Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 6, 1995 TAG: 9509060081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
Two new ball fields are finished. Plans for another phase of the Waid Recreation Area project - to include picnic shelters that mimic old red-roofed barns still on the site - were shown to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
But the park plans were overshadowed by another issue: The supervisors must decide if the old wagon road that ran from Augusta, Ga., to Philadelphia is going to be paved or preserved in its narrow, red clay form.
The path, designated as Virginia 800 among Franklin County's many miles of rural roads, runs between Rocky Mount and Ferrum north of Virginia 40 and runs across the Waid park area. At one point, the road crosses a steep ridge with wetlands below.
Original plans called for a new access road into the park to be built apart from the wagon trail - also known historically as the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road.
But costs and the amount of state grant funds available for the park made it necessary to pave over 4,100 feet of the road, leaving just 400 feet of it untouched.
Paving over one of the Colonial era's most heavily traveled roads did not sit well with Dr. Francis Amos, a Franklin County historian, or Roddy Moore, director of the Blue Ridge Institute at Ferrum College.
Amos and Moore - along with state Sen. Virgil Goode, D-Rocky Mount - showed up at Tuesday's board meeting.
They asked the board to reconsider its plan and to leave the road as it is.
"It's a diamond in the rough out there," Amos said. "It needs to be cut and polished - not smashed with a hammer."
Said Moore: "I don't think there's a historic road preserved in this state. We could really send a message by being the first here in Franklin County to do it."
However, county parks development manager Neil Sigmon said if a path for an access road isn't decided upon soon, the county may have a new park ready for use, but without a way for the public to get to it.
The ball fields have been completed for more than a year, he said.
After board members tossed the political hot potato back and forth foth for several minutes, Chairman Gus Forry announced that he was forming a four-supervisor committee to study the issue and provide a recommendation.
Forry, Wayne Angell, Hubert Quinn and Charles Ellis plan to tour the Waid Recreation Area site today with Doug Beatty of the Virginia Department of Transportation.
And Amos and Moore have been asked to come along, too.
by CNB