Preserving Hallowed Ground

By definition, heritage areas are regions unified by a unique and specialized historic legacy. The Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, for example, contains the remnants of America's earliest industrial history, including the Slater Mill where the textile industry took root in the early 1800s. The Lackawanna Heritage Valley, near Scranton, Pa., chronicles the contribution of anthracite coal mining to America's economic expansion.

"You take the centerpiece of a region's history and you build your present and future around it," said John Cosgrove, executive director of the Alliance of National Heritage Areas.

Unlike National Park Service properties, national heritage areas remain privately owned, except for specific historic parcels subject to individual designation. They get a relatively small amount of federal funding -- $400,000 a year on average, but up to $1 million, or $10 million over 15 years -- but are expected to become financially self-sufficient and promote some limited economic development, such as restaurants and hotels. They usually have visitor centers that help tourists find their way from spot to spot and they boost community organizing efforts for preservation projects. Heritage areas also get technical advice and support from Park Service officials.

The first area, the Illinois & Michigan National Heritage Corridor, which highlights the 97-mile canal that linked the Chicago River near Lake Michigan to the Illinois River and thus transformed Chicago into a global powerhouse, opened in 1984. After two decades, there are now 27 such areas, mostly in the Northeast.

One of the closest heritage areas is the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District, based in New Market, Va. That is also the only heritage area that has been allowed to purchase land with federal money. It makes its purchases cautiously, said Howard Kittell, executive director.

"We only purchase land from willing sellers; there's no condemnation; and we purchase at the market price," he said.

The success of national heritage areas is spawning more of them. Last month the Senate authorized 10 more heritage areas, including three in the South and four in the West, and the House of Representatives is expected to vote on the package of properties in the fall.

"Like nuclear fission, these things produce a lot of energy," said Brenda Barrett, the Park Service's national coordinator for heritage areas, adding that heritage areas "bubble up" from communities and prosper with local support.

"The South is aflame with proposed heritage areas," with more than a dozen more sites under consideration there. Meanwhile, the sites in the West that are being proposed are so large that the acreage designated "would triple because of the size of the western heritage areas," Barrett said.

Supporters of the Route 15 heritage area see the effort as a key step toward salvaging the community's soul before it disappears under pavement and townhouses ribboned by overcrowded highways.

"We're on the way to extinguishing the character -- on the way to extinguishing the sense of place," said Robert Lowe Nieweg, director of the Southern Field Office at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. That group last month put the Routre 15 corridor on its annual list of most endangered places.

"It matters to people who live here but it matters to the nation as a whole. . . . Many [historic] parks are ending up as islands of green amid suburban sprawl. The sites are secured but the setting is evaporating."