Preservation
In the 1930s the Works Progress Administration (WPA) made a major project of the restoration of Fort Negley. However, almost simultaneous with the completion of this project came the United States' entry into World War II. Neither the manpower, funds, or the interest was available at the time to reopen the fort as an historic or interpretative center. After the war, the fort was allowed to continue to languish, becoming the site of vandalism, and minor crime; entry to the site was finally prohibited and the area reverted to forest. However, the surrounding grounds became the site of a municipal park, first as the site of baseball and softball fields for youth and adult leagues and later as the site of Herschel Greer Stadium, a minor league ballpark. The Cumberland Science Museum, a continuation under a new name and in a new venue of the former Nashville Children's Museum (now called Adventure Science Center), was built on the slope opposite the ballpark. Most visitors to the stadium and the museum were generally unaware of what was on the wooded hilltop other than it was something which they were not allowed to access.
After years of discussions and negotiations, historic preservationists were successful in getting sufficient funding in the early 2000s (decade) for another restoration project, and the fort was reopened to the public for the first time in decades on December 10, 2004. The project went ahead when it was shown that similar places in other cities resulted in more economic stimulation and hence more tax revenue from the resultant tourism than was spent on the maintenance and operation of such sites. The recent restoration was not an attempt to restore the fort completely to its Civil War condition but rather to stabilize the ruins and make them more accessible and visible by removing many of the largest trees and moving some of the blocks back to their original positions; what exists today is a combination of the original fortification and the WPA restoration. In 2007, an additional $1 million in city funds was used to build a visitor's center. More work on the site is planned.
Read more about this topic: Fort Negley
Famous quotes containing the word preservation:
“The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality.”
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)
“Is not our role to stand for the one thing which means our own salvation here but with which it will also be possible to save the world, and with which Europe will be able to save itself, namely the preservation of the white man and his state?”
—Hendrik Verwoerd (1901–1966)
“If there is ANY THING which it is the duty of the WHOLE PEOPLE to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity, of their own liberties, and institutions.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)