PRAIRIE GROVE : Park makes ‘endangered’ list
Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008
PRAIRIE GROVE —The signs at the intersections in Sundowner Estates drop heavy hints that something violent took place here 145 years ago: Cannon Street, Musket Street, Bayonet Lane.
But new garages, asphalt and “for sale” signs obscure the fields that Confederate soldiers marched across as they moved in for the Battle of Prairie Grove, the last major campaign of the Civil War in Northwest Arkansas.
Encroaching developments like Sundowner Estates, along with a widening highway and commercial businesses nearby, helped designate Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park among the 10 “most endangered” battlegrounds in the nation by the Civil War Preservation Trust.
Though battle sites at Prairie Grove, Helena and Reed’s Bridge near Jacksonville had been labeled “at risk” before, Wednesday’s announcement marked the first time an Arkansas battlefield made the trust’s list of the most endangered sites.
Mary Koik, a spokesman for the trust, said the designation is a way of calling attention to what should be preserved. It’s not an indictment of the way the battlefield has been managed, she said.
“They’ve done a fabulous job. It’s just to make sure they’re not a casualty of modern living,” she said.
The designation seems unlikely to change any long-term preservation plans at Prairie Grove, however. The state spent most of the 1990 s buying up property, more than doubling the size of the park.
The expansion came after a previous “endangered” designation — in 1991 by the U. S. Department of the Interior. At the time, the park took in about 350 acres of the approximately 3, 000 acres where the Confederate and Union armies met in battle Dec. 7, 1862.
The state now owns 838 acres, including most of the land in view when park visitors look north from the low ridge that was the center of the Confederate forces’ position.
Though there are a few small parcels left to buy, there’s not a lot of undeveloped property immediately around the park that the state doesn’t own, said Greg Butts, parks director at the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.
The department touts Prairie Grove as one of the most intact battlefields in the nation.
“From my standpoint, I don’t see it as endangered,” Butts said.
Butts said he applauds the efforts of the Civil War Preservation Trust, which offered grants to the state to help buy property during the expansion.
“They did a lot for us... but we may differ in opinions on some things,” Butts said.
Koik said Prairie Grove was chosen partly because it’s an example that sites in rural areas are endangered by population growth.
“It’s no longer enough to worry about the battlefields in major metropolitan areas,” Koik said. “It’s really getting to be time to watch out for all of them.” Other sites listed in “History Under Siege: A Guide to America’s Most Endangered Civil War Battlefields,” include Antietam, Md., where the trust says a 120-foot-tall cellular tower threatens to mar the battleground’s most famous vantage points; and Cold Harbor, Va., where only about 300 acres of a 7, 500-acre battlefield are preserved.
This year marks Prairie Grove’s 100 th anniversary as a park. The United Daughters of the Confederacy bought the original 9 acres in 1908, and a year of commemorations are planned to highlight the battle.
At Prairie Grove, nine months after its defeat at Pea Ridge, the Confederate army tried to regain control of Northwest Arkansas. Though the all-day battle was technically a draw, with Confederate forces beating back Union attempts to charge up the ridge, the Confederate army withdrew after nightfall. The fight left about 2, 700 dead, wounded or missing.
Jessee Cox, park superintendent at Prairie Grove, said he’s trying to decide whether it’s good or bad to be on the endangered list. It says things aren’t going as well as they could be, but it also could make preservation of the park a national priority.
He said it could lead to federal grants or other aid in helping acquire the few small parcels that are available for purchase.
In the purest sense, the battlefield is hallowed ground and as much as possible should be left in a state in which people can imagine what it looked like in 1862, Cox said.
“You start building a swimming pool and a subdivision, you can’t take somebody there and ask them to picture these houses not here. You can’t do that. It’s impossible,” he said.
Most Civil War battlefields face similar problems of development encroachment, Koik said. She pointed out that in some well-known photos of the cannons at Gettysburg National Military Park, “it looks like they’re firing on the Kentucky Fried Chicken.” Cox said it’s become too expensive to buy large tracts of agricultural property because of lucrative subdivisions such as Sundowner Estates along the Illinois River.
Gary Combs, the developer, said Thursday that he didn’t hear any complaints about building 625 houses on part of the larger battlefield area. It’s across U. S. 62 from the state park.
He said he’s sold about 60 homes in the first phase of the subdivision. The foundations for 40 new houses are being poured this week and next.
“We’re eight minutes from Fayetteville, eight minutes from [Interstate ] 540. We’re banking on it being a great spot,” he said.
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