sheet on NPS letterhead} (SPAR: Visitor Services 

Files, Fol. Seventy Fifth Anniversary N.P.S.) See also “Springfield Armory Historical Association 

Spring Bulletin – 1990” (Visitor Services Files, Springfield Armory Historical Association.). 

24 “25th Annual and Final Christmas Party for Springfield Armory Historical Association” (SPAR: 

Visitor Services Files: Springfield Armory Historical Association) See also photograph of Joanne Gangi 

with unidentified man, inscribed on back, “Last meeting Sp Arm Hist Assoc 12/16/92” (as above). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

265

1985. Of the ten proposed panels, five subjects were located outside the federal boundary: 

the parade ground, Middle Arsenal and Junior Officer’s Quarters, Building 16, caserne, and 

Master Armorer’s House. Yet only two of the panels were to be placed on college property, 

on the south side of the parade. Here the NPS planner was confident they “would not create 

a congestion problem” because they were “somewhat remote” from the main centers of 

campus activity. As a result, exhibits for the caserne or storehouse and Master Armorer’s 

House were placed far away from their subjects. Moreover, as the majority of signs were 

tightly clustered near the Arsenal, they did little to encourage visitors to explore the rest of 

the National Historic Site. Regional Director Cables hoped to see the plan expanded, “later 

to include other locations on the college portion of the Site,” though this would require an 

agreement with the college.25 It has not happened. 

 The NPS showed considerable deference to the college during the preparation of the 

signs. Officials including President Scibelli were invited to review the plan (or a 1987 version 

of it). In general they liked it, commenting that the signs were “basically well-designed” and 

promising that the college would “welcome this addition to the site.” Nevertheless, college 

officials asked the NPS to use information they had provided about the college “as it is 

presented”: they wanted college buildings called by name, the new campus buildings 

identified on the map, the college’s name placed on the sign panels at a size equal to that of 

the National Park Service. The agency acceded to all of these requests.26

 The agency deferred to college sensibilities in matters of content as well. One panel 

displays an early view showing the Armorer’s House and its erstwhile twin, the Paymaster’s 

House, flanking the Main Arsenal. Yet explaining the absence of the latter, the panel says 

only that it “was demolished,” a statement whose blandness was perhaps suggested by a 

desire not to offend college officials. 

SERVING OTHER PARKS

 One of the constituencies served by the Armory was other parks in the northeast 

region. The Armory could offer them two valuable resources: surplus space and expertise in 

guns. Early in the 1980s the storage facilities at Frederick Law Olmsted NHS were temporarily 

taken out of service for upgrading, and by 1983 the Armory was storing archival collections 

for the other park. The Olmsted collection was sizable: in 1989, even after some number had 

been returned to the park, the material stored at the Armory was estimated at about 150,000 

 

25 “Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Wayside Exhibit Proposals,” prepared by HFC, Division 

of Wayside Exhibits, written by Olin Nave, Wayside Exhibit Planner, signed by [illegible], Chief, 

Division of Wayside Exhibits, dated. December 27, 1985, attached to memo, Regional Director NAR 

(Cables) to Manager, HFC, March 26, 1986 (SPAR Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, 

Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 

26 Letter, Cheryl G. Baraldi, Dean of Admin. Services, S.T.C.C., to Lindsay, February 9, 1988; and 

(lettering size) memo, Supt. to Olin Nave, Wayside Exhibits Design, HFC, February 17, 1988 (SPAR 

Central Files: D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

266

items. At first, the collection was housed on the second floor of the Main Arsenal.27 By 1989 it 

had been moved to the third floor, to a room recently upgraded “with walls.” Soon heating 

was added, which park staff hoped would reduce the humidity. That summer, the regional 

office asked Lindsay if there might be room as well for a processing lab that was to be at Salem 

Maritime NHS.” After discussions with Olmsted superintendent Rolf Diamant, it was decided 

to put the lab in the Commandant’s House rather than the arsenal;28 a formal agreement 

concluded in 1989 assured that drawings and plans would continue to be stored in the Main 

Arsenal, in space newly “rebuilt and upgraded” and soon to be connected to the building’s 

HVAC system. Up to $10,000 would be made available from congressionally appropriated 

ONPS (Operation of the National Park System) funds, Olmsted would pay for upgrading the 

second floor spaces in the Commandants House, and the Armory would pay for much of the 

work in the Main Arsenal, since this would improve its physical plant.29

 The Olmsted NHS was not the only unit to take advantage of the Armory’s surplus 

storage space. Perhaps as early as 1983, the Martin Van Buren NHS sent a large collection of 

material for storage,30 and at some point this “sizeable collection of surplus MAVA artifacts, 

primarily furniture” was also moved to the third floor of the Main Arsenal. 

 In 1990, Lindsay discussed the possibility of regularizing this storage function with 

Regional Curator John Maounis. Lindsay agreed to dedicate half of the third floor for storing 

other parks’ collections as soon as the library vacated the space: he warned, however, that the 

area lacked environmental controls as well as a freight elevator.31 Both park and region 

worked to ensure that the needs of the Olmsted collection continued to be met – as for 

example in 1992, when the region budgeted money to design and specify a “super insulated 

 

27 Ann Hitchcock (Chief Curator, Curatorial Services Branch, WASO), “Trip Report, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site (SPAR), July 20, 1984 (Charlestown, Regional Curator Files: fol. 

Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

28 Memo, Chief, Division of Cultural Resource, NAR (John Maounis) to Regional Curator, NAR (“Trip 

Report”), June 16, 1989 (Charlestown, Regional Curator Files: folder Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 

29 Memo, Superintendent, SPAR to Superintendent, FRLA , March 28, 2001 SPAR Central Files: fol. 

A44 Memoranda of Understanding); “Memorandum of Understanding Between Springfield Armory 

National Historic Site and Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site,” signed (by Superintendents, 

and Regional Director) and dated September 10, October 27, and November 30, 1999 (SPAR Central 

Files: fol. - MOU - SPAR - FRLA Olmstead [sic]); memos, Associate Regional Director, NAR (Clapper) 

to Superintendents, SPAR and Olmsted, April 13, 1989, and Supt., Olmsted, Longfellow and Kennedy 

NHSs, to Acting Regional Director, NAR, July 7, 1989 (Charlestown, Regional Curator Files: folder 

Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). See also Draft MOU with FRLA, n.d. (but annotated in pen, 1989)] (SPAR 

Central Files: fol. A44 Memoranda of Understanding). Under the 1999 Memorandum of Agreement, 

Olmsted also paid for its share of services like rubbish carting and utilities: in 2001 this amounted to 

$10,820 per year. 

30 Ann Hitchcock (Chief Curator, Curatorial Services Branch, WASO), “Trip Report, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site (SPAR), July 20, 1984 (Charlestown, Regional Curator Files: fol. 

Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

31 Memo, Regional Curator (John Maounis) to Chief, Division of CRM, March 30, 1990 (“Trip Report, 

March 21, 1990’)- Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

267

storage facility.”32 The Van Buren material was less welcome. An attempt to dispose of it 

through the NPS Clearing House failed: “Prompted by emphatic recommendations in the 

SPAR Collection Management Plan,” wrote Superintendent Beatty in 1995, “we are actively 

clearing deteriorated, combustible materials from the third floor.”33 The park’s files contain 

no record of the removal, and in 2001 the jumble stored on the third floor – a mixture, 

according to Conservator David Arnold, of Army objects “‘abandoned on site’” and material 

being stored for other parks – caused the park some embarrassment when NPS Chief 

Conservator Sara Wolf took its condition as evidence of the park’s “disregard” for its 

collections.34

 The second resource which the Armory had to offer was its ability to handle 

weapons, which included not only curatorial expertise but also security, accountability, and 

safety procedures. In February of 1997, the park signed a memorandum of understanding 

with the agency to provide a “centralized final disposition system for all NPS firearms” – that 

is, any gun that any unit of the National Park system decided it no longer wanted – ensuring 

that weapons or even parts of weapons that might have historic value were “preserved in an 

approved NPS museum collection.”35 This gave the Armory the chance to incorporate some 

of the better pieces into its collection, or at least to scavenge the screws or firing pins it 

needed to exhibit its own weapons. In this sense, the Firearms Disposition Center resembled 

the clearinghouse for "junkers" and surplus weapons which Lindsay had proposed in 1978. 

But its ultimate goal was quite different. Although Lindsay pointed out the “curatorial 

burden” which his clearinghouse would lift from the parks, his main intent was to support 

the restoration of his collection.36 The ultimate goal of the Firearms Disposition Center was 

to destroy unwanted weapons. This was an essential function for the system as a whole, but 

one which imposed a significant burden on whichever park assumed it. First, someone had to 

assess the “historic value” of each item and determine its “appropriate disposition,” an 

operational burden which the park believed entitled it to an increase in staff and funding.37

Second, the park had to assure that the unwanted guns were safely destroyed. In 1998, the 

 

32 Memo, Associate Regional Director (Robert W. McIntosh, Jr.) to Superintendent, SPAR, February 

21, 1992 (Regional Curator Files: folder: Curatorial SPAR 1989 –). 

33 Memo, Supt. to Michael Henderson, Supt, MAVA, January 24, 1995 (SPAR Central Files: H3015 

Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

34 Emails, Arnold to Wolf, March 9, 2001, and Wolf to Arnold, March 1, 2001 (copies in Arnold, 

conservation binder, nos. 57, 58). 

35 Memorandum of Understanding Between the National Park Service and Springfield Armory 

National Historic Site,” signed and dated February 7, February 11, February 12, February 13, February 

14, 1997 (SPAR Central Files: A-4415 MOU); and Management Officer [Frank Seng], NPS, 

Washington, DC, Management Review of the Springfield Armory, June 25, 1998, p. 10. 

36 Memo, Supt. (Lindsay) to Chief, Branch of Museum Services, HFC, November 2, 1978, and memos, 

Ed Kallop, November 21, 1978, and December 26, 1978. (Charlestown, Regional Curator Files: fol. 

Curatorial SPAR through 1988). 

37 [Case for amending GMP], prepared by Joanne Gangi, May 4, 1998 (SPAR Central Files: D18 GMP 

Amendment 5/4/98). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

268

FDC was transporting weapons for destruction to a smelter about eighty miles away. The 

smelter required the park to arrange in advance for all shipments, and even to specify the 

arrival time of its NPS weapons, all of which exposed agency staff to additional security risks. 

In 1998, Management Officer Frank Seng recommended finding a smelter nearer to hand. He 

also transmitted a suggestion from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, that before 

taking firearms to the smelter, the park carry out a process of “virtual destruction” so as to 

prevent their later retrieval and reassembly. He referred darkly to an unfortunate experience 

a few years ago.38

VISITOR SERVICES AFTER 1989: REORGANIZATION, GROWTH, 

AND THE PROBLEM OF RESOURCES

 Within about eighteen months, between fall 1989 and spring 1992, a convergence of 

events reshaped life at the Armory and, for the first time, placed interpretation and visitor 

services at the center of the park agenda. The first was the reopening of the museum, which 

not only liberated park managers to focus on new priorities but also gave interpreters access 

to their primary resource after a two year hiatus. The timing was fortunate, for the Armory’s 

bicentennial would be celebrated in 1994, and by 1992 the impending occasion was already 

prompting new opportunities to tell the park’s story and to build civic partnerships. In the 

meantime, in 1991, Steve Beatty arrived as superintendent, initiating a tenure that would be 

almost as long-lasting as Doug Lindsay’s. Unlike Lindsay, Beatty did not arrive at the Armory 

forewarned of dire problems. His brief, transmitted by Regional Director Marie Rust, was 

simple: solve the personnel problems and “put the park on the map.”39 The first, she advised, 

would facilitate the second. Thus arose the first of Beatty’s signature initiatives, the 1992 staff 

reorganization that created a true visitor services division for the first time in the park’s 

history. 

 Beatty confronted several staff problems. There were underperforming employees as 

well as some potentially explosive “racial and bigotry issues” which held a potential for 

lawsuits. Beatty solved these issues through retirements and transfers. There was also, in his 

view, a high degree of disorganization. Everyone reported to the superintendent. Curator 

John McCabe recalled Lindsay often saying that the park had “one division – me.”40 As a 

result, Beatty felt the park lacked an organized personnel structure, clear divisional lines, or 

sufficient staff; “nearly every function is partially lead [sic] by every established division,” so 

that some employees confusingly reported to supervisors in different divisions; division 

chiefs were not involved in park planning and budgeting; there was a “general situation of no 

leadership below the Superintendent....In one word ‘disorganization.’” The park resembled 

 

38 Management Officer [Frank Seng], NPS, Washington, DC, Management Review of the Springfield 

Armory, June 25, 1998, p. 10. 

39 Steve Beatty, recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 

40 John McCabe, recorded interview, August 17, 2007. 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

269

“17 individuals with 17 agendas going in 17 directions. The total dependence on the 

Superintendent for all supervision and leadership is unacceptable.”41

 The reorganization, initiated by a 1991 Operations Evaluation and developed in 

1991-92, addressed all of these problems. It created divisions. “Few positions,” it announced, 

“will remain unchanged....” It would provide enough staff to meet the park’s daily operating 

needs. And it would “improve the extremely poor confidence and moral [sic] of the staff.” 

