Date: 10/20/25 10:59 am From: Donna Lee Scott <dls9...> Subject: Re: [cayugabirds-l] Fuertes Arch update
Can we get back the Fuertes arch from the State Parks office, or from whatever municipal group has it?
There might be a place for it near SSWs.
Donna Scott
Kendal at Ithaca-377
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 20, 2025, at 1:22 PM, Tim Gallagher <twg3...> wrote:
I just posted a photo of the Fuertes Arch on the Cayuga Bird Club Facebook page.
On Oct 20, 2025, at 12:40 PM, Betsy Hutchings <betsy.hutchings...> wrote:
Are there any photos of the arch?
On Monday, October 20, 2025 at 12:11:28 PM EDT, Tim Gallagher <twg3...> wrote:
That’s terrible. I sure hope the Fuertes Arch didn’t end up as scrap metal at a dump someplace. 🙁
On Oct 20, 2025, at 9:58 AM, Shelley Page <shelleypage.imagine...> wrote:
This is a follow up from the mention in my Thursday Birding Meetup recap about the fate of the Fuertes Arch at Frontenac Point state park, formerly Camp Barton. Scott Sutcliffe has some insight and info to share and has given me permission to share his thoughts with you. Here are his words:
In December of 2024, I received a phone call from a reliable Trumansburg friend who kindly notified me there was a move afoot to remove the Fuertes Arch from the Camp Barton property because of misinformation shared with NYS Parks that Louis Agassiz Fuertes was a white supremacist and that the Arch should be removed. Fuertes was nothing of the sort – he was a champion of humanity. It appears Louis Agassiz Fuertes was mistakenly confused with Louis Agassiz, a 19th century scientist who defined white supremacy .
I immediately sent corrective information to NYS Parks, and soon thereafter received a reply: “the actual physical arch needed to be removed from the property as it incorporated icons related to the Boy Scouts that are no longer appropriate given that the property is now New York State Parks property.”
When I next visited the park in the spring, the Fuertes Arch had disappeared.
Shelley Page
she/they/ki
313-550-1437
261 Coddington Road Apt. B
Ithaca, New York 14850
