Fort Bayard celebrates its 159th birthday 0080225

Photos and article by Mary Alice Murphy

The First Bayard Historic Preservation Society hosted the birthday celebration at the New Deal Theater, with a speaker, John Baker, an FBHPS and volunteer firefighter, talking about the history of firefighting at Fort Bayard.

FBHPS President Doug Dinwiddie gave some history of the fort. "On August 21, 1866, Company B of the 125th Colored Infantry arrived here after marching over 300 miles from Fort Union, New Mexico, located between Santa Fe and Las Vegas, New Mexico. They arrived here with the mission of establishing a new fort right here. It was not to be the first fort in this area, but it was by far going to be the longest lasting, most permanent military post in this part of New Mexico. By the way, those gentlemen in the company B of the 125th were, most of them, former slaves, and most of them had been recruited and signed into US military service in the area around Louisville, Kentucky, and they were just one company of the regiment. The other companies were assigned to other posts in New Mexico. But Company B is the one that got the duty of getting Fort Bayard started. Fort Bayard would last as a military post for 33 years, until 1899. The last soldiers to step away from Fort Bayard as active duty soldiers were Company K of the 9th Cavalry, which also was a black unit. So it's interesting that the book ends of Fort Bayard's existence as an active military post includes the Buffalo Soldiers, the starting with the infantry and finishing with the cavalry. In 1899 the mission of Fort Bayard changed and Fort Bayard was designated as the first US Army tuberculosis hospital, and saw service in that regard all the way until 1920 when they rebuilt Fort Bayard as a medical complex. And in fact, everything you see out here today is from that medical period."

"When the army stepped aside in 1920 they turned the hospital complex over to the US health service, which maintained it for two years as a public government hospital. And then in 1922 the health service turned over management of Fort Bayard to the brand new Veterans Bureau, which today we know as the VA, the Veterans Administration, and Fort Bayard became VA hospital number 55 and it served in that capacity all the way until 1964. At that time, the VA sold the Fort Bayard complex to the state of New Mexico, and the state continues to be the owner today of Fort Bayard And so the hospital here became a state hospital in 1964 and of course, the Fort Bayard Medical Center that you drive by on the way here to the historic site is the modern iteration of that state hospital. So, 159 years ago, this all got started, and each year we like to mark the birthday of Fort Bayard and help keep its stories alive. And that's the mission of our group, the Fort Bayard Historic Preservation Society."

Dinwiddie invited anyone in attendance who was not yet a member of the Historic Preservation Society to visit one of the volunteer staff members that were manning the table at the entrance or the gift table, who can tell a person how to become a member of the organization. "We're always in great need of more members and more volunteers for the things that we try to do, and we would welcome your participation. One thing I just want to mention is members of our organization get a 10% discount on the things that we sell in our gift shop, including those things that are here today. Cecilia Bell sitting there right now at our gift shop table, and we have a much larger selection with lots more things over in the gift shop in the museum."

He then talked about the museum. "It's located in the commanding doctor's house in the center of doctors row, and is open on Saturdays and Sundays this time of year, between 10am and 2pm each weekend, we contract to Saturdays only starting in the fall through the winter. But we also make ourselves available by appointment for groups and people that can't otherwise visit us in our regular hours. I'd also just like to take the opportunity to thank all the volunteers and board members that help make our organization tick. And without their continued support and the many hours they put in, we wouldn't be able to fulfill our mission. Also, I'd like to thank the village of Santa Clara for all their help in maintaining communication with the state and for making this facility right here, the New Deal Theater, available for much of our programming. One other thing I'd like to certainly mention is that among the things we do on a regular basis is we sponsor a free film series, and we'll be starting our fall film series on Thursday, September 4, and we'll be showing movies at the armory building, that is the Santa Clara armory, right across the highway from the village of Santa Clara, every Thursday evening, at 6:30. There's a schedule of the movies that we're going to be showing there on the table at the entrance to theater. We'd love to have you come out. It's free admission, and we all just have a good time watching classic movies together."

He then introduced John Baker, whom Dinwiddie described as a relative newcomer to the organization, but certainly not a newcomer to the area. "John's a lifelong resident of our area here. He's been several years part of our group now, and John has been just a godsend to us, extremely helpful with so many things we do and John has a long history in the area, has worked in the mines and was a Forest Service employee, and he continues to volunteer today as part of the Whiskey Creek volunteer fire department. And he's very knowledgeable about the history of firefighting in this area. We noticed actually that there's kind of a little gap in historical record of Fort Bayard in regard to our firefighters, and John is working hard to help fill some of that historical gap, and he'll share some of that with you today."