 The reorganization sought to touch every aspect of the park. Support staff was to be 

shifted between the superintendent’s office and general administration. Maintenance would 

benefit as well. The operation of the museum and archive was evidently a major concern, 

which the plan addressed in part by increasing the staff size. But what bothered the 

administrators were not only the division’s shortcomings but also its divergence from agency 

norms. They wanted to produce some “semblance of a traditional park structure in a park 

where traditional structure is not possible”: after the reorganization, “divisions and functions 

will be more similar to other parks making identity and seeking assistance easier.... 

Professional requirements for operating a museum will be more evident....” 

 First among the plan’s objectives, however, was to create “a functioning Visitor 

Services Division.” It started with creation of a new position of Information Clerk, a 

seemingly small change which would “begin to establish a true Visitor Services Division with 

interpretation and law enforcement functions.” There was also a lack of trained law 

enforcement personnel as well as a deficit of interpretation beyond a limited education 

program. The plan aimed to correct both deficits and to provide “an education program 

meeting the demands of the community.”42 It called for other changes to visitor services. 

Larry Lowenthal, an “excellent historian and park planner,” would be moved from Chief of 

Visitor Services, a position whose supervisory role did not suit him, to a position as historian, 

where he could be “in a more productive role” – a “critical move” toward establishing the 

division planners imagined. The plan for the following year contained yet further changes. A 

new Park Ranger LE GS-5 position – that is, a ranger trained and equipped to provide law 

enforcement – would “begin to meet law enforcement needs of the park.” A new Education 

Specialist GS-9 would take responsibility for the education program, allowing the park to 

begin meeting the unserved demand for programs and freeing up the time of other 

employees to manage visitor services. The position would “provide the beginning of a public 

interpretive program.” There were even more changes planned for Fiscal Year 1994. 

 

41 “Justification for Reorganization of Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” n.d., see esp. pp. 1, 2, 

3, 4, 9, 10; attached to “Reorganization Plan for Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” n.d., with 

cover memo, Superintendent to Regional Director, April 13, 1992 (Charlestown, Regional Curator 

Files: folder: SPAR CMP). 

42 “Justification for Reorganization of Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” n.d., see esp. pp. 1, 2, 

3, 4, 9, 10; attached to “Reorganization Plan for Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” n.d., with 

cover memo, Superintendent to Regional Director April 13, 1992 (Charlestown, Regional Curator 

Files: folder: SPAR CMP). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

270

 The plan proposed to build the staff from an existing total of 14.1 full time equivalent 

staff positions (which exceeded the park’s authorized total) to a much larger 22.4 FTE. It 

would also shift resources among functions, especially between the museum services and 

visitor services divisions. On paper, museum services would grow from 3.3 to 9 FTE, but this 

was partly accomplished by moving existing library technician positions out of visitor 

services, where they did not really belong. Museum services would now be partitioned in two 

branches, one for the library and archive, the other for the collection. Visitor services would 

also grow, from 3.8 to 6 FTE, and here the growth was real, since the earlier number included 

the two library technicians as well as a supervisory ranger who was not only a historian by 

inclination but also an expert park planner, often detailed to other parks by the region. The 

park’s existing education coordinator would be promoted to head the reorganized 

department, managing two full-time education specialists as well as one full-time and two 

half-time park rangers with law enforcement duties, and, of course, the information clerk.43

 From Beatty’s perspective, the reorganization met one of his most important goals, 

which was to create a framework within which some “very strong individuals” could begin to 

work well together. After about four years, in fact, he found that the four division chiefs – 

administration, museum services, visitor services, and maintenance – were basically 

managing the park.44 Realizing other goals depended on resources, and there success was 

more equivocal. It is true that from 1987 onwards the park’s Annual Interpretive Program 

Reports showed significant growth in spending on interpretation. In 1987, the park’s 

interpretive budget was $49,300, or 12% of its total ONPS (Operation of the National Park 

System) budget. In 1990, this grew to $73,765, or almost 16% of total ONPS. By 1991, the 

figure had ballooned to $121,228, or fully one fourth of the park’s ONPS spending. And 

during the remainder of the decade, annual interpretive budgets generally hovered in the 

range of $150,000-$200,000, or between 25% and 30% of the park’s ONPS spending. Starting 

in 1991, the regular interpretive budget was also supplemented by other funds: $1090 from 

the Volunteers in Parks program that year, $12,292 in 1995 from a combination of the VIP 

program and other donations.45 Another small funding source opened up when Eastern 

 

43 “Reorganization Plan for Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” n.d., with cover memo, 

Superintendent to Regional Director, April 13, 1992 (Charlestown, Regional Curator Files: folder: 

SPAR CMP). 

44 Steve Beatty, recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 

45 The Annual Interpretive Program Reports continue from 1987 through 1998 (with a gap for 1988 and 

1989). They were replaced from 1999 with Park Service wide Interpretive Reports, which account for 

funds slightly differently and do not include percentages. The figures are as follows: 

1987 $49,300 (12%) 1996 $177,262 (31%: plus $6,660 in other funds) 

1990 $73,765 (16%) 1997 $166,284 (27%: plus $6,422 in other funds) 

1991 $121,228 (25%: plus $1090 in other funds) 1998 $324,768 (49%: plus $2,742 in other funds) 

1992 $149,628 (25%: plus $1988 in other funds) 1999 $200,640 (plus $2805 in Service wide Fee Funds) 

1993 $116.978 (21%: plus $2682 in other funds) 2000 $171,046 

1994 $163,833 (28%: plus $26,662 in other funds) 2001 $202,603 

1995 $169,983 (29%: plus $12,292 in other funds) 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

271

National, a company specializing in running book and gift shops at National Parks, took over 

the Armory’s shop. A common feature of the concession contracts written with Eastern 

National was a clause specifying the payment of a small percentage of the proceeds into a 

park account, rather than directly to Washington. These accounts, technically classed as 

donations, gave superintendents a little discretionary spending money. In FY 1996, the 

Armory’s Eastern National fund yielded a total of $1,538 for the park’s interpretive 

division.46

 Yet despite this growth, the reports also show that the Reorganization Plan’s targets 

were never met in the crucial area of staffing. In 1987, the park mustered the equivalent of 

2.23 full-time staff members (FTE) for interpretation, or 15% of its total staffing. By 1991, the 

figure had peaked at 3.88 FTE, or 28% of staffing. This was the high point. During the 

remainder of the decade, volunteers contributed modestly to the staffing total, but the 

benefit was probably offset by the burden imposed on professional staff by the responsibility 

of managing large numbers of volunteers. The figures are suggestive: for example, in 1996 

thirty-eight volunteers together contributed a total of a little more than half of the equivalent 

of a single full-time staff position; the following year, 121 volunteers produced an amount of 

work equivalent to 1.37 FTE. By this time, regular park staff for interpretation had declined 

to three FTE, far short of the 6 envisioned in the Reorganization Plan. It was not that 

resources had been shifted elsewhere: interpretation still represented a substantial 22% of 

park staffing, well above pre-1990 levels. But the overall expansion envisioned by the plan 

had not taken place. 

 The Armory was far from the only park with these problems, and so the agency and 

region sought during the 1990s to supplement funding for interpretation by participating in 

programs funded by outside organizations. One was the Teaching with Historic Places 

program, a collaboration among the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National 

Council for Social Studies, and the agency’s own National Register program. Another new 

idea was a proposal in 1990 to establish Cooperative Park Education Units, based on the 

twenty-two existing Cooperative Park Study Units which established formal relationships 

with universities.47 A program from which the Armory benefitted was Parks as Classrooms, a 

grant program launched by the National Park Foundation and active by 1991. A regional 

official described it as “an opportunity for a park to develop a basic education program by 

 (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fols. SFI 1987, SFI 1990, SFI FY 91, SFI FY 92, SFI 1993, SIR 1994, SFI FY 

95, SFI 1996, SIR 97, SFI 98/99, SIR 2000/2001.) 46 Memo, Cynthia Cirillo (Financial Assistant, EN) to Superintendent SPAR, December 27, 1996 

(SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. Eastern National Sectional Meeting...). 

47 See “Education Update, North Atlantic Region,” dated in pen, November 24, 1992 (SPAR: Visitor 

Services Files: fol. Education NPS...) and “Cooperative Park Education Unit,” n.d. [1993 or 94?] (SPAR: 

Visitor Services Files: fol. Education NPS...). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

272

providing ‘seed money’ to get started with curriculum development, teacher workshops, 

etc.”48 The Armory used Parks as Classrooms support to produce “From Her Arms to His” in 

1992-93. For the program, a professional writer and storyteller interviewed eight former 

employees, created and performed “an original Women Ordnance Worker story,” and 

developed a tape and teacher’s guide.49 Other successes came from Teaching with Historic 

Places, which over the years has produced a voluminous library of lesson plans and source 

materials. But grant programs and curriculum development projects could not lift the 

Armory’s interpretive programs to the level envisioned by the Reorganization Plan. 

Compared with the need, the funds which the Parks as Classroom program could deliver 

were extremely small: in FY 1994, the program provided a total of $768,000 for distribution 

throughout the entire National Park system. Within the North Atlantic Region, managers 

adopted a “seed money” approach so as to “distribute the very limited funds to the largest 

number of deserving projects.” This meant that, during Fiscal Years 1991 and 1992, fourteen 

out of twenty-four parks in the North Atlantic Region received educational funding from the 

National Park Foundation: in 1991, $76,000 was shared by four parks; in 1992, $69,000 was 

split among eight.50

 Another political strategy to augment the interpretative program also failed. In 1993, 

a “multimillion-dollar jobs and infrastructure program” called Rebuild America was 

introduced to Congress. It was intended to restore funds cut from the previous year’s NPS 

programs, help the agency address known deficiencies, and repair the damage from a major 

storm that had hit the northeast the previous December. For the Northeast Region alone, 

Rebuild America promised to generate almost $16 million, and of the $65,000 proposed for 

the Armory, $15,000 was earmarked for interpretation.51 With “strong backing and oversight 

from the Department of the Interior,” the NPS prepared to take advantage of this substantial 

opportunity. Yet by April the Senate had defeated the program. Asked to assess the impact 

on the Armory, Joanne Gangi commented that “negative consequences will be felt by all 

divisions” – but especially by visitor services. The funds would have allowed the park to 

“finally start providing consistent, requested public programs for our visitors.” Instead, there 

 

48 Memo, Chief of Interpretation, NAR, to Chief Interpreters, Education Specialists, NAR, September 

22, 1993 (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. Parks as Classrooms Grant). 

49 Draft material, related contract material, and cassette tape for From Her Arms to His (SPAR: Visitor 

Services Files: unlabelled folder filed under A & B) 

50 “Seed money” approach: Memo, Chief of Interpretation, NAR, to Chief Interpreters, Education 

Specialists, NAR, September 22, 1993 (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. Parks as Classrooms Grant); FY 

91 and 92: “Education Update, North Atlantic Region,” dated in pen, November 24, 1992 (SPAR: 

Visitor Services Files: fol. Education NPS...); FY 94: National Park Foundation, “Parks as Classroom 

Fact Sheet,” November 11, 1993 (Sagamore Hill: Interpretation Files: Folder: Parks in Classroom 

Information): the FY 94 number represents the funding expected for that year. 

51 Program intended: memo, Edie Shean-Hammond, Chief of Communications, to Supts., Directorate, 

Division Chiefs, April 22, 1993 (SPAR: Central Files: K2623 Interp. Reports (Situation). Strong backing, 

timetable, allocation of funds: memo, Regional Director, NAR, to Superintendents, Directorate, and 

Division Chiefs, NAR, March 8, 1993 (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. PD - Economic Stimulus...). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

273

would be cutbacks in interpretive programs, special events, temporary exhibits, and planning 

for the bicentennial.52

 Gangi’s assessment was pessimistic. It was not merely that this disappointment 

frustrated plans to expand. Rather, she felt, the park had failed to serve the public adequately 

at any time since the reopening of the museum. One reason was that promises made in the 

reorganization plan had not been fulfilled. For two years, Gangi explained, the Armory’s 

requests to hire the new staff called for in the plan had been denied. The visitor services 

division continued to make do with a single Interpreter/Education Coordinator who was 

responsible for developing and presenting all of the park’s school and public programs. The 

park had hoped to use the Rebuild America funding to hire two more interpreters, one (GS9) to lead the development of new public programs, especially those focused on the 

upcoming Bicentennial, and the other (GS-5) to assist with interpretive services.53 As Gangi 

saw it, Rebuild America would have helped lift visitor services to a credible baseline level. 

