Located on more than 1.1 million acres in west Texas and south-central New Mexico, Fort Bliss is home to more than 20,600 archaeological sites, 465 historic buildings and structures found on the second largest military installation in the continental United States. Another unique feature on the installation is Castner Range, designated a national monument in 2023.
What makes the installation’s management of these assets different is its Cultural Resources Management team’s use of the latest technology – including everything from digital imaging, record creation, and storage to 3-D printing – to protect, preserve and catalog the important sites and cultural assets under their control.
Their innovations helped them capture the Secretary of the Army Environmental Awards Program Cultural Resources Management category for large installations for 2024.
“Our team works hard to use innovative technology to ensure that we remain at the forefront of innovative methodologies, research, and creative mitigation techniques,” said historic preservation specialist Donald J. Sevigny.
“One great example is we’ve created a specialized digitization station to allow us to create digital photos and records of our collection,” said archaeologist, curator and cultural resources manager, Martha Yduarte. “This allows us to improve access to the collection, preserve the original artifacts and materials, and provides new options for research. To date, about 75% of the collection has been digitized.”
“This systematic approach of converting stored artifacts and records to digital assets takes ongoing focus and time with the goal of promoting efficiency and preservation,” Yduarte said.
“Our migration projects have been used to update 1,530 databases, 5,871 spreadsheet files along with 30,000 architectural drawings and 20,000 site file folders,” Yduarte said. “In 2022, a project to photograph 2,000 special collections was completed, bringing the total of these digitized special collections to 4,000.”
Another prime example of the CRM team’s use of innovative technology to embrace 3-D printing technology resulted in creating models of barracks that reflect the existing historic structures nearby that were used to preserve the historic viewshed. The CRM team facilitated the regulatory compliance for the project, which was designed to test the construction method in a harsh desert environment. The two barracks are the largest buildings constructed with 3-D printer technology in the western hemisphere.
The team also began the process of restoring a World War II era mural at a former hospital library on the installation. The mural, painted by Baron Rudolph Carl von Ripper in 1943, was the artist’s gift to the U.S. Army for allowing him to continue his personal fight against fascism. The restoration is scheduled for completion in 2024.
One important task for the Fort Bliss team is the ongoing identification and partial or complete mitigation of historic properties on the installation. Fabiola Silva, archaeologist and cultural resources manager, said the team identified at least 12 pit house structures through mitigation efforts during fiscal year 2022. Pit houses are semi-subterranean structures, that can be circular or rectangular, with thatched roofs. Thousands of artifacts from occupation periods ranging between Late Archaic and Formative periods (A.D. 200 to 1450) have been recovered from these sites. This was a frequent building practice of ancient cultures around the world.
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