New Museum Takes Shape at Jefferson Barracks Park
St. Louis Post-Disptach
March 4, 2010
by Tim O'Neil
ST. LOUIS -- With small donations and long hours, Mark Trout and his volunteers
have made great strides in restoring an old wreck of a building at Jefferson
Barracks for their museum on Missouri's role in the Civil War.
"We had raccoons living here. Beehives. Rats in the basement," said Trout,
director and chairman of the Missouri Civil War Museum. "You could see the
storms through the roof before they hit."
The old camp gymnasium, built in 1905, now has a new roof and is about 70
percent restored inside. The group has raised more than $1 million since 2002,
and its members have done most of the sawing and hammering.
Theirs is one of three independent restoration projects under way at the old
military camp in south St. Louis County. The efforts fit neatly into St. Louis
County's plan to promote Jefferson Barracks as a tourist stop for the
history-minded, and county officials are grateful for the work being done now.
In January, the county released a sweeping master plan for improving and
promoting the historic buildings and grounds. Its goal is a major and unified
attraction by 2026, the 200th anniversary of Jefferson Barracks.
It was the first permanent military installation west of the Mississippi River
and a busy training center each time America went to war until 1946, when the
Army moved out. The Missouri National Guard and Army Reserve still operate
there and are building a $27 million administrative center, which is designed
to blend with the red-brick 19th-century architecture all around it.
The national cemetery, the Veterans Affairs hospital and a county park cover
most of the camp's original 1,705 acres, which sit atop the Mississippi River
bluffs just north of Interstate 255.
Trout's group needs an additional $250,000 to open the museum by April 11,
2011, the 150th anniversary of the bombardment of Fort Sumter at Charleston,
S.C., that began the Civil War.
"That's our goal, anyway," Trout said.
Similar hopes are told by the organizers of the other private museum efforts,
and were the dreams of another project that, sadly, went away. Status report:
-- The Jefferson Barracks Heritage Foundation completed restoration in 2007 of
the Red Cross building, next door to the old gym and a USO of sorts during
World War II. The association's big plan is to remake the camp's Building 27, a
114-year-old barracks, as a museum to the American soldier. The National Guard
uses that building now, but it's set to move operations to the new one
beginning this summer.
"We're waiting on the military, and times are tough for fundraising," said
William Florich, foundation director.
It spent $250,000 restoring the Red Cross building, which houses a display of
military uniforms and "Wall of Honor" to ordinary American service personnel
since the Revolution. The foundation has raised about $1 million of its $15
million goal for its next big job.
-- A group of telephone-company retirees is almost done restoring one of the
former officers' homes along the parade ground for a museum of communications
technology dating to the 19th century. Their link to the barracks is that it
was "wired" back in 1898, in the old-old days of telephones.
Carol Johannes, coordinator, said the group has raised about $60,000, done
almost all of the work itself and hopes to open this fall.
"With technology changing so rapidly, we want kids to see what it used to look
like," Johannes said.
-- The building next to the telephone museum housed a Civilian Conservation
Corps museum for 21 years until summer 2008, when the few surviving alums of
the Depression-era jobs program couldn't keep it going anymore. A statue
honoring the CCC still stands, but there is no plan to replace the museum.
The county maintains museums in several 19th-century stone buildings on the
north end of the park. That wouldn't change under the county's grand plan.
Dennis Coleman, chief executive of the county economic council, said the
county's goal is to help coordinate the efforts already under way "so they can
be of more value than as individual components. We believe we have a true
national treasure here.
"If a visitor can know ahead of time that there is an entire collection of
museums and historical sites, it can enhance the experience," he said. "It can
encourage development for South County."
GRANT LIBRARY
When the county released its master plan on Jan. 25, a headline-grabbing
element was its proposal for a library in memory of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant,
Civil War hero and 18th president, who served at Jefferson Barracks as a young
lieutenant and married a local girl, Julia Dent.
The idea has caused some dissension among the Civil War museum people and
appears to face a serious roadblock -- the keeper at Mississippi State
University of the largest collection of Grant's papers says it is fine where it
is.
Trout, of the Civil War group, said the Grant library "would be in competition
with us. We already are close to making a significant impact."
But Florich, of the Heritage Foundation, said Trout "has it backwards. The
library would help us all."
As disputes go, this one is low-key, largely because of the sentiments of John
Marszalek, a retired history professor at Mississippi State in Starkville,
Miss., director of the U.S. Grant Association and keeper of its collection.
The papers were moved there in 2008 from Southern Illinois University at
Carbondale after the death of his predecessor, historian John Y. Simon.
"We have a good agreement with the university," Marszalek said. "I'd bet the
farm we're not going anywhere."
Said Coleman of the county economic council, "The Grant piece could be very
significant to this effort, but it will still go on without it. And (the Grant)
people can always change their minds."
