What’s in the Cellar: the Archaeology of an 1885 Officers’ Quarters at Fort Walla Walla, Washington

Summary

This paper will provide insights into the daily lives of the families that lived on Fort Walla Walla, one of the Pacific Northwest’s earliest communities, from its early use as a military base and into its transition to a veteran’s facility. Established in 1858, Fort Walla Walla was built along the Oregon Trail by the U.S. Army to defend settlers moving into the territory and played a major military role into the early 1900s. After the Fort closed in 1910, it was converted into a veteran’s hospital and today, Fort Walla Walla (known as the Jonathan M. Wainwright VA Medical Center) is an important and irreplaceable part of U.S. history listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The results of archaeological data recovery efforts on two cellars associated with Building 43, an Officers’ quarters duplex dating from 1885 to the late 1920s, will be examined and discussed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015   •
• Landscapes of Colonialism in the North American West

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 545