Environment News

Missoula's Coming Attraction

Plans Unveiled for First-Ever Forest Service Museum

By Amy Linn, 9-08-09

Exterior view of the future National Museum of Forest Service History, rendered by OZ Architects.

The U.S. Forest Service has been around for 104 years, said a bevy of speakers who gathered today under blue skies on a stubbled field in Missoula. And as important as the USFS has been all that time, it’s never been honored with a museum. “Why is that?” one of the day’s dignitaries asked audience members munching sandwiches under a tent.

Missoula Mayor John Engen had an answer.

“You actually have to let your stuff get old before you can have a museum,” he told the crowd, to applause and laughter.

It seems the USFS and its stuff are plenty old enough to deserve what they’re finally getting: a museum that honors the legacy, hard lessons and achievements of one of the nation’s most important agencies. The end result will be the National Museum of Forest Service History (NMFSH), a $12 million, 300,000-square-foot, energy-efficient building in Missoula with a theater, research and meeting rooms, exhibits, education center, a collection of some 40,000 artifacts, and more.

The 36-acre museum site, located on Highway 10 about one mile west of the Missoula International Airport, will also include a ranger cabin, fire lookout, trail system and memorial grove.

“There has never been one central repository where artifacts could be stored, preserved and displayed,” said NMFSH President Gray Reynolds. He spoke to a crowd of more than 75 people, many of them USFS retirees who were concurrently enjoying a Forest Service reunion (with ongoing events at the Hilton Garden Inn and Conference Center).

“There has not been one central place where the stories and lessons could be told,” Reynolds said. “And there has not been one central monument where the leaders, partners, and people whose stories are our history could be recognized and honored.”

The speech-making marked the official unveiling of the future museum and its footprint, including roped-off areas and displays in the sunny field to show where museum rooms will sit and what will be offered in each. The exhibits, as currently planned, will touch on everything from forest management policies and wildland fires to recreation, wildlife and conservation history, starting with President Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the USFS.

The museum will honor dedicated Forest Service employees and an agency with “the insight and courage and persistence needed to be the banner of conservation,” Reynolds said, as grasshoppers bounced around his feet and the tent flapped. “In all my years with the Forest Service,” he added as an aside, “I never gave a speech where the wind didn’t blow.”

Wind or no wind, each of the morning’s seven speakers were not distracted from their goal: to praise the project, give thanks to the many people who’d volunteered their time, and encourage the crowd to support it with donations.

Tom Tidwell, the newly-appointed Forest Service Chief, told listeners that the museum would be more than just a place for people to learn about the history and mission of the USFS. It would also educate the broader public through traveling exhibits, and would help visitors from around the world learn about the importance of stewardship and conservation, he said.

“I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a perfect place for this museum, but I think Missoula is about as close as you can get,” Tidwell added.

State Sen. Dave Wanzenried credited the USFS with giving the country part of its heritage and character. “Our vistas are clearer, our streams run cleaner because of the efforts of the Forest Service,” he said. “This will help us learn about some of the things we take for granted every single day.”

Engen told the crowd that the nation is morphing into Wal-Mart sameness. The natural landscapes, the forests and beauty of a place like Missoula, is what “makes us unique and distinguishes us from one another. These are the types of places to be, to experience, to live and love,” he said.

Other speakers included Alex Apostle, Superintendent of Missoula County Public Schools; Missoula County Commissioner Bill Carey; and James Deutsch, the program curator of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

“We’ve known about this for a while, and we’re very supportive,” said USFS retiree Gilbert Churchill, after the speeches were over. Churchill, who lives in Locust Grove, Virginia, is in town for the reunion—his first time back in Missoula since being based here during the massive firefighting efforts in Yellowstone National Park in 1988. “We’ve always said Washington, D.C. is the head of the outfit, but Missoula is the heart of it,” Churchill said. The reunion was bringing together a lot of dedicated people, many of them willing to volunteer time for the museum, he said. “I hope this will be a shot in the arm.”

A public-private partnership has raised more than $3.2 million for the project to date. Another $8 million is needed—and the fundraising drive is already in evidence at reunion headquarters. Among other things, a “Legacy Raffle,” kicked off at the Hilton Garden Inn on Sept. 7 and continues there through Sept. 10. Tickets are also being sold through Sept. 25 at the Boone and Crockett Club and at The Trailhead. Five tickets cost $20.

But then, maybe Engen’s comedic appeal to James Deutsch of the Smithsonian will work miracles. Deutsch had told the crowd that the Smithsonian has a $1 billion budget, a sum that made Engen sit up and take notice. “You wouldn’t miss a little of that,” Engen told Deutsch from the podium, drawing rousing applause. “Nobody would even know!”

Construction on the National Museum of Forest Service History is slated to begin in June 2010; the museum could open as early as the fall of 2011. Stan Zimet, of Missoula-based OZ Architects, is the project architect. For more information, click here.

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