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Parks outline plans in preparation for centennial
By Andy Ostmeyer
The Joplin Globe [Joplin, Mo.]
August 29, 2007
PEA RIDGE, Ark. — With 4,300 acres in federal ownership and little human impact evident in the past 145 years, Pea Ridge National Military Park has long been considered one of the best preserved of the nation’s Civil War battlefields.
John Scott wants more.
The man who oversees the site where an 1862 clash resulted in nearly 6,000 casualties recently outlined a new vision for the battlefield just across the Missouri line.
It is part of what the National Park Service is calling its Centennial Initiative, in preparation for the 100th anniversary in 2016 of the creation of the service. This month, all the units of the park system around the country laid out proposals listing things they want to accomplish over the next decade.
Scott wants to continue restoring Pea Ridge so it looks to visitors much as it did to soldiers. That means opening up an additional 15 miles or so of historical paths, from farm lanes to the Old Wire Road.
“That also would become the park’s trail system,” Scott said.
He wants to thin out trees that have overgrown parts of the park. Today, the Civil War battlefield has as many as 400 trees per acre. In 1862, according to Scott, it was more savanna-like, with only 20 to 30 trees per acre.
And, in conjunction with corporate partners Unilever and Wal-Mart, the plan calls for restoring 17 miles of worm-rail, or split-rail, fencing. The latter is no small feat, Scott said, since 5,200 rails are needed per mile.
“We’ve got just shy of a million dollars of split-rail fencing,” he said. “It’s kind of a big unseen cost that visitors don’t understand.”
Nationwide, objectives for the centennial campaign range from restoring native brook trout within Great Smoky Mountains National Park to replacing the visitors center at Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park and rehabilitating Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg National Military Park.
Moving back in time and farther north along the Old Wire Road, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield near Republic, Mo., has proposed a new film for its visitors center and an upgrade for the auditorium, according to Chief Ranger John Sutton.
But that is only part of what visitors will see in coming years. Sutton said restoration of the battlefield — including 200 acres that have been acquired since 2005 — remains a priority. The park service also is examining the best way to present and preserve a collection of 18,000 Civil War artifacts it acquired from a nearby museum. One option is to build a dedicated museum wing onto the existing visitor center, Sutton said.
“We are looking at it here at this point as something we want to accomplish by the 150th anniversary of the Civil War,” which would begin in 2011, he said. If that is not possible, the target date would be 2016.
The centennial, nearly a decade away, sounds as if it is a long way off, but park officials say some of what they want to accomplish can take years. Sutton said, for example, that a museum addition would require drafting and approval for architectural and exhibit plans, the raising of money, and then actual construction.
Put that way, said Reggie Tiller, superintendent of George Washington Carver National Monument near Diamond, Mo., the centennial is “right on our doorstep.”
The monument, which preserves the birthplace of a slave who rose to become one of the world’s foremost scientists, has proposed the production of a new interpretive film for its visitors center as well as becoming a “master repository” for everything related to Carver. Other proposals include building an additional trail in part of the 240-acre park where visitors currently do not have access, and acquiring and restoring the 1872 school in Neosho where Carver began his formal education. Finding new ways to bring Carver’s story to schoolchildren is another focus.
“We are looking at exploring our possibilities as far as partnerships in all of these projects we discussed,” said Dena Matteson, park ranger.
Meanwhile, at Fort Scott (Kan.) National Historic Site, Superintendent Betty Boyko said officials are exploring ways to enhance the experience of visitors.
Officials want to complete a boundary study that would allow them to seek federal legislation to acquire an adjacent structure currently identified as a “visual intrusion.” That site — an electric substation on the historic fort’s boundary — would be used to move all of the park’s maintenance operations away from the 165-year-old barracks, officers’ quarters and other buildings.
Boyko said that like many other parks, Fort Scott has been losing visitation, and officials want to replace the “static” exhibits with technology ranging from holograms to iPod audio tours to engage younger visitors.
“Our exhibits are very outdated,” she said. “How do we engage the young people with outdated exhibits that are certainly not what they connect with today?”
More parks?
By 2016, visitors could see two new units of the National Park Service in the Four-State Area. Congress is considering studies to determine whether the Civil War battlefields at Newtonia and the Harry S. Truman birthplace in Lamar are worthy of federal protection.
