Historic Westville, New Location, Um, Yeah. About That...

[Johnny Lloyd]

So a few weeks ago, I stopped off at Historic Westville's new location in Columbus, Georgia. It is the 1850's living history village of 30+ original buildings left over from being moved from various sites around rural Georgia in the early 20th century.

Nice site. It is near the Infantry Museum and Fort Benning. It is now owned by the City of Columbus, Georgia.

The buildings were well arranged and look good in their new locations. Only half of the buildings are at their present location. according to some estimates, it will take 10 million dollars more to move the rest of the buildings from the original site in Lumpkin, Georgia.

A few differences now from what we all know and love:

First, the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act regulations had to be brought up to code per federal law and there was no dispensation from this for whatever reason. In the old location, since the buildings were set in place well before the Act was enacted, the site was grandfathered into this, thus preserving the original look of the buildings. Now, wheelchair ramps and banisters abound all over the place, ruining the look of the original buildings.

Second, the city of Columbus Georgia refuses to let anyone light fires in the buildings in working hearths, walk on any of the second level rooms, or stay the night in the site.

The City of Columbus wanted to pave the roads with modern asphalt originally but it looks like this idea has been canceled mercifully in favor of hardening the dirt roads in order that emergency vehicles can get into the site in case there's a fire or other emergency.

So, sorry to say, the site as we knew it will not be the same and, if current rules hold according to the site manager that I talked to, there will be no more Westville living histories (a la Secession Saga) over an extended period of time like there used to be at the original site in Lumpkin.

BUT... The buildings are preserved at least. That is the only good news of this post that I could come up with from my research.

It's my educated guess that the City of Columbus will have to let this site fail before they realize a) their city regulations b) lack of dispensation of modern regulations due to historical constraints c) and other various shenanigans put forth by the city are causing it to fail. The way it is going, this thing is a giant albatross waiting to happen because of City regulations and red tape.

Sorry, but that is the prognosis I have seen and asked about with various sources.

Hopefully, I am wrong.

Mods, please move if necessary. ;)

[NMVolunteer]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

As a museum person, ADA compliance is a point of contention. On the one hand, those ramps are certainly not historically accurate. On the other hand, we want to be as inclusive as possible. Turning away the temporarily or permanently physically disabled is the last thing we want to do. Most professional museums will try to adhere to ADA standards for accessibility and exhibit designs.

As for not lighting fires, that is also more a museum thing. Smoke contains particulates that will damage artifacts and structures. Avoiding damaging particulates is essential for long-term preservation.

- - - Updated - - -

As an aside, I interviewed for a position at Westville, but someone else was hired for it. Not a big loss, because I ultimately found a job out in middle of nowhere in New Mexico. The folks at Westville are committed to historic preservation.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

Yeah, I got it. Totally. And I am glad the buildings were saved. But any authentic living history events cannot be done there now like they used to be in Lumpkin. Not until something changes with the city and Federal regs. When it moved, it lost its grandfathered-in status. The attraction was the town was preserved just like it was in history... now, there is too much modernism for that to be true. That history was the main attraction for the site. I think it will have to fail to get better.

[NMVolunteer]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

I do not see that as a failure, but then again I wear many hats. There is more to life than our hobby.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

The saving of the buildings is a certain success. But the ability for us to interpret them for the public properly and historically accurately is now in jeopardy. So, other than saving the buildings, what is the point? What is the draw? Incorrect history? Okay...

[NMVolunteer]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

It is still possible for the past to be effectively interpreted without it being a 100% facsimile of the 1860s. Just look at any historic village or any museum centered around a historic village. One museum I worked at had a "historical dogtrot house" that was built completely by museum staff (including myself), and included an HVAC system that would allow for actual artifacts to be stored in it outside of the main museum building and collections storage. Historical interpretation does not require 100% purity; you are conflating this hobby with the standards of the professional museum field. If we want to make history accessible to everybody, we have to make our buildings ADA compliant. And that is the key to the museum field, accessibility to everybody and not just those who are physically able.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

It is still possible for the past to be effectively interpreted without it being a 100% facsimile of the 1860s. Just look at any historic village or any museum centered around a historic village. One museum I worked at had a "historical dogtrot house" that was built completely by museum staff (including myself), and included an HVAC system that would allow for actual artifacts to be stored in it outside of the main museum building and collections storage. Historical interpretation does not require 100% purity; you are conflating this hobby with the standards of the professional museum field. If we want to make history accessible to everybody, we have to make our buildings ADA compliant. And that is the key to the museum field, accessibility to everybody and not just those who are physically able.

Look, dude... I got it. Rules are rules. But the main draw to the site (formerly) was how accurate it was... now that historical accuracy is severely limited as to what interpreters can do accurately. So, gain preserved 100% historical buildings... cool. Lose about 80% of the site's interpretability and accuracy... not cool.

There are also ways around these rules as well... like asking for dispensation and accommodation with the business case that doing these modernisms for 'up to code' specs will KILL much of what draws people to the site.

I'm aware of museum standards being different than hobby ones... I have worked in/with a few museums and State/NPS sites, but the ability to interpret a LARGE draw to this particular site (living history, not something in a glass case under preservation) is now damaged permanently because of a city government that doesn't fully understand what it just bought.

The original Westville site had running water taps, modern bathrooms and electrical plugs... BUT they were generally hidden from public view. There is NO WAY to hide the modern junk that is all over these buildings now... AND their use is SEVERELY limited.