Dinwiddie then stole some of Baker's thunder by saying: "I'm going to give you just a little quick preview of John's topic here. We have a modern iteration of the Fort Bayard Fire Department, and John will be telling you more about that. And in fact, we have a very special outside exhibit today that he'll tell you about when he's talking, but to kind of ease into John's topic, I would just like to mention that since Fort Bayard was born back in 1866, firefighters have had things to do here, and one of the reasons is that the frame construction of the military post. They were using available materials when they built the fort and it wasn't always the most fire proof, so soldiers had to double as firemen sometimes, and certainly they were professional soldiers, but they weren't professional firefighters It was typical that on army posts on the frontier, the soldiers were firefighters, not by choice, but by necessity, from time to time. And John will tell you about how some of that changed as years went on.

Dinwiddie showed an image of an example of the type of equipment that would have been used at the forts when they could do something besides just buckets and Fort Bayard probably had a water wagon very similar to the photo. He said the photo was actually taken over at Fort Verde in Arizona, but it shows a typical army water wagon that was used to help provide the very important substance for firefighters.

"So without any further ado, I'm going to turn it over now to Mr. John Baker," Dinwiddie said.

Baker said the Silver City Fire Department once had similar water carrying equipment to what was shown in the photo.

He noted that there are only 69 buildings left from the establishment of Fort Bayard.

Another photo showed one of the water storage units at Fort Bayard, which held 50,000 gallons of water. And they had a steam engine that could move water to the post from the 50,000-gallon reservoir. "This is 1878 and therefore about 14 springs on the premises."

He then documented fires at old Fort Bayard March 16, 1875, a fire was in a closet under the stairs, Lt. Boyd's family quarters. The garrison extinguished it. On March. 22 1875, a haystack fire was also considered arson. "So they had arson issues even back then." On November 1, 1893 they had a potentially disastrous fire in the hay of two stables. It destroyed two of them, but with availability of adequate water, it enabled soldiers to prevent any more spread. "And back in those days, what they did have were water valves strategically placed in different areas around the fort, and the water wagon was part of how they kept control. You always hear about the bucket brigades. Well, that's what they had here for a number of years."

He showed a photo of a 1924 American France engine, with a Model T in the back.

By then, the department had two gasoline motor driven trucks that could pump a four-inch main hose. "That was one of the things that they told them that they needed to do, upgrade the water system here."

A photo showed a more recent fire. "This is what they called the New England bungalow, and that's over there behind Doctor's Row. And that burned oin January the 26, 2009 and they just went ahead and let it burn, and then they just loaded it up and hauled it off."

He showed a slide of the logos/badges of the Fort Bayard Fire Department, and that of the U.S. Forest Service, which collaberated on the recent Trout Fire. "The Fort Bayard Fire Department was the one that instigated the water shuttle that they ran from Fort Bayard up to the Big Tree parking lot. They were shutting over 100,000 gallons of water a day. There were 13 water tenders hauling water, most of them were 2,000 gallons from VFDs. Santa Clara was running the 3,500-gallon tender. And what they were doing, they were supplying this helicopter you see on the right with the bucket. And one of them would come in. He loaded, and there's another one right behind it, and t that's what saved us at Fort Bayard from the Trout Fire, Before the shuttle started, they had zero containment on the Trout Fire, and the first day after they did this shuttle, I'd say 100,000 gallons a day, the containment went from zero to 13%, so that's quite an accomplishment. The volunteers in the county need to be patting themselves on the back for saving the rest of us."

Baker showed a map of the Trout Fire[not shown in the slide show]. "And this is why they downgraded the size of it on June 19, 2025, and it's been downgraded since from this 43,547 acres at that particular time. And I think they were still downsizing. Someone was saying somewhere around 37,000 acres."

Next was a picture of the museum. "There's a lot of history in that building right there, and every time I go in and do tours, I always see something different that I've never noticed before, and it's amazing. And one of the things that I try to point out is the potty training chair for kids. It's in the first bathroom on the first floor. It's a wicker basket chair with a bowl in it That's Building Seven, there is a lot of stuff there. If you have never been in museum, you need to make a point, because you can spend a couple of good hours or more in this museum. And it's just amazing as to what all there is there. The original fire station was down on the road, like you're going to the forest service area back here in the back. And at that time, that was Avenue B. And the building that was the fire station was next to the motor pool and the Transportation Office. And that was building number 222, and then building 221 had the siren that you'll see on top of the old building when you leave here."

