Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 30, 1990 TAG: 9003290608
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: REN HEARD
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
1. Call our office and get information.
2. Visit the project headquarters and learn all you can from Explore's professional and courteous staff.
3. Visit the park site and see its unspoiled beauty. We're available seven days a week for visits.
4. Volunteer your time and money and you'll be rewarded with the satisfaction of knowing you are helping in the creation of a park that will have a positive and lasting effect on our entire region, and ultimately the entire country.
To answer some of the recent archaeological charges:
Explore's advisory committees are made up of seasoned professionals from a wide range of fields across the United States. Many people call to volunteer their valuable time to assist toward our goal of being the best living-history park in the world. We actively seek experts and amateurs for advice and help.
We have not bulldozed any archaeological sites at Explore. All our roads were cut through the site in the 1930s for logging. In fact, the 25-acre Blue Ridge Town site was a plowed cornfield just 30 yearas ago, as was the Native American Park site. It is hardly an undisturbed archaeological site. As our construction planning proceeds, we will conduct a site survey, a continuation of the process already completed by the National Park Service on parkway alternate routes along the river. Until architectural and engineering plans are completed, we cannot start this second survey since we cannot yet identify specific, possible soil disturbance areas. Our botanical survey and preservation of trees and plantings is continuous.
Professionalism. As the master builder, I am qualified by a Class A General Contracting License and 20 years experience in preservation construction. I am open to outside opinions. In 1989, Renovation Specialists Inc. paid more than $40,000 in professional fees to various experts for advice and services. Included in these payments were three members of the Explore Preservation Committee, who received professional fees for their time. As a member of the Midwest Open Air Museum Coordinating Council, I was the key speaker for the fall '89 living-history marketing seminar, and I attend a number of conferences and seminars annually in my field around the United States. In addition to Renovation Specialists' Explore contract, we also consult with other living-history museums.
Is the Blue Ridge Town going to be authentic? As an open-air museum, yes, it will be. However, Blue Ridge Town also serves as the gateway to Explore and will have all necessary amenities such as water, sewer, heating, air conditioning, that any modern museum would have.
The professional design team has worked more than a year to ensure that Explore is a project of which we will all be proud. The present conceptual town plan is evolving as research continues and funds permit. In the design process, we studied a number of colonial towns and visited more than 35 other park museum sites, learning from the best ideas related to Explore.
Living-history parks are a new way of reaching the public with education and history and having a good time doing it. There are more than 1,000 living-history parks registered with MOMCC and American Living History Farm Museums, the two professional living-history organizations in the United States. Explore will be the largest of its kind.
How do we move old buildings? We first examine the structure and ascertain whether it's truly endangered at its present site. We firmly believe that old buildings should, if possible, be preserved and interpreted in their original setting. Virtually all of the buildings that we survey are endangered and must be moved to avoid destruction. In many cases this must be done very quickly, as the building owners have other uses for the site and want the building gone quickly.
Secondly, we photograph and plot both the site and building on videotape and with still photographs. We then start a numbering and dismantling process that often takes several months and a lot of careful work.
In conjunction with the building being dismantled, we survey the site archaeologically. At the conclusion of the move, a final report is prepared about the site and building. Historical research is also conducted as a part of this process, both on site and in courthouses. With limited funds we do the most we can and prioritize the importance of the process.
Should Explore be moving old buildings? Absolutely, yes. Before we started preserving endangered buildings by moving them, buildings were being destroyed at an alarming and unprecedented rate throughout our region. Neglect and development are destroying our history right before our eyes, with relatively few zoning regulations to prevent it.
It is expensive to preserve 200-year-old buildings and bring them back to livable conditions. Most folks don't have money to spend on preservation. Unfortunately, the federal government has eliminated many tax breaks that once were available for preservationists and developers interested in preserving older buildings. Local governments on the whole regard old buildings in poor shape as a public danger and often bulldoze them quickly to prevent potential hazards.
More than 20 buildings have been saved by Explore and we expect to continue the process. If the local preservation and history organizations want to assist or join in the salvage process, we welcome and encourage them to call so that we can work together. The Preservation Foundation, for example, offers low-interest loans and educational assistance.
And until local preservation laws are toughened and the public cares enough to support old buildings, we cannot expect our past to survive without preservation efforts like Explore's.
by CNB