Posts Tagged Cultural Resources

ACS, subconsultant to the Moore/Swick Partnership, is currently (Week of May 4, 2009) in the field on an exciting research project to conduct baseline documentation of existing resources and conditions at Tony Ranch in Haunted Canyon, which hosts a unique middle elevation riparian setting for Arizona. Haunted Canyon is known widely by hikers and birders for its beauty and diversity of plant and animal life. The sponsor of this project is the Superstition Area Land Trust (SALT) who recently acquired the property and will be managing and monitoring its resources into the future. The Tony Ranch property consists of a historic homestead with the remains of the original cabin and other historic features. Together these cultural features form a Rural Historic Landscape that will be assessed during the fieldwork for its National Register eligibility. Additionally, the fieldwork involves a Class III cultural resource survey, a cultural landscape inventory, biological inventories (flora and fauna), riparian health assessment, soil and water testing, and the production of the final reports of the research results, including a Cultural Landscape Report (CLR), which will be a collaborative effort between Moore/Swick and ACS, and an ecological assessment and restoration report. Victoria Vargas is the ACS Team Lead and Cultural Resources Principal Investigator for this project, Tracy McCarthey, ACS Manager of Environmental Services, heads up the ecological asssessment team, Kevin Moore of Moore/Swick is serving as the lead for the overall project consultant team and the landscape architecture team, and Lynn Miller, Member of SALT ’s Board of Directors and noted landscape architect, is the project coordinator and lead for SALT. A team of 12 project members from ACS, Moore/Swick, and SALT is currently (week of May 4, 2009) in the field to conduct the fieldwork. Given the remoteness of the property, the research team will be hiking in and camping for four days with helicopter-dropped provisions. You can learn more about the Tony Ranch property and SALT by visiting their website at: http://www.azsalt.org

The 2004 Nationwide Programmatic Agreement (NPA) for Review of Effects on Historic Properties for Certain Undertakings Approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC NPA) requires that applicants for an FCC permit comply with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). ACS assists applicants with compliance by preparing Class I cultural resource literature reviews for proposed cell and radio tower facilities, assessing direct and visual impacts to cultural resources that are eligible for or listed on the National Register of Historic Places. ACS has conducted numerous cell tower projects for various clients throughout Arizona. A recent project involved assessing a location near four National Register historic districts in the Tucson market; the assessment concluded the monopalm would not introduce an additional visual impact to the historic resources. ACS can also assist with the preparation of the Form 620 (new tower) or 621 (collocation).

ACS will be presenting a display at this year’s Arizona Archaeology Expo held at Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park, Phoenix, on March 14 and 15, 2009. Our display will feature informative posters depicting our recent survey work at Lake Pleasant for the Bureau of Reclamation, our excavation work at the Pueblo Grande site for Light Rail, and a survey we conducted for Western Area Power Administration in Coolidge and Yuma. ACS will also have hands-on activities for kids, including a pottery sorting exercise and a mano and metate set with dried corn. Our display has been designated as one of the stops for the Girl Scouts to earn archaeology points during their visit to the Expo. We will also have various hand-outs and brochures for the general public. Please stop by the Expo (it’s free) and visit our booth.

For more information about the Archaeology Expo and other events during Arizona Archaeology and Heritage Awareness Month, please visit
http://www.azstateparks.com/find/arch_calendar.html

The Arizona Planning Association (APA) is holding their annual Arizona Planners’ Day at the Arizona State Capitol on February 26, 2009. Posters highlighting key state and local plans will be on display on the east capitol lawn from 7:30 am till 9:30 am. ACS will be presenting two posters: one on the Bureau of Reclamation’s Lake Pleasant Regional Park Recreational and Cultural Resource Management Plan that ACS developed for them, and the other covers ACS’ implementation of historic preservation strategies presented in the City of Tucson’s Jefferson Park Neighborhood Plan. ACS is conducting a historic building inventory survey and National Register historic district nomination for the Jefferson Park Neighborhood. The poster session on the capitol lawn is open to the public. We hope to see you there!

ACS recently completed a Class III cultural resource survey and historic building survey at the Iron King Mine and Humboldt Smelter, located just outside of Humboldt, Arizona. The survey was conducted in compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for their Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Study at this Superfund site. As part of this study, ACS conducted archival research and interviewed several individuals who had knowledge of the historic mine and smelter operations. As the project area is within a Superfund site with ground contamination of arsenic and lead at levels exceeding health and safety standards, all field crew members had current certification of 24-40 hours of Hazwoper training prior to conducting fieldwork.

Before field work began, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provided ACS a dataset which included project area shapes and a list of known contaminated zones.  Using a GIS, these data, together with additional project data created by ACS were incorporated into the Geodatabase, allowing the field crew to better prepare for encountering known contaminates and archaeological features.  Throughout field work, a sub-meter accurate GPS was used to map all of the cultural features and update the location of the contaminated zones.  Following field work, the data collected from the survey was post-processed allowing for even higher GPS accuracy. This data was used in the production of all the maps that were included in the report. 

The historic building survey documented the Humboldt Smelter and Iron King Mine buildings and structures that remain and produced a historic context for the properties to document and evaluate their significance. The Class III cultural resource survey documented all features and cultural remains within the Iron King Mine and Humboldt Smelter property boundaries, including the archaeological remains of an early homestead.

The historic Humboldt Smelter played a significant role in the historical development of the Big Bug Mining District from 1870 to 1937 when the smelter ceased operations. In addition to a variety of buildings and structures directly related to the smelting operations, the property also once contained Nob Hill, a residential neighborhood where the managers and executives lived. Worker housing on the property consisted of several bunkhouses and small dwellings below Nob Hill. Although none of the residences and few of the smelter buildings and structures remain at the Humboldt Smelter property today, one of the smelter stacks still can be seen from the adjacent highway, just to the south of Humboldt.

Iron King Mine was also significantly involved in the development of the Big Bug Mining District, beginning with the discovery of an ore outcropping in 1880. A variety of mining operations took place at this site through time and by 1906 there was a miner’s camp of about 300, including 140 employees of the mine. Ownership of the mine passed to several different people and by its final years in the late 1960s before it eventually closed, the mine produced almost all the lead and zinc mined in Arizona. Most of the historic buildings related to the Iron King Mine operations no longer exist. A few remain, but none from its earliest days.

The study ACS conducted was the first of its kind for these historic properties. Surprisingly, the histories of the Iron King Mine and Humboldt Smelter and their role in the development of mining in the Big Bug district have received little attention in past literature. In addition to the property inventories ACS conducted, the historic contexts presented in the report provide an important contribution to the historic literature for this region and will serve as a resource for future researchers and historians.