Santa Fe National Cemetery, Rostrum, 501 North Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS NM-4-B. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

501 North Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, Santa Fe County, New Mexico The Santa Fe National Cemetery rostrum is located at latitude longitude (North American Datum of The coordinate represents the structure s southwest corner. Present owner: National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Construction date: Builder / Contractor: built with WPA funds Description: The Santa Fe rostrum is a symmetrical, covered pavilion in the Pueblo Revival style, high x wide x deep overall. It comprises a raised rectangular platform above grade approached by staircases along its short sides. Thick corner walls rise from this platform to a flat roof with surrounding parapet. The roof is carried on ten vigas or log timbers that span the rostrum from front to rear.

The projecting tails of the vigas form a primary decorative element on the otherwise planer rostrum walls, typical of the Pueblo Revival style. The vigas themselves rest on exposed 12" x 14" wood lintels that span the openings on the front and rear sides of the rostrum. The lintels are carried by pairs of log posts and by cantilevered brackets where they meet the side walls. The rostrum platform is built of reinforced concrete on concrete foundations. It is faced with sandstone and finished with stucco, except for a single projecting course of stone at grade. The corner walls, parapets, and the thick, stepped cheek walls that screen the stairways are built of adobe finished with stucco. The ceiling is formed of stuccoed arches sprung between the vigas.

The roof is drained by two wood canales, or channeled conduits, that pass through the rear parapet. The stair treads and risers are sandstone; the floor is paved with irregular sandstone flags bordered by a coping of rectangular flags. A 3'-high iron railing screens the platform at front and rear. A battered, quarry-faced sandstone lectern occupies a centered projection along the front of the rostrum. It measures high overall and about 4' wide x 2' deep. A painted cast-iron plaque displaying the text of the Gettysburg Address is attached to the front of the lectern.

Site context: The rostrum is located at one end of a x 65' grass assembly area a few hundred feet south of the cemetery s administration building on land added to the cemetery SANTA FE NATIONAL CEMETERY, ROSTRUM HALS (page 2) in A drive leading from the vicinity of the superintendent s lodge, which visitors originally used to pass from the old cemetery entrance to the rostrum, provides a vista of the rostrum before dividing to pass to either side of the assembly area. The rostrum faces south-southeast along the line of the drive, toward the cemetery flagstaff which is positioned at the opposite end of the assembly area.

History: Santa Fe National Cemetery was created as an army post cemetery in to consolidate into a single place the remains of Union soldiers killed in the vicinity of Santa Fe during the Civil War. The ground was reclassified as a national cemetery in April only to be returned to the status of a post cemetery in October due to a lack of funding for national-cemetery superintendents.

It was re-designated a national cemetery in A superintendent s lodge was built in but a rostrum or speaker s stand for use on ceremonial occasions a typical feature at many of the more visited national cemeteries was not erected until when funding became available under the National Industrial Recovery Act of This first rostrum, built along with new cemetery roads, walks, and other improvements using funds made available by the Federal Emergency Administration for Public Works, was a simple eight-sided concrete platform about 3' high x 15' across shaded by a metal roof.

It was nearly identical to the rostrum built at Lebanon National Cemetery in Kentucky in and similar to those built at Alexandria, Louisiana; Chalmette, Louisiana; Port Hudson, Louisiana; Natchez, Mississippi; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Greeneville, Tennessee, in It was erected southwest of the superintendent s lodge in what is now Section S at a cost of It was demolished in August A more substantial rostrum in a Southwestern Pueblo style was designed for the cemetery in Funding became available in through the Work Projects Administration to make a variety of improvements in the cemetery, and some of this funding, along with supplemental money from the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps s cemeterial funds, was used to construct the rostrum.

The cemetery flagstaff was moved from near the lodge to a spot in front of the new rostrum at the same time. The final cost of the rostrum is not known. It was completed in mid The Gettysburg Address plaque, a standard feature of the national cemeteries, was removed from the front of the superintendent s lodge when that building s porch was rebuilt in it was reinstalled on the rostrum lectern in September The stucco finish on the rostrum was repaired in and and new roofing was installed in Some or all of the vigas were replaced in and three of the four upright wood posts were replaced in The cemetery, originally covering just of an acre in has been expanded over time to its current size of acres. It was transferred from the jurisdiction of the U.S.

Army Memorial Affairs Agency to the Veterans Administration (now the Department of Veterans Affairs) in SANTA FE NATIONAL CEMETERY, ROSTRUM HALS (page 3)

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS NM-4-B. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Call, Lewis W. United States Military Reservations, National Cemeteries, and Military Parks. Title, Jurisdiction, etc. Washington, G.P.O., Holt, Dean W. American Military Cemeteries. 2nd ed. Jefferson, McFarland & Co., Inc., Office of the Quartermaster General. Construction Division. Santa Fe National Cemetery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Rostrum, July 6, Drawings nos.

and National Cemetery Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, Records of the Veterans Administration, Department of Memorial Affairs, National Cemetery Historical File (Record Group 15/A-1, Entry National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, General Correspondence and Reports Relating to National and Post Cemeteries (Record Group 92, Entry National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps. Outline Description of Military Posts and Reservations in the United States and Alaska and of National Cemeteries. Washington, G.P.O.,

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS NM-4-B. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The documentation of lodges and rostrums in the national cemeteries was undertaken by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), one of the Heritage Documentation Programs of the National Park Service, Richard O'Connor, Chief. The project was sponsored by the National Cemetery Administration (NCA) of the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Sara Amy Leach, Senior Historian. Project planning was coordinated by Catherine Lavoie, Chief of HABS. Historical research was undertaken by HABS Historians Michael R. Harrison and Virginia B. Price. NCA Historian Jennifer M. Perunko provided research and editorial support. Field work for selected sites was carried out and measured drawings produced by HABS Architects Paul Davidson, Ryan Pierce, and Mark Schara.