$10,000 Park Service grant supports bringing history to life at Longmire

This summer, and hopefully for years to come, history will come alive even more than usual at Mount Rainier National Park. Making it all possible is a new $10,000 grant of "special project funding" from the Park Service's national volunteer program, which will pay for additional staff time, training, volunteer reimbursements, and, of course, historical costumes.

People will see the new program in operation in two ways. Every Saturday throughout most of July and August, visitors will be treated to either an evening performance of the park's famous "Shadows of the Past" program, or to historical "vignettes" acted out at the National Park Inn, Longmire Museum, and nearby shuttle stop. Vignettes will be short, but the Shadows of the Past program is an hour-long venture through time, a 0.7 mile guided trek by lantern light to meet John Muir, James Longmire, Fay Fuller, and other characters from the park's past.

The new program will be provided almost entirely by volunteers: volunteer actors, volunteer lantern-bearers, volunteer script writers, volunteer historical researchers, and volunteer costumers. Join our company of actors and supporters! We're still recruiting people to help, so spread the word to your neighborhood community theaters and those characters at work who are always stealing the spotlight at the company barbecue. Come out, yourself, and get a front-row view of the action, even if you're working behind the scenes!

If nothing else, come see us in action. Here's a complete schedule of performances. Times and specific locations for the vignettes have yet to be determined, but Shadows of the Past programs will begin at dusk from the Transportation Exhibit at Longmire:

July 10 - Shadows of the Past
July 17 - Historical Vignette
July 24 - Shadows of the Past

July 31 - Historical Vignette
August 7 - Shadows of the Past

August 14 - Historical Vignette
August 21 - Shadows of the Past

August 28 - Historical Vignette

For more information, contact West District Interpreter Lee Snook at 360-569-6043.