He continued. "The shuttle business really saved the forest in my view. We need to give the volunteers that did that a pat on the back, but also out front, we've got Fort Bayard's ladder truck out front. And it's it's pretty interesting, because Fort Bayard's truck saved Silver's bacon here some years back whenWendy's burned down. Silver's ladder was down.The whole thing about it is no fire department in this county can do anything in this county as far as firefighters without the assistance of other departments and stuff, because nobody has the personnel and the equipment to handle it by themselves. And there's about 25 volunteers in the Fort Bayard Fire Department. And they've got three stations. They've got their main station, which is the one that you saw when you came in here. And they took in Hanover and the Santa Rita stations. So the chief of the fire department takes care of all three stations.

"And part of the protection that they had here as Fort Bayard fire protection, they had two buildings, and they called them cart buildings, and what they had in them, that's where they had their hose carts. It's got a hose wagon. It's got just two wheels on it, and you either pull it by hand or by horse, and that's what they had two of them strategically placed here around the area. The fire building 320 that burned in 1925 and it was a feed ship.
And then the building number 325 was their lumber storage. And both of them burned down."

Baker said there's a map of Fort Bayard that's probably six feet long and three feet high. "And there's a lot of information on that. A lot of the information that I got for this presentation came off of that map, because they had a 300,000 gallon elevated steel tank, which you can still see back over there behind the nurses' quarters. And then they had a 200,000-gallon wood tank, and a 100,000-gallon stone reservoir, and they needed all the water they could get because also they had 10,000 gallons of gasoline storage tanks, plus a 10,000-gallon oil tanker. In 1922, their main water lines were only four inch and and that's when they recommended to change over to at least an eight inch and that was when they were upgrading the old system for the new hospital when they built it.

Dinwiddie asked Baker if he could talk a little bit about the training that goes into being a volunteer firefighter nowadays.

Baker agreed and said: "We train monthly, like every Monday and Fort Bayard, they do theirs on a different day. But to be a certified as a department, you have to put in so many hours a year training, and it's all documented. It's a lot we go through. A guy, who works for Silver City Fire, and I worked for Silver City Fire at one time, and this individual told me, he says, 'You know what?' He says, I've gotta hand it to you that you're doing the same job that I do, and I'm getting paid for it.' So the only, the only pay that a volunteer gets out of it is just the satisfaction of helping his neighbors. Several years back, they changed the law, so volunteers are paid a retirement now after 10 years of service, and at 25 years of service. When I joined the department, we had no retirement, but since then, they started it, and then they prorated it back so I was able to retire for 25 years of service. Right now I've got over four years here, but I'm on my retirement and it is not going to go up even if I stay here 100 years."

Gerald Schultz, a long-time FBHPS participant, said he wanted to talk about training. "When I was in the Air Force, back in boot camp in June of 1955, I was assigned to go to my technical training school at another post near Cheyenne, Wyoming. But after we got there, we had to wait like three weeks, and they just gave you all kinds of duties to do until you started your school. I always remember this one time, a forest fire broke out up by Laramie, which is to the west of there, and they got us all lined up, and they said, 'We need volunteers to come forth and to help fight this forest fire.' I hesitated because the only fires I had seen were grass fires in North Dakota in the '40s, late '30s. Somebody would have a gunny sack of five gallons of water to beat out the fire. [At this point, he got hard to understand, so this author did not get the rest of his story.]

Baker said: "The state of New Mexico has a training academy in Socorro. And you go up there and take wild land training structure training and and for the most part, is all about getting a national certification. So I'm a qualified as a firefighter, one firefighter, two national certifications. So it's, you know, it's good anywhere in the United States."

Schultz noted that he had never run across any books on the history of fire.

Dinwiddie said it has been his observation is that "it's kind of an neglected part of our history. I know in the literature of the frontier that I think there's a big gap for not only ports and military posts, but communities that had to deal with fire. And
of course, Silver City was lucky in the sense that very early on they started requiring brick construction, and they did not have the disastrous fires that many mining counties did, partly because of that. Of course, it didn't hurt that a member of the city council owned the brick plant, and so they could require people to buy their product to build but I did notice that in doing some background reading on this topic that there is room for a lot to be done and learned about this. John, what would you say to those of us that don't know the first thing about firefighting? What would you say you would most like us to know?"

