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By: Katherine Calos | Richmond Times Dispatch
Published: February 02, 2012 Updated: February 02, 2012 - 12:00 AM
Richmond National Battlefield Park has a Civil War story just as important as Gettysburg, in the eyes of Superintendent David Ruth, and now it's $4 million closer to generating Gettysburg-level attention.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar on Wednesday announced a $4 million grant from the U.S. Land and Water Conservation Fund at Glendale National Cemetery, site of the sixth of the Seven Days Battles that protected Richmond from capture in 1862.
The money will allow the park to add more than 300 acres to the Glendale property on Willis Church Road near state Route 5 east of Richmond. The land has been preserved by the Civil War Trust, whose president, James Lighthizer, said he recalled visiting the site as a student when only a single acre was preserved at Malvern Hill and at Glendale.
"I can't tell you how happy I am, individually," Lighthizer said.
The Civil War Trust owns about 500 additional acres at the Glendale and Malvern Hill battlefields, and the organization is working to buy 285 acres at Gaines' Mill, which was the largest and most important of the Seven Days Battles.
When the park service buys the Glendale acreage, the purchase money will help the Civil War Trust complete the $3.2 million acquisition at Gaines' Mill.
Richmond's Battlefield Park received a $2 million grant from Department of the Interior conservation funds in 2000 for land acquisition, which helped bring the cumulative size of the park's 13 units to 1,300 acres, Ruth said. The park now contains about 2,200 acres, and with the new acquisition will increase to about 2,650 acres.
"From my perspective, it's the most exciting time to be involved," Ruth said. "You can see the park grow to what it will be forever."
Richmond National Battlefield Park, established in 1936, has the potential to become "one of the best preserved collections of battlefields in the entire nation," Ruth said.
While some battle sites around the city have been covered by development, public roads around Glendale and Malvern Hill still follow the same paths as during the Civil War. The only modern intrusion is power lines, Ruth pointed out.
Before the ribbon-cutting on a new exhibit at the Glendale visitor center, officials held a town hall meeting on boosting tourism and travel in Virginia. Salazar was joined by Jon Jarvis, director of the National Park Service, and Gov. Bob McDonnell at Willis United Methodist Church across from the Glendale site.
Salazar and McDonnell focused on the economic impact of tourism.
In 2010, McDonnell said, tourism in Virginia generated $18.9 billion in revenue, provided $1.3 billion in taxes and supported 204,000 jobs.
Jarvis said the 23 million visitors to Virginia's National Park sites contribute $493 million to local economies and support 7,000 private-sector jobs. Out-of-town visitors to Richmond's battlefields contributed more than $8 million to the local economy and supported 130 jobs in 2010, he said.
Salazar is a member of President Barack Obama's task force to increase tourism and recreation jobs.
Comments from the audience encouraged more flexibility for national parks to collaborate with local partners, promotion of recreational opportunities such as long-distance bicycle trails, use of smartphones to add excitement to tourism sites, and support for conservation of important objects as well as important places.
The $4 million federal grant for Richmond's battlefields came from fees from offshore oil and gas development, which McDonnell has proposed for the Virginia coast but Salazar has not included in his five-year lease plan.
kcalos@timesdispatch.com (804) 649-6433
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