 Inadequate funding and staffing were facts. Yet Gangi’s disappointment may also 

have reflected raised expectations. Eighteen months earlier, Congress had asked the agency 

for a “full overview” of the “status/erosion of interpretive services” since the nation’s 

bicentennial. Completing a questionnaire, Larry Lowenthal had stated that the Armory’s 

interpretive program had suffered no major setbacks and that the park was not operating 

“below a minimum level of interpretive services.”54 In 1993, with hopes raised by the agency’s 

efforts to create a “functioning Visitor Services Division,” then further raised by Rebuild 

America, Gangi’s disappointment must have been keen. 

 In general, these were not good times for building park budgets, and things soon got 

worse. In 1994, conservative Republicans took control of Congress, promising drastic cuts in 

the federal budget. By the following year there was concern that, if they succeeded, some 

parks would have to close. That fall the Republican Congress forced a showdown with 

Democratic President Bill Clinton. Rather than accept the Republicans’ severe budget cuts, 

he shut down the federal government, hoping that the public would direct its outrage at 

Congress rather than him. The strategy succeeded. The government went back to work and 

the deepest cuts were avoided. But the prospects for increased funds and staffing remained 

slim. In 1995, the Armory still had only one interpreter with a background in education or 

sufficient interpretive experience to create new school programs, while the new 

Organizational Plan required the chief to manage the division while continuing to present 

most of its programs. As a result, Gangi did not have the necessary time to build alliances 

 

52 Memo, Gangi to Shean-Hammond, April 23, 1993 (SPAR Central Files: K2623 Interp. Reports 

(Situation)). 

53 Memo, Gangi to Shean-Hammond, April 23, 1993 (SPAR Central Files: K2623 Interp. Reports 

(Situation)). 

54 Memo, Chief of Interpretation, NAR, to Superintendents, October 22, 1991, with attached 

questionnaire filled out by Larry Lowenthal (SPAR Central Files: K2623 Interp. Reports [Situation]). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

274

with school officials and teachers, or to attend meetings and curriculum development 

workshops. “We need an interpreter who can both plan school and public programs,” she 

summed up.55

NEW PROGRAMS, THE BICENTENNIAL, AND CIVIC COOPERATION

 If budget shortfalls kept Visitor Services operating at a level below the envisioned 

expansion, Beatty and his staff nonetheless managed to develop important new programs and 

to lead a conceptual shift in the park’s interpretation. The problem was the Armory’s 

reputation (and to some extent its real condition) as little more than a gun museum. Guns 

provoked strong and conflicting emotions. On the one hand, Beatty felt some hostility to 

firearms, both in Congress and in the agency’s regional office, which translated into an 

aversion to educational programs focused on firearms. On the other hand, he found that the 

collection’s traditional constituency of gun collectors and enthusiasts had lost faith in the 

Armory. “They didn’t trust us,” he recalls, ironically because they thought the park was antigun. To mend fences with collectors while simultaneously building new constituencies would 

require carefully steering between these two poles. It was necessary to telegraph the message 

that the Armory was neither “pro-gun nor anti-gun.” The way the park solved the problem 

was essentially to shift the interpretive focus away from the guns themselves and towards 

broader social themes. “People, process, product” would be the new orientation, with the 

emphasis on the people and the process – that is, on the Armory’s workers and the industrial 

manufacturing techniques they pioneered, techniques that sometimes revolutionized all of 

American industry. “Make it more personal to everybody” was Beatty’s directive: if people 

disliked firearms, forge a connection through the manufacture of shoe lasts.56

 Beatty credits much of the inspiration behind this shift to Chief of Visitor Services 

Joanne Gangi-Wellman, and specifically to her pioneering work with local schools. Schools 

represented one area where visitation could be increased, and where interpretative programs 

could help the park get beyond the limitations of a “self-interpreting” museum. The early 

1990s were both a good and a bad time to be developing school programs. Massachusetts’ 

public schools were hit by severe budget cuts, increasing the demand for non-profit 

programming. Yet although the park’s programs were free, transporting students was 

expensive, and “creative efforts” were needed to solve the problem.57

 Developing new school programs required much more than simply developing their 

content. Gangi started working on the fifth grade program as soon as the museum reopened 

in 1989. Inviting teachers to an open house at the museum, she launched a curriculum 

development project in which a few interested teachers worked with her to develop a pilot 

 

55 “Overview of Visitor Services at SPAR 7/26/95” (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. SFI FY 95). 

56 Steve Beatty, recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 

57 Annual Statement for Interpretation, FY 1992, approved by Beatty, dated 12/18, 1992, sec. II.3 (SPAR: 

Visitor Services Files: fol. SFI FY 1992). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

275

program for the spring.58 As the team worked together, the project took shape as “Track the 

Firearms over Time.” Regular communication with teachers and schools was needed, not 

only to develop the program but also to build interest in it; close attention to the state’s 

curriculum was also essential, for schools could not afford to offer programs that did not 

help them meet state requirements. 

 By the summer of 1990, the park was offering other new programs to fifth, eighth, 

and eleventh grade classes.59 A fifth grade program was called “Geniuses of Springfield,” one 

for the older grades “Right in Our Backyard: Our National Armory.” Essentially all of the 

programs consisted of a museum visit, including a screening of the armory’s film, a guided 

exploration of the exhibits, classroom activities that might help to link their content with the 

school curriculum, and sometimes a presentation on gun safety.60 By 1998 the park claimed 

that its school programs were serving 2,000 students per year.61 By 2000, the park could 

report that the annual number of school programs offered at the museum had increased to 

eight; that thirty-seven area schools were participating with a total of 1,921 students, and that 

off-site programming for schools had also increased, serving a total of 1,272 students.62

 The substantive challenges Gangi faced in designing school programs were the same 

ones that had often perplexed planners and interpreters, and that Beatty encountered on 

arriving at the Armory. A newspaper reporter summarized them: 

How do you make the museum’s contents relevant to their 

[fifth graders’] lives and studies? And how do you focus a 

lesson plan on guns without seeming to glorify weapons of 

destruction?63

 

58 Letter, Joanne M. Gangi (Education Coordinator) and James K. Tillotson (Director of Social Studies, 

Springfield Public Schools) to Dear Classroom Teacher, November 13, 1989 (SPAR: Visitor Services 

Files: fol. Dec 5th – Open House ...). See also material relating to curriculum development project 

(SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. “Curr Dev Proj”). 

59 Memo, Acting Chief, Division of Interpretation and Recreation (region) to Chief of Interpretation 

(park), June 5, 1990 (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. Educ. Programs – SPAR). 

60 “National Park Service, School Programs Survey, Horace Albright Employee Development Fund 

Project 1988,” attached to memo, Acting Chief, Division of Interpretation and Recreation (region) to 

Chief of Interpretation (park), June 5, 1990 (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. Educ. Programs – 

SPAR....). For a description of 1991 programs, covering fifth grade through high school, see: flyer 

included with information packet on Springfield Armory Museum for “Common Bonds, National Park 

Service and Springfield Armory Historic Association: An Evening of Appreciation, April 17, 1991” 

(SPAR Central Files: A82 Special Events FY 1991-1996): the fifth grade program was a social studies 

unit in which alternative programs on technology and creativity were offered. 

61 [Case for amending GMP], prepared by Joanne Gangi, May 4, 1998 (SPAR Central Files: D18 GMP 

Amendment 5/4/98). 

62 “Long Range Interpretive Plan: Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” January, 2000, p. 27. 

63 Pat Cahill, “Students reopen the Book on a Storied Armory,” Union-News, November 7, 1990 (SPAR: 

Visitor Services Files: fol. Education – 5th grade S. S. Unit....). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

276

Gangi’s solution was to use the weapons to open up or illustrate broader topics like 

“Technology” or “Creativity.” The latter unit, for example, started not with guns but with 

classroom exercises on “annoying problems of everyday life and how to solve them.”64

 School programs were not the only area where new initiatives sought to reshape the 

Armory’s relationship to the public. Studying the permanent exhibits, Beatty found the new 

themes of “people, process, and product” strikingly absent: in fact, the “basically static” 

permanent exhibits, which offered little incentive to repeat visitors, constricted rather than 

supported the park’s interpretive program. The solution was temporary exhibits that would 

change fairly rapidly, and Beatty challenged his division chiefs to propose ideas.65 His goal 

was to rotate exhibits every 90 days, but in fact James Roberts, who arrived as Supervisory 

Museum Curator in 1996, recalls that they changed roughly once a year.66 Roberts supported 

the new emphasis on communication and audience development and forged a strong 

working relationship with Gangi-Wellman, but he also sought to bring a higher standard of 

professional polish to the exhibit program. Thus he extended the rotation period to eighteen 

months, meanwhile learning the design and computer skills needed to produce exhibits 

entirely in-house, “on a shoestring” and without depending on regional support. 

 A third initiative was to reach out to Springfield’s increasingly diverse population, 

especially its African American and Latino residents, and to women. A key step was to 

broaden the narrative of the Armory’s history to recognize the role played by these groups. 

The picture presented by the park on Beatty’s arrival was “primarily white.” Yet the Armory’s 

history included workers of many races and ethnicities and had much to say about larger 

questions of race and gender relations. It “made a lot of sense” to draw out these strands, 

especially the Armory’s African American history. Again, Beatty credits Gangi-Wellman and 

her involvement with the racially diverse public school system with some of the inspiration 

for this shift. But the mayor was also pressing for a “broader history.” 

 The change of focus was conspicuous. In 1989, responding to a region-wide survey of 

black history topics in the parks, Larry Lowenthal had stated not only that no black history 

topics were included in the park’s interpretive programs but that no black history themes 

were associated with the Armory.67 Yet in 1993 the Interpretive Division could find enough 

material to devote its first temporary exhibit to the theme of African American workers at the 

Armory. Timed to coincide with Black History Month, it sought to reverse a disturbing drop 

in visitation, which staff attributed partly to the static nature of the exhibits. But it also sought 

to correct the underrepresentation of African American workers in the park’s oral history 

program, and to this end the interpreters sent out mailings and engaged African Americans 

visitors to the museum in discussion, all in an effort to generate dialogue with African 

 

64 Ibid.

65 Steve Beatty, recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 

66 James Roberts, recorded interview with author, May 29, 2009. 

67 Survey form attached to memo, Chief of Interpretation, NAR (Cynthia E. Kryston), to Chief 

Interpreters NAR, August 2, 1989 (SPAR Central Files: K2623 Interp. Reports (Situation). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

277

Figure 6.7. To amplify the interpretive message of the permanent exhibits with social history themes, park staff 

have made space for and installed temporary exhibits (photo: author). 

 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

278

American workers. Scheduled for a month or two, the exhibit remained much longer, and 

Superintendent Beatty claimed that it generated more useful information on former African 

American workers than any previous activity. To build on its successes, three years later, the 

park launched an African-American Heritage Project, in cooperation with STCC.68

 The new interest in diversity was not limited to African Americans: in 1993 the park 

also mounted an exhibit for Hispanic History Month. Women, who had made up over 45 

percent of the Armory’s workforce during World War II, were another subject of interest, 

and that year the park also completed “From Her Arms to His,” the investigation of women 

Armory workers supported by the National Park Foundation’s Parks as Classrooms 

program, noted above. The park’s Annual Report called the production the park’s greatest 

single interpretive success69 (Fig. 6.7). 

 The new emphasis on race and gender themes was consistent with the trend among 

professional historians, and with developments within the region. These culminated in 1997 

with the release of a region wide interpretive plan called The Road Ahead, spearheaded by 

regional director Marie Rust. The plan called on parks to “Discover the Untold Stories,” 

meaning the historical experiences of women, people of color, and working people who had 

been largely absent from historical narratives.70 Springfield Armory was already doing this. 

 Meanwhile, museum and library staff were developing the park’s interpretive 

offerings in other ways. A large part of their public had always consisted of scholars, 

enthusiasts, and gun collectors, and overcoming the “big animosity” that had built up among 

these traditional constituents was an important part of Beatty’s plan to build the park’s 

public.71 Arming the curator proved to be a “major turning point”: that is, training Curator 

John McCabe as a park law enforcement officer and giving him a gun to carry, changes that 

seemed to assure the collectors of both the park’s and the curator’s commitment to firearms. 

In fact McCabe, who had a military background, was popular with the scholars and 

collectors, and Beatty credits their willingness to work closely with him with bringing forth 

valuable new information about the collection. At the same time, Beatty found it possible to 

relax some of the tight access restrictions that Lindsay had imposed, making the collection 

 

68 Visitation drop, exhibit’s duration and success: “Springfield Armory National Historic Site: Annual 

Narrative Report for Calendar year 1993” (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. SFI 1993); 1991, efforts to 

engage visitors, coop project: “Springfield Armory NHS Oral History Guide.” photocopy, no author, no 

date, no publication information (SPAR: – Visitor Services Files: fol. Oral Histories). 

69 Hispanic History Month; best success: “Springfield Armory National Historic Site: Annual Narrative 

Report for Calendar year 1993” (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. SFI 1993); press release: Draft 

material, related contract material, and cassette tape for From Her Arms to His (SPAR: Visitor Services 

Files: under A & B). 