"It's just like this Trout Fire," Baker said. "They don't think about it, that it could happen to us. Like Ruidoso. How many times have they gotten flooded this year doe to the fire scar. It can't really happen to us the same way. But if you want riverfront property, you can go Ruidoso and buy some property pretty cheap. In Silver City, like it was said, they started out making people, build great structures and stuff like that. And back in the early days when they were fighting fires and in Silver, and in other parts of the United States too, they would go and actually blow up a building to try slowing a fire down. Because back in the 1880s, you're talking about a fire that would start over here and end up taking out several blocks. And so they were just literally blowing these buildings up. And you hear people who go in and tell everybody to drag out what stuff they can. I tell you what, they were pretty ingenious the way they would handle things like that, but you wouldn't really think of blowing up buildings to slow the fire down. If it hasn't got a source to burn up, it's going to stop. Imagine years ago, 1700s 1800s, yeah, if there were a fire at any time on the hill, of course, Mother Nature allowed it to happen.

"But when man started thinking these fires had to be stopped, that's where the bad fire started happening," Baker continued. "What the Indians would do, they would go in and intentionally start fires, and burn up the grass and get the brush out from under the trees and all this kind of stuff. And when the Forest Service first got started, what they wanted to do is put down everything out like by 10 o'clock the next day, and so all this vegetation and stuff have accumulated over the years, and now they're doing prescribed burns to try to get rid of some of this stuff and some of those burns they lose, like the one in Los Alamos. You know, it's a perfect example. They shouldn't have started that part of that day that they did. But the trouble is they make those decisions six, eight months in advance, when they're going to do something, and then then when they actually get out there that day, they say, 'Well, do we chance it or do we go for it?' And sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't. Man and his efforts to control nature was the biggest trouble. They've created a disaster. Look at the fires they had, like the Trout fire. When it started, it was doubling in size every day because they were having high winds and until the winds kind of died down, and until the volunteers got involved, they were losing their butts, and there wasn't anything they could do about it, because they were running air tankers, one in and one out, just as fast as they could go in and out, just like we were doing all the water. The helicopters were coming in, they were loaded up and waiting their turn to load up."

He noted that old, mature trees can resist fires that are slow burning and low to the ground. But the trouble is all the understory of brush and build up of downed trees and the wind and the heat, it seems that it generates fires. He said also that fire burns up to 18 times faster going uphill. The fires that Indians would start would help clear the understory, so that fires would not get out of hand.

Baker said it was kind of hard to say when they were shuttling water and planes were dumping retardant on the ridge. "The ridge is completely painted. They got serious and really started laying it down, but the fire kept coming, trying to get over the ridge."

He said he saw some photos with the Nurse's Quarters full of smoke back of it. "They did good on stopping it.But with the wind at such a speed, they couldn't use their takers. A lot of times they use helicopters because they can fly in higher winds. It's really interesting how it all happened. I worked for the Forest Service for about 10 years, and I've been a volunteer at Whiskey Creek over 40 years. I was on the fire brigade at the mine for years. I've been doing this a long time, but I don't claim to be an expert. I don't know. It's you look back at history and you wonder how are they going to control these monsters and the troubles about this right now is they've got more fires all over the world, I mean, in places that they didn't used to have fire problems. There's a lot of it that I really don't understand. You know, even being in as long as I have, because I worked on wild land crews in California and stuff, and I was on an engine crew in California, it's just hard to visualize what the situation we've got now is because when I was working for the Forest Service, I think about the biggest fire I got on was like 55,000 acres, and that was back in the late '60s. And now 50 something thousand acres is nothing and sometimes 100,000, 200,000 acres. I mean, look at, look at that area around LA and stuff. But it's really changed, and it's going to get worse, because..."

Someone asked: How many hot shot crews and how many smoke jumpers were on the Trout Fire?

Baker noted that there have not been any smoke jumpers here for several years, since a jumper got killed down in the Bootheel after he landed in a rock pile. As far as the hot shots that they had, "I've seen documentation where they had 20 Hot Shot crews here. I don't know whether they had any on the Trout Fire, you know, because they still had several more fires. But what they do with the Forest Service is they'll detail people from
up in Montana or somewhere they aren't in fire season. Then they send them where fire season is starting. They just don't have enough manpower where everybody can, you know, take care of themselves. They gotta bring people in from somewhere, and with all these cuts and what have you, it's really sad.

He encouraged people to talk to the Fort Bayard assistant fire chief who was on hand to show off the department's ladder truck.

Dinwiddie said he had done the loop around through the Mimbres. "Prepare to be very sad, when you do. I grew up in this area, and its very sad to see areas that won't be like what I remember, taking maybe centuries to get back to that condition. There's not a lot that man can do sometimes when nature takes its course, and as it was said, a lot of the things we thought we were doing right, turned out not to be so. But again, I want to thank you all for coming out and supporting what we do here at Fort Bayard, and please partake of cake and drink. Thank you."

To pause the slide show, mouse over the image.