“It’s not every day that you have in one location an intersection of history of Native Americans, European-descended Americans and African-descended Americans,” Thomas L. Coley Jr. said Thursday on the grounds of an Alabama site that has newly been declared one of the nation’s most endangered historic treasures. “And notice what came behind every hyphen that I used. It was ‘American.’ Even though we have these different cultural groups, at the end of the day we still come together to form one common story, one common experience.”
Coley, a member of the Alabama Historical Commission and a board member of its Black Heritage Council, was among preservationists and historians speaking Thursday on the grounds of the Historic Mount Vernon Arsenal and Searcy Hospital Complex. And as the procession of speakers made clear, Searcy ties together far more than just a handful of cultural groups. It represents the colonial era, the Civil War era and the 20th century. It has figured significantly in war, in medical science and in mental health care.
"This complex was here before a lot of what is now the United States was part of the United States," said historian Devereaux Bemis, whose work was instrumental in getting the arsenal/hospital complex placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
The immediate impetus for Thursday’s gathering was to celebrate the fact that after years of activism and work to bring recognition to Searcy’s value, the National Trust for Preservation has listed it among “America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places” for 2019.
While that designation may spark a new effort to fund preservation efforts, it's a double-edged sword. Searcy had to fall far to make this list, and the signs of peril were readily visible to visitors.
The Mount Vernon Arsenal was established in 1830, part of a network of facilities that were among the United States' earliest efforts to establish a national defense infrastructure. A Confederate arsenal during the Civil War, the site was used to house displaced Apaches in the later decades of the 19th century. In 1900 Alabama designated it a mental health care facility for African Americans. After being ordered desegregated in 1969, it continued to function as a mental health care institution before being closed in 2012.
Its 40 buildings make the complex the equivalent of a college campus and their architecture reflects every era of its past. But many have gaping holes in their roofs and other signs of extended neglect. Some are covered in vines or engulfed in kudzu.
The main arsenal building, with its distinctive turret, experienced a major roof collapse in recent years. Historian Michael W. Panhorst, whose 2016 white paper on Searcy is considered by many to be a blueprint for preservation of the site, said Thursday that it's the biggest example of the need for urgent action.
Material from the fallen roof sits inside the shell of the building, "sopping wet" from rain and rotting away. The weight and decay could contribute to the eventual collapse of the building's walls, he said. The fallen timbers need to be lifted out and stored "so that when the state of Alabama gets around to finally doing something, there is something left to work with," Panhorst said as he guided visitors through the site.
"The arsenal's probably the most important building," he said. "And it's in the very worst shape, so it's going to be the most expensive."
Panhorst said that many buildings need steps taken to keep out the elements. In many cases, he said, relatively inexpensive work would help stave off the kind of severe damage the arsenal has suffered.
"This is deteriorating rapidly," said Bemis. "We don't need them to come in and restore all this now. What we need them to do is just come in and stabilize them and weatherproof them."
Figuring out who "they" are and where that money will come from is the next challenge.
Getting to this point, where the importance of the site has been brought to the nation’s attention, involved a broad coalition of individuals, government entities and agencies. Those represented or recognized on Thursday included the Alabama Historical Commission, the Alabama Department of Mental Health, the Alabama Bicentennial Commission, the Mount Vernon Historical Preservation Society and University of South Alabama researchers led by Gregory Waselkov.
Many of those speaking expressed confidence that growing awareness of Searcy's importance will help find the funds and political will necessary to save it. But they also warned that the stakes are high.
“I’m here to emphasize the fact that much of this place’s history is unwritten, unseen and underground,” said Ashley Dumas of the Alabama Trust for Historic Preservation. She went on to explain that every wave of people to occupy the arsenal or the hospital had contributed to the strata of artifacts under its surface, meaning it holds untold treasures for archaeologists to one day discover.
“Archaeology can address these sites,” Dumas said. “But if political and private efforts and funding are not immediately, strenuously dedicated to the preservation of this place, in no time, all of it will soon become an archaeological site.”