This outline is intended to introduce the idea of designating a “heritage area” in part of northern Nye County, and to encourage discussion of it. Potential benefits include increased tourism and economic development, increased federal funding, conservation of important historical resources, and ultimate control over the area’s future by its own residents.
BENEFITS OF
A NATIONAL HERITAGE AREA
FOR NORTHERN NYE COUNTY
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A heritage area is a place designated by Congress as illustrating a
particularly important part of our national history. The nineteenth
century western frontier was one of the most formative influences on the
American character. A Nye County heritage area would honor
that part of our history by protecting and highlighting two of the local
industries most closely associated with the original frontier -- mining
and open-range ranching. An area tied to these themes would enable
the county to present itself as an important travel destination and, like
Independence Hall or Gettysburg, as a place with something important to
teach the rest of the country.
A heritage area performs a number of specific tasks:
• It acts as an administrative overlay that can tie together a variety
of independent historical properties and present them as a group.
• It organizes a variety of interpretive projects to do this, including
preparation of signs, brochures, maps, guidebooks, and commercial directories.
• It makes grants to suitable projects, including museums, historic
buildings, and businesses that are related to the historic themes
of the area.
• In these ways it can help to rehabilitate and restore towns of historic
interest.
A heritage area has a number of concrete benefits:
• Heritage areas receive federal operating funds averaging $590,000
a year for ten years.
• Heritage areas raise six additional dollars in other grants and investments
for each dollar of their federal budget
• Heritage areas are listed in Interior Department publications and
websites, and so they have a high visibility that increases tourism by
approximately 20 percent.
These benefits can be secured without sacrificing local control:
• While the heritage area program is “located” in the Park Service,
heritage areas are not subject to Park Service or federal direction.
• A heritage area does not alter existing property ownership or land
use, and it does not have power to impose zoning rules.
• The federal budget for the area is paid to a local management coalition,
which is forbidden to use these funds to acquire real property.
A heritage area in Nye County might include the following features:
• It could cover an area about 30 miles east to west, and 60 miles north
to south, with Tonopah at the southwest corner.
• The “mining towns” aspect of the area could center on Tonopah and
Belmont.
• The “open range ranching” aspect could center on the Monitor and
Stone Cabin valleys
• If it seems feasible to include some other jurisdictions, and if
they desire it, Goldfield would be a nearby and obvious addition.
Heritage areas are run by a “management entity” specified in the legislation that creates them. This entity is usually a coalition of local organizations. Here it could have the following members:
• A voting majority of the members would be local groups, such as a
local historical museum, a Tonopah business betterment group, and the county
itself.
• A few members of the coalition might be groups with more national
visibility, such as the Nevada state historical society.
• A larger advisory board could include several dozen organizations
and could provide a variety of perspectives and opportunities for input.
As part of formulating its management plan for the heritage area, the governing coalition should discuss the feasibility and desirability of establishing additional features that will attract tourists and investment funds to the area, while at the same time preserving its unique historic character. For example, one goal of the Bright Angel Frontier Project is to promote discussion of the idea of establishing a string of three to six small towns, based on 19th-century historic models, on presently empty public lands. This group of period towns could have several desirable features:
• It would allow the frontier to be re-created on a scale large enough
to step into and experience on its own terms, and which will show what
the original towns of Nye County were like when they were new.
• It could become a unique travel destination, one that on some preliminary
calculations might bring in new income of about $35 million a year.
• Some of the profits from this area could be transferred to the overall
heritage area and could provide it with a permanent and independent source
of funding.
• But if this project turns out, on study, not to be feasible then
it need not be pursued, and the heritage area can stand without it.
Having a national heritage area may affirmatively help the county to protect certain current activities -- like traditional ranching -- that deserve protection:
• The county could include traditional ranching in the management plan
of the heritage area.
• The plan would be an important factor to the federal land agencies
as they develop their own management plans for lands that are subject to
federal control but are within the boundaries of the heritage area.
If the county decides that it wants a heritage area, then there is a fairly well-defined path to follow:
• Conduct local discussions among interested parties regarding the decision
to seek heritage area designation and funding.
• Contact the state Historic Preservation Officer, who has access to
many resources (possibly including financial support) that are useful in
preparing a legislative proposal.
• Write up a formal proposal for the heritage area. This should
be in a form suitable for submission to the Interior Department and to
Congress and should include the following: (a) a listing of the historic,
cultural, and natural resources in the area, and an explanation of how
they tell a part of the national story; (b) a rough plan of how these places
can be preserved and presented in a way that will eventually become financially
self-supporting; (c) a description of the support from local residents;
and (d) a description of support from local institutions, including those
that would be members of the management coalition.
• Prepare draft legislation to designate the area.
• Develop support from the Nevada delegation in Congress.
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Neil Averitt
Bright Angel Frontier Project
www.brightangel.org
naveritt@brightangel.org
202-607-9008
Neil Averitt is a lawyer and the founder of the Bright Angel Frontier Project. He spent his childhood summers in Cedar City, Utah, where his father was mapping as a coal geologist; went to high school in Denver, Colorado; and now works in Washington, D.C.
The Bright Angel Frontier Project is conceived as a way of preserving some of the traditional qualities of rural Western life that were visible in Utah and Nevada, but in a form that will be economically self-sustaining in the modern world. The Bright Angel project has no financial interest in the ideas being proposed here. It is, however, available to help to research issues, answer questions, or assist with technical tasks such as filing for grants.