It’s rare to find someone who has found their niche.

Although many may be unaware, an ambitious intern at Fort Buford has been busy researching many of the buildings of the fort.

Williston native Katherine Altizer is entering her junior year at Montana State University - Bozeman as a history major this fall. Fort Buford State Historic Site Supervisor Mark Sundlov said Altizer is their first intern to develop this kind of research project on her own. This is also her first internship.

“She has been doing a lot of research on the buildings of Fort Buford,” said Sundlov. “When Fort Buford closed in 1895, the entire fort was opened up to auction, and area homesteaders and farmers came in and bid on the buildings and basically carted them away. So today, a lot of these buildings are in local towns and communities.”

She began the internship on May 17 and is packing to return to school around Aug. 19. Altizer has been doing the historical work of looking at where these buildings are now that’s become kind of been her summer project, he said. Altizer grew up in Williston and came back this summer. At the fort, she has been working regular staff hours giving tours and doing other activities in addition to the research on her own.

“We’ve had other college students work for us, but never anyone who has done this kind of independent research and presentation,” Sundlov said. “She selected her topic and has been doing her own independent research. She’s been completely independent from topic selection to form of presentation.”

He said Altizer usually works from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on some days she is able to go out on her own to do research.

“She’s really a quality student,” he said.

In terms of her method, Altizer said, “Most of my research has been in old newspapers or copies of records we have, like the receipts of the auctions of the buildings. I decided to go with that approach rather than the stories we have of different farm buildings and other buildings in the region being from Fort Buford, because my professors always talk about how important primary and secondary source material is.”

Altizer pulled a lot of that material out of newspapers from the region like the Williston Graphic or the Buford Tribune. She also made use of the receipts from sales of the buildings, and especially enjoys some of the stories behind them.

“I’ve found some stories about a few of the different buildings, like the chapel from this post was moved to Williston, and I found that it was a very interesting story because moving it seemed to be one of the hardest problems they had with most of these buildings,” she said. “The chapel they moved by the river and then they hauled it up on skids in two pieces before moving it to where the Methodist chapel is now. And that was there until it burned down.

That chapel was moved in the late 1800’s.”

She estimates she has spent at least 100 hours researching many of these buildings.

Her findings are to culminate with a presentation at the fort’s annual encampment this weekend, with each presentation being about 20 minutes long. She is presenting her research at 4 p.m. on Saturday and at noon Sunday. The event is free and open to the public.

“I’m putting together a presentation on what happened to some of the buildings that I found, and mostly on ones that have more of a story behind how they were moved or where they ended up,” she said.

She also has grown a lot during her time as an intern.

“I’ve really learned a lot about actually running a site and how much is involved with these historic sites because you don’t really think about how many staff hours are put into things like cleaning or setting up displays, and then just the amount of time a tour takes,” she said. “And that’s something I’ve really enjoyed, is working as a staff member here and giving tours, especially to kids who have some really interesting questions. It’s just nice to see their interest in it.”

Although it varies from week to week, Altizer usually gives three or four tours per week. These are often on Fridays when the regular Fort Buford tour guide is gone.

As for the next step, Altizer wants to continue learning about and working with history.

“I’m thinking about possibly working for a museum or going into teaching, but I would like to stay in the West, like Montana where I’m going to school right now,” she said.