"Here is the Crow-Flies-High band of Hidatsa, who lived on the site in the late nineteenth century; here is the "wild west" town of Mondak, founded in 1904 to peddle alcohol to North Dakotans; and here are the Park Service personnel, whose mission to preserve what is left of the historic fort puts them in direct conflict with civic leaders who want the entire site reconstructed to draw more tourists. Matzko chronicles the struggle, with all the political plays, bureaucratic snags, and chance twists that led to the reconstructionists' victory - and to one of the largest archaeological excavations ever mounted by the National Park Service.

The Constructed Past presents group of powerful images of the past, termed in the book construction sites. At these sites, full scale, three-dimensional images of the past have been created for a variety of reasons including archaeological experimentation, tourism and education. Using various case studies, the contributors frankly discuss the aims, problems and mistakes experienced with reconstruction. They encourage the need for on-going experimentation and examine the various uses of the sites; political, economical and educational.

Excerpt from Fort Union and the Frontier Army in the Southwest: A Historic Resource Study, Fort Union National Monument, Fort Union, New Mexico As the nation's principal conservation agency, the Department of the Interior has basic responsibilities to protect and conserve our land and water, energy and minerals, fish and wildlife, parks and recreation areas, and to ensure the wise use of all these resources. The Department also has major responsibility for American Indian reservation communities and for the people who live in island territories under U. S. Administration. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

To reconstruct or not to reconstruct? That is the question facing many agencies and site managers throughout the world. While reconstructed sites provide a three-dimensional pedagogic environment in which visitors can acquire a heightened sense of the past, an ethical conflict emerges when on-site reconstructions and restorations contribute to the damage or destruction of the original archaeological record. The case studies in this volume contribute to the ongoing debates between data and material authenticity and educational and interpretive value of reconstructions. Discussing diverse reconstruction sites from the Golan Region to Colonial Williamsburg, the authors present worldwide examples that have been affected by agency policies, divergent presentation philosophies, and political and economic realities.

Fort Union history coincided with the burgeoning of nineteenth-century photography. Fort Union: A Photo History collects many of these photographs, some never before published, in a visual documentary of a bustling Old West fort. Close-ups of officers and enlisted men, as well as the buildings and activities of the fort, take the reader back in to a different era of American history.

Historic reconstructions have been a consistent part of the historic preservation and heritage conservation movements in the United States and Canada. Indeed, reconstruction has been the primary tool at the most influential historic sites, for example: the Governor's Palace and the Capitol at Colonial Williamsburg, USA, and in Canada, the Fortress of Louisbourg. Dozens of other reconstructions have appeared during the past century in North America, undertaken by individuals, communities, states, and provinces, and by national agencies responsible for cultural heritage. Despite this prevalence, historic reconstructions have received little scholarly attention and the question of what motivated the proponents of these projects remains largely unexamined. This book explores that question through detailed studies of ten historic reconstructions located throughout Canada and the United States, ranging from 1908 to 2011. Drawing upon diverse archival sources and site investigations, the proponents of each site are given voice to address their need to remake these landmarks, be it to sustain, to challenge, or even subvert a historical narrative, or – with reference to contemporary heritage studies – to reclaim these spaces. Reconstructing Historic Landmarks provides a fascinating insight into these shifting concepts of history in North America and will be of considerable interest both to students and scholars of historic preservation and indeed to heritage professionals involved in reconstructions themselves.