Virginia's Interstate 81 Widening To Impact Battlefields
By Deborah Fitts
April 2004 NEW MARKET, Va.

A proposal to add new lanes to Interstate 81 in the Shenandoah Valley would gobble up hundreds of acres of battlefield land and "severely impact" their integrity.

That's the conclusion of the nonprofit Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, which in January sent an eight-page letter to the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) complaining that the state has failed to consider the impact of the project on the battlefields and is ignoring the concerns of local governments and landowners.

"This is somewhat unusual for the foundation to step out like this," said Executive Director Howard Kittell. "There's a huge need for improvements on I-81 and we're not trying to stop them. We just want to make sure that the battlefields have registered on [VDOT's] radar screen."

I-81 crosses through the heart of seven of the 10 battlefields that the foundation oversees. VDOT is currently weighing two proposals submitted by planning firms. One, by Fluor Virginia Inc., would increase the present four lanes to six or eight, at a cost of $5.9 billion. The other, by Star Solutions, for $6.3 billion, would expand the highway to eight or 10 lanes, including some for trucks only.

In his letter to VDOT, foundation chairman Dan Stickley Jr. calculated that I-81 travels through 33 miles of battlefield land, where it has already paved over 319 acres. Under the Fluor plan, 843 acres of battlefield would be lost, and under the Star plan 1,091 acres.

Hardest hit would be the Cedar Creek battlefield and the new Belle Grove and Cedar Creek National Historical Park. Here the amount of paved-over battleground would rise from the present 121 acres, to 182 acres under Fluor and 273 acres under Star.

These figures don't even include land that would be lost in reconstructing and adding new interchanges, Stickley pointed out. The Fluor proposal would consume 183 more battlefield acres for interchanges, 111 of them in the core area of Second and Third Winchester. The Star proposal doesn't specify acreage, but Star's plans for multiple interchanges at I-81 and Interstate 66 would take "a substantial amount of land at the core" of Cedar Creek, and "multi-tiered ramps and bridges will become a prominent feature in the new national park," Stickley wrote.

"We are concerned," he added, "because there is no indication that the Star and Fluor ä proposals considered the impact of the proposed project on the Civil War battlefields and related natural and historic resources." VDOT also "has only accepted limited input" from local governments, the public and affected landowners, Stickley said.

Kittell said the foundation hopes that VDOT will consider installing earthen berms and vegetation to screen the battlefields from the interstate. The foundation has asked VDOT to conduct an analysis of the impact of the project on the individual battlefields.

It's no accident that the interstate bisects so many major Civil War battlefields. Today's I-81, built four decades ago and stretching 325 miles through western Virginia from Winchester to Bristol, parallels Route 11, which evolved from the Valley Pike of Civil War fame. Kittell noted that in spots, travelers on I-81 can see U.S. 11, and in other places the routes diverge for up to a mile or two.

The Valley Pike "was one of the most modern road facilities in the world" at the time of the war, Kittell said. A toll road, it boasted a hard, macadamized surface and was lined with stone walls to control access.

Kittell said VDOT is expected to choose one of the plans shortly.

Besides Cedar Creek and Second and Third Winchester, the battlefields that will be affected by the expansion plan include Fisher's Hill, Kernstown, Tom's Brook and New Market. Cedar Creek and New Market are on the National Register of Historic Places, and Cedar Creek is also a designated National Landmark.

All 10 battlefields under the foundation's wing comprise the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District, created by an act of Congress in 1996.