Student team wins two awards for history research

A team of graduate students won the Rocky Mountains Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit Student Team Award for their work on the Atlas of Drowned Towns under Professor Bob Reinhardt from the Department of History. The team also won the biannual Public Outreach Project Award from the American Society for Environmental History, recognizing excellence in environmental history projects that engage the public.

Rachel Klade, Jack Warner, Nate Muir, Rebecca Mills, Alycia Hason and McKenna Schmitt were part of the award-winning team. The students joined the team in 2023 thanks to funding from the Army Corps of Engineers and contributed their skills in various administrative, technical and scholarly capacities.

The Atlas of Drowned Towns is a public history project cataloging towns submerged under reservoirs and lakes created by dam projects in the American West. Pine, Idaho, was one such town, submerged under the waters of the present-day Anderson Ranch Reservoir after the construction of the Anderson Ranch Dam in 1950.

"The team is working to tell the stories of displaced people and the towns that were displaced," Schmitt said, a second-year Master of Environment Management student. "We're providing a platform for people to tell their side of their stories."

Some of the team's most important work happened at "History Jamborees," multi-day events that invited former residents of drowned towns or their descendants to share artifacts and sit for interviews. The team brought 2D and 3D scanners to capture everything in digital form for the Atlas of Drowned Towns website, where the public can learn about these towns for free.

"I always enjoyed looking at all the photos people would bring in," Klade said, recalling the first History Jamboree for Detroit, Oregon. "Photos of these old houses that no longer exist. It was really special to have people bring those in."

The students were instrumental to making the Atlas of Drowned Towns a success. Their work was also a learning experience.

"The work in coordinating and managing the two History Jamborees is directly applicable to what I'm doing now," said Klade, who graduated with a master's degree in history in 2023 and works as a public programs specialist at the Idaho State Museum.

The awards ceremony for the Rocky Mountains Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit Student Team Award was intended to take place in November 2025, but was canceled because of the government shutdown. It was reschedule and the students accepted their award on Boise State campus in April 2026.

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