Years ago, when I was a Park Ranger at Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, a visitor noticed my name tag after paying their entrance fee.
“I loved your article in the Christian Science Monitor,” they exclaimed, prompting a bewildered look on my face.
“Oh, you’re not THAT Todd Wilkinson?”
Imagine my surprise to discover that I shared my name with a journalist named Todd Wilkinson, who wrote about the national parks and conservation-related topics.
Over the years a handful of visitors would note my name and ask if I happened to be the guy whose article I read or the Todd Wilkinson who took the great photo of the Yellowstone River.
Recently a friend posted an article on my Facebook news feed by my literary doppelganger. It reminded me of the mistaken identities so many years ago at the visitor center information desk, as well as how my byline now appears in outdoor-related magazines like River Hills Traveler.
It also conjured up memories of my time in park service gray and green.
After volunteering at Wilson’s Creek during college as a living history interpreter, I was hired as a seasonal ranger in April 1999.
Being a park ranger had been a goal of mine since high school when I would spend summers in Arizona with my grandparents.
They would take me to national parks across the state, from the Grand Canyon to Tumacacori National Historic Site, an old Spanish mission south of Tucson.
It was during one of those trips to Sunset Crater National Monument, the site of a volcano that erupted around 1085. I remember being captivated by Sunset Crater’s visitor center, an example of “parkitecture,” or NPS Rustic Style.
Most of my time as both a volunteer and a ranger were spent as a living history interpreter, giving Civil War musket and artillery demonstrations at Stop Number 5 on the Tour Road.
Dressed in the uniform of the 1st Iowa Infantry on the Pulaski Arkansas Artillery Battery, we would attempt to recreate a glimpse of the battle of Wilson’s Creek for the thousands of visitors to the park each summer, as well as school groups in Springfield from across the Ozarks.
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When I wasn’t shooting muskets or cannons, I was giving tours of John Ray House, the only surviving structure from the battle, teaching about Civil War-era medicine, or manning the information desk in the visitor center.
One of my favorite duties was to guide military staff rides around the park. Based on a concept from the Prussian Army, the staff ride uses historic battles to teach officers and non-commissioned officers’ leadership, strategy, and tactics.
