Senate Advances Plan To Expand Fort Donelson Park
By Deborah Fitts
July 2004 WASHINGTON, D.C.

The U.S. Senate passed a bill in May to increase the land protected by Fort Donelson National Battlefield, allowing the inclusion for the first time of Fort Heiman on the Tennessee River in western Kentucky.

The bill then headed to the House floor. Don Stephenson, acting superintendent at the park, said final passage by Congress could come within weeks.

Stephenson said the legislation has support in both houses and from both sides of the aisle. It raises the ceiling of the park's land to 2,000 acres from the current limit of 600 acres.

Fort Heiman, located in Calloway County, Ky., has been privately owned, with most of the 22 owners desiring to sell, Stephenson said. He noted that purchases would be from willing sellers only.

Debby Spencer, tourism development specialist with the West Kentucky Corporation, a 45-county economic development organization, says Calloway County has raised about $1 million, much of it from federal transportation funds and some from the state's Heritage Land Conservation Fund, to buy Fort Heiman.

She says a total of about 263 acres will be bought by the county and donated to the National Park Service when the legislature is approved. Nearly 200 acres have been purchased already. The legislation includes no funding for land acquisition.

Heiman was one of three prominent Confederate earthen forts on the Tennessee River in Tennessee and Kentucky, including Fort Donelson in Dover, Tenn., and Fort Henry. They were captured by then-Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in mid-February 1862.

Fort Henry, which is on property belonging to the U.S. Forest Service, was built on a floodplain and is now "under water," Stephenson said. Henry is about 10 miles from Donelson and Heiman is 30 miles from Donelson.

The legislation was spearheaded in Congress by Tennessee Sen. Jim Bunning (R) and representatives Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) and John Turner (D-Tenn.).

Stephenson said there are "a lot of trees" growing on the earthworks at Fort Heiman, and "small gravel roads going in."