By Rodger Nichols, published by Ruralite March 2025
Bob Pollock, who became the new coordinator of Fort Dalles Museum in November, was originally on a path toward politics.
“I have always had an interest in history as long as I can remember,” he says. “But when I got out of the Marine Corps and started college, I also had a particular interest in politics and political history. I thought political science sounded more marketable than history. But when I graduated from the University of Washington, I found out it was not.”
Bob Pollock’s experience with history brought him to Fort Dalles Museum last November. Photo by Rodger Nichols
Though he had enjoyed an internship with a high school history teacher, Bob’s grand plan was to get a law degree and perhaps someday run for office. He was accepted into the law school at Gonzaga University, but with a wife and 3 daughters to support, he could only afford 1 year.
A part-time job in the truck leasing and rental business led to a full-time job. Bob worked for several different companies throughout the years but lost his job when the economy dropped during the 1990s.
“I ended up driving charter and tour buses in California, which in some ways put me back into the history thing,” he says. “1 of the things I did was to give narrated Amtrak tours from San Luis Obispo to Hearst Castle and back. I would talk about the history of San Luis Obispo County and the history of the Hearsts and the building of the castle.”
It was during 1 of those tours that Bob met Sue Greene, who was leading a tour group from Portland. She had grown up in The Dalles and had been previously married to local wheat farmer Van Harth, with whom she had 2 sons. Sue and Bob later got married.
After relocating to Missouri, Bob enrolled in the graduate history program at Missouri State University.
“I decided to pursue a career in public history with the National Park Service,” he says. “I ended up working at 4 different national park sites as an interpretive guide for a number of years.”
Those National Park Service properties included the Abraham Lincoln home in Springfield, Illinois, and Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield in Springfield, Missouri. Bob occupied a student position at the battlefield, but once he had his master’s degree, the facility could no longer keep him on staff.
“If you want to work for the National Park Service, you have to be willing to go where the opportunities are,” he says.
Bob’s next opportunity came as a short-lived seasonal position at Fort Vancouver in Washington. He then found an opportunity at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in St. Louis, where he spent 9 years before deciding to head back to the West Coast.
Bob’s time in St. Louis stoked his interest in the history of the country’s 18th president.
“I think a lot of people who are familiar with Fort Dalles know that Ulysses, who was stationed at Fort Vancouver, came here to visit a couple of times,” he says. “But what is not as well known is that his brother-in-law, Frederick Dent, was stationed here. He was a captain under Col. George Wright, and he and his wife both lived here in the officer’s duplex. The couple had a daughter who was born in Texas, but they had a son born here as well.”
Frederick was 1 of Ulysses’ roommates at West Point Military Academy. After graduating from West Point in 1843, Ulysses was stationed at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. Frederick’s slave plantation childhood home, known as White Haven, was nearby. He invited Ulysses to visit, and that’s where the future president met Frederick’s sister Julia. He fell in love, and they were married.
In the 9 years Bob spent at U.S. Grant NHS, he gave tours of White Haven and studied the Dent family.
“I was quite interested in Frederick and his movements, and the fact that he was stationed here at Fort Dalles is 1 of the things that fascinated me about this place,” he says. “He participated in the Army’s campaign against Native Americans, and he was responsible for building the road between here and Fort Simcoe on what is now part of the Yakama Reservation.”
During the Civil War, Ulysses brought Frederick East to be on his staff during the Overland Campaign.
“He was actually at Appomattox when Lee surrendered to Grant,” Bob says. “When Ulysses moved into the White House, Frederick Dent became a military adviser to the president. He had a long military career, and he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.”
Frederick’s and Ulysses’ tales are only some of the stories Bob plans to tell at Fort Dalles Museum.
“I’m continuing to learn more about Dent, but also a number of the other officers who were stationed here and went on to have leading roles on both sides of the Civil War,” he says.
Bob says the military aspect—the reason Fort Dalles exists— has been somewhat lost over the years.
“When the Sorosis Club first took over the place, they really didn’t have any military artifacts to speak of,” he says. “The military had abandoned it decades before, and so they just started accepting whatever the local community wanted to bring over here. Some of that stuff is very interesting, but it doesn’t necessarily tell the story of this place. Fort Dalles is not just locally significant. It’s nationally significant.
“The stories of conflicts between the expanding United States and the Indigenous People of the Pacific Northwest, and the fight over slavery, which culminated in the Civil War, are difficult stories to tell, but they are important in helping us define who we are as Americans. In order to bring that back to the fore, we need to rearrange our exhibits and how we interpret here.”
Bob praises the many volunteers who have kept the museum open for more than a century.
“It’s truly been a remarkable effort,” he says.
