There are many good reasons for the gradual-but-steady work at Tacoma’s Fort Nisqually to add more buildings.

Having historically accurate structures, rather than outlines on the ground, helps docents and re-enactors tell the story of the Hudson’s Bay Co.’s post originally located in DuPont.

Three-dimensions give visitors to the living history museum in Point Defiance Park a richer sense of what it was like to live there.

And despite its 18th-century feel, the newest buildings provide some badly needed 21st-century spaces for historians at work.

But Melissa McGinnis, historic and cultural resource manager for Metro Parks, has one more reason. Each new structure that fills the interior of the fort helps disrupt the sense that the center was a parade ground for soldiers. And convincing visitors that Fort Nisqually was a trading post and distribution center – not a military base – is a large part of the battle.

Or should I say “effort,” not battle.

Either way, the fort staff is inviting the community to celebrate two new structures at the fort this Saturday.

Just inside the main gate is the re-creation of the Men’s Dwelling House, which would have been living space for single men and will now hold a new interpretive center and gift shop.

Opposite, along the back palisade, is the Large Storehouse, a warehouse for goods produced by Hudson’s Bay for later trade. Inside now is space for meetings and temporary exhibits, climate-controlled storage for museum collections, offices for fort staff members and a research library for staff and the public.

The additions were paid for with money from the Metro Parks bond issue approved by voters in 2005 as well as state heritage grants. BOLA Architecture and Planning did the design, and Serpanok Construction built the two structures using post-in-sill framing that would have been used on many of the fort’s original buildings. Large old growth timbers are visible on the outside and even larger beams span the interiors.

The “Big Huzzah” celebration follows the restoration of one of the two original buildings at the fort – the Factor’s House. In 1933 it was moved up from the fort’s historic site along with the Granary – built in 1851 and perhaps the oldest building in Washington.

Only two structures have not yet been reconstructed – a second clerk’s house between where the blacksmith display is housed and another clerk’s house and the factor’s previous home, the Tyee House, in the center of the fort. Historians would also like to replace the “Frontierland” palisade someday with something more accurate – a much-taller fence made of tree trunks with saplings filling the gaps.

Once all that is completed – and there are no current plans or funding – the apparent parade ground in the apparent army post will be much less apparent.

Each addition, however, helps visitors lose – or never get – the wrong impression. In reality, this was a place for traders, not soldiers; it was British, not American; Native Americans were partners, not enemies; the palisade kept valuable trade goods in, not invaders out.

If it wasn’t for soldiers, what was the purpose of Fort Nisqually? Curator Bill Rhind says it was one of a series of Hudson’s Bay Co. forts throughout the Northwest, built at a time when it was all British territory, not American.

Established in 1833, Fort Nisqually was the first European settlement on Puget Sound, the headquarters of the Puget Sound Agricultural Co. While there was some trapping in the area, the main purpose was to grow crops and raise animals for sale and trade. The company’s territory covered most of Pierce County with a large farm along the Cowlitz River as well.

“Most Hudson’s Bay Company museums are stuffed beavers and beaver hats,” McGinnis said. “Not here. We were farming.” So a large plow is the most-prominent display in the interpretive center.

The fort was staffed with Scots, American Indians, Kanakas (Hawaiians), French-Canadians, Americans, Englishmen and West Indians. It was part of a global trade with products going to Russian America, Hawaii, Spanish California, Europe and Asia.

Even though the structures are being celebrated, what excites the staff members and volunteers is how they will help tell the stories of the people who lived and worked there.

“History is gossip about people who lived a long time ago,” McGinnis said.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657

peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com

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