Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 11, 1990 TAG: 9006110209
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BRANDY STATION LENGTH: Medium
The 127th anniversary of the war's largest cavalry battle attracted hundreds of people Saturday to protest a developer's plans for a 1,500-acre business and industrial park at Brandy Station.
"If any ground in this battle deserves to be called hallowed, this is it," Civil War buff Clark B. Hall said as he stood on the Culpeper County hillside where Lee Sammis plans the biggest development in county history.
"Some kid a hundred years from now is going to get interested in the Civil War and want to see these places. He's going to go down there and be standing in a parking lot. I'm fighting for that kid," said Brian Pohanka, a local historian.
The Culpeper County Planning Commission voted 5-3 last month against the project. But the final word rests with the Board of Supervisors, which will vote this summer.
Increased interest in the Civil War has dovetailed with a public reaction against suburban sprawl into rural Virginia, generating an unprecedented movement to preserve battlefields.
People on both sides of the issue say they are trying to avoid the kind of costly and bitter fight that occurred in 1988 over a plan to build a mall next to Manassas National Battlefield Park and resulted in the federal government's taking the land. In fact, many preservationists are giving today's developers credit for trying to solve problems in a mutually agreeable way.
But even when developers try to cooperate, they sometimes find themselves at odds with the preservationists. At Brandy Station, for example, Sammis has offered to give the county 240 of the most crucial acres, but preservationists aren't satisfied.
"If you've got isolated pockets of preservation, you've got nothing," Hall said, pointing across the wheat field.
About 35 miles southeast of Brandy Station, accelerating development around Fredericksburg threatens to engulf four major battlefields: Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse and Fredericksburg.
by CNB