Peace Camp
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Colleen Beck of the Desert Research Institute (DRI) noticed the still-active protesters during her early years at the Test Site. “I have to admit there was a lot of curiosity about what these people do over there in the camp,” she says. She didn’t act on that curiosity until she saw a backhoe digging on Peace Camp land. “I began phoning and found out that they were looking at turning the area into a gravel pit. I realized there was a good chance it was going to be destroyed,” and with it, a significant part of the Test Site’s history. Beck secured a grant to document Peace Camp in 2002. While some protesters were suspicious of the early DRI efforts there, the Western Shoshone were supportive.
Beck and her colleagues have documented many features associated with the protest community, such as paths, campsites, sweat lodges, hearths, and stone cairns used as trail markers. Residents had covered a highway underpass in graffiti, and used stones to create “geoglyphs,” or large designs expressing political and spiritual beliefs. One depicts an eight-petaled flower with white rocks forming a triangle in the center. Down a trail from there, some rocks spell out “TTW,” a reference to Terry Tempest Williams, a downwinder from Utah who chronicled her family’s cancer history. The side of a hillock sports an enormous peace sign. With Beck’s documentation, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which owns the site, and the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office have determined that Peace Camp is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
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"From 1985 through 1994, the site became a magnet for anti-nuclear demonstrators. Tens of thousands congregated at Peace Camp on the road to the government town of Mercury. More than 15,740 were arrested." -wikipedia
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Peace Camp
http://www.archaeology.org/issues/152-1411/features/2664-united-states-atomic-age-archaeology-peace-camps
Labels:
Desert Research Institute,
National Register of Historic Places,
Nevada Test Site,
Ongoing Peace Camp,
U.S. Bureau of Land Management
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