Fort Steilacoom’s history should be told — in full. It won’t happen under DSHS’s care | Opinion

When it comes to celebrating history, Washington state is unique. Not in a good way.

Fort Steilacoom in Lakewood was founded by the U.S. Army as the first military fort in Puget Sound on Aug. 22, 1849. The fort will celebrate its 175th anniversary in 2024.

Four buildings survive. You can walk through them today.

The ownership of these historic buildings is what makes them unique. For instance, Wyoming’s Fort Laramie is administered by the National Park Service. In Texas, Fort Croghan is administered by The Burnet County Historical Commission and the Burnet County Heritage Society. In Nevada, Fort Churchill is governed by the Nevada Division of State Parks.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Everywhere else, early forts are administered by groups experienced in operating parks and museums.

So, who do you think owns some of the most historic ground in Washington?

A psychiatric hospital — specifically, Western State Hospital and its parent, the state Department of Social and Human Services (DSHS).

That’s pretty unique. The Historic Fort Steilacoom Association is not aware of many U.S. military sites of nationwide significance governed by a psychiatric hospital.

So what’s wrong with being unique?

Hospitals and museums are different things.

Now, I want to make it clear that this is no insult to Western State Hospital or DSHS. Hospitals do what they do. Museums do what they do. Thank heavens Western State is doing what it does. But it’s not a museum.

It might seem a little silly to be saying, “Hospitals and museums are different things” out loud, because most of us would consider that pretty obvious. But I must. We’ve normalized a strange relationship in Washington, where a behavioral health facility has responsibility for a historic U.S. Army site.

The reason is complex. Fort Steilacoom was decommissioned in 1868. Its buildings housed the state’s first behavioral health facilities. The hospital eventually moved into nearby newer buildings. But the fort buildings remain on the front lawn - the old military parade grounds - of Western State.

In the 1970s, DSHS was perfectly happy to let the aging fort buildings cave in. That’s reasonable, because DSHS is not a museum. Instead, the four historic buildings were restored several decades ago at the expense of volunteers. However, the grounds and buildings still belong to Western State.

What this means in practical terms is that few resources and little expertise are going into telling the story of Washington Territory.

Does that matter? The answer depends on whether you think we learn anything from history.

The history of Fort Steilacoom is challenging. On its face, Fort Steilacoom is part of U.S. Army history, including disputes like a border face-off with Great Britain.

But parts of the fort’s history can be hard to tell. Fort Steilacoom’s forces were part of the war on Indigenous tribes. Later on, the Army would protect Native Americans from vigilante civilian militias, but not at first. Fort Steilacoom housed Chief Leschi during his civilian trials so he would not be murdered in a civilian jail. As it turned out, civilian authorities staged a trial to hang Leschi even though Army officers knew he was innocent of the charges he faced.

This is a complicated, emotional story to tell. We are grateful for support from Tribal members on our museum board, but this is a story that should involve the community. We need expertise in telling stories like this, because there are lessons to be learned.

In the meantime, Fort Steilacoom’s officers would go on to fight in the U.S. Civil War. The connection is the reason many people visit our museum today. You can walk on the same floor that George Pickett walked. Pickett later became a major general in the Confederate Army.

We all know that parts of the Civil War are still being fought today. Again, the Civil War is a complicated, emotional story.

Today, maybe we don’t want to think about the Treaty War. Maybe we don’t want to think about the Civil War. And if that’s the case, then the current situation makes sense. If you don’t want to confront and share these stories, sidelining Fort Steilacoom with a parent state agency without expertise in museums, education and history is perfectly reasonable..

But if we do think history can teach us something, then it makes sense to look for a new parent for Historic Fort Steilacoom.

Why? Because hospitals and museums are different things.

Walter Neary is president of the board of the all-volunteer Historic Fort Steilacoom Association, which leases the four historic buildings from Western State Hospital.