70 “The Road Ahead: A Strategy to Achieve Excellence in Interpretation and Education in the National 

Park Service Northeast Region,” October, 1997. To create the plan, Rust convened a working group 

including NPS chief historian Dwight Pitcaithley, Wilke Nelson of the National Park Foundation, and 

superintendents and interpreters from the region. The plan’s goals were summarized in the Armory’s 

“Long Range Interpretive Plan,” January, 2000, p. 15. 

71 Steve Beatty, recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

279

more welcoming to researchers. The numbers of these researchers were never large: in 2000, 

museum and library staff estimated that they responded each year to about 300 inquiries and 

helped about fifty researchers.72 Yet the service was a valuable part of the park’s offerings, 

and the Long Range Interpretive Plan of 2000 reiterated the need to continue serving those 

“constituencies, particularly scholars of firearms,” who fell “outside traditional definitions of 

‘visitors.’”73 

 Another strategy was to take items from the collection to gun shows, simultaneously 

giving the collection more exposure and “making friends” there.74 Often these visits 

amounted to small traveling exhibitions: in 2000, for example, the park reported that site 

exhibits had traveled to a Baltimore gun show, Fort Necessity National Battlefield, and 

several conferences.75 A key group was the Garand Collectors Association: through their 

renewed participation, the park was able to reach out to international groups as well. 

 Yet another avenue for communication was offered by the internet. In 1997 the 

museum services division launched an “experimental curatorial website” which gave web 

surfers instant access to pictures and in-depth information on the collection. Management 

officer Frank Seng estimated less than a year later that the website was adding the equivalent 

of 1,000 researchers or visitors per year to the number of actual visitors. By 2000, it was 

receiving 1,200 hits per month for information on objects and 500 for archival information. 

To Seng, it represented a “cutting-edge approach to the Cyber Museum” which led both the 

NPS and Army in public access.76 It also helped the park meet another goal put forth by “The 

Road Ahead,” the region’s Interpretive Plan: to “get wired to the world.”77

 After 1989, special events presented other opportunities for attracting visitors, 

including those with no special interest in guns. Two such opportunities stand out in 

particular: the 75th anniversary of the National Park Service in 1991, and the two hundredth 

anniversary of the Armory in 1994. 

 The agency’s anniversary in 1991 had little impact on the park. Though the 

Washington office and the region and made some efforts to encourage commemorative 

activities at the parks, the Armory made no special exertion but simply called the Common 

Bonds dinner, described above, its anniversary event.78 Since the dinner was not open to the 

 

72 “Long Range Interpretive Plan: Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” 2000, pp. 10, 4. 

73 “Long Range Interpretive Plan: Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” 2000, p. 4. 

74 Steve Beatty, recorded interview with author, May 28, 2009. 

75 “Long Range Interpretive Plan: Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” p. 27. 

76 Seng: Management Officer [Frank Seng], NPS, Washington, DC, Management Review of the 

Springfield Armory, June 25, 1998, pp. 4, 8; 2000 figures: “LRIP,” 2000, p. 10. 

77 See “Long Range Interpretive Plan: Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” 2000” January, 2000, 

p. 15. 

78 Various documents on “Common Bonds” (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. Seventy Fifth 

Anniversary N.P.S.). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

280

public, and the collaborating organization, the Springfield Armory Historic Association, 

folded shortly afterwards, the anniversary left little trace on the park. 

 The next anniversary called forth a much greater effort: here was an opportunity for 

celebrating, interpreting, marketing, planning, raising money and gaining attention. It was 

perhaps no more than a happy coincidence that planning for the bicentennial coincided with 

the park’s efforts to create a “true Visitor Services Division” and came at a time when the 

park was showing an increased interest in civic partnerships. This interest was expressed in 

planning documents during the 1990s. For example, in 1993-94, park staff listed as a key 

priority the need to develop relationships with local organizations in order to promote the 

site’s impact on tourism development.79 Explaining the need to amend the park’s General 

Management Plan in 1996, Gangi cited the existing plan’s failure to “address partnerships as a 

daily management tool and...to offer guidance in defining park priorities within the larger 

context of the community/region.” She believed the Armory was in the process of 

reestablishing its regional leadership role with regard to interpreting the Connecticut River 

Valley’s history and needed a plan to support those ambitions.80 The museum services 

division’s new website, launched the following year, represented a practical way of reaching 

out beyond the Armory’s walls. 

 Beginning about 1992, park staff used the upcoming bicentennial to justify many 

initiatives: to restore the cultural landscape, to restore the “Arsenal of Freedom” (i.e. the 

college campus), to enhance the interpretive programs. The civic community was perhaps 

even more eager to take advantage of the anniversary, for by 1992, civic and business groups 

in Springfield were in the midst of a vigorous campaign to market the city. Thus the 

bicentennial became a good vehicle not only for advancing favorite park projects but also for 

building the partnerships Gangi envisioned. 

 One leader of the civic campaign was Carlo Marchetti, whom we have already met in 

1984 as the most articulate critic of the park’s restoration plans, and again in 1992 as advocate 

for keeping the Armory’s collection in Springfield. Marchetti was executive director of 

Springfield Central, which was created in 1978 when public and private interests came 

together to create a Master Plan for the city’s regeneration.81 It was from the perspective of 

economic and cultural development that Marchetti called on the park in 1984 to focus less 

on the gun collection and more on the site and the city it overlooked. His comments, 

however, suggested that civic leaders had changed their view of the park’s role in urban 

regeneration. During the campaign to establish the Armory, politicians and newspapers had 

routinely referred to the prospective park as the gun museum: efforts focused on keeping the 

 

79 “Springfield Armory National Historic Site” [fact sheet, n.d. but attached to Park Collections Profile 

[1993-94]] (SPAR Central Files: H3015 Hist. Sites Maint., Pres.). 

80 [Case for amending GMP], prepared by Joanne Gangi, May 4, 1998 (SPAR Central Files: D18 GMP 

Amendment 5/4/98). 

81 Letter, Carlo A. Marchetti, Executive Director, Springfield Central, to Lindsay, October 18, 1984 

(SPAR Central Files: D18). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

281

gun collection in Springfield, and civic interests saw the museum as the main tourist 

attraction. Even in 1984 (and sometimes indeed much later) civic leaders continued to call 

the site the gun museum. Yet Marchetti preferred to emphasize the site over the collection, 

the Armory’s “important role” in the region’s “industrial and military development” over its 

role as a collector or even as a maker of guns. In short, he favored a more outwardly oriented 

historical narrative, one that would support Springfield Central’s efforts to tie the Armory 

into the regeneration of downtown Springfield. 

 The civic development campaign advanced and indeed reached a crescendo around 

1990-92, coincidentally at just the moment when changes inside the park were encouraging it 

to look outward. One wing of the campaign was organized by the Springfield Downtown 

Hospitality Council (later the Springfield Hospitality Council), a working group launched by 

Marchetti in the fall of 1990.82 The Council explained that its “main concern” was “to achieve 

uniformity of design and information in tourist related publications...,”83 but its scope was 

much broader, taking in almost anything that had to do with promotional material: maps, 

brochures, tote bags, event listings, sometimes the events themselves, and even 

neighborhood and downtown beautification campaigns. In the fall of 1992, the SHC’s 

programming committee divided itself into task groups: one set out to develop a 

computerized database for event listings and attractions, known as KIOSC, or Key 

Information Office Springfield Central. Initially the group planned to open a Downtown 

Informational Center, plus two satellites, in 1995, but the project was rushed forward so that 

the outlets could open in time for the Armory’s bicentennial in the spring of 1994.84 In the 

meantime, early in 1994, the Council launched a cross promotional program, requesting 

5,000 copies of the Armory’s brochure with which to stock twenty new brochure display 

racks located downtown.85

 In the spring of 1991, Springfield Central and the city government launched a more 

ambitious venture, a three-year $900,000 marketing campaign to attract businesses to 

Springfield. Specifically, this meant luring them from Boston, Fairfield County, and 

metropolitan New York City. Modeled on a campaign run by the city of Providence (RI) 

from 1986 through 2000, this was to be “the most ambitious economic development 

campaign Springfield has ever launched.” It was introduced at a Springfield Economic 

 

82 Letter, Marchetti to Lowenthal, November 26, 1990 (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Springfield 

Downtown Hospitality Council). 

83 Memo, Neta Bolozky to SHC members, August 18, 1992 (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Springfield 

Downtown Hospitality Council). 

84 Memo, Neta Bolozky to Marisa Brown et al, September 16, 1992 (SPAR: Central Files: A3825 

Springfield Downtown Hospitality Council); and “Downtown Springfield Informational Center – 

KIOSC(k),” December 16, 1992 (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. (Springfield Central)). 

See also Downtown Hospitality Council Programming Committee, Media Release, “Downtown 

Springfield Hospitality Council (DHC) Unveils K I O S C. Key Information Office Springfield Central,” 

November 1, 1991 (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Springfield Downtown Hospitality Council). 

85 Letter, Liz Middleton (Project Manager, SHC) to Beatty, December 29, 1993 (SPAR Central Files: 

A3825 Springfield Downtown Hospitality Council). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

282

Summit which attracted more than three hundred participants to discussions on hospitality 

and tourism, quality of life and the arts, education, economic development, and so forth. The 

campaign aimed to fill no less than 700,000 square feet of vacant office space in downtown 

Springfield, but in surveying regional business leaders the organizers had encountered an 

obstacle: negative perceptions of Springfield. To combat these perceptions, the campaign 

adopted as its “theme line” the slogan “Springfield. Greener Pastures.” This was intended to 

suggest better opportunities for business, a comfortable lifestyle, a friendly way of life, and an 

appealing environment. The city’s cultural institutions were well represented at the Summit, 

which featured speakers from the library and museums, the public television station, the 

symphony, the theater company and Springfield Technical Community College;86 the 

Armory, however, was absent. 

 Springfield Central’s new Heritage Development Program, however, put the Armory 

front and center. Like the Economic Development Marketing Program, the idea was 

borrowed, in this case from Quincy, MA. Congressman Neal proposed it to Springfield 

Central early in 1991: it was then delegated to the Amenities Committee of the Downtown 

Hospitality Council. The plan hinged on the grants being offered by the Department of the 

Interior to develop strategies (as the committee put it) “for amenities linking National Parks 

and historic sites.” Neal urged Springfield Central to seek funds for a planning study, but as 

the city already had an amenity plan the committee wanted dollars for design and 

implementation. The committee also balked at the requirement that the funds flow to the 

National Park Service: “Springfield,” argued the committee, “would like a measure of control 

over how the money is spent.”87 Yet a formal application “to provide technical assistance by 

the NATIONAL PARK SERVICE” was submitted later that year. Congressman Neal told a 

reporter this was “his first pet project” as a Congressman, and he requested the maximum 

amount available: $250,00088

 Neal said the goal was to “highlight the attractiveness of the gun museum....” But it 

was actually much broader: in fact, it was just the kind of partnership that Gangi had been 

hoping for, an ambitious initiative to develop an “education and improvement program 

linking the Springfield Armory and Springfield’s historic, cultural and recreational 

attractions to the city’s rich heritage of people and events.” The most important fact about 

that heritage, according to the organizers, was that it was “virtually unknown to Springfield 

visitors and residents”: the basketball, friction matches, postcards, the world’s first gasolinepowered motorcycle had all been invented in Springfield, yet how few people appreciated 

 

86 “The Springfield Economic Development Marketing Program,” n.d. [1991]; and Springfield Central, 

August, 1991 (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. (Spfld. Central)). 

87 Downtown Hospitality Council, Amenities Committee, Meeting Minutes, March 27, 1991 (SPAR: 

Central Files: A3825 Springfield Downtown Hospitality Council). 

88 “A Heritage Development Program for The Springfield Armory National Historic Site and 

Springfield Massachusetts,” n.d. [annot. 1991]; and Jo-Ann Moriarty, “Neal seeks federal funds to 

boost Springfield tourism,” Union-News, May 30, 1991 (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. 

(Springfield Central)). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

283

these facts, and how few visitors frequented the city’s historic districts! The “keystone” of the 

city’s underappreciated history was the Armory, and so it was critically important to connect 

it to the city’s other attractions. 

 For the project’s sponsors, a central goal was to increase tourism:89 a newspaper 

article promised it would “show how to get more people to visit the Springfield Armory and 

Museum.” But Springfield’s civic leaders were not interested simply in boosting the Armory. 

The same article noted that all of the city’s leading cultural institutions had written letters of 

support “because they hope what is good for the Armory will be good for them.” Larry 

Lowenthal, chairing the Amenities Committee, called the grant “a fantastic opportunity to 

fund Downtown amenities.90 In fact, this was a period of general economic decline for 

Springfield, and many were hoping that tourism would help lift the entire downtown 

economy. As the former director of the Basketball Hall of Fame put it, the city hoped-for 

rebound “‘depends on a new commitment to the tourist industry.’”91 Backers expected that 

growth in tourism would leverage private investment in visitor services and amenities, and 

that this would complement the revitalization of downtown Springfield, in which some $360 

million had already been invested or pledged.92 The grant proposal adopted an ingenious line 

of argument: at Lowenthal’s suggestion, it contended that the failure of the NPS’s investment 

in the Arsenal to increase visitation offered a compelling reason to support other approaches 

that had a chance of success.93

 The project was to have three phases. First was a historic resource analysis intended 

to support the popular perception that the Armory had played a vital role in the region’s 

economic development. The study would also trace the Armory’s relationships with other 

sites and lay the groundwork for a unified historical interpretation. Second was an 

interpretive analysis, and third, implementation strategies to bring intellectual and graphic 

coordination to the city’s unplanned and “often disjointed” promotional efforts.94 The funds 

 

89 “A Heritage Development Program for The Springfield Armory National Historic Site and 

Springfield Massachusetts,” n.d. [annotated 1991] (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. 

