Maryland Planning Blog

A 3-part follow up to How Maryland protected hallowed ground (09/07/2012)

“Governor Schaefer’s leadership was key to the early days of Maryland’s battlefield preservation. He created the right atmosphere. He demanded creativity and out-of-the-box thinking and it worked like a charm.”

O. James Lighthizer, President of the Civil War Trust (Two-term Anne Arundel County Executive, 1982-1990 & Secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation, 1991-1995)

Part 1 of 3

As the country commemorates the 150^th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, it is worthwhile to examine the innovative planning and land preservation techniques that Maryland pioneered two decades ago to save threatened Civil War heritage sites in the state. This article is a continuation of the September 2012 blog post, “How Maryland protected hallowed ground,” which provided an overview of Maryland’s Civil War history and efforts by the state to reduce the impact of development at several significant Maryland battlefield sites.

This borrows from the expertise of one of the central figures in this effort, former Maryland Environmental Trust and Program Open Space Director H. Grant Dehart, who championed Maryland’s Civil War preservation effort from 1989 to 2007.  Specifically, we highlight the extraordinary preservation efforts that were accomplished in and around the Antietam battlefield at Sharpsburg.

What is significant is just how successful Maryland’s effort was in preserving Civil War sites and structures at Antietam, South Mountain and Monocacy battlefields.  In the 1990s,

Maryland became the national model for battlefield preservation and heritage tourism development. What was initially an effort to save threatened sites blossomed into a full scale heritage tourism industry, not only in Maryland, but all along the 180 mile Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area corridor from Charlottesville, Virginia to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

This was no small accomplishment. Tools and techniques to preserve Civil War sites and structures led to significant innovation in Maryland’s agricultural land preservation and rural village protection programs. Strategies developed during the 1990s are still in use in Maryland and some were adopted by other states and endorsed by national preservation and conservation organizations. This did not occur by happenstance; clear policy and planning decisions made by the state led to Maryland’s preservation and tourism successes.

Racing to Save Maryland’s Civil War Heritage

In 1989, 1990 and 1991, the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed the Antietam battlefield in southern Washington County as one of the country’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Sites. There was a deep concern about uncontrolled development around the historic Antietam battlefield. In most cases, that development consisted of scattered, large lot residential subdivisions adjacent to the unprotected National Park Service-owned battlefield, which could seriously impair the visual aspects to park visitors. This was seen as an imminent threat not only to the battlefield but also to the long-term economic tourism potential of the nationally significant historical site.

This was occurring on the heels of a national planning debacle at the Manassas battlefield in Prince William County, Virginia in which a set of local planning decisions led to the approval of a large commercial mall on the historic battlefield. The hue and cry about this resulted in the U.S. Congress issuing a quick take condemnation by the U.S. Congress of the land for the Manassas mall site. (Quick primer on quick-take… some government agencies, including Congress, can take private property by eminent domain, obtaining an appraisal, depositing the amount of the appraised value with the court, and immediately taking the property. ) In the end, the government took and ultimately purchased the 542-acre proposed mall site at a cost of $217,700 per acre. This news received national press attention as the 3^rd battle of Manassas and was considered a local planning failure. The Manassas Mall became the impetus for national preservation organizations, state governments and local land trusts to become active in the preservation of threatened battlefield sites.

Early on, Maryland took a proactive position to identify and ultimately protect its Civil War sites. In 1988, the Maryland Environmental Trust (MET) had developed the Rural Historic Village Protection Program to create protective greenbelts at 10 historic villages, including Sharpsburg and Burkittsville. Also, the Maryland Office of Planning (which became the Maryland Department of Planning in 2000) conducted viewshed analyses of Antietam and worked with Washington County to develop zoning recommendations for nearby areas and Red Hill, a prominent ridge near the battlefield.

By the early 1990s, a commercial rezoning was proposed for the historically significant Grove Farm along MD34 west of Sharpsburg. The Grove Farm site was the backdrop a famous photograph of Abraham Lincoln who visited Antietam and met with Generals McClellan and Fitz John Porter in early October 1862, several weeks following the battle. The Save Historic Antietam Foundation, a local nonprofit preservation organization, led the effort to protect the Grove Farm site and press accounts soon brought this to the attention of historians and enthusiasts nationally.

Governor William Donald Schaefer was serving his first term and the proposed shopping center at the historic Grove Farm roused his attention and spurred the state of Maryland into action. Efforts were made to assist the Save Historic Antietam Foundation in the acquisition of the property and funding was ultimately secured by the state to purchase the Grove Farm.

To be continued in Part 2

Related articles

‘The eyes of the world are on Gettysburg’ (Frederick News Post)