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The Advertiser-Tribune (Tiffin, OH)
09-30-96
Two northwest Ohio mayors are in a battle of their own concerning land for a proposed national historic site where the Battle of Fallen Timbers was fought.
The 185 acres in dispute are in suburban Maumee but owned by the city of Toledo.
Maumee Mayor Stephen Pauken has asked that the area be selected as a historic site. Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and Rep Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, last week introduced bills in Congress proposing the designation.
Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner this week wrote Pauken a letter saying the Maumee mayor's actions regarding the site were "highly inappropriate," The (Toledo) Blade said Saturday.
Finkbeiner supports a donation of 15 acres of Toledo-owned land in the area for a memorial, but said he wanted the remaining acreage sold for the highest possible price.
"Your campaign to take this land from the city of Toledo through a basically political process without consultation with the city of Toledo is a most adversarial approach," Finkbeiner told Pauken.
Finkbeiner accused Pauken of inserting himself between Toledo and Isaac Cos., an organization which has an option on Toledo-owned land in the area for possible development.
Pauken disputed Finkbeiner's claim.
"You try to do something good and somebody doesn't agree, so they lash out," he said Friday.
Pauken denied interfering with the Maumee-based Isaac Cos. He said he discussed the land with a company official in July.
"The land in question is in the corporate limits of Maumee. ...I always think it's a good policy to be candid as to what we'd like to see done there," said Pauken.
The bills introduced in Congress on Wednesday would affiliate the Fallen Timbers Battlefield, Fort Meigs and Fort Miamis with the National Park Service.
Fort Miamis was built in 1794 to protect the British army against the army of the young United States.
U.S. Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne's victory over American Indians at Fallen Timbers led to the Treaty of Greenville, which opened what then was known as the Northwest Territory to settlement.
During the War of 1812, the British launched two unsuccessful sieges of Fort Meigs, on the east side of the Maumee River, from Fort Miamis.
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