HomeMy WebLinkAboutVollmer historic site treatment supplement 1
Vollmer Slaughterhouse complex - Story Mill Park
Supplemental Information - June 13, 2017
Even with the necessary removal of the Vollmer buildings, it remains both
appropriate and important to recognize the history of the Vollmer site, and the role
that it filled in the broader historic cultural landscape of the Story Mill area.
The following three steps will be undertaken to help preserve the site’s
history, and interpret it to future park visitors:
1. Documentation: The history of the Vollmer property was briefly
documented during the preparation of the National Register nomination for
the Northern Pacific-Story Mill Historic District in 1996, although the study
left some data gaps and the building descriptions and National Register
evaluations are no longer current. This information has been expanded
and updated with the 2016-17 completion of a current Historic Property
Site Form document for the Vollmer property. This document updates and
expands the information provided in the earlier National Register nomination,
and provides a final baseline of information documenting the site. This record
will be submitted to the Montana State Historic Preservation office, as an
archival reference for use by future historians and researchers. Park
planners will also use information in the expanded document as they
prepare interpretive materials for the site and the Park. Professional
high resolution digital photography to document the interior and
exterior of the buildings and site will be completed prior to demolition.
Archival quality black & white prints be filed with the Gallatin History
Museum and City of Bozeman.
2. Interpretation: Although the former slaughterhouse site will not be
intensively developed as part of the Park project, its location just east of the
Northern Pacific rail-trail will remain highly visible, and easily accessed by
Park visitors. This provides opportunities for historic interpretation of the
Vollmer site geared towards park users along the trail, as well as those who
may venture beyond the trail into the site itself.
As part of our overall interpretive plan for the Park, we will design and install
a series of interpretive sign panels at the Vollmer site, describing the
buildings and structures which once existed there, and explaining their
historic use. A primary interpretive panel will be erected at a location
along the rail-trail near the slaughterhouse site; it will include a sketch
map of the former complex and an overview narrative of the full site. For
those wishing to explore further, smaller secondary interpretive panels
will be provided at the former locations of major features –
slaughterhouse, rendering plant, and railroad spur – describing those
former features and including a photograph. Narrative text will be distilled
from the updated historic property records. The bases of these sign panels
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will match other park design standards, and would include shapes
appropriate to this site’s unique heritage. Combined with the documentation
prepared above, the preparation of these sign panels will be an effective and
visible way of explaining the site’s story to future visitors, while
simultaneously mitigating the loss of the former Vollmer buildings.
3. Commemoration: As part of the restoration of the former Vollmer site, and
in conjunction with the interpretive effort outlined above, we will mark the
former locations of the site’s primary buildings through the placement
of significant landscape boulders at the former building corners. In
conjunction with the interpretive panels described above, this would
effectively convey a visual sense of the site use as it existed prior to the Park’s
development.
A short spur track into the Vollmer complex from the NP Story Mill line
remains in place, largely intact. The former location of this spur will be
marked in similar fashion, or, if determined feasible, some of the historic spur
material may be retained in place to indicate its former location.
Please see attached site plan diagram outlining the proposed improvements.
Site Master Plan
SCALE 1”=100’
JUNE 24, 2016
SIDEWALK
PARKING
COMMUNITY GATHERING LAWN
PICNIC PAVILION
SLEDDING HILL
MULTIGENERATIONAL PLAY
OBSERVATORY HILL
CLIMBING BOULDER
TRAIL BRIDGE
TRAILHEAD
PARKING
TRAIL BRIDGE
FISHING ACCESS DOG PARK
TRAIL GATEWAY
HOMESTEAD PAVILION
BIRD BLIND WALK
SERVICE DRIVE/
EMERGENCY ACCESS TO SOUTH PARCEL
ACCESSIBLE PLATFORM
MESSY PLAY AND RIVER ACCESS
STORY MILL COMMUNITY CENTER
LABYRINTH
RESTROOM
PARKING
ACTIVITY LAWN
SPLASH PAD
FOOD FOREST TRAIL
PICNIC PAVILION
TEACHING GARDEN
TREEHOUSE
EAST GRIFFIN DRIVE “PARK ROAD SECTION”
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BRYANT STREET
BOND STREET
STORY MILL
HILLSIDE LANESTORY MILL ROADBIRDIE DRIVEGOLD AVENUE BRIDGER CENTER DRIVESTORY MILL SPURBRIDGE
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Story Mill Community Park
Bozeman, Montana
Vollmer Site
Primary Interpretive Panel
Secondary Interpretive Panels
Landscape Boulders
Site Plan Diagram
Vollmer Slaughterhouse Complex
Story Mill Park
New Bridge
Existing Deficient Bridge
to be Removed