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By Tom Jewell, Blade Staff Writer
The Blade (Toledo, OH)
09-21-95
Maumee has priced the Fallen Timbers Battlefield acquisition at about $2.4 million and is pursuing federal aid for four out of five dollars of the cost.
The city wants to buy about 185 acres now owned by the city of Toledo to preserve it as a site for a historic park.
The farm fields and woodlands southwest of the Anthony Wayne Trail (U.S. 24) and the I-475 intersection were staked out as the battleground in an archaeological survey last summer.
The land also is in the midst of what is labeled as some of the area's prime development real estate.
Maumee's request calls for $1,970,581 in federal funding, 80 per cent of the estimated purchase price. Local sources would pick up the remaining 20 per cent, about $492,645.
The $2,463,226 total estimate for buying the land is listed in the application for federal aid through the Interstate Transportation Enhancement Act (ISTEA).
The plan is proposed "in order to protect the battlefield from an existing threat of commercial development," according to the Maumee application.
Dickering over a real estate deal seems to have started already between the neighboring cities.
in a letter earlier this month to Maumee Mayor Stephen Pauken and the city council, Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner cited Maumee's application for federal money and an offer nearly four times higher than that figure.
Noting that the parcel is under an option agreement with Isaac Group Holdings, Inc., which would bring Toledo $50,000 an acre, Mayor Finkbeiner pointed to the disparity with Maumee's proposed acquisition price of about $13,500 an acre.
"I can assure you that I will be vigilant on behalf of Toledo taxpayers in maximizing our return on the parcel of real estate," Mayor Finkbeiner wrote to the Maumee officials.
The difference would amount to about $36,500 an acre and add more than $6.7 million to the cost of buying the 185 acres.
Mayor Pauken said he sees "no point in getting into an argument at this time. At the appropriate time we can get a good figure."
Maumee based its estimate on the current average tax appraised value of $13,300 an acre, according to the application. Mayor Pauken said a private appraiser could be hired later to help determine the territory's worth.
His present interest is in seeking a special resource study by the federal parks agency, Mayor Pauken said. Such a study is required to be included in the National Parks Service.
It is a formal site assessment to determine how the park would fit into the structure of the national park system.
Maumee intends to take several steps toward ultimate development of the Fallen Timbers site as a historic park.
To guarantee availability of the site, Maumee needs to acquire it from the landowner, Toledo, to "buy the necessary time" for planning to permit orderly park development, the application continues.
The city will pursue designation of the site as a National Historic Landmark. Discussions with the regional office of the Ohio Historic Preservation Office indicate Fallen Timbers is eligible to go on the roll, according to the city application.
While the battle site is under option to the Isaac firm, it is not the same tract where the developer has announced plans for a mall on Toledo-owned land farther west, on the other side of Jerome Road. Both locations are within the 816 acres annexed by Maumee last year.
Until recently, the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 was generally believed to have been fought closer to the Maumee River on land that is now part of Side Cut Metropark.
The monument for the event credited with opening up the territory for settlement faces that direction.
The archaeological study this summer found more than 345 battle-related artifacts on the new site, which also has features that match descriptions of terrain from those who took part in the fight.
The funding application maintains that creation of a historic park will protect and preserve the archaeological and historic sites from destruction by development.
A park would provide a setting for interpreting the contest between the expansion interests of the federal government and Native American resistance to settlement, the city contends, a period under-represented in the national park system.
Along with historic aspects, the new park would have potential to enhance other factors in the ISTEA program: the scenic and environmental component and pedestrian and bicycle facility component.
The city also points out that using the funding for buying the battlefield is appropriate because of the place the location and the event had in development of transportation in the early history of the country.
General Anthony Wayne marched to the battlefield over the Great Trail along the Maumee River from its headwaters near Fort Wayne, Ind.
It was part of a major route between the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi River systems.
By the middle of the century after the battle, the Miami and Erie Canal joined the course of the old Great Trail.
The railroads that came next ran by the site, including an abandoned right of way slated for conversion to a recreational trail. The interurban lines early in this century were nearby.
U.S. 24 was built over the old canal routes and the later interstate highway forms the eastern boundary of the acquisition.
"Today the property is surrounded by features which present a history of the development of the 19th and 20th century transportation facilities," the application notes.
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