(Springfield Central)). 

90 Jo-Ann Moriarty, “Neal seeks federal funds to boost Springfield tourism,” Union-News, May 30, 1991 

(SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. (Springfield Central)); memo, Lowenthal (as Chairman, 

Amenities Committee) to members of DHC, April 9, 1991. 

91 Jo-Ann Moriarty, “Neal seeks federal funds to boost Springfield tourism,” Union-News, May 30, 1991 

(SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. (Springfield Central)). 

92 “A Heritage Development Program for The Springfield Armory National Historic Site and 

Springfield Massachusetts,” n.d. [annot. 1991] (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. 

(Springfield Central)). 

93 Memo, Lowenthal (as Chairman, Amenities Committee) to members of DHC, April 9, 1991; and “A 

Heritage Development Program for The Springfield Armory National Historic Site and Springfield 

Massachusetts,” n.d. [annotated 1991] (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. (Springfield 

Central)). 

94 “A Heritage Development Program for The Springfield Armory National Historic Site and 

Springfield Massachusetts,” n.d. [annotated 1991] (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. 

(Springfield Central)). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

284

were awarded in 1993, nominally to the National Park Service, but in fact much of the money 

went to consultants. Some $12,000 also went to Springfield Central.95

 The Armory was working closely with downtown interests in other ways as well. Yet 

there were limits to collaboration. When Marchetti asked Superintendent Beatty for a letter 

of support for the Heritage Development Program, Beatty responded with general 

expressions of enthusiasm but no specific commitments.96 What the park could give was staff 

time, and that it gave generously. Beatty was a member of Springfield Central’s Special 

Resource Study Core Committee in 1993, co-chair of the Springfield Hospitality Council’s 

marketing committee, and a member of its steering committee. Lowenthal participated, at 

Marchetti’s invitation, in discussions about launching the Hospitality Council and, two years 

later, on the future of the York Street jail; he also served as chair of the Council’s Visitor 

Services Committee and as chair, and later co-chair, of its Amenities Committee, where he 

enthusiastically endorsed Congressman Neal’s suggestion of a Heritage Development 

Program grant and helped craft the proposal. Memos and minutes suggest that both Beatty 

and Lowenthal took these activities seriously and worked hard at them.97 The park also 

became an institutional member and paid dues to the Greater Springfield Convention and 

Visitors Bureau.98

 As the Armory’s bicentennial approached, then, civic and park interests were 

converging, the park seeking to reach out to local interests, civic advocates pushing for 

economic, cultural, and tourism development. The two sides saw the bicentennial as an 

opportunity to collaborate. However, concrete results were disappointing. In 1992 Marchetti 

tried to persuade the US Postal Service to issue a commemorative stamp for the bicentennial. 

Congressman Neal supported the effort, but the Postal Service turned down the request.99

The following year, Springfield Central joined with the Armory to promote a public mural 

commemorating the armory’s history. It was to adorn the sides of two buildings facing 

Columbus Avenue and the interstate highway downtown. At first, business leaders, city 

 

95 “A Heritage Development Program for The Springfield Armory National Historic Site and 

Springfield Massachusetts,” n.d. [annotated. 1991]; and (apportionment of funds) memo, Neta Bolozky 

(Springfield Central) to Special Resource Study Core Committee Members [Beatty is one of 5 

members], March 31, 1993 (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. (Springfield Central)). 

96 Letter, Beatty to Carlo A. Marchetti (ex dir Springfield Central), May 17, 1991 (SPAR Central Files: 

A3825 Public Relations. (Springfield Central)). 

97 Memo, Neta Bolozky (Spr Central) to Special Resource Study Core Committee Members; letter, 

Marchetti to Lowenthal, May 14, 1992 (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. (Springfield 

Central)); Springfield Hospitality Council, untitled white paper, April 14, 1993; letter, Marchetti to 

Lowenthal, November 26, 1990; memo, Daphne Hall (Springfield Central) to Larry Lowenthal and 

Bob McCarroll (Co-Chairs, Amenities Committee) and Neta Bolozky (Springfield Central), September 

1, 1992; Memo, Lowenthal (as Chairman, Amenities Committee) to members of DHC, April 9, 1991 

(SPAR Central Files: A3825 Springfield Downtown Hospitality Council). 

98 Letter, Jack O’Neill, Ex Dir, Greater Springfield Massachusetts Convention and Visitors Bureau, to 

Paulette Kraft, February 10, 1994 (SPAR Central Files: A3826 Public Relations (Greater Springfield 

Convention & Visitors Bureau)). 

99 Documents in SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. (Springfield Central)). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

285

officials, and the property owners supported the project enthusiastically, and the sponsors 

raised $5,000 from the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts. But one of the 

building owners got into “political disputes” with the city over an outstanding tax debt and 

refused to allow his building to be used until they were resolved. Marchetti was forced to 

return the grant: “neither Springfield Central nor the Springfield Armory National Historic 

Site,” he wrote, “are willing to remain as pawns in this chess game.”100

 The Armory’s interest in promoting special events did not end with the passing of the 

bicentennial. The second half of the 1990s saw sustained efforts to develop quite large annual 

events at the park. One was an annual Civil War encampment, first produced in June 1997. 

This was a form of reenactment, accompanied by blank firing demonstrations. Because of the 

noise from the guns, the event called for special coordination with Springfield police. Even 

so, the event was not without problems. After the 1998 encampment, the park had to 

reprimand the 61st New York regiment for drinking and for aiming guns at the audience.101

Another large event in which the park participated was the “Big E,” a regional fair which 

attracted about a million visitors to Springfield. In 2004, for example, the Armory joined 

eleven other parks in a National Parks of New England booth: just under 14,000 visitors were 

recorded at the booth.102

 While the Civil War encampment was loosely related to park themes, the connection 

to other special events (like the Big E) was more tenuous. Some built on the notion that the 

Armory was a good place to interest people in American history; or that the Armory was 

located in Springfield; or that it had served the Army. Some built on nothing more than the 

park’s attractive and commodious open space. By the end of the decade, the park was 

offering a wide range of special events: examples included lectures and book signings on 

Shays’s Rebellion and on the Spanish-American War, a lecture on “The Greening of 

Springfield,” a Civil War walking tour, film festivals exploring the ways in which Hollywood 

presented US history and Springfield-made firearms, firing demonstrations, big band 

concerts, an Open House and Ice Cream Social, an afternoon of competition shooting with 

Ruby Fox (“one of America’s foremost pistol shooters”), and “In the Midst of War Lies Our 

Faith – A Veterans’ Day Tribute from the Spiritual Community.”103 In 2000, the park 

estimated annual attendance at a total of twenty special events at over 2,700 visitors.104

 

 

100 Letter, Marchetti to Sandra Eagleton, President, Community Foundation of Western Mass, July 21, 

1994 (SPAR Central Files: A3825 Public Relations. (Springfield Central)). 

101 Letters, Cuillard to Chief of Police Paula Mara, May 21, 2000 (SPAR: Central Files: A82 FY 00 

Special Event); and Beatty to Lee Gadd, Safety Officer, 61st Regiment, Puckerton, NJ [sic], February 8, 

1999 (SPAR: Central Files: A82 FY 99 Special Events). 

102 Joanne M. Gangi-Wellman, “Big E 2004 Report,” December 28, 2004 (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: 

fol. Big E). 

103 Various event posters, 1999 ff. (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fols. untitled (filed under F) and 

Flyers). 

104 “Long Range Interpretive Plan: Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” 2000, p. 27. 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

286

THE PROBLEM OF VISITATION

 Superintendent Beatty believed that Marie Rust’s directive to “put the park on the 

map” meant more than simply increasing its visitation totals. He also believed that increased 

visitation would naturally follow from improved interpretation and visitor services. Yet the 

perception that visitation was inappropriately low and that it both could and should be raised 

had characterized park management from the very beginning. Predictions of increased 

visitation were made from time to time but were not realized. For example, in 1978 agency 

staff predicted that the NPS takeover would boost visitation from 35,000 to 42,000 per 

year.105 Yet in fact, visitation in 1978 was only 13,815, and in 1979, after the takeover, it rose 

only to 15,607.106 There was always a reason for a disappointing total. For Larry Lewis in 

1973, it was public revulsion against the assassinations of the late 1960s. For Superintendent 

Beatty in 1992, it was poor signage; the following year, exceptionally good summer weather 

plus, again, “the current media attention to ‘guns,’ ‘assault weapons,’ and firearms in 

general....”107 More striking than the actual numbers was how little impact even the biggest 

changes at the park seemed to make. The numbers did rise somewhat after the NPS takeover, 

peaking at a little over 18,000 in 1981, then retreating in 1982 to about 15,600. From 1979 (the 

first full calendar year of NPS operation) through 1986, visitation averaged 17,198 per year. 

Then, in the fall of 1987 the museum closed for renovation. Its reopening two years later – 

the second great event at the park – prompted a momentary spike, from a pre-closure 

October average of 1,288 (1979-86) to a monthly total of 2,481 in October, 1989. Then the 

numbers slid back into their habitual ranges. In fact, the annual average for the first five years 

after reopening was somewhat lower than for the same period before closure: 15,436 in 1990-

1494, as compared to17,122 in 1982-1986. 

 The slight decline of the early 1990s masks a sharp one-year dip in 1993, from 15,630 

to 12,524. This may have been caused by a shift from a seven-day to a five-day week that 

Beatty was forced to impose for budgetary reasons about 1992.108 He had experience with a 

similar closure at Blue Ridge National Park, where he found that visitation actually rose, and 

he expected a similar result in Springfield. Whether or not the two-day closure, lasting about 

two years, depressed visitation, it had some positive impacts on interpretation, for it gave 

 

105 Draft “Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Statement for Management,” signed and dated S. 

Berg, July 7, 1978; rewritten S. Berg, February 1, 1979 (Charlestown, CRM Division Files: folder SPAR - 

Statement for Management - 1979). 

106 All visitation statistics are taken from the NPS’s web page for statistical reports, at 

http://www2.nature.nps.gov/NPstats/dspPark.cfm, consulted in August, 2007. See Appendix fill in for 

the complete series, from 1978 through 2006. 

107 Statement for Management. Springfield Armory National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts

[February, 1993] (SPAR Central Files: A6419: Statement for Management), and “Springfield Armory 

National Historic Site: Annual Narrative Report for Calendar year 1993” (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: 

fol. SFI 1993). 

108 Steve Beatty, recorded interview, May 28, 2009. 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

287

park staff the time to develop new exhibits and other programs, and at times to work with 

objects more efficiently on a museum floor that was closed to the public. 

 In any case, the picture changed in 1995, when visitation suddenly jumped above 

31,000. Indeed the average for 1995-2006 rose to 23,374 visitors per year, strikingly higher 

than any previous period or even than any previous year. However, this was not due to 

increased interest in the museum. Monthly totals for 1995 were in line with previous years, or 

slightly lower, except for September, when the park recorded the extraordinary total of 

18,011 visitors. Gangi recalls that this was when the Moving Wall, a half-size traveling replica 

of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., was temporarily displayed outside the 

Armory, drawing “lots of attention and visitation.”109 Special events continued to draw larger 

than average numbers: for example, June, 2000, when the fourth annual Civil War 

encampment was held, saw a total of 4,506 park visitors, versus a pre-closure monthly 

average of 1,999. It helped that visitation numbers were now being recorded somewhat 

differently. On normal days, only visitors to the museum were counted; no effort was made 

to count those strolling through the grounds. However, audiences for special outdoor events 

were separately counted and added to visitation totals.110 Nevertheless, the totals for 2005 

and 2006 dropped back into the accustomed range: 14,389 and 17,115, respectively. 

 Apart from special events with little relation to the park’s interpretive themes, then, 

visitation numbers at SPAR remained strikingly flat. Neither major institutional 

reorganizations nor programmatic initiatives did much to boost them. As the new century 

opened, the park reviewed its interpretive programming in a Long Range Interpretive Plan. 

The Main Arsenal contained exhibits and video programs, as called for in the 1980 

Interpretive Prospectus. Over the years the staff had developed spaces for interactive 

activities and changing exhibits. The park had a brochure in the standard NPS “unigrid” 

format. Staff offered curriculum-based educational programs, teacher workshops, off-site 

exhibits, and at least twelve special events per year plus firing demonstrations and the Civil 

War encampment. The park hosted various community and college events. Students and 

casual visitors enjoyed relaxing in the Armory grounds.111 In addition, there were the special 

services offered to researchers and to internet visitors through the website. 

