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Editorial
The Blade (Toledo, OH)
02-26-96
Team Toledo has yet to learn one very important point: When it comes to historical sites, you can't establish a price simply by posting "For sale by owner" signs.
Mayor Finkbeiner has never said what he thinks ought to be located on a 176-acre site adjacent to I-475 and Route 24 that has been identified as the site of the 1794 battle of Fallen Timbers. Does he envision motels, restaurants, and other businesses?
What would he think of a story in a national publication saying that Toledo is interested in selling off a tract that is one of the most significant pieces of historical ground in the history of the westward movement in America?
Nobody has suggested that the city of Toledo should simply donate the tract for a national historical battlefield. Efforts are being made to find the funds to purchase the tract at a negotiated price. The city of Maumee is waiting to hear if $1.9 million in Interstate Transportation Enhancement Act funds will be available.
The National Park Service has made several visits to the area and is interested in Fallen Timbers, Fort Meigs, and the site of Fort Miamisburg as an "affiliated area." The knowledge and other resources of the park service would be made available to regional organizations, including the Ohio Historical Society, to preserve a site that marks an important chapter of American history and adds to this region's attractiveness to visitors.
From 1790 to about 1815 the lower Maumee River Valley was the most strategically important region in Ohio and the Old Northwest Territory. The new American republic wrestled with the British and their Indian allies for control of the lower Great Lakes region.
The mayor complains that people became interested in pursuing a larger Fallen Timbers park only after the shopping mall project was proposed. That's not true. It was frequently discussed in the year before the 200th anniversary of the battle in 1994, and the Maumee Heritage Corridor, Inc., has long had such an goal in mind.
The mall is a horrendous idea at a time when the problem of urban sprawl is finally being addressed in the Toledo area.
By the abrupt way in which the city posted the for-sale signs, the mayor also indicated he was sending a message to the city of Maumee and, of course, Mayor Steve Pauken, who is strongly committed to creation of a national park that includes the Fallen Timbers site. So much for regional cooperation, of which the mayor has so often and so eloquently spoken.
Does anybody seriously contemplate developing the battle site commercially? Even the mighty Disney organization was prevented from building a theme park in close proximity to the Bull Run battlefield. Mr. Finkbeiner should order the for-sale signs removed and throw his support behind the effort to establish a national historic park at Fallen Timbers.
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