The Importance Of Place: Results Of Viewshed Analysis of Fort Spokane, Washington And Its Environs

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Documenting the Built Environment (General Sessions)" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Fort Spokane, located at the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia Rivers, was established in 1882 to mediate interactions between the Native Americans of the Spokane Tribe and the Colville Confederated Tribes to incoming settlers to the area. At the same time the fort reflected the burgeoning power and control of the region by the US Government. The fort ceased being a military outpost in 1898 and transformed into a boarding school, continuing federal control of the local Native American population. Although previous investigations have investigated the structural remains within the 88-acres of the Fort Spokane Historic District, less is known about the significance of the fort’s relationship to its immediate environs. This paper presents the results of viewshed analyses used to investigate the intervisibility of the fort to its local landscape and place in context how the fort was developed for defence and socio-political control of the region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Documenting the Built Environment (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology