Heritage panel supports battlefield grant
By KURT NESBITT Journal Staff WriterNEW ULM - Finding your way around the battle site that was once in downtown New Ulm nearly 150 years ago could get easier if a plan outlined Monday night by the Brown County Historical Society succeeds.
Heritage Preservation Commission members voiced support Monday for a grant application that could ultimately put markers outlining the places where the first and second battles of New Ulm took place during the U.S.-Dakota Conflict of 1862.
Bob Burgess, director of the Brown County Historical Society, presented the idea to the commission.
The study would fund a preliminary report on the Milford Township, Leavenworth Township and New Ulm parts of the 1862 battlefield. Burgess said the study could ultimately be directed at signs for properties deemed historic.
The commission voted unanimously to support the grant application to the National Park Service Battlefield Protection Program, sending the item on to the New Ulm City Council with a letter of support.
After a short interchange between Commissioner and City Councilor Ruth Ann Webster and City Building Inspector Dave Christian, Commissioner Shannon McKeeth recommended the HPC send the proposal to the city council for a vote. Commissioner Sue Kimmel seconded it, adding that she could not say "how important this is" and she always felt the city should have some recognition of the battles.
The New Ulm area was attacked twice during August of 1862, shortly after the conflict broke out. Some of the places where the siege happened are still standing today. Some have been preserved and some were lost.
Research historians and survey archaeologists would study buildings, cultural resources and area landscapes to determine the historic extent of the battle and determine its remaining evidence today if the Park Service approves the society's application. Burgess said the society expects the Park Service to include earlier work by the HPC and other historians in its study.
Burgess said the society is interested in advancing the study of the U.S.-Dakota Conflict of 1862.
The society also believes the study will translate into additional nominations to the National Register of Historic Places from the study, educational material and information for an upcoming exhibit on the conflict, plan for interpretation of Milford-New Ulm battlefield as a significant campaign and integration into the other war battlefields in the Minnesota River Valley and a significant addition to Brown County's appeal as a destination for people who study the Civil War and the U.S.-Indian wars.
Earlier in the meeting, the HPC received a late addition to its agenda. Mayor Joel Albrecht asked to speak. He gave former HPC Chair Anne Makepeace the HPC's Recognition Award for her work on historical preservation. He cited Makepeace's work with the Grand Hotel, which Anne and John Makepeace worked to restore and refurbish, as the inspiration to others "to do things that should be done".
He called Anne Makepeace "an absolute dynamo at making things happen."
Makepeace served from January 2003 to December 2008 as the HPC's first chairperson. She was not present to receive the award. Albrecht gave the certificate to John Makepeace, who is also an HPC member.
Following the award, Christian reported the HPC's downtown tour podcast is finished but can't be downloaded yet because of Internet security issues identified by the city's internet technology staff, who are working on the issue.
Commissioners saw and examined prototypes of the photographic banners that could hang from city light standards. Christian said the historical property markers are on order.
A backlog of work, property owners who have backed out and new legal descriptions have caused setbacks to a state review of the Hauenstein Historic District designation, Christian reported.
