My buddy Paul Nyden had the story Sunday, updating us all on plans for an appeal of the Obama administration’s decision to remove Blair Mountain from the National Register of Historic Places.
Paul included some interesting comments from Harvard Ayers, a retired archaeology and anthropology professor at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., who researched Blair Mountain:
In 2006, five coal and land companies filed a suit in Logan County opposing the expansion of any protected historical areas. They included: Boone West Development Co., a Massey Energy subsidiary; Hobet Mining and Ark Land Co., Arch Coal subsidiaries; Dingess-Rum Properties and Allegheny Land Co.
Ayers said the part of the ongoing dispute centers on how many “objectors” to preserving the site there are among local landowners.
The West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office previously found 30 objectors among 57 landowners, Ayers said, which meant a majority of landowners did not want to preserve the site.
On Friday, Ayers said those figures are inaccurate, noting that two “objectors” were deceased and another two were not the real landowners.
In addition, Ayers said, SHPO misplaced letters from another eight landowners who support preservation of the Blair Mountain site.
“Instead of 57 landowners that included 30 objectors,” Ayers said, “we found there were 61 landowners that included only 25 objectors.”
Some of this was previously addressed by Jeff Biggers, writing for The Huffington Post:
The Blair Mountain Scandal, though, just might be the most bizarre show in town this week. On December 30, 2009, the historic Blair Mountain Battlefield was removed from the National Register by the Interim Keeper of the National Register, Carol Shull, despite the fact that the WV State Historic Preservation Officer list of land-owning objectors admittedly included TWO DEAD PEOPLE and two life estate holders–all of whom should be disqualified.
Not quite admittedly: In an email inquiry on January 6th, WV SHPO Susan Pierce wrote: “We cannot confirm or deny that there are no deceased on the SHPO list dated May 21, 2009.”
Wow, this is a remarkable statement: If the SHPO, whose state mandate is to “identify, recognize, preserve and protect West Virginia’s prehistoric and historic structures and sites,” openly doesn’t even know who is an objector on the Blair Mountain list, outside of what she has been told by the coal companies, should her office be investigated for regulatory negligence?
And what about the National Park Service, and Interim Keeper of the National Register, Carol Shull–should they be investigated for regulatory violations?
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Unbelievable. I am against the removal of Blair Mountain from the national register. It is part of the history of WV as well as OUR country, the United States of America. Start doing it here and eventually our states and country will not have any reason to have a national register. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
This is all due to incompetence. Really sad.
Folks,
I just received this in an email from Harvard Ayers, pointing out what he says was an error in Paul’s Sunday story. I wanted to pass it on to Coal Tattoo readers:
After the state of West Virginia Archives and History Commission decided unanimously to support the listing, the
WV AG’s office was asked by the SHPO to do a study of the tax
records of properties within the boundary of the nomination. When the ownership info came through, the SHPO got together the form letters objecting to the listing, and sent that land
owner/objections information to the Keeper. The numbers were 57 owners and 22 objections. That meant the objectors were less than half the number of owners, and on that basis the Keeper, on March 30, 2009, listed the battlesite. On April 6, 2009, the SHPO wrote to the Keeper stating that his office had inadvertently misplaced eight objection form letters, and that changed the count to the same 57 owners, but with 30 objecting. That meant the objectors were over half the owners, thus disqualifying the listing due to that procedural counting error so the Keeper stated his intent to de-list the site.
Take home- The eight misplaced letters of objection were objectors, not non-objectors. Thanks for correcting that.
Ken.