And if you are encouraging outright farbery... please move on from this site. :)

[NMVolunteer]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

On the other hand, it is more accessible to school groups in Columbus now that they relocated. And they are easier to reach by tourists. And they are more accessible to people with physical disabilities. What I am drunkenly saying is that the needs of the Authentic community and the needs of the Museum community are not the same, and while we (Authentic hobbyists) can lament the addition of ADA-compliant features to historical buildings, the historic village can be far more successful now. My current museum is at risk of an ADA-based lawsuit right now because our historic building is not accessible, and should someone sue, we would quickly lose and the museum would simply be shut down and the staff would be mostly laid off, until the city can successfully squeeze funding out of the state to build a brand-new building. This is not a simple easy-answer issue for the field. Just like NAGPRA, ADA is something that we have to seriously consider and not write off as farbism. Again, you have to understand that the needs of the museum field and the needs of the authentic hobby are not the same. And while you lament this situation, I applaud it. And adding ramps to buildings is not a big deal from the museum perspective. I've been there at other museums, in historic costume or agency uniform, leading tours to visitors, and telling them in the frankest of terms that we added those ramps to make them accessible, and historically the buildings did not have ramps. Don't attack Westville for adapting to the 21st Century, just accept that this hobby's standards are different from what the museum field follows and move on.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

Well, you were talking about things from a museum perspective and I am talking about things from a hobby related perspective. This website is for hobbyists, not museum workers.

I can appreciate where you're coming from and yes there are liabilities and issues with not having things handicapped compliant. But the job they did... see pics... does severely limit the authenticity of the history being interpreted at the site.

It also hampers many caring living historians from coming and interpreting history at the site because they feel it no longer looks correct... A better job could have been done in a more authentic way, but the oversite was apparently not present to combine historical accuracy with legal requirement compliance.

[PogueMahone]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

I just wish they had tried to incorporate the ADA updates into the original designs a bit better. Using modern decking materials makes it stand out and that is the optical failure.

[NMVolunteer]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

That is true, but this is something that I am paid to do 8-5 as my profession, so you can probably see why I have objections and why I am vocal, because my paychecks depend on it. The difficulty with working with historic buildings is that any and all accessibility ramps have to work with existing doors. If the building only has a front and back door, then ramp has to attach to the front or back door. There are historic buildings in the Southwest, like at Sharlott Hall in Prescott, where the historical buildings are entirely at ground level where this is not an issue. Whenever something is raised above ground level, there are new issues. A ramp outside of front and back door could be hidden, but that (1) would require cutting a brand-new door in the existing building, which is a huge no-no in the field, and (2) would set differently-abled people apart from everybody else in the group, which would be humiliating and cause for lawsuit. This is a somewhat tough decision for the museum field, but the Authentic community has to understand and accept that there are factors involved that are beyond a simple "historically accurate" vs. "historically inaccurate" dichotomy.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

Think: Other than preserving the original buildings, what is the point of having an interpretive site without the ability to interpret it historically correct?

I am sure there is a happy medium here, but clearly this was not done here, according to what I saw and took pics of.

[NMVolunteer]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

I would have to say that interpreting it to everybody is an essential part of an interpretive site (instead of limiting it to people capable of climbing stairs), and sacrifices have to be made in order to meet that requirement. But then again the Southeast has ecological and climate reasons for not letting buildings to sit at ground level, which creates issues for historic sites. We didn't have that issue at the historical village I worked at in Texas. And we do not have that issue in New Mexico.

[NMVolunteer]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

I have to think about the popular sites in my area for mainstream and the extremely rare Authentic event. Fort Union has a modern visitor center, a modern road leading to the park, cell towers in the Turkey Mountains, and noises from the interstate; the ruins are in fact the ruins from the Civil War and Indian Wars military post. Fort Stanton has an eclectic mixture of Civil War era buildings, Indian Wars era buildings, and almost-modern buildings associated with the hospitals and prison on site; the buildings are from the Civil War fort, the Indian Wars fort, the federal tuberculosis hospital, the state insane asylum, and the state women's prison. Pecos National Park is at least close enough to the piņons to hide most modern items, but there are still modern park buildings and visible cell towers, along with noises from the interstate and from Amtrak; the site is the location of the Federal headquarters during the battle of Glorieta in 1862. Fort Garland smells like marijuana because there is a dispensary half a block from the fort, and railroad and highway noises are obvious, and cell towers are visible; the site is the existing buildings and the rebuilt buildings of a Civil War and Indian Wars fort. The Valverde activities are nowhere near the actual battlefield because the battlefield is privately-owned cattle land. The Golondrinas events draw a decent mainstream crowd, at a site that is based around colonial and federal Mexican era New Mexico, on a site that is similar to Westville, and modern amenities are noticeable along with the flight path for the Santa Fe Airport; the site was a part of a Spanish land grant. Nothing will be perfect.

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Historic Westville, Georgia's new location... um, yeah. About that... :/

I'm glad they preserved the buildings. If ADA-compliant features and not having interior fires are the biggest problems, there is no real problem. Hell, the time I was there I spent evenings in a tent and days inundated by the tourists who infested the site. The tavern at night was the most "immersive" part of the experience and clearly, for some participants, the "immersion" was as much in the offerings on pour as in history. It's good it was saved. Don't let amateur visions of the perfect be the enemy of professional realities of the good.

I mean think about it, Johnny. What you're really arguing is that actual historic buildings should be more exposed to damage from fire and smoke, and less accessible to the disabled, in order that we hobbyists can have, in our own unprofessional view, a more "authentic" experience. That's both selfish and utterly unrealistic.