Save Virginia's Explore Park from the Developer & Development!



Editorial: Don't Give It Away, It Is Not Broke!

I first learned about the concept for Virginia's Explore Park when I was working for the National Park Service. Not Bern Ewart's Grand and Glorious plan of Lewis and Clark Land with a 50 million dollar zoo spread out across the geography and history of North America. I thought what a wonderful idea, to take buildings which were historically important, but for one reason or another, they were no longer of any use, or could not say on their original foundations. And the best part it would be, they would be free of all of the government bureaucracy, and the whims of Congress as to what is important or not.

I was lucky enough to work at the Park from August of 1996, to when my wife got another job with her company, Norfolk Southern, in Norfolk, Virginia, in September of 1999. During this time I worked as a living history interpreter and worked doing historical construction including the moving of Slone's Grist Mill to the Park. it was the saddest day of my life when I had to leave the Park.  The Park closing down has made it the second saddest day in my life, because I have hoped to return to work there one day.

One of the questions we most often were asked by visitors when I worked there was, "should we have waited to open the Park until more structures were completed?" That was always a hard question to answer. Forget about Ewert, no one ever talked about him when I worked for the Park because he was in the past. We were trying to move in a new direction I always believed in the vision of the Park, which told the movement and travel though Virginia down the Great Wagon Road. If I would have stayed working in the Park, I would have wanted to see mill constructed for the 1700's colonial era, and additional structures for the 1800's area, including: an iron furnace; a saw mill; perhaps Esom Slone's Store; and other buildings. I also wanted in the worst way to begin work on the next phase of the park to create the next century with structures representing the 1900's perhaps the 1930's or 40's. Another larger grist mill with a metal Fitz Water Wheel, a general store, a travel lodge with small cabins, a Civilian Conservation Camp, and other structures complete with wagons, cars and trucks from that era compete with authentic recorded radio broadcasts, and a stream train with railroad crossings reminiscent of early O. Winston Link color photos which would tie the Park into Roanoke's Transportation Museum.

Working in Virginia's Explore Park inspired me to go back to school and get my masters in museum science.  I hate the idea of putting the Park into the hands of a developer. They are going to pull out an old copy of Bern Ewart's book plan for the park, and construct water-slides, amusement park style rides complete with stage coach rides and Western style shoot-outs. That was a wonder plan perhaps only created to make Disney roll over in his cryogenic freezing compartment.

The park has a story to tell and needs saving for future generations. One of the most satisfying times in which I worked at the Park was went school groups came through. I don't think that a developer will made accommodations for their field trips in the future. They will hire an educational director pay them 60 thousand dollars a year, and say we have met out education incentives. It is a very unique place in the Roanoke area for school field trips. We need to preserve and tell the story of local history before more of it is lost. There are several companies who have been in business for a number of years now, whose selling points are the total numbers of original log cabins, mills, barns, churches and other structures they take down each year and ship to Japan. That is why I don't like this idea of a developer. If they don't think it is making money for them they will package it up and sell it to someone else so they can bring in something they think will work. It is the same mindset as the Smithsonian if a book won't sell a million copes if they gift shop, they won't carry it. A developer will also bring amusement park admittance prices with 40 to 65 dollars ticket to a single adult somewhere over the age of 8 to 12 years old.

A developer is not going to tell the same story as what has been told at the Park in the past. This will be lost and pushed aside to bring in what will sell tickets and those millions of annual visitors who never came to the Park. The park needs to be given to the State, Federal Government, a Friends of Explore Park Group, a non-profit foundation, or simply be given the time and money to begin a new back on its original scaled down plan.  So one day in the future it will again reopen bigger and better that it ever was. I would go back to work at the Park any time again in a heart beat!

Thank you,
Ted Hazen
Pond Lily Mill Restorations
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