{"id":170732,"date":"2025-10-02T16:09:31","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T20:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=170732"},"modified":"2026-01-29T17:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T22:41:08","slug":"the-way-back-bates-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2025\/10\/02\/the-way-back-bates-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"The way back Bates machine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Staff at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library love giving walking tours of the campus. They function like walking Bates encyclopedias, dropping tidbits about everything from which building was the first one on Frye Street to which are the oldest trees on campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the tours only happen a handful of times a year, and for Caitlin Lampman, the education and engagement archivist who works alongside Pat Webber, the college archivist, and Sam Howes, the reference and digital initiatives archivist, that had started to feel like too small a window to share all the knowledge they hold. \u201cIt felt like a lot to be just living within Sam and Pat and me,\u201d Lampman said. \u201cWe wanted it to be more than just three walking tours a year. And we wanted to make it so people could access the information all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Muskie Archives, which celebrated its 40th birthday last month, set out to build a time machine. Or rather, a digital time machine. Working with Jake Paris, senior web developer and designer, they stuffed all of that knowledge (plus GPS coordinates and archival photographs) into something that might not fly, but is transporting: a new digital map that provides users with an annotated snapshot of what Bates looked like at every stage of its 175-year history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Layered and interactive, the map dates from the present back to 1855, when the college was founded. For now it\u2019s available only if you\u2019re on campus using Bates wi-fi (including if you\u2019re on campus for Back to Bates this weekend) but by early 2026, it should be available from anywhere. Scroll through time and see what Bates looked like in 1878, when there were just a few lonely looking buildings in a lot of wide open space or 1940, when there were barracks housing student sailors for the Navy\u2019s V-12 program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For the time being, the map is only available to view<\/a> if you are on Bates wi-fi (including the guest version), but during Back to Bates weekend you can visit the Muskie Archives to look at it from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. At some point in early 2026 the map will be viewable online from anywhere.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

As is appropriate for a map that already shows hundreds of changes big and small to the Bates campus over 175 years \u2014 including the location of every Ivy stone \u2014 the new historical map is built for further evolution and flexibility. That flexibility is intended to accommodate the campus of the future, but also to account for all the nuggets of information the archivists expect to learn when the map becomes available to a wider audience. They\u2019ve been uncovering new things about old Bates practically every day since the project got started. Take the plethora of tennis courts for instance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Step into my time machine,” said Sam Howes, typing away at his keyboard to pull up an early 20th century map of Bates. “There were tennis courts all over the place.” It’s not that Bates had huge tennis teams in the past; these were courts that offered recreational opportunities for all. They’d be displaced by new buildings, including Dana and Commons, and would be relocated. “I keep finding more in random spots,” Howes said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You do,” said Jake Paris, “Every week, it’s ‘I found another tennis court!<\/em>‘”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At left, the Bates campus in 1867, when there were just a handful of buildings.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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At right, the same slice of campus, the 2025 version.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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To build the map, Paris used Google maps as the base and relied on a number of modern web app technologies, all very standard. “But the way the map is managed by the Archives office is unique, and intended to be very archivist friendly,” Paris said. “The team at Muskie can control the content simply by updating a Google Sheet and adding photos to a folder in Google Drive.” The app fetches the data from the sheet and then assembles it. “And at the same time, all the photos from the drive are downloaded and compiled into the app,” Paris explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ideally, users will start suggesting and or submitting material to enrich it, because there are still some mysteries to Bates’ past. Take the Turner annex for instance, a building on Wood Street which was something between a carriage house and a garage. In 1988, for just one year, it was a residence, and Howes would like to know more about what it looked like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That’s the kind of thing where it would be nice if we could have someone who maybe lived there contribute some information,” Howes said. “They might even have a photo.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"During
During the 2024 reunion, Muskie Archives staff lead a tour of Frye Street. Caitlin Lampman, the education and engagement archivist, is shown at the left, talking to the group, and to the right, Sam Howes, reference and digital initiatives archivist, displays archival material. (Phyllis Graber Jensen) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One highly useful  feature of the map is, when you click on a location \u2014 even something as small as  an individual Ivy stone \u2014 you\u2019ll be taken to historical, archival information, including vintage photographs of the building, feature or place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crowd-sourcing is one way to keep the historical map, like the campus itself, ever-evolving. And the archivists keep finding more layers they\u2019d like to add. Lampman says historical trees, including trees planted by a particular class, or ones named in recognition of faculty members, will eventually be included. \u201cWe\u2019re working on that,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Want to go old school? This Saturday Oct. 3 there are two opportunities for traditional campus tours led by the Muskie Archives. The first starts at 10 a.m. and will explore the early buildings on campus, the second starts at 2:30 p.m. and visits  many historical trees on campus. Both tours start on the Hathorn steps.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

The project took 18 months because of the level of detail \u2014 and accuracy \u2014 the archivists were going for. And they learned as they went. Take two trees between Ladd Library and Carnegie, a hemlock and a red oak. \u201cWe think they have been here the whole time,\u201d Lampman said. The evidence? Photos from the 1880s and 1890s. \u201cAnd for some reason, they have just never been cut down. They\u2019re right between the two buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trees are so wedged in between the two buildings, Lampman says, that it\u2019s almost a surprise they survived construction. \u201cWe don\u2019t know who made the choice to leave them there.\u201d Other trees that haven\u2019t survived, like the Stanton Elm, planted in honor of Johnny Stanton, professor of Greek and Latin, debate mentor and ornithologist, will eventually get a spot on the map. \u201cWe have a pretty good idea of where it was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe think this map is a great product,\u201d said Krystie Wilfong, who is associate college librarian for collections and scholarly communications and oversees the Muskie team. \u201cIt\u2019s something that people can really interact with, from alumni and parents to local people from the community. It holds something.\u201d Namely history, and the desire to share it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Muskie Archives staffer Caitlin Lampman on an “old school” walking tour of the trees of Bates. (Phyllis Graber Jensen)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n