 There was no question that the park was doing many things right. Yet the Long Range 

Interpretive Plan also identified some problems. One was that public awareness of the park 

remained disappointingly low: in many ways the Armory seemed invisible. The Plan 

proposed to promote the site through advertising, cross-promotional activities with partners, 

new community-oriented special events, mailing lists and marketing, an improved classroom 

space, better phone messaging, improved highway and informational signs, an information 

kiosk in front of Main Arsenal, and a reopened Byers Street gate. A second problem was that 

key interpretive themes were not being forcefully projected: the exhibits did as much to 

 

109 Email, Gangi to author, August 28, 2007. 

110 Email, Gangi to author, August 28, 2007. 

111 Long Range Interpretive Plan: Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” 2000, p. 9. 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

288

obscure as to present them, and the rest of the Armory remained an untapped asset. The Plan 

proposed to improve the Main Arsenal’s exhibits and supplement them with new ones in the 

Commanding Officer’s Quarters, focusing on “social aspects of the Armory as well as the 

commanders and their families.” The park would also with citizen groups to restore the 

adjacent gardens, and with STCC to install historic photographs at “heavily visited locations 

on the campus.” The walking tour brochure would be expanded to include the water shops, 

and the NPS would even install an entry kiosk and wayside exhibit there.112

 The next few years saw little visible progress towards expanding interpretation 

beyond the park boundaries. However, some more accessible goals were met. An 

information kiosk was installed outside the Main Arsenal (Fig. 6-8). Work was begun on the 

walking tour brochure and the historic photos for the campus. One goal that was met was to 

retain a consultant to prepare a Comprehensive Marketing Plan. Marc A. Breslav was at work 

by the middle of 2000.113 Much of his report, not surprisingly, was devoted to marketing: 

recommendations on how to keep better mailing lists, more effectively describe events, 

attract press coverage, and so forth.114 But Breslav also made substantive recommendations 

about the park’s programs and physical organization, and they constitute another perceptive 

look at the Armory as the twenty-first century opened. His critique summarized three 

decades of unsolved problems. “Open the Byers Street Gate Soon and with Fanfare,” he 

urged. Apart from the problems with the approach route, which he described, there were 

good reasons to open the gate. With a new federal courthouse under construction just down 

the hill on State Street (designed by Moshe Safdie, it was completed in 2008), downtown 

activity was set to expand almost to the gateway. An open gate, new paving, good signage, 

and some welcoming paths and picnic tables would certainly attract lunchtime crowds. It was 

“critical,” he argued, “not to conceive of the site narrowly, as only being appropriate for 

historic interpretation, collection and research, rather than providing simple recreational 

resources that will draw people in to the history and otherwise engender wider support.” 

 Breslav’s other ideas for expanding the Armory’s civic presence beyond the park also 

echoed past proposals, specifically those of Marchetti and Springfield Civic. He wanted the 

Armory to partner more closely with the civic community, by sponsoring events or 

interpretive programs with the potential to build tourism, support local commerce, or 

provide amenities for residents: “the focus should be on what can SPAR do for the City, not 

vice-versa.” In the interpretive area, he wanted to get away from the focus on the gun 

collection, with programs that would “tie the Armory in with the history of the area and 

show how prominent a role it played as the social and industrial center of the City.” His 

 

112 Long Range Interpretive Plan: Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” 2000, pp 30 ff. 

113 Letter, Cuillard to Mark A. Breslav (requesting a bid), February 11, 2000 (SPAR: Visitor Services 

Files: fol. Marketing Plan). 

114 [Marc A. Breslav], “Summary of Recommendations,” inscribed “Master Plan One” and dated June 1, 

2000; and memo, Marc A. Breslav (Public Relations, Advertising and Marketing) to Joanne Gangi, 

September 26, 2001 (SPAR: Visitor Services Files: fol. Marketing Plan) 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

289

“killer idea for community relations” was to “create a unified historic walking tour,” or a 

walking and driving tour: tourism products to link the Armory with some of the city’s 

attractive historic districts as well as with popular tourist sites like the Basketball Hall of 

Fame – not to mention the rest of the historic Armory, such as the old water shops site. 

 Finally, Breslav advised: reconsider the museum. It had a reputation for being static 

and of little interest to non-specialists. Some of the exhibits he thought quite good. But “as 

for the firearm side, generally, my view, put in street language, is that there are a lot of guns to 

say much less. In most cases, one could do with one or two of each firearm....The history and 

evolution – the part that sells – remains hidden in the numbing vastness of collection 

[sic]....That is part of what gives the place a reputation for being ‘the gun museum’ 

Ultimately, one needs to change the product to change its image.” It was fine, Breslav argued, 

to offer displays for “collectors and enthusiasts, but not at the expense of a product for the 

masses.” Absent dramatic change to the museum, the public would continue calling it “the 

gun museum,” and visitation would remain correspondingly limited.115

Figure 6.8. The entrance to the Main Arsenal in 2008, after installation of a new wheelchair ramp and 

information kiosk (photo: author). 

 

115 Memo, Marc A. Breslav (Public Relations, Advertising and Marketing) to Joanne Gangi, September 

26, 2001, pp. 2-8; for the Byers Street gate, see also [Marc A. Breslav], “Summary of 

Recommendations,” inscribed “Master Plan One” and dated June 1, 2000, p. 17 (SPAR: Visitor Services 

Files: fol. Marketing Plan). 
Interpreting the Armory and Serving Its Publics 

290

 More dynamic exhibits, walking tours, picnic benches, interpretive programs that 

looked outward towards Springfield rather than inward toward the collection – these were 

all sensible ideas, and many had been advanced at one point or another not only by 

Marchetti but by NPS officials. Certainly they were of a very different caliber from those 

which Realty Associates had proposed in 1967. Those earlier consultants had supported the 

college’s plan to demolish much of Armory Square and, as if to replace the genuine historic 

ambience, had proposed assembling a restoration village on the slope behind the Main 

Arsenal. It was not a sensible idea, and it was dismissed. Yet the problem it had recognized 

was the same one which confronted Breslav more than thirty years later: what would induce 

the public to visit a gun museum? Or, as the park’s own Long Range Interpretive Plan put it, 

“How can interpretation send the message that the park is more than ‘just a gun 

museum.’?”116 Over the years, the park had increasingly defined itself as such, and much of its 

effort – though still far less than some believed was necessary – went into caring for the 

objects rather than interpreting the park. In fact, the Armory had somehow turned itself into 

something oddly similar to what the Main Arsenal had originally been: a storehouse for 

weapons. 

 

116 “Long Range Interpretive Plan: Springfield Armory National Historic Site,” 2000, p. 17. 
291 

EPILOGUE

FUTURES FOR SPRINGFIELD ARMORY

 Today Springfield Armory NHS presents the National Park Service with significant 

challenges. It is a difficult park to manage, preserve, and interpret. Some challenges stem 

from the historical circumstances of its creation, especially the fact that it does not own the 

collection or most of the historic buildings that are its most important resources. Within the 

NPS, the park has been the focus of extended controversies over collections management 

and conservation. These problems have not been resolved, although the agency has scored 

notable successes. It has largely preserved the physical resources that lie on federal property, 

including the collection, the Arsenal, the Commanding Officer’s House, the cast iron fence, 

and the impressive hilltop site. Outside the federal property line, the Armory’s physical 

condition is also better than might have been predicted in 1974, when it seemed likely that 

much of Armory Square would be demolished. The future for interpretation remains wide 

open – especially considering that significant parts of the Armory, even beyond Armory 

Square itself, have also survived. 

 Several futures are possible for Springfield Armory. In one, the NPS concludes that 

the problems presented by the park are simply insuperable. In 1974, F. Ross Holland had 

doubted whether the NPS could ever make a genuine National Historic Site out of the 

Armory. If not, he advised, “Think of the site as only a museum” and let someone else run it. 

The NPS could take his advice and turn the park over to the Department of Defense: not 

only the collections, which the Army still apparently regards as its own, but also the federal 

portion of the site itself. In many ways this would be a logical solution. The Army has 

repeatedly declined to relinquish the collection: for thirty years it has watched as the NPS, a 

much smaller agency, shouldered the expense and trouble of housing, marketing, managing, 

conserving, cataloging, and displaying the Army’s assets, not to mention serving scholars and 

collectors and maintaining a website. Perhaps it is time for the Army to take responsibility for 

the collection. In contrast to the first transfer, in 1968, this could be a turnkey operation, 

delivering a fully functional museum equipped with buildings, grounds, and an expert staff. 

And with its vast inventory of building complexes, its museums, and its knowledge of 

firearms, the Army is fully capable of shouldering the responsibility. Moreover, its resources 

are much greater than those of the NPS: the President’s Budget for 2010 proposes $2.7 billion 

for the NPS but more than 52 times that, or $142 billion, for the US Army; it seeks $12 billion 

for Interior but more than 55 times that, or $664 billion, for the Department of Defense. It is 

at least possible that Defense could invest more heavily in the park than Interior. It certainly 

could manage the museum. 
Futures for Springfield Armory 

292 

 Other futures are possible. The 2000 Long Range Interpretive Plan points toward 

one. It envisions comprehensively upgrading the interpretation of Armory Square, with 

improved markers, an expanded walking tour booklet, and exhibits in the commanding 

officer’s quarters. The plan even looks beyond Armory Square, proposing tours, an entrance 

kiosk, and wayside exhibit at the Water Shops. Superintendent Quijano-West has adopted 

that outward-looking vision for the park, which involves both interpreting the entire historic 

site and engaging more actively with the surrounding city. These are positive developments, 

and they are supported by a much-improved relationship with Springfield Technical 

Community College. At the same time, there was hope by the end of 2008 for greater 

collaboration between the park and region. 

 Yet putting the park on a new footing may require nothing less than boldly grasping 

the nettle of the park’s most fundamental problems: a plethora of guns and a historic site 

marred by dying buildings. To solve the problem of the campus, an unyielding determination 

to save the buildings, backed by the full weight of federal authority, might succeed: at any 

rate it is the one approach that has not yet been tried. To solve the problem of the guns and 

redeem the park from the controversy that surrounds them, an approach at once less forceful 

and more imaginative, if equally untried, may be needed. 

 From the beginning, the Armory has recognized the existence of a special 

constituency of gun enthusiasts, people who are fascinated by guns, like to handle them, talk 

about them, admire them. The park set out to serve them on the sensible premise that their 

enthusiasm made them an important constituency. In the same way, art museums orient 

themselves towards connoisseurs of prints or eighteenth century French furniture. But there 

is a difference. Very few people are violently opposed to rococo furniture, whereas many 

people loath guns and instinctively reject anything, be it a museum exhibit, historic site, or 

interpretive program that seems to condone them. The problem that art museums must 

overcome in expanding their audiences is indifference. Gun museums too confront 

indifference, but unlike art museums they must also overcome distaste. At the Armory, they 

have had to do so without turning their backs on the collectors and connoisseurs. 

 More than one superintendent has arrived at the Armory expecting to find “just a 

gun museum” but has discovered, instead, a surprisingly rich and important story. Doug 

Lindsay has recounted how, had he designed the permanent exhibit right away, it would have 

been “wall-to-wall guns”; and how he gradually realized that “the important story... was 

actually the industrial side, and the role of a national armory in bringing the new nation into a 

local community”: that role included not only providing a symbol of national unity but also 

protecting the rights of minority groups, like Irish Catholics in nineteenth century 

Massachusetts. Steve Beatty made a similar discovery: for him, the important story proved to 

be the Armory’s impact on industrial manufacturing and on the many consumer goods which 

Americans (including park visitors) take for granted. For Michael Quijano-West, the 

discovery was not just the park’s history but also the social utility offered by its site and 

location: the chance to draw people to concerts and events, to serve the students of a 
Futures for Springfield Armory 

293 

culturally diverse community college, and even to help propel some young people in an 

economically depressed city towards a college education. 

 Each superintendent has glimpsed something bigger and more interesting than the 

story conveyed by cases full of guns, and each has sought to elevate both the park’s historical 

significance and its value to society. The themes chosen for emphasis have had much in 

common. Most obviously, they all divert attention from the guns themselves. Each is a fine 

theme; each has produced many fine programs and deserves to be further developed. But it 

seems unlikely that efforts to distract attention from the Armory’s guns will ever rescue the 

park from them. Perhaps it is time to try another approach: to look squarely at the guns; to 

acknowledge the strong, complex, and contradictory feelings that people bring to them; to 

embrace rather than flee the controversies that neither repression nor distraction will end. 

