Montana Preservation
They were looking for a fight – those mining company executives and disdainful forest supervisors. The subdivision developers, the highway engineers, the power company managers, and, of course, the university presidents. Many were poised—if not eager– to intimidate, to call in political favors, to ignore us—the annoying and surely irrelevant Preservation Office historians and archaeologists that we were.
They were teenage bullies. They wanted to do what they damned well pleased. And they anticipated—maybe hoped—that we would be unreasonable, demanding parents.
It took me awhile to figure that out. To learn the dynamics of a place where property rights, a long history of deferring to big industry, and a strong distaste for regulations and women ruled. Nonetheless, where a certain affinity for our scenery and our pioneers mitigated those uglier influences. I had to learn how to take both into account.
Preservation laws do not mandate that any agency or any private interest must save a National Register eligible property. Like the National Environmental Protection Act, historic preservation laws are process laws—not outcome laws. The law directs agencies or their permittees to evaluate historic properties and consider the effect of a project on them. And to look for ways to lessen or mitigate harm to such historic resources. That’s all. No entity is required to save significant properties, regardless of other consequences.
Tricky.
But back to those teenagers. Likely an unconscious reaction, though not necessarily: they wanted to be told what to do. They wanted me or my staff to demand that they save the lithic scatter or the ranger’s cabin or the abandoned school house. They tried hard to construe whatever I said or wrote as a command. And if or when I made such a decree, I became the foil, the villain, the unreasonable impediment to progress, economic development, job creation.
Then, the agencies and developers could make historic preservation a political fight. Or at least a messy one.
Hence, the somewhat obvious approach I arrived at over time.
I would remind the agencies or companies that wanted a fight that they could do whatever they chose—after they’d gone through the required procedures. But neither the law—nor I—had the power to force one solution over another.
That strategy required matter-of-factness and confidence. I couldn’t be smug or flippant—even in my mind.
Within the office, my easy leap to that game plan wasn’t always popular. Some staff felt it to be an inappropriate concession. Keep those bullies in fear for a while, they wished. Act as if we had legal muscle.
The longer I served in the Preservation Office, the more the strategy felt right. What I said was absolutely true. Posturing as if I had power would backfire. The honest approach often took the wind—the arguments–out of folks. We got down to the real issues sooner.
But more important, a thoughtful process was—in fact—the very ethic that preservation advocates and I sought—always–whenever a historic or prehistoric property was at risk. Recognize historic value—and consider it. Give it some decent thought. See if you-we-the public could have a bit of our cake and eat it too: a subdivision road that skirts a prehistoric site; a logging project done in winter instead of summer when snow buffers artifacts; honest consideration for building reuse rather than demolition.
There weren’t always work-arounds to achieve preservation. But once in a while there were. So, a serious effort to consider a project’s impact and some alternatives to damage was itself a victory. A very real public good.
As it is, often, for teenagers. We want our kids in those dicey years to think about consequences.
Amazingly, that freedom was often enough. A little time invested. A little consideration applied. And the better angels of those agencies or people sometimes appeared. Not always. But sometimes. History and scenery occasionally trumped profit or expediency.
Even if those improved perspectives occurred after one more round of protest. Like teenagers, sometimes the agencies wriggled and whined in the face of having to make grown-up decisions.
The right process did take time and money. Hiring archaeologists or historians. Waiting for evaluation and treatment options. And once more, the teenage analogy applied. The more an agency wept and wailed and postponed the legally required process—the longer it would take to accomplish their project. Their choice.
It was all in my attitude or that of the staff. It paid to speak the truth graciously, comfortably. To do so without being defensive or taking the discussion personally. “Of course, you can upgrade that highway. You just need your archaeologist to survey the area and help you through some planning steps.”
That was then.
Now, in 2022, I’d place no bets at all. None. On whether my old fashioned appeal to process would work. The teenage bullies of my working years seem to have become self-satisfied, smug-countenanced adults. Told that they could do what they want after taking cultural values into consideration, they would ignore the last “after” and do what they wanted sooner. The other half of the Montana paradox I came to know—that respect for our history and the majesty of landscape and habitats appears to have diminished. And selfish, uneducated, brutish teenagers appear to be in charge. Showing the rest of us just how much of the state they can destroy if they choose. ©
