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Date published: 8/14/2009
In the July 31 article titled "Orange schedules Wal-Mart do-over," the author indicates that the proposed Wal-Mart site, while not on National Park Service land, is "in an area designated for study for possible historic significance."
In fact, the area in question has been accepted as part of the battlefield since the early 1990s. In 1990, a Congress concerned with the rapid private development of historic battlefield land appointed a blue-ribbon commission of Civil War scholars and educators to study the conditions of and threats to battlefields across the country. As part of its study, the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission mapped the "maximum delineation" of more than 350 battlefields nationwide, including the Wilderness. The commission called this boundary the "Study Area." The Study Area, or maximum delineation of the battlefield, contains terrain and resources known to contribute to the battle and the intervening landscape that connects them. This concept of battlefield includes areas where troops maneuvered and deployed; where they established command centers, communication posts, and medical services; the routes troops took from one location to another; and of course, locations where they fought. Historical accounts, military terrain analysis, and on-the-ground feature identification informed the delineation of the Study Area. The parcel Wal-Mart proposes has fallen within the Wilderness Battlefield Study Area since 1993. The commission's Study Area boundary also included the National Park Service's lands. The commission designed the Study Area to be a planning tool that would inform federal, state, and local decisions about grants, development, and land protection. Paul Hawke Washington The writer is chief of the
Look at all the desperate people here who are doing without cheap crap made in China. Actually, a Walmart sort of suits the character of most of the people who just moved into Orange from parts north of here.
How far from a battlefield park should big box stores be built. The preservationists are making up the rules as they go. I do enjoy the battlefields and learn from them but I think that property owners need to know the rules beforehand. If there needs to be a buffer around every NPS site then the owners should be compensated for the loss in property values.
Why do people keep insisting that this Walmart should go right here, right now, no compromise, when Orange County could have both a Walmart and the Wilderness? These only become mutually exclusive when people insist that one must be built on another. Move it up the road, keep it in the county, and everyone wins. Build it on the battlefield and we will lose not only a piece of absolutely one-of-a-kind history, but an irreplaceable piece of the character and soul of this county.
It's becoming more and more obvious everyday that this site is without a doubt battlefield land.
As the historian Stephen Ambrose once wrote, "The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future."
Orange, without a solid and authentic link to our past how can we have any faith in our future? Let's be sensible and move the WalMart down the road thereby still preserving a place where our children might come to learn about American valor.
That even without a special permit the owner has the right to
build a 100 foot high office building per the zoning ordinance.
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