The January Historic Chat was about the history and pre-history of Fort Riley.

Theresa de la Garza, historic architect and cultural resources manager, Directorate of Public Works, started off the presentation by talking about the prehistoric through modern times, before going on to the history of Fort Riley.

She talked about the buildings on historic main post such as Custer House and the Main Post Theater on Custer Avenue. She showed photos of the theater before and after the initial renovation and talked about what is still planned to make it look more like it did many years ago.

After her presentation, archaeologists, Fiona Price and Renee Erickson, took attendees to the lower level of Sheridan Hall, 407 Pershing Ct., to look at some of the thousands of artifacts found around post -- either at surface level or during digs of sites like the outhouse of the original post hospital, now the Calvary Museum.

"We had a team of archaeologists and archaeological students come over here from K-State in 1984 and dig up the post hospital privy," Price said, during her discussion of what was in the three temperature-controlled storage units. "They spent a semester digging stuff up and then they spent another couple semesters curating the artifacts, cleaning them and putting them back together in some cases."

During this dig, more than 30,000 artifacts were found including hospital bottles, pestle and mortar sets and glass prescription bottles, which was expected for a hospital. The most remarkable thing about the privy, she said, was that it wasn't just hospital stuff that was found. Whiskey flasks, beer bottles and children's toys were some of the other items discovered.

Storage units, or repositories, house the over 300,000 artifacts which are cataloged and packaged into acid-free boxes and bags used to prevent any additional harm to the items. Visitors wanting to see the collection of artifacts can contact the Directorate of Public Works -- Environmental Division for a tour.

In one of the repositories, there are two sets of drawers that hold more than 2,300 drawings and maps of the buildings from the early days of Fort Riley. The drawings have since been digitized and the originals stored to protect them.

"I don't get into these very often," Price said. "They are all safe and sound between special tissue paper since they are all preserved. I can just get onto my computer and look at them."

Renee Erickson, one of the newest archaeologists on post, talked about the processes that archaeologists use to determine if any of the potential artifacts are of historical significance.

The process begins with background research on the area to be surveyed followed by the surveying of the area. The members of the team make a line at the edge of the property and with tools in hand, walk the area looking for anything that might be significant. Historical significance is based on research done before the survey. When the survey process is complete, the items are cataloged and stored.

de la Garza said the reason she does these events is because of the value of history.

"These chats are a great outreach in the sense that we are getting the local community interested and giving them a little bit of what we do," she said "It gets folks interested in our history and it adds value because basically, history is only significant if it is valuable (to) the public and that is who we are preserving it for -- the public."