Fort Niagara State Park – Preserving Dyczkowski’s Murals and the Memories of Haller’s Army
Since 1997, the Club has been actively involved in seeking to assure that the historic Officers Club building in Fort Niagara State Park, and the murals within it, would be preserved and that the building would become a Museum. A glimpse at the scope of the future museum is afforded by the Officers Club webpages that the Polish Arts Club has created detailing the historical and artistic themes that related to that site.
The original reason for advocating the creation of an Officers Club Museum was to preserve a mural painted within in 1939 by Eugene Dyczkowski.
A Polish-American artist, Dyczkowski was an Associate Director of the Albright Art Gallery, the President of the Buffalo Society of Artists, and the Founding President of the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo. The name of the building derives from the fact that it was the Officers Club while the U.S. Army’s 28th Infantry Regiment was stationed at Fort Niagara. The room with Dyczkowski’s 90 foot mural was then the Officers Mess.
Secondly, the Club became aware that Fort Niagara was one of two sites in North America where, during WWI, a Polish Army – recruited from among Polish-Americans – was trained prior to its departure for France. There it joined the Allies on the Western Front and fought against the Germans. Later, after the armistice was signed in 1918, that Army, commanded by General Haller, was transported to the newly renascent Polish Republic and helped safeguard its independence and frontiers.