MAY 2017 • NEBRASKAland 27
W
e emerged from the van in the dark, approaching
an entrance within 15-foot wooden walls
stretching out beyond us to the right and the left.
A sentry stopped our docent, who was dressed as a 19th
century Plains frontiersman.
"Who goes there?" the sentry asked. "State your purpose
at the gate."
Permission granted, we moved through the entrance and
found ourselves along a boardwalk, dwarfed by an enormous
grassy quadrangle bordered by barracks. Following our
docent and the light of his lantern, we slipped into one room
after another, and for the next hour, we watched.
Lit by candlelight and burning fireplaces, the scenes
played themselves out: two women hand-making lace and
spinning wool, a duke and a colonel discussing the next
day's buffalo hunt, ladies fussing over the cream in their
soup, a Native American man beset by typhoid coughing by
a fireplace.
It resembled live theater, but in actuality there were no
scripted lines, just ordinary people portraying a history of
this place, this fort, that they have come to know like the
back of their hands.
At Fort Atkinson State Historical Park in Fort Calhoun, a
group of passionate volunteers known as the Friends of Fort
PHOTO
BY
BOBBI
ANDERSON
PHOTO
BY
CURT
BLUM
Keeping the Past Alive
The Friends of Fort Atkinson
By Renae Blum
Penny Ankenbauer, Denise Wenke and Donna Joyce portray soldiers' wives during the annual candlelight tour at Fort Atkinson
State Historical Park. Volunteers bring Nebraska history to life each year at the park in Fort Calhoun.
