Changes Coming to Monocacy National Battlefield
By Deborah Fitts
- June 2002 - FREDERICK, Md.

Planning is progressing swiftly at Monocacy National Battlefield to move the visitor center to a new home. Superintendent John Howard said park observers will be "surprised" by the speed with which the park will plan for a move from Gambrill Mill, where the visitor center is now, to the Best Farm, where the facility will be located in a non-historic dairy barn.

The move will take the visitor center out of a flood plain, and move it 1.5 miles closer to Frederick, off Route 355. The cinder-block barn at the Best Farm will provide plenty of space for the next 15 to 20 years, Howard said.

The visitor center was hit hard by flooding in 1996, but planning for the move had actually begun the prior year. Historic Gambrill Mill will be converted to "an unstaffed interpretive display," detailing its use as an aid station after the July 1864 battle.

Howard said he expected to have conceptual designs for siting the visitor center in the dairy barn by mid-June. A National Park Service advisory board should approve the project in November, giving the park the green light to use the $2.5 million available, he said. The new center should be ready in "early 2004," according to Howard.

Gambrill Mill will remain as the visitor center till then. Howard asserted that the move will not impact any of the historic structures on the Best Farm, which include a house and stone barn.

In other news at Monocacy, Howard indicated that he was preparing to defend the battlefield from a proposed widening of Interstate-270 to eight lanes from its present four lanes. The state is currently drafting an environmental impact statement for the project.

"It's going to be a contentious issue," Howard predicted. "We're definitely opposed to the idea of that many lanes." The highway, which was built before the national park was created at Monocacy, splits the 1650-acre battlefield park in two nearly equal pieces.

Howard noted, "The median strip is actually where the rail fence was, where Union troops fought off attacking Confederates" in the afternoon of the battle, July 9, 1864. "We're trying to keep it from getting any worse."

Howard said he hoped at least to keep highway officials from expanding their existing right-of-way. "They could use the land they've already got a little better," he said.

The park is also in the process of drafting a new General Management Plan (GMP). The present one dates from 1977. Initial "scoping meetings" with park staff were held April 30-May 2.

Howard predicted that a key feature of the new GMP will be measures to ensure visitor safety in the face of heavy traffic on local roads. One proposed solution may be park transportation to bring visitors to certain areas safely, where they could then proceed on foot.

"The story of the battle is there to tell," he said. "It's how do we get people out to hear the story?" Other issues to be addressed in the GMP, Howard said, will be possible new trails, and the use to be made of historic buildings in the park.
Last September the National Park Service acquired the "Araby" farm, scene of the most intense fighting during the July 1864 clash. Nearly surrounded by park land, the farm represents "the hole in the doughnut" of the park (January ’02 Civil War News).