 In writing this history, I spent many days working in a comfortable corner of the 

library in the Main Arsenal. I never became entirely accustomed to the presence of so many 

guns: guns on display, in storage, disassembled for conservation. In addition, almost every 

book in the library contained pictures of guns. These books raised an interesting question 

about how to interpret firearms. They almost never showed them in actual use. There were 

no pictures of the grim battlefields of World War II, of guns being turned on villagers in Viet 

Nam, of the massacres of My Lai or El Mozote, or for that matter of the French Resistance or 

the French Revolution. Two kinds of pictures were prevalent. First, technical illustrations 

which show the guns without any context at all, much as similar technical books illustrate the 

construction of a clarinet or the internal anatomy of an eye. Second, pictures of guns in the 

hands of soldiers, perhaps on parade, standing at attention, or posing in a foxhole or a 

frogman suit. These photographs are staged. Though they seem to show the guns in context, 

they never show anyone being hurt by them. They present the holder of the gun but not its 

target, the sender of the bullet but not its recipient. 

 The Armory’s exhibits present guns in much the same way. This was a conscious 

choice. A revealing incident occurred in 1990. The new exhibits included some manikins of 

soldiers holding real guns. The designers had been aware that children and indeed other 

visitors might tug on the manikins and damage them, but they had decided to include them 

anyway “as a kind of experiment.” The experiment was not working, and Acting 

Superintendent Lowenthal asked the region’s chief of interpretation for advice. Lowenthal 

did not want to withdraw the manikins entirely, for their whole purpose had been to display 

the weapons in context,328 which both Lowenthal and the chief interpreter understood to 

mean in the hands of someone firing them. 

 Today, the manikins survive, albeit behind Plexiglas (See Endpiece). One can watch a 

video that presents a continuous stream of images showing how various guns are fired. There 

are also animated diagrams showing the chain of events that connects the pulling of the 

trigger to the expulsion of the bullet. There are film clips of costumed marksmen loading and 

 

328 Memo, Acting Supt (Lowenthal) to Chief, Interpretation, NAR, May 16, 1990 (SPAR: Central Files: 

D6215 Planning, Preparation, Maintenance, and Preservation of Museum Exhibits). 
Futures for Springfield Armory 

294 

firing the various guns. But there are no images showing where the bullet goes after it leaves 

the gun. 

 This approach imposes certain interpretive limits. To understand them, try the 

following thought experiment. Picture the soldier represented by the manikin and ask: will 

his life be more profoundly affected by the gun he is aiming or by the one his adversary is 

aiming at him? By the bullet he fires or by the bullet fired at him? The significance of the gun 

appears to increase when its context expands to include its target. 

 What is the context of a weapon? This question became famously controversial when 

the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum attempted to display the Enola Gay, the 

airplane which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The museum at first planned to 

accompany the bomber with photographs and artifacts documenting the devastation it 

caused. Groups representing Air Force veterans protested and a heated public debate 

ensued. Though large questions about America’s role and image in the world were at stake, 

the debate turned on a much narrower one: what was the proper context in which to exhibit 

a weapon? Air Force groups did not deny the effects of the bomb, but they argued that the 

most important contexts were the goals, values, and sacrifices of the country that sent it, the 

technological achievements behind the plane that delivered it, and the lives of the pilots who 

escorted it. The exhibit designers wished to give greater weight to the impact caused by the 

weapon on its recipients. 

 In the end, the Smithsonian was forced to abandon its plan. In 1995 the Enola Gay 

went on display without anything to remind visitors of those impacts: Smithsonian Secretary 

I. Michael Heyman remarked that “the aircraft speaks for itself in this exhibit....”329 Of course 

it did no such thing: it spoke to people in different voices and different ways depending on 

the contexts which they had brought with them, through reading, watching television, or 

talking to family members. 

 If the Enola Gay controversy did not settle the context question, it did politicize it, 

making it much more difficult to propose alternatives to the user-only model. That is 

unfortunate, for it limits the significance of the weapons on display and diminishes the ability 

of museums to speak to the public about them. 

 The question of context – the Enola Gay question – was raised at Springfield Armory 

long before the Enola Gay even existed. It was the question the famous American poet Henry 

Wadsworth Longfellow asked when he visited the Armory in 1843. The text of his poem, 

“The Arsenal at Springfield,” is displayed next to the famous organ of muskets, the subject of 

Longfellow’s opening stanza: 

 

329 “Enola Gay: Former Exhibition, National Air and Space Museum,” at 

www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/gal103/gal103_former.htm (consulted January 2005). 
Futures for Springfield Armory 

295 

This is the arsenal, from floor to ceiling, 

Like a huge organ, rise the burnish’d arms; 

But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing, 

Startles the villages with strange alarms. 

The verses convey wonder or awe at the Armory’s might. But later the tone darkens: 

I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus, 

The cries of agony, the endless groan.... 

Starting with the weapons themselves, the poem goes on to evoke the consequences of their 

use, the hellish din of war, the burning of villages, the horror of famine. By the end, the 

muskets have changed from organ pipes to “accursed instruments.” In closing, Longfellow 

invites the reader to imagine a different world, one in which war disappears, the Arsenal 

becomes obsolete, and 

...no longer from its brazen portals 

The blast of war’s great organ shakes the skies! 

 The sentiments Longfellow expressed in “The Arsenal at Springfield” were 

conventional. And that is exactly the point. In 1843 as today, while some observers see 

ingenuity and beauty in the Armory’s guns, others see human suffering and error. And in a 

world which continues to make and use weapons, while simultaneously producing pacifists 

and Nobel peace prizes, the debate over guns will not be silenced. At Springfield, it arises out 

of the Armory’s own history and lies at the core of the debate over how to interpret its story. 

 Is Springfield Armory an appropriate site for presenting conflicting views of guns and 

war? Is the National Park Service an appropriate agency to do so? One answer is that the NPS 

already manages sites which present all sides of the weapons question: weapons used for 

righteous rebellion (Revolutionary War battlefields), for national defense and Cold War 

paranoia (a Minuteman missile silo), to assassinate a great national leader (the Lorraine 

Motel), to slaughter unarmed Indians (Sand Creek Massacre NHS). The NPS is already 

immersed in the complexities of public feelings about weapons. The question remains is 

whether there could be a single site expressly dedicated to fostering public discussion and 

education – not in the abstract but in the presence of the artifacts themselves. 

 There could hardly be a better candidate for such a role than Springfield Armory. 

Longfellow’s poem anchors the human tendency to ask fundamental questions about war 

and peace, ingenuity and suffering, in the Armory’s own history. It is there in other ways as 

well. Many people know the Armory supplied the “good” side in the Revolutionary and Civil 

Wars. But did not the Armory also supply the soldiers who murdered sleeping Cheyenne and 

Arapahoe Indians at Sand Creek? The Armory’s last major shipments of weapons went to the 
Futures for Springfield Armory 

296 

Vietnam War, still one of the most controversial in US history. In fact, public protests against 

the war influenced the decision to close the Armory in 1968, while officials of the new gun 

museum credited popular revulsion against violence with the failure of their fundraising 

campaign. Moreover, park superintendents and collection managers continued to blame low 

visitation numbers and indifferent agency support on anti-gun sentiment. Not only is the 

issue rooted in Springfield’s history, it continues to mark it. 

 While park managers and interpreters have tried repeatedly (and continue to try) to 

rescue the Armory from conflicting emotions about guns by shifting attention to other 

themes – people and process, manufacturing techniques, race and gender issues, jazz festivals 

and picnics – the issue of weapons refuses to go away. It is the proverbial elephant in the 

room, never acknowledged yet always present. 

 Larger questions of guns and violence have occasionally intruded into the Armory’s 

interpretive discussions. In the workshops that preceded the interpretive plan of 2000, 

participants argued that interpretive programming at the Armory should acknowledge the 

role its firearms played in disreputable acts of aggression like the Spanish American War and 

the destruction of Native peoples.330 A decade earlier, Joanne Gangi had already grappled 

with the same problem in developing the park’s new educational programs: “How do you 

focus a lesson plan on guns,” a reporter paraphrased, “without seeming to glorify weapons of 

destruction?” Part of the answer seemed to lie in studying “the consequences of these 

inventions.” Yet the ensuing discussions stopped short of probing the deepest social 

questions of violence. Instead, students were asked to consider the advantages and 

disadvantages of various weapons. Though young visitors tended to admire automatic 

weapons because they are so powerful, educators pointed out the price of increased power 

was a loss of “control and accuracy” and wasted ammunition.331

 In other ways too, the park has shied away from confronting deeper questions of 

aggression and violence. The 2000 Long Range Interpretive Plan provides an example: even 

though workshop participants emphasized the need to address aggression, none of the plan’s 

six theme statements took it up. This was consistent with the park’s strategy for building 

audiences, which was to draw lessons from the guns that were pertinent to the daily lives of 

ordinary people. Gangi’s lesson plans were also consistent with this strategy, as were 

programs focusing on African American, Hispanic, and women workers. Rather than explore 

the moral dimensions of using firearms, the park has chosen to rescue them from their aura 

of violence and danger by making them as comfortable and familiar as domestic appliances. 

 As of 2009, Superintendent Quijano-West has embarked on a new variant of this established 

strategy for solving the problem of being “just a gun museum.” “Even if you’re not a gun 

enthusiast,” he says, “or maybe you don’t like guns at all, there will still be plenty of reasons 

 

330 “Long Range Interpretive Plan,” January, 2000, p. 5. 

331 Pat Cahill, “Students reopen the Book on a Storied Armory,” Union-News, November 7, 1990 

(SPAR: Visitor Services Files, fol Education – 5th grade S. S. Unit....). 
Futures for Springfield Armory 

297 

Endpiece. Manikin with gun, Main Arsenal (photo: author). 

to enjoy a visit to the Armory.” One hopes he is right. But what if the elephant refuses to leave 

the room? 

 Could it be that the propensity of weapons to stir strong emotions is the solution, 

rather than the problem? Retired curator John McCabe believed that, rather than drawing 

audiences, the park’s “political correctness” was actually “boring the visitor.” He accused 

park interpreters of emphasizing the “footnotes” at the expense of the Armory’s main story. 

McCabe was clearly uncomfortable with multiculturalism, and obviously exhibits on African 
Futures for Springfield Armory 

298 

Americans and women did not bore some visitors. But it was an important point. The 

Armory’s mission, he emphasized, was to “make guns to kill people.” By diverting attention 

from this simple and powerful fact, the park had perhaps diminished the power of its own 

story.332

 What does it mean to make guns to kill people? The question could be endlessly 

debated. And that is the point. The question echoes from the Organ of Muskets, the 

manikins, the neat rows of revolvers and shotguns, the Blanchard lathe, from the very 

Armory itself. It could become the basis for an interpretive experience that touches visitors 

not merely through their everyday lives but through their identity as citizens. It is likely that 

strong forces would align themselves against efforts to create such an interpretation: 

veteran’s groups, armed forces groups, gun enthusiasts, the National Rifle Association, 

weapons manufacturers, and many politicians might oppose it. And the fate of the Enola Gay 

reminds us how effective such opposition can be. But the resolution of the Enola Gay 

controversy is not the only resolution possible, any more than the Smithsonian’s way of 

raising these questions was the only way to do so. At a forum organized by the NPS to 

consider the agency’s role in provoking civic reflection, Richard West, founding director of 

the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, remarked that the 

Smithsonian’s biggest error had been in adopting the “idea of a singular truth,” something 

“with a capital T” which “various groups were arguing vehemently to gain control of....” West 

argued that both the Smithsonian and the NPS should be “safe places for unsafe ideas,” able 

to “incorporate this kind of discourse”333 without setting one of them up as the truth. 

 Perhaps the Armory could be an institution that provides such a safe place – a safe 

place not only for unsafe objects but also for unsafe ideas. The point is not to take sides in the 

debate over the larger meaning of guns but simply to emphasize how tirelessly absorbing it is, 

and how important. Springfield Armory’s setting and collections could make it an ideal place 

to foster and inform the debate. If so, the question is simply how to frame it, how to ground 

it historically, how to make it informative and interesting. 

 And finally, how to make it helpful to the Armory itself.

