Whitman Mission National Historic Site
Film Access Improvement
Film Access Improvement
|
National Monument
1936 National Historic Site 1963 Park Size 139 acres Annual Visitors 47,000 Park Fee none Superintendent Steve Thede Park Partner Discover Your Northwest Location Walla Walla County, WA |
Whitman Mission National Historic Site marks the location of a Presbyterian mission to the Cayuse Nation in the 1830s and 1840s. The story there is complex, and the park seeks to tell it in a nuanced way.
The park orientation film is a major way for visitors and local schoolchildren to learn about its history. However, the current projection equipment at the visitor center began to fail, causing the park to only show the film on a small TV screen. It could not be played with subtitles, nor be played on a schedule, which added challenges for the limited staffing at this small park. The Fund for People in Parks provided a grant to Discover Your Northwest to support an upgrade that is allowing the park to play the film on a bigger screen and on a timer, and increase the ease of playing subtitled, audio-described, and Spanish versions of the film, upon request. The project was completed in October 2022 and all visitors can now appreciate the important stories of Whitman Mission. Project Cost: $32,547 Project Completed: 2022 The Fund for People in Parks: $25,000 Discover Your Northwest: $7,547 We predict that this new A/V experience will make it more enticing for more of our visitors to watch the park film and dive deeper into the complicated history told at this site. Thank you, thank you, thank you! This organization does such important work and we, at the park level, are grateful and appreciative." |
