11 Most Endangered
Fort Snelling Upper Post
Year Listed: 2006
Location: Minnesota
Current Status: Favorable
Threat: Deterioration
Fort Snelling was established in 1820 to protect fur traders and early settlers. Beginning in the late 1800s, dozens of new buildings were constructed on the Upper Bluff area for training, supplies and administration. Today, Fort Snelling is a National Historic Landmark, and the Fort Snelling Historic District is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Twenty-eight buildings in the Upper Post area are considered historically significant or important to the future use of the site. The military gradually abandoned all of the buildings in the Upper Post area after World War II, disposing of parts of the site to various federal and state agencies, and now there is no clear authority responsible for overall infrastructure. While several of the buildings were shuttered at the time they were vacated, many have suffered from deferred maintenance and vandalism over the years. Buildings are deteriorating at an increasingly rapid rate as a result of broken windows, damaged gutters and downspouts, and deteriorated roofs -- some of which are on the verge of collapse. The 28 historic buildings that make up Fort Snelling's Upper Post complex occupy a unique and important place in Minnesota history. But this year may be a critical period for the complex if they are to be preserved and reused.
Update
Hennepin County secured a Save America’s Treasures grant for $300,000 to stabilize critical properties at the post, has matched that amount with its own funds, and is currently implementing those improvements under the guidance of a qualified historic architect. They are employing their Sentence to Serve program to make the money stretch as far as possible while training jail inmates in the construction trades. The Joint Agency Task Force of federal and state agencies is trying to work out an agreement by which they can proceed with detailed planning with the County to set a framework within which to solicit call for development proposals. Led by NPS, the Task Force seems to be demonstrating good multilateral cooperation. MnDNR who controls the site officially is also discussing with Hennepin County the formation of a join powers arrangement to allow the to proceed in unison to develop the site. The Favrot Fund recently awarded modest financial assistance ($5000) to commission a study related to an open space preservation strategy for the site to set parameters to define the developable area. Overall, this is moving slowly but steadily toward full resolution and the stabilization work will provide time to work that out.
In 2008, Hennepin County got $500,000 in bonding dollars from the Legislature (through the state Department of Natural Resources) to put toward performing permanent building stabilization at 27 of the 28 buildings on the 50-acre Upper Post.
The good news is the work Hennepin County has been doing through its Sentence to Serve (STS) program toward stabilizing the 27 of the 28 Upper Post buildings. STS uses county prisoners to do carpentry work, and in this case, they have been "mothballing" the former barracks buildings.
That work gives officials – and presumably the revitalization commission, if it comes to be – the "two or three years" needed to come up with a plan to save, preserve and develop the Upper Post, according to Royce Yeater, of the Washington, D.C.-based National Trust for Historic Preservation, which two years ago put the Upper Post on its list of the 11 most endangered historical sites in the United States.
