In my previous life as a newspaper writer, I found myself having to deal with all kinds of zealots. But the worst were environmentalists (even more so than religious nuts). I never met a group of people so sure they were right and everyone else was wrong who didn’t agree with their point of view. Not that I felt developers were paragons of virtue, but I didn’t think they were out to brutally rape the land, twirling their Snidely Whiplash-type mustache while laughing maniacally.
Giving environmentalists a close second sometimes on the zealotry scale, though, are some Civil War preservationists. Every piece of ground is sacred, can never be developed or enhanced, and must remain pristine. Except if you travel to most Civil War national parks, they aren’t pristine.
Roads traverse through the parks, making it possible for automobiles and tour buses to enter. Visitor’s centers allow those tourists to overpay for kitsch that most likely will end up in somebody’s yard sale. Even nature conspires against the battlefield. We are all well aware of the work being done at Gettysburg to remove trees that didn’t exist during the battle and plant trees where they did (a plan I wholeheartedly endorse). But unless you can put yourself in some major type of trance, you’ll never get the true experience of what it was like in 1863 to look down Little Round Top and see whatever it was that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain did. It’s a different place and you’re in a different time.
So does that mean I’m all for unfettered development? No. But I think it’s naive to assume that developers aren’t going to want to put things near where there are ready-made crowds. If I had money to invest I would want as sure a thing as possible. Millions of people go to the battlefields every year. They need a place to stay. They need a place to eat. I can remember when I visited Gettysburg. What irritated me wasn’t having General Pickett’s All-You-Can-Eat buffet right next to where Pickett’s Charge took place. What irritated me was the SUV belching fumes from its exhaust as I was looking from the Lee monument over to Cemetery Ridge. Of course, though, if a family had to exit their vehicle and walk the entire battlefield, tourism would suffer because the only ones there would be the hardcore battle fanatics who usually do walk the battlefield when they visit.
Does the development of a site rob it of its historical significance? Because a Holiday Inn sits within site of the battlefield, does that somehow demean or hurt the memory of those who died there? I don’t think so. Several years ago, I was visiting the Old State Capitol in Springfield and was standing in awe thinking that Abraham Lincoln walked those halls and stood in the same room I was in telling the nation that a house divided against itself couldn’t stand. Except that I wasn’t. Long after Lincoln died, the city of Springfield used the Old State Capitol as an office building, cutting it up into offices and rooms that Lincoln would have never recognized. Eventually, it was restored to its Lincoln-era appearance. The outside stones are original, but everything inside is a reconstruction. Lincoln’s feet never touched the floor.
Despite that, his spirit lives there because of what he said. Every visit I make there reinforces what I hold dear about Lincoln, not because he touched the wood, but because he touched my soul. I would still hold Lincoln in awe even if every building he was ever associated with were destroyed. His words, his opinions, his views far transcend the tactile.
So is there a happy medium? Probably not, because as long as people have money to invest and some people will fight every bit of development, however harmless it might actually be, there will be controversy.
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