Thank our grandparents for their foresight in 1935; we have similar choice

This op-ed piece by Dan Brown, superintendent of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on October 31, 2006. It was accompanied by telling pictures of the mountain in the 1930s and the view from the top toward 41 at Old 41 today.

Look to the past on parks vote

Cobb County's $40 million bond referendum on the Nov. 7 ballot to buy land for county parks is reminiscent of the efforts to create Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

In 1926, congressional legislation was introduced to create a national memorial military park at Kennesaw Mountain. But support for passage took time, and the clock was ticking. The slopes of Kennesaw Mountain had already been laid out in building lots and 130 of those lots had been sold. Investors had plans to build a hotel on the mountain and develop the surrounding real estate. They had even built a rough road up the mountain. When Congress finally authorized the park in 1935, land acquisition generated considerable controversy.

In anticipation of the government's land purchase, some set high valuations on the land, hoping to make good profit. Others expressed concern about spending money for a park so far from Atlanta that few would ever visit. But local citizens urged cooperation because of the potential long-range benefits they saw from the creation of the park. The concerns and the foresight were both true —- only 4,648 visitors came to the park in 1939. But annual visitation today totals nearly 1.5 million, and few could imagine living in Cobb County without Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

For the past two years, Kennesaw Mountain has been listed as one of our country's 10 most endangered battlefields by the Civil War Preservation Trust. More than 1,200 homes have been built around the park in the past 10 years, 160,000 cars a day traverse park roads, and more than 1 million people use the 21-mile trail system each year (by comparison, the Appalachian Trail has only 2 million hikers on its 2,100 miles of trail).

The "Second Battle of Kennesaw Mountain" occurs nearly every weekend —- the battle of trying to find a parking space.

Back in 1935, few could have imagined this. Today this rapid development and ever increasing visitation threatens the integrity of these unique resources at Kennesaw Mountain. Stephen T. Mather, the first director for the National Park Service, consistently urged the creation of state and local parks with natural recreational areas that would act as safety valves to the national parks.

We were in the depth of a Depression in 1935, and Congress was only able to appropriate $125,000 for the 2,884 acres of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. That sounds like a meager sum to us now, but it represented a real sacrifice in 1935.

At today's land prices, that same Kennesaw Mountain acreage would cost more than $500 million. But