MORGANTOWN — The Journey Through Hallowed Ground, a historic driving route that meanders 180 miles through Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, has been named a National Scenic Byway.
Victor Mendez, head of the Federal Highway Administration, made the announcement Friday in Waterford, Va.
The Federal Highway Administration created the National Scenic Byways Program in 1991 to recognize roads with unique archaeological, cultural, historical, natural, recreational and scenic qualities. It has since designated 125 such roads, including five in West Virginia, two in Maryland and one each in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The Journey Through Hallowed Ground generally follows Old Carolina Road from Gettysburg, Pa., through Maryland and Jefferson County, W.Va., to Monticello in Virginia. It was created by the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership, a nonprofit group dedicated to promoting American history and culture.
The designation by the U.S. Department of Transportation should help the partnership in marketing its sites and competing for federal funds.
On its Web site, the partnership claims its region contains more sites of historical value than any other in the nation, encompassing “11,000 years of dense history from ancient burial grounds and Native American history to 400 years of European, American and African American heritage.”
Destinations relate not only to the Civil War, but also to colonial and presidential history, African-American heritage and the grand estates of some prominent Americans, from James Madison and Thomas Jefferson to Gen. George C. Marshall.
“This route not only carried this country’s Founding Fathers, but also the not-so famous men and women whose ideals have shaped this great nation, making this road a destination unto itself,” said John Fieseler, executive director for the Tourism Council of Frederick County, Md.
Along the route are thousands of National Historic Register sites, 49 national heritage districts, nine presidential homes and 13 national park units.
The Hallowed Ground Partnership worked nearly two years to earn the national designation, holding more than 60 meetings with transportation, tourism and government officials, as well as park rangers, publicists and landowners.
It says the program is about recognition, not regulation, and only one provision could potentially affect property owners’ rights: Billboards are prohibited along National Scenic Byways. But the partnership says every jurisdiction along the trail prohibited billboards long ago, so there is no practical impact.
Christy Bailey, director of West Virginia’s Coal Heritage Trail, says becoming a National Scenic Byway is partly about protecting and preserving American heritage, and partly about prestige.
“It elevates your area to an area of national significance,” she says. “It’s not just a place we love and a place we care about. It’s somebody else saying, ’This place is important to the story of America.”’
The 187-mile Coal Heritage Trail celebrates what was once the nation’s most productive energy-producing region and offers tourists the chance to visit company towns, coal camp housing, railroads and lumber camps, as well as the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine.
Earning National Scenic Byway designation helped the National Coal Heritage Area with marketing and grant competition, but Bailey said it also broke down borders and encouraged cooperation between communities and states.
Virginia built its own Coal Heritage Trail and got state recognition. Though it’s not yet nationally recognized, it connects with West Virginia’s National Scenic Byway at Pocahontas, Va.
West Virginia
Four-state route named National Scenic Byway
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