Eric
By Andy Ostmeyer
The Joplin Globe [Joplin, Mo.]
August 29, 2007
PEA RIDGE, Ark. — With 4,300 acres in federal ownership and little human impact evident in the past 145 years, Pea Ridge National Military Park has long been considered one of the best preserved of the nation’s Civil War battlefields.
John Scott wants more.
The man who oversees the site where an 1862 clash resulted in nearly 6,000 casualties recently outlined a new vision for the battlefield just across the Missouri line.
It is part of what the National Park Service is calling its Centennial Initiative, in preparation for the 100th anniversary in 2016 of the creation of the service. This month, all the units of the park system around the country laid out proposals listing things they want to accomplish over the next decade.
Scott wants to continue restoring Pea Ridge so it looks to visitors much as it did to soldiers. That means opening up an additional 15 miles or so of historical paths, from farm lanes to the Old Wire Road.
“That also would become the park’s trail system,” Scott said.
He wants to thin out trees that have overgrown parts of the park. Today, the Civil War battlefield has as many as 400 trees per acre. In 1862, according to Scott, it was more savanna-like, with only 20 to 30 trees per acre.
And, in conjunction with corporate partners Unilever and Wal-Mart, the plan calls for restoring 17 miles of worm-rail, or split-rail, fencing. The latter is no small feat, Scott said, since 5,200 rails are needed per mile.
“We’ve got just shy of a million dollars of split-rail fencing,” he said. “It’s kind of a big unseen cost that visitors don’t understand.”
Nationwide, objectives for the centennial campaign range from restoring native brook trout within Great Smoky Mountains National Park to replacing the visitors center at Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park and rehabilitating Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg National Military Park.
Moving back in time and farther north along the Old Wire Road, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield near Republic, Mo., has proposed a new film for its visitors center and an upgrade for the auditorium, according to Chief Ranger John Sutton.
But that is only part of what visitors will see in coming years. Sutton said restoration of the battlefield — including 200 acres that have been acquired since 2005 — remains a priority. The park service also is examining the best way to present and preserve a collection of 18,000 Civil War artifacts it acquired from a nearby museum. One option is to build a dedicated museum wing onto the existing visitor center, Sutton said.
“We are looking at it here at this point as something we want to accomplish by the 150th anniversary of the Civil War,” which would begin in 2011, he said. If that is not possible, the target date would be 2016.
The centennial, nearly a decade away, sounds as if it is a long way off, but park officials say some of what they want to accomplish can take years. Sutton said, for example, that a museum addition would require drafting and approval for architectural and exhibit plans, the raising of money, and then actual construction.
Put that way, said Reggie Tiller, superintendent of George Washington Carver National Monument near Diamond, Mo., the centennial is “right on our doorstep.”
The monument, which preserves the birthplace of a slave who rose to become one of the world’s foremost scientists, has proposed the production of a new interpretive film for its visitors center as well as becoming a “master repository” for everything related to Carver. Other proposals include building an additional trail in part of the 240-acre park where visitors currently do not have access, and acquiring and restoring the 1872 school in Neosho where Carver began his formal education. Finding new ways to bring Carver’s story to schoolchildren is another focus.
“We are looking at exploring our possibilities as far as partnerships in all of these projects we discussed,” said Dena Matteson, park ranger.
Meanwhile, at Fort Scott (Kan.) National Historic Site, Superintendent Betty Boyko said officials are exploring ways to enhance the experience of visitors.
Officials want to complete a boundary study that would allow them to seek federal legislation to acquire an adjacent structure currently identified as a “visual intrusion.” That site — an electric substation on the historic fort’s boundary — would be used to move all of the park’s maintenance operations away from the 165-year-old barracks, officers’ quarters and other buildings.
Boyko said that like many other parks, Fort Scott has been losing visitation, and officials want to replace the “static” exhibits with technology ranging from holograms to iPod audio tours to engage younger visitors.
“Our exhibits are very outdated,” she said. “How do we engage the young people with outdated exhibits that are certainly not what they connect with today?”
More parks?
By 2016, visitors could see two new units of the National Park Service in the Four-State Area. Congress is considering studies to determine whether the Civil War battlefields at Newtonia and the Harry S. Truman birthplace in Lamar are worthy of federal protection.
Eric
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