Save and Teach
University preservation programs help document MT history

One of five beehive kilns at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena.

The history and beauty of Montana attracts tourists from around the globe.  It is also luring students and professors interested in documenting Montana’s early buildings and structures.

Two separate graduate programs in historic preservation will travel to Montana this summer in an effort to teach and save history at the same time. In July, the University of Pennsylvania Architectural Conservation Laboratory will study the beehive kilns at the Western Clay Manufacturing (now Archie Bray Foundation) in Helena. And in August, the University of Delaware Center for Historic Architecture and Design will host a two-week architectural photography and documentation field school in Virginia City, immersing students in one of the best preserved gold mining landscapes in the West.

Virginia City's circa 1864 Methodist Church. Photo courtesy of David Ames.

In 2009, during the Vernacular Architecture Forum’s meeting in Butte & southwest Montana, Professors Rebecca Sheppard and David Ames were inspired by a visit to Virginia City and right away began exploring their options to bring students out for a field school. Students will learn a variety of preservation techniques from measured drawings to architectural photography, and archival property research. This unique opportunity for the students will also provide invaluable professional-quality services to the Montana Heritage Commission, responsible for managing the buildings in Virginia City.

Further north in Helena, U Penn students will converge at the Western Clay Manufacturing brickyard, one of the largest industrial brick manufacturing companies in the West during the early 1900s, and current day home of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts. Professors and students will be in Helena for three weeks to develop a heritage conservation and management plan for the historic brickyard, including the Bray’s five signature 1905 beehive kilns. The group will create CAD drawings, rectified photographs,   and mid-range laser scans of the site and the kilns, inside and out.  In addition, they will work with the Bray to help analyze structural issues and plan for future preservation of the kilns.

In the search for conservation case studies on beehive kilns, Patty Dean, MPA’s Director of Community Preservation, learned of Frank Matero’s Architectural Conservation Laboratory (ACL) at U Penn. Thanks to MPA’s J.M. Kaplan Titans of Industry Grants, Dean was able to work with the Bray and provide funding for Professor Matero’s program. As the Bray celebrates its 60th anniversary this summer, U Penn’s ACL will be joining the effort to preserve this rare industrial site. ACL has conducted field schools in places as far away as Egypt and Turkey and most recently completed a project to cap exposed archaeological sites in Mesa Verde National Park.

“Montana has a lot to offer to preservation and conservation students,” says Dean. “We have the allure of being off-the-beaten path, and we also have an amazing variety of historic industrial and related residential buildings that have not been formally documented. The drawings and photographs created by these field schools provide an accurate record for generations to come, and will also be a valuable planning and interpretation tool for the managers of these sites. We hope interest in Montana as a field school continues. It’s a win-win situation.”