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Editorial
The Blade (Toledo, OH)
10-02-96
Hardly was the ink dry on a proposal by Mayor Carty Finkbeiner to donate -- free of chard -- 15 acres of valuable city-owned land as a memorial to the 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers before he gave the public something else to think about.
Mr. Finkbeiner took Mayor Steve Pauken of Maumee to task for his "adversarial" stance on the issue. The site near the juncture of I-475 and the Anthony Wayne Trail is now part of the city of Maumee.
The dust-up is unfortunate because Mr. Finkbeiner's offer of 15 acres has been rightly regarded as a positive sign and an indication of Toledo's willingness to cooperate with other regional entities on this issue.
Mr. Finkbeiner could, in fact, be the hero of a second Battle of Fallen Timbers, this time to save a significant portion of the battlefield where American domination over this region and much of what history knows as the Northwest Territory was established.
And he could be joined in that effort by Sen. Mike DeWine and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who are cooperating in a bipartisan effort to create a national historic site affiliated with the National Park Service in this region.
Of the 367 National Park Service parks and installations, Ohio has only five Historic Site, plus a national recreation area. The historic sites include the Perry Victory Monument and the homes of Presidents James A. Garfield and William Howard Taft. For a state of such historic importance, this is an absurdly low number.
Fallen Timbers, currently unprotected from development, is as important as any of these. From 1790 until 1815 this region of Ohio and Michigan and adjacent areas of Ontario were the epicenter of the power struggle involving American settlers, British and Canadian forces based in Detroit and other sites, and the American Indian tribes who had established an agriculturally based society in the Maumee River valley.
The great Indian chief Tecumseh figured prominently in this struggle as did William Henry Harrison, known as Tippecanoe for his victory in a later battle.
As usual, regional politics and turf struggles are hampering the establishment of a national historic site including Fallen Timbers, Fort Meigs, which has been restored, and Fort Miamis, both of which are owned by the Ohio Historical Society.
Mayor Finkbeiner correctly notes that regionalism is a two-way street. Toledo has supplied its water to the suburbs for their economic growth -- and Toledo's profit -- but the suburbs have done little for Toledo.
The idea is to link these three sites as an affiliated unit of the National Park Service. That cannot happen as long as internecine wars continue to pose a threat to a historical plan that could bring thousands of visitors here or simply lure them away from their race across Ohio on the Ohio Turnpike.
Many regions of the country capitalize on their history; here we can't seem to get the bulldozers out fast enough. However, we suspect many northwest Ohioans applaud Senator DeWine and Congresswoman Kaptur and would like to see this site preserved as a national battlefield park. This effort does not interfere in any way with economic development in our region; rather, it enhances it.
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