Military Sites
Our work with military sites covers not only battlefields but also forts, barracks, and other places where military activity has left a mark on the landscape. Liz Sargent HLA also regularly works on historic landscapes focusing on commemoration of military events.
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Many Revolutionary and Civil War battlefields are protected as historic sites administered by federal, state, and local governments as well as non-profit organizations such as the American Battlefield Trust. Liz Sargent HLA works with a range of clients to prepare planning studies such as cultural landscape reports, concept designs, master plans, and construction documentation for battlefields and other types of military landscapes. No matter what the conflict, we attempt to discover how land cover, terrain, views, and obstacles, both natural and cultural, would have influenced troop movements as well as battle events, while seeking ways to preserve and interpret those conditions. Within this framework, Liz Sargent HLA also designs solutions to contemporary needs, such as environmental protection, accessibility, and interpretation.
Vicksburg National Military Park Cultural Landscape Report
Vicksburg National Military Park marks the site of Ulysses S. Grant’s Civil War victory in 1863 that gave Union forces control of the Mississippi River. Many of the earthworks from the 47-day siege are still visible today.
Since the park was established in 1899, however, stands of trees and other vegetation have grown up to obscure features of the terrain that dictated the military tactics of the Union and Confederate armies. Both natural growth and trees planted in the 1930s for erosion control
now make it difficult to imagine the site as it looked in 1863.
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To guide enhanced interpretation of the siege, the National Park Service commissioned acultural landscape report. Our work began by walking the length and breadth of the park while consulting archival maps and photos to determine where wooded areas could be modified to reveal earlier viewsheds and features. Our analysis recommended selective tree clearing to restore siege-era visibility, and environmentally sensitive groundcover plantings to help retain soil. We also recommended new exhibits to explain the landscape to visitors, including descriptions of military fortifications that no longer exist and of past efforts to manage the terrain.
Project Credits:
Client: National Park Service
Prime Contractor: Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates
Historical Landscape Architect: Liz Sargent, while with John Milner Associates, Inc.
El Morro Esplanade Cultural Landscape Report and Cultural Landscape Inventory
Located at the entrance to the harbor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Castillo San Felipe del Morro was built on a promontory by the Spanish military between 1539 and 1790 to protect against enemy attack from the Atlantic Ocean. The esplanade behind it was engineered to serve as an open field of fire for fort artillery. It also served related purposes, such as military drilling, and was later developed for military housing. The United States acquired the island from Spain in the Spanish-American War of 1898, and continued to use El Morro for military purposes until it became part of a National Park unit in the mid-20th century. Since then, the Esplanade has been a popular open space for visitors who enjoy views of the ocean on three sides, learning about the military structures on site, walking dogs, and flying kites.
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To address needs for access, resource protection, shade, and other visitor services, the National Park Service requested a cultural landscape report. With many layers of history to assess, we determined that most evidence of the 20 th -century U.S. Army base had already been lost – but walls, bastions and roads from several centuries of Spanish military use remained. Our work provided guidance for sensitively accommodating visitor amenities, accessible walks, and erosion control measures, while stabilizing and protecting the landscape features from the 1500s to the 1800s.
Project Credits:
Client: National Park Service
Prime Contractor: Panamerican Consultants, Inc.
Historical Landscape Architect: Liz Sargent HLA
Historical Architect: Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc.
Spanish-American War Battery Cultural Landscape Report and Environmental Assessment
The United States Army built an artillery battery in 1898 during the Spanish-American War to protect Jacksonville, Florida, against a Spanish attack that never came. In the following decades, the guns were removed, and the surrounding area became residential. The parcel containing the artillery platform and an ammunition magazine, however, was never developed.
When the National Park Service acquired the property for Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve in 2018, the agency decided a cultural landscape report was the best way to assess how the historic military fortification could be preserved within a residential neighborhood and made accessible to the public.
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In our work, we recommended construction of an elevated boardwalk for visitors to reach the artillery platform, a carefully sited modest parking area, tree plantings along the property lines to screen views of neighboring homes, and interpretive signs to inform visitors, all set within the existing native woodland on the property. We also recommended maintaining a cleared view at the top of the bluff of the St. Johns River that military forces would have had in 1898.
Project Credits
Client: National Park Service
Prime Contractor: Panamerican Consultants, Inc.
Historical Landscape Architect: Liz Sargent HLA
Historical Architect: Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc.
