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'A four-five year process'
Mill Springs seeks national park status
Kentucky’s next national park could be located in Pulaski County.
Officials of the Mill Springs Battlefield Association have asked the Pulaski County Fiscal Court to aid them in establishing the Civil War battlefield as a national park.
Gilbert Wilson, director of the Association, has presented the court with a resolution in which it would request the federal government to grant the battlefield national park status. The fiscal court has approved the resolution, which was submitted after several years of consideration.
"The county government has been really great to us," Wilson said, "but we can't indefinitely depend on them to help us. We think we’ve got the battlefield in the position that it would be pretty easy for the National Park Service to take it over.”
Wilson emphasized that the park became what it is today through support from the fiscal court and other local entities. Still, for the park to grow, funding it isn't possible through the Association alone, he said. He noted that the preservation, interpretation and educational effort of the Association has reached beyond its resources and that of the local government.
The Battlefield Association was created in 1992 to help protect and interpret the Mill Springs battlefield and, since then, the Association has acquired more than 450 acres of battlefield land from private owners, built a 10,000-square-foot visitors center and museum in Nancy and restored and preserved two Civil War-era homes in Wayne County.
The Association also undertook the expansion of a national register boundary to create a 10-mile corridor encompassing the entire battlefield, began providing reenactments and educational programs for the public and developed several miles of interpretive trails for visitors.
The battlefield, which is the site of a Jan. 19, 1862 conflict that is considered the first major Civil War victory in the west for the Union, would need to be handed over should the federal government decide to deem it a national park. The Association, however, would remain a friend of the battlefield organization after the transition.
Wilson said the Association also is seeking support from local organizations and schools in taking the step toward establishing the battlefield a national park.
He added that the effort would be “a four-five year process.”
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