She was the first archaeologist to prove the location of Fort St. Louis, established by the French explorer, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle.

[2][1] Hoping to work in the growing petroleum industry, she was unable to find employment in the male-dominated field during the Great Depression and enrolled in business school to learn secretarial skills.

[3] Kirk had worked throughout her schooling at the Bone and Joint Center in Tulsa and the TU Library, after graduation she looked for a position as a geologist and found few opportunities for women.

[4][7] The following year, Gilmore enrolled in a new graduate-level program for anthropology offered by Southern Methodist University (SMU),[4] studying under the tutelage of Ed Jelks and Fred Wendorf.

[9] She attended a conference in 1967, in St. Louis of the Central States Archaeological Society, where the issue was debated, noting the ongoing reconstructions of Colonial Williamsburg.

[13] After completing her master's degree in 1968, Gilmore contracted to work at several sites, focusing on Caddoan excavations around Lake Palestine[4] and Rosario Mission for the Parks Department.

[14] Completing her PhD in 1973,[15] with a thesis, Caddoan Interaction in the Neches Valley, Texas[16] she was approached by Curtis Tunnell, state archaeologist of Texas to analyze materials collected from a ranch on the Garcitas Creek to determine whether it might be the location of Fort St. Louis, which had been established by the French explorer, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in 1685.

Combined with the other materials she had evaluated, including Spanish artifacts, Gilmore revised her initial paper and confirmed that the site was definitively the location of Fort St.

[2] Between 1999 and 2002, she worked in conjunction with the Texas Historical Commission on a re-examination of the Keeran site, which not only reaffirmed the accuracy of her location of Ft. Saint Louis and discovered the Spanish presidio Nuestra Señora de Loreto en la Bahía, which had been constructed atop the French fort.

[22] Traveling to Spain, Italy and Mexico with an interpreter, and working with a palaeographer Gilmore pieced together the archival records and began compiling them into a book.