Five post-Civil War structures within Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia that are in dilapidated condition would be razed under a proposal the National Park Service has opened to public comment.
The structures, located in a wooded area on Schoolhouse Ridge South about a mile south of Route 340 along Millville Road, are in a severe state of disrepair and pose a serious safety hazard to visitors and staff, according to the Park Service. Through this project, the park staff would remove the structures while leaving the foundations and any contributing cultural landscape features in place, including ornamental trees, shrubs and flowers. By removing these buildings, the existing landscape will more closely resemble the battlefield cultural landscape of the Battle of Harpers Ferry in 1862.
Jacob “Furl” Henkle built his house and established Henkle Farm sometime after 1906, Park Service records show. The family then sold the property to the Standard Lime & Stone Company. The company likely built the dairy barn, milk house, silo, and shed/corn crib after 1920. The Standard Lime & Stone Company abandoned the farm in the 1950s, and it has since sat vacant and unused.
Comments on the proposal are being taken through September 22. You can learn more about the project and leave your comments at this website.
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Comments
A NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK is tearing down historical structures. Hmmm.
And still many--many right here on NPT--advocate for the NPS to acquire more properrties to manage as parks!
Until the NPS can get its act together, and meet its statutory oblgation to PRESERVE its properties, there should be no more funding incresses or property acquisitions.
Enough.
I second that.
They're not of the historical era though. They're also unsafe.
These buildings all were built after the Civil War. They are not historically significants.
The historical park was established to commemorate "important events and issues related to John Brown, the Civil War, and Storer College, the only institution of higher education available to Black people in West Virginia prior to 1891."
https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/270
A dilapidated farmhouse and associated buildings constructed in and after 1906 have nothing to do with that history and do not contribute to the park's role.
"The Parks Role"? The fact that the buildings, or any structure, were put in after the civil war or 1906 is not relevent. The historic nature of any structure should be considered and preseved. They should be preserved in some way because they are part of history. But the Harpers Ferry Park has made nothing but terribler mistakes over the years. Tearing down the castle in Bolivar, dissabling the old paper mill/ electric plant in the lower town, etc....
The headline of the article should be " Park service to Erase old buildings" like they want to do with all of our history.
Exactly
These historical buildings should be PRESERVED, not torn down!
As an avid repeat visitor to Harpers Ferry for hiking, I applaud the removal of 20th Century derelict buildings from the site. Schoolhouse Ridge is famous as the Confederate line during the Battle of Bolivar Heights, and the removal of structures that were not present in the 1860s is actually a form of historic preservation and renewal. Anyone complaining about the removal is not a student of history nor likely even a visitor to the National Park. Those derelict buildings have no true historical value other than simply being old.
If we are going to "Preserve the Battlefield" then we need to dig out all the dirt that was dug off the school house ridge battlefield and used to build the rout 340 ramp up Alstadts Hill. Then put it all back on the battlefield where it came from. The Park seems to forget that this happened.
Agreed. These buildings did not exist at the time of the civil war and have no relevance whatsoever to the historical mission of preserving the structures then existing in order to capture the physical reality of the place as it existed at that time. Because they are in a dilapidated state presenting safety concern, this is an opportunity to restore the place more accurately to what had existed at that critical time in our history.
These structures, while old, are not from the era that the Park was established to commemorate. In fact, their presence interferes with that mission as they occupy hallowed ground over which men fought and bled
And since they also present a hazard to the public, they should go. NPS funds are too scarce to be spent on restoring structures not present during the Civil War.
I agree with tearing down the structures. As everyone else has mentioned, these are not from the era the park was established to commemorate and actually obscure part of the historical landscape. Plus, their is dangerous for anyone exploring the area.
The NPS should preserve the Civil War Era buildings in Harper's Ferry and not buildings built in the 1920s. Harper's Ferry changed hands 6 times during the Civil War in the 1860s and was the scene of John Brown's Raid in the late 1850s. The 5 buildings built in the 1920s should be torn down. They are an eyesore and potentially dangerous when they collapse. Spend the money on preserving buildings from the 1860s. No small task since the lower end of town floods on a fairly regular basis.
The title of this article seems to be deliberately misleading ("clickbait"). Replace the modifier "old" with "out of era" to be more transparent.
The point has been rightly made:. Building that are not from the historical era of interest, and which are unsafe, need to be removed. This will enhance the historical site. Get on with this good work.
It's unfortunate to see old structures come down, but it makes sense here. Because Harpers Ferry's significance is the period of the Civil War, that's the story it's telling. If the goal is to tell a story through experiencing the place where it happened, then anything that's outside the scope of that story is harder to justify putting finite resources into. That doesn't mean demolition is the default - otherwise we wouldn't have as much of the Storer College campus left - but it does mean that the money and time necessary to preserve a dilapidated structure simply isn't as feasible to justify. For the other people here in the comments who are upset about losing history, I feel your pain, but I would like you to consider that sometimes we have to pick our battles, and perhaps we should appreciate that Harpers Ferry's funding will be better allocated to maintaining the structures that were present at the time of the Raid and the Civil War.
I have been to Harpers Ferry 3 times and have hiked that area. Any buildings post Civil War without any other cultural or historical significance should be removed. This park is rich in American history and is wonderfully told through the buildings and park employees.