Creating Fort Davis
by Larry Francell
O ne of my favorite
places in West Texas is
also one of the most
desolate. Fort Lancaster, now
Fort Lancaster State Park, is off
the beaten path west of Ozona
and east of Sheffield. If one
comes to the park from the east
down Government Hill, the
view out over the valley of Live
Oak Creek and the Pecos River
is alone worth the trip.
I came to appreciate Fort
Lancaster when in graduate
school at the University of
Texas in 1968. I worked as a
historic researcher in the parks
office of Texas Parks and
Wildlife at a time when the
administrative parks staff was
quite small and inhabited the
old American Legion building
north of the capitol in Austin. I
was assigned to write the historic
survey of Fort Lancaster,
newly acquired by Parks and
Wildlife.
I soon developed a deep fascination
with this old Army
post. Essentially nothing happened
there, making the story
one of basic survival. Manned
by infantry, one or two companies
that seldom averaged over
100 men, no civilian settlement
established itself there. A stage
station, sutler’s store and a few
laundresses made up the
minute civilian population, and
while there were minor occasional
encounters with the
Apaches and the camels passed
through, in essence, life at Fort
Lancaster was one of day-today
endurance.
The fascination with Fort
Lancaster continued, and I
would occasionally find a new
reference or an interesting fact,
and over time I developed a
decent manuscript. My friend,
Dr. Ron Tyler, the director of
the Texas State Historical
Association, offered to consider
publishing the work if I ever
finished it. After 30 years of
leisurely work Fort Lancaster:
Texas Frontier Sentinel was published
in 2000. Very cool – this
book writing isn’t so hard.
I was familiar with Arcadia
Publishing through the museum
business. They come as
exhibitors to most of our meetings
and were known as good
folks who would work with a
community or organization to
produce a quality photographic
history. Recently Arcadia
had published Marfa by Louise
O’Connor and Cecilia
Thompson, and I knew David
Keller was working on Alpine.
Accordingly, I thought there
should be a book on Fort Davis
and, being on the verge of retirement,
decided why not ask.
The staff of Arcadia Publish -
ing said yes, and we struck a
deal in April 2010. By contract
I had 10 months to produce a
draft – an eternity, no problem;
babies take longer than that.
Let’s see: 10 months with more
than four to retirement, still
leaves more than five to deadline.
That works. And as a consequence
I finished my time at
the Museum of the Big Bend
thinking don’t worry, be happy.
The Monday after retirement
we began a major remodeling
project at our house anticipated
to take a month and
requiring that all the furniture
and all the books downstairs be
moved, often several times. I
was immediately designated
“unskilled” labor and put to
work at those tasks. And here I
thought I would be out in my
little office with my reference
books working away at my
manuscript. Silly me.
Eventually reality set in, and
I realized that I must go to
work. The Arcadia model
requires an average of 200
photographs or other images,
with the story told through captions
with a limited word count.
The first step was to identify
sources and begin to acquire
the images. Since the pre-Civil
War Fort Davis had been active
on an isolated frontier in the
days before photography
became common, I immediately
ran up against the problem
of how to interpret this
period. First problem – which
was solved by tracking down
non-photographic images from
far and wide.
I knew that there was a
wealth of historic photographs
in the community, but two of
the major collections, due to
circumstances beyond the control
of anyone, were no longer
available. Problem two – which
was solved by Mary Williams
and the staff at Fort Davis
National Historic Site who generously
opened their photo
archive to me. Daisy
McCutcheon, president of the
Fort Davis Historical Society,
did the same. With Wid
McCutcheon telling stories and
helping to identify many of
these images, the task went
smoothly. Luckily Dave
Jacobson, who helped compile
the Jeff Davis County history
book, had saved digital images
– also a great help.
Then came problem three,
the big one. I am not a computer
person, and the Arcadia
requirements for image reproduction
are quite precise and
technical. Big trouble. I can
identify the difference between
an etching and a lithograph,
but have no idea what a .jpeg
or .tiff file are. It looked like the
wheels were beginning to come
off the project.
After explaining my dilemma
to Jennifer Turner, who actually
knows how the little gremlins
in computers think and operate,
she volunteered to do all
the scanning and copying.
Crisis averted. Jennifer and
Scott Turner own the
Mountain Trails Lodge, and
she certainly had more to do
than help me, but she did.
Finally, and to a lesser
extent, I found that I had
images and photographs of
poor quality that required
someone who could provide
quality copy work and restoration
as needed. In years hence
when someone else comes to
write a history of Fort Davis
and is seeking a photographic
archive they will, without hesitation,
turn to the work of Max
Kandler. In recent years Max
has thoroughly documented
the life and activities of our
community. Not only that, but
he knows how to make a poor
photograph look great.
After all this procrastinating,
the time came that I finally had
to go to work. The Arcadia
template is exact: Each photograph
must have a caption with
a precise number of words.
This, I think, might be limiting
for many authors but was actually
a blessing for me. Exhibits
are the heart and soul of the
museum racket, and we use
artifacts to tell the stories within
the exhibit, what we call interpretation.
Artifact is just a fancy
word for stuff, and most museums
have plenty of stuff. The
problem we face with telling
stories with stuff is that when
we do not have an artifact to
tell the story the story cannot
be told. It was much the same
with the Fort Davis book.
There were many other stories
to tell, but I had no photograph
to provide illustration.
In an exhibit we interpret,
our other fancy word for telling
a story about the artifact by creating
labels. These are particular
documents that must provide
interpretation and clarity
with limited words. For
instance, a label should not be
long and wordy; it should be
focused and not ramble and
the words of the label and the
associated image or artifact
must be meaningful if they are
to be memorable. That is what
we attempt to achieve in the
museum world, and by happenstance,
the Arcadia book
template fit well with that mold.
Finally something with which I
was familiar.
18
Cenizo
Fourth Quarter 2011