 

332 John McCabe, recorded interview with author, August 17, 2007. 

333 “Civic Reflection: The Underside of History,” National Park Service, Common Ground, 

winter/spring, 2007, p. 31. 
299

APPENDICES

301

APPENDIX A: AUTHORIZING LEGISLATION

1. H.R. 19574 (OCTOBER 5, 1970): THE FIRST BILL

 
Appendix A 

302

 
Appendix A 

303

 
Appendix A 

304

2. S. 979 (DECEMBER 5, 1973): THE BILL PASSED BY THE HOUSE AND SENATE

 
Appendix A 

305

 
Appendix A 

306

 
Appendix A 

307

3. P.L. 93-486: THE LEGISLATION ENACTED ON OCTOBER 26, 1974 

 
Appendix A 

308
Appendix A 

309

311 

APPENDIX B. COOPERATIVE AGREEMENTS AND MEMORANDA OF UNDERSTANDING

1. AGREEMENT WITH MASSACHUSETTS: 1978 

 
Appendix B 

312 

 
Appendix B 

313 

 
Appendix B 

314 

 
Appendix B 

315 

 
Appendix B 

316 

 
Appendix B 

317 

2. MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING WITH MASSACHUSETTS: 1993 

 
Appendix B 

318 

 
Appendix B 

319 

 
Appendix B 

320 

 
Appendix B 

321 

 
Appendix B 

322 

3. MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING WITH MASSACHUSETTS: 1999 

 
Appendix B 

323 

 
Appendix B 

324 

 
Appendix B 

325 

 
Appendix B 

326 

 
Appendix B 

327 

 
Appendix B 

328 

4. COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT WITH ARMY: 1978 

 
Appendix B 

329 

 
Appendix B 

330 

 
Appendix B 

331 

 
Appendix B 

332 

5. INTERAGENCY AGREEMENT WITH ARMY: 2000 

 
Appendix B 

333 

 
Appendix B 

334 

 
Appendix B 

335 

 
Appendix B 

336 

 
Appendix B 

337 

6. FIREARMS DISPOSITION CENTER AGREEMENTS: 1997 

 
Appendix B 

338 

 
Appendix B 

339 

 
Appendix B 

340 

 
Appendix B 

341 

7. MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING WITH SEABOARD FOUNDRY: 1997 

 
Appendix B 

342 

 
Appendix B 

343 

 
Appendix B 

344 

8. MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING WITH OLMSTED NHS: 1999 

 
Appendix B 

345 

 
Appendix B 

346 

 
Appendix B 

347 

 
Appendix B 

348 
349

APPENDIX C. DOCUMENTS RELATED TO THE DISPOSITION OF FEDERAL PROPERTY

1. DEED OF TRANSFER FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE
Appendix C

350
Appendix C

351
Appendix C

352
Appendix C

353
Appendix C

354
Appendix C

355
Appendix C

356
Appendix C

357
Appendix C

358
Appendix C

359
Appendix C

360
Appendix C

361
Appendix C

362

2. AMENDMENT TO APPLICATION FOR AMORY SQUARE PROPERTY
Appendix C

363

3. DEED TO THE CITY OF SPRINGFIELD FOR MUSEUM: 1968
Appendix C

364
Appendix C

365
Appendix C

366
Appendix C

367
Appendix C

368
Appendix C

369
Appendix C

370

4. DEED TO CITY OF SPRINGFIELD FOR SCHOOL BOARD: 1968 
Appendix C

371
Appendix C

372
Appendix C

373
Appendix C

374
Appendix C

375
Appendix C

376
Appendix C

377

379 

APPENDIX D: CHRONOLOGY OF NPS INVOLVEMENT

WITH SPRINGFIELD ARMORY (1975) 

[Source: “Chronology of NPS Involvement with Springfield Armory,” ns, nd but apparently created 

and filed in January 1975 (Washington Office, Park History Collection, folder: SPAR, 

Correspondence 1975-80)] 

 
Appendix D 

380

 
Appendix D 

381

 
Appendix D 

382

 
Appendix D 

383

 

385

APPENDIX E. INVENTORIES, EVALUATIONS, AND NOMINATIONS OF HISTORIC STRUCTURES

1. NPS EVALUATION REPORT: 1967 

[Source: NPS, Office of Archeology & Historic Preservation, “Springfield Armory: Evaluation Under 

Provision Of Historic Preservation Act 1966,” August 17, 1967] 

Properties of National Historical Significance

 Commanding Officer’s Quarters (Building No. 1) 

 Assistant Officers’ Quarters (Building No. 5 and 6) 

 West Arsenal (Building No. 11) 

 Guard House (Building No. 12) 

 Main Arsenal (Building No. 13) 

 Middle Arsenal (Building No. 14) 

 East Arsenal (Building No. 15) 

 Administration Building and North and South Shops (Building No. 16) 

 Parade 

 Iron Fence 

Other Buildings Worthy of Preservation

 Building No. 10 

 Building No. 17 

 Building 27 (partial) 

Other Buildings of Architectural Interest

 Building No. 4 

 Building No. 7 

 Building No. 8 

 Building No. 9 

 Building No. 19 

 
Appendix E 

386

2. NATIONAL REGISTER NOMINATION

 
Appendix E 

387

 
Appendix E 

388
Appendix E 

389

 
Appendix E 

390

 
Appendix E 

391

 
Appendix E 

392
Appendix E 

393
Appendix E 

394
Appendix E 

395

 
Appendix E 

396
Appendix E 

397

2. LIST OF CLASSIFIED STRUCTURES

[Source: Memo, Manager, Historic Architecture Program and Coordinator, Northeast Region List of 

Classified Structures, to Superintendent, SPAR NHS, January, 2007, with attachments (Spar: Central 

Files H3017....)] 

 
Appendix E 

398
399

APPENDIX F: SUPERINTENDENTS OF SPRINGFIELD ARMORY NHS 

[Source: “Chronology of NPS Involvement with Springfield Armory,” ns, nd but apparently created 

and filed in January 1975 (Washington Office, Park History Collection, folder: SPAR, 

Correspondence 1975-80)] 

1977-1978 Mohammed A. Khan 

1978-1990 W. Douglas Lindsay, Jr. 

1990 Larry Lowenthal (Acting Superintendent) 

1990 Bruce Stewart 

1990-1991 Larry Lowenthal (Acting Superintendent) 

1991-1999 Steven M. Beatty 

2000-2008 J. Douglas Cuillard 

2008- Michael Quijano-West 

 

401

APPENDIX G. ANNUAL VISITATION STATISTICS, 1979-2004 

1978 13,815 

1979 15,607 

1980 17209 

1981 19161 

1982 18134 

1983 15626 

1984 17452 

1985 16123 

1986 18274 

1987 13705 

1988 0 

1989 4731 

1990 16534 

1991 16981 

1992 15630 

1993 12524 

1994 15513 

1995 31572 

1996 18,991 

1997 16,000 

1998 15,247 

1999 16,250 

2000 23,987 

2001 27,044 

2002 36,680 

2003 29,814 

2004 33,393 

2005 14,389 

2006 17115 

[Note: figures are taken from the NPS’s web page for statistical reports, at 

http://www2.nature.nps.gov/NPstats/dspPark.cfm (consulted August, 2007). Monthly totals are 

available from 1979 onwards. Where visitation figures have been found in park reports or other 

documents they either match those reported on the website or differ by insignificant amounts. See 

Chapter Six for an explanation of the spike in visitation between 2000 and 2004, which seems to 

reflect a combination of special events and a different method of counting visitors.]

 

403

APPENDIX H. SPAR ORGANIZATION CHARTS

1. AS EXISTING IN 1991 

 
Appendix H 

404

1. TARGET OF 1992 REORGANIZATION PLAN
Appendix H 

405

1. AS EXISTING IN 1993 

 

407 

ANNOTATED LIST OF SOURCES AND REPOSITORIES

NOTE ON SOURCES

 Historical accounts depend on sources, and park histories depend especially on park 

records. At Springfield Armory those records are somewhat incomplete, as well as somewhat 

incompletely organized. Insight into the reason for some of the gaps comes from a memo 

written by the regional archivist, Steven Ourada, in 1992. At that date both the park and the 

region were intent on getting a better grasp of the materials in the library and archive. Ourada 

paid attention to the park’s own files as well. He interviewed Ralph Carenza, the park’s chief 

of maintenance. Although Carenza was able to show him a good deal of recent material, the 

“very sparse” older park administrative records were being kept in an attic “prior to 

disposal.” Ourada also met with Larry Lowenthal, who had made himself “the defacto [sic] 

keeper of park records.” Lowenthal had preserved almost fifteen linear feet of NPS records 

in two file cabinets, which constituted the “only sizable documentation on the history of the 

park.” Most of this material was copies and therefore not subject to the rules on disposition 

of files. However, Lowenthal believed his files had been “purged and shuffled to some 

extent” during the movement of offices and were less organized and comprehensive than in 

the past. When Ourada visited, there was neither security nor accountability for them, 

though it was agreed that “at some point in the future” they ought to be placed in care of the 

library. Finally, Ourada met with Darlene Pokura, who was “in charge of current files.” She 

had begun to retire 1988-89 files, which were marked for disposal, but these could not be 

located and might have been “inadvertently tossed out.” As Ourada summed up the situation, 

better control over record keeping was badly needed.1

 Today Lowenthal’s files remain the most comprehensive and best organized source 

for some aspects of the park’s history. It is hard to tell whether they have been further 

diminished, but they still lack security and accountability and have not been incorporated 

into the library: instead, they sit in two old file cabinets in the main hallway of the park 

offices. The park’s central files contain substantial gaps, not only before but also after 

Ourada’s visit. Departmental files, apart from copious catalog and conservation information 

on individual collection specimens, and considerable information on Visitor Services 

programs, seem stronger on current, day-to-day park management than on historical 

information. 

 It may be added that the historical records preserved by Springfield Technical 

Community College, located within the park and a major actor in the park’s history, are 

extremely fragmentary. 

 

1

 Memo, Regional Archivist, NAR (Steven Ourada), to Acting Regional Curator, NAR, March 6, 1992 

(concurred by Chief, Div of Cult Resources and ART, Planning & Resource Preservation, March 19, 

1992) (Charlestown: Regional Curator Files: folder SPAR CMP). 
408 

SOURCE REPOSITORIES

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE REPOSITORIES

Springfield Armory NHS Central, Cultural Resources Department, Lowenthal (park 

history),Superintendent’s, Visitor Services Department Files, and Archive 

Northeast Region, Boston Support Office Compliance and Planning Files 

Northeast Museum Services Center, Charlestown, MA

CMP Project, CRM Division, and Regional Curator Files Washington Office 

NHL/NR Program, Park History, and Park Planning Files 

OTHER REPOSITORIES

Department of Interior, Northeast Regional Solicitor’s Office

Springfield Technical Community College, Springfield, MA

President’s Office, Map Room, and Second Floor Storage Files 

LIST OF SOURCES

PRIMARY SOURCES

Sources are listed chronologically within each category. Where essential, references to 

source repositories are provided in square brackets. 

Authorizing Legislation, Legislative History, and Documents Related to Accession 

and Authorization of SPAR 

H.R. 19574, 91st Cong., A Bill to authorize the establishment of the Springfield Armory 

National Historic Site, Springfield, Massachusetts, and for other purposes (8 October 

1970). 

H.R. 108, 92nd Cong., A Bill to authorize the establishment of the Springfield Armory 

National Historic Site, Massachusetts, and for other purposes (22 January 1971).

S. 2977, 92nd Cong., A Bill to authorize the establishment of the Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site, Massachusetts, and for other purposes (9 December 1971).

S. 979, 93rd. Cong., An Act to authorize the establishment of the Springfield Armory National 

Historic Site, Massachusetts, and for other purposes (5 December 1973).

Senate Subcommittee on Parks and Recreation, Hearings Before the Senate Subcommittee 

on Parks and Recreation Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, November ?

(transcript with pen notation “6, 1973”) [Washington Office, Park History Files: 

folder SPAR Legislation].

Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Report to accompany S. 979, Springfield 

Armory National Historic Site, Mass., Calendar No. 568, Report No. 93-590 (3 

December 1973).

House Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation, Hearing held before 

Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation of the Committee on Interior and 

Insular Affairs, H.R. 329, Springfield Armory Historic Site, Monday, December 10, 

1973, Washington, DC, Ward & Paul, nd (unedited typed transcript with handwritten 
409 

corrections, marked “Unrevised and Unedited, not for quotation or duplication in 

any form”] 

House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Report to accompany H.. 13157. 93rd

Cong., 2nd Sess. Report No. 93-1285 (14 August 1974). 

Public Law 93-486, 93rd Cong. (26 October 1974), An Act to Provide for the Establishment 

of the Clara Barton National Historic Site...and for Other Purposes. 

Major Plans, Reports, and NEPA/NHPA Compliance Documents on Springfield 

Armory National Historic Landmark and National Historic Site 

National Park Service. National Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings, Form 10-317: 

Springfield Armory (s. and d., Charles E. Shedd, Jr., Historic Sites Historian, 

November 4, 1959). 

Realty Research and Consulting Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA. The Springfield Armory 

Project: An Action-Oriented Program for Solving the Economic Problems Created by the 

Phase-Out of Major Military Installations. Washington: U.S. Department of 

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411 

INTERVIEWS

Steven Beatty (recorded: May 28, 2009) 

Charles Clapper (recorded: March 24, 2009) 

Doug Cuillard (2007) 

Victor Focosi (recorded: June 1, 2009) 

Louis Hutchins (recorded: December 3, 2008) 

Robin Lepore (January 8, 2009) 

Douglas Lindsay (recorded: March 19, 2009) 

John McCabe (recorded: August 17, 2007) 

Edward McManus (recorded: March 25, 2009) 

Dwight Pitcaithley (recorded: May 28, 2009) 

Michael Quijano-West (January 8, 2009; June 2, 2009) 

James R. Roberts (various dates, 2005-2009; recorded: May 29, 2009) 

Andrew M. Scibelli (recorded: June 4, 2009) 

Frank Seng (2006) 

Richard Turk (recorded: June 2, 2009) 

Paul Weinbaum (various dates, 2005-09) 

Sara Wolf (recorded: December 3, 2008) 

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