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© 1998 by Fort Lewis College Foundation, Center of Southwest Studies account  (last revised 2007)
Please send comments and corrections to Todd Ellison, Archivist at phone 970-247-7126 or by email to archives@fortlewis.edu

Related website: An Introduction to College and University Archives for Resource Allocators and the General Public.

Collection overview:
Years this material was created: ca. 1891-present (bulk 1911-present)
Quantity:  more than 350 linear shelf feet (in at least 650 document cases, 60 records boxes, and 10 oversize lidded boxes)

This collection was arranged and described by J. Todd Ellison, Archivist, Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO 81301, in an ongoing process beginning in 1991, with assistance since 2001 by the Assistant College Archivist (Diana Novara, 2001-2006; Nik Kendziorski, 2006-ongoing).

Sources for this guide included Fort Lewis College organizational charts, directories, general catalogs, committee lists and other records in the College Archives.

Purpose of this guide:
This guide describes the scheme for arranging Fort Lewis College that have been determined to be permanently valuable due to their long-term administrative, financial, legal and/or historical significance.  The guide is our finding aid for the College Archives collection M 001, and also serves as a planning document by listing the categories of records generally sought for the Archives.  Unlike most of the Center's collection inventories, this guide is prescriptive, rather than descriptive: not all of the series we have identified for inclusion among the institution's permanent records are actually in the Archives now.

Arrangement note:
Organization of the College Archives' holdings reflects the Fort Lewis College organizational chart. Like the institution, the archives are fluid, designed to grow and to absorb change.

Record groups, shown in boldface, are numbered consecutively. The lower levels of organization are--under some record groups--lettered sub-groups (which are arranged alphabetically in such record groups as student activities, academic departments and educational support where no hierarchical ordering is obvious), then--in every case--numbered series.

Most series (e.g., minutes, memoranda and correspondence, and reports) are organized from highest hierarchical level to lowest, or from most general to most specific. Arrangement of the materials within series and within each folder is chronological, unless stated otherwise.

Box numbers resume with 1 in each series.

To use this collection:

You'll need the archivist's assistance.  No physical browsing is permitted--you may browse the description of archival records categories online.  The Center's General Restriction Policy limits access to many of the records in the College Archives.  For assistance in referencing the College Archives please email the Assistant College Archivist: Kendziorski_N@fortlewis.edu

History of the collection:
A memo in Daniel Black's Business Office records dated April 21, 1964 (the year of the founding of the Center of Southwest Studies) describes what is most probably the first accession to the College Archives collection.  He informed President John F. Reed that:

We have accumulated a large volume consisting of several pickup loads of material relating to the old records of Fort Lewis College going back to the year 1911 and some very incomplete data going back into the 1880s. At the present time this material is stored in the maintenance shops here on the Durango campus and in the library at the Hesperus campus. ...I feel that it is...extremely important that we get this material in one room and under the control and supervision of Dr. Delaney so that he can make methodical and systematical use of it.

We have assigned that particular set of records our accession number 1964:10020.  Associating the various composite materials of the College Archives with accession numbers is our means of tracking the records through their life cycle, and is useful to the researcher who needs to know which office maintained and collected a given set of records.  The Center of Southwest Studies archives staff has assigned more than 930 accession numbers to materials that constitute the Fort Lewis College Archives.

The late Fort Lewis College history professor Robert W. Delaney, the first director of the Center of Southwest Studies, served as director for twenty-two years, dividing his time between the Center and other College commitments including teaching and (from 1971 to 1984) directing the affirmative action program on campus.  Staffing--the Director, a Secretary (part-time for the first twenty odd years) and some student help--was severely limited for the first 27 years.  Archival organization of the College Archives began in the fall of 1991 (the centennial of the closing of the original U.S. military post, Fort Lewis) with the hiring of Todd Ellison as the College's first archivist.  History professor Duane Smith in particular had already contributed a great deal to the growth of the holdings, and had become the most familiar with them while conducting the research for his history Sacred Trust: The Birth and Development of Fort Lewis College, published in 1991 as an update to Dr. Delaney's pioneering history, Blue Coats, Red Skins, & Black Gowns: 100 Years of Fort Lewis in 1977.  Until the fall of 1993 when the College leased space off-campus, the College's archives were crammed into file cabinets in a former janitor's closet under a stairway in the basement.  Today, the Center occupies a purpose-designed facility that is part of the Southwest cultural complex on the north end of campus.  The new building includes state of the art collections exhibit, storage, conservation and research areas, along with classrooms and offices of the departments of Southwest Studies and Anthropology and the Office of Community Services.

Doing your own research:
This description of a portion of the collections at the Fort Lewis College Center of Southwest Studies is provided to inform interested parties about the nature and depth of the repository's collections.  It cannot serve as a substitute for a visit to the repository for those with substantial research interests in the collections.

This material is located at the Center of Southwest Studies on the campus of Fort Lewis College.  Interested researchers should phone the archivist at 970/247-7126 or send electronic mail to the Assistant College Archivist.  Click here to use the E-mail Reference Request Form.  The Center does not have a budget for outgoing long-distance phone calls to answer reference requests, so please leave us your email address if you wish to receive a response from the Center.

This inventory was prepared by Todd Ellison, C. A.

Guides to other special collections at the Center of Southwest Studies

  Information for doing research at the Center of Southwest Studies

Center of Southwest Studies