I’m a retired person who often goes to the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site and find the history of the place very fascinating. I am, therefore, more than puzzled by Dave Herrera’s Feb. 1 letter, “Folly to spend millions on fort,” stating he can find no historical significance in the old Army buildings on the park’s site. Well, before the Civil War, there were Indian wars and some unknowns for the time were U.S. Grant, Phillip Sheridan, and George McClellan, to name a few. After that war and on to the present day came the names of O.O. Howard, George C. Marshall, and Royce Pollard to name a few more.
How about happenings such as World War I’s Spruce Mill and the Depression era’s Civilian Conservation Corps and the build-up of the U.S. Army for World War II? Oh, by the way, in 1996, Congress authorized the Vancouver National Historic Reserve as a partnership between the city of Vancouver, the National Park Service, the U.S. Army, and the state of Washington. In 2003, McLoughlin House in Oregon City was added as a unit of Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
Would you say there’s no historic significance in those old Army buildings now?
Martha E. Meeks
Vancouver