Back in September the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, and six nearby residents filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Orange County. They alleged that the country “supervisors failed to comply with the county’s comprehensive plan. The suit also claims the county’s zoning ordinance is invalid because it fails to comply with state laws requiring such ordinances to protect historic sites, and there were procedural defects in the approval process.”

Today, the court heard the first arguments of the case.

Here’s a quick excerpt from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s press release outlining their central arguments (it was emailed to me, so I don’t have a link):

“The County has an affirmative responsibility to protect those historic resources under Virginia law and under the County’s own Comprehensive Plan for development. Yet, the Board ignored the concerns, objections and offers of assistance from the Governor and the Speaker of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the National Park Service, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, 250 Civil War experts, and others.

The Battle of the Wilderness, where 26,000 men were killed or wounded in May of 1864, may not be as well known as Gettysburg or Antietam, but it marked a milestone in the Civil War. It was the first time generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant met in battle. The site of the proposed 140,000-square-foot Wal-Mart superstore, along with 100,000 square feet of additional big box commercial development, stands on unprotected land within the historic boundaries of this battlefield.  It is also immediately adjacent to the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, which was established by Congress in 1927. In a split vote, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted to approve a special use permit allowing the 240,000-square-foot project to proceed on August 25, 2009. This project poses a considerable risk of destruction and increased commercialization of a nationally significant and highly vulnerable historic site.”

We’ll certainly keep our eyes on the case. In the mean time, you can check out the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s website here and read more about the case here.

Wal-Mart stores have desecrated Native American burial sites, ancient ruins and holy sites. 

To that list, we can now add historic civil war battlefields. 

Last night, Wal-Mart won a long-fought battle to build a Wal-Mart in Orange County, VA on ground where Americans died in the Battle of the Wilderness, one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.  The Wal-Mart will be adjacent to a National Park that commemorates the Battle and will be impossible to miss going into or coming out of this somber and serene setting. 

There was tremendous opposition to the site from the local community, Governor Tim Kaine, famous historians including Ken Burns and celebrities like Robert Duvall.

Wal-Mart did not care.  Despite the fact that there are six Wal-Mart’s within 20 miles of the current site slated for development, Wal-Mart thought it needed another to dominate the field. 

All but one of the local Orange County Commissioners yielded to Wal-Mart’s “pressure”.  They will have to answer to the voters eventually and should the voters send them packing, maybe they can go get a job at Wal-Mart as greeters.  If so, they might try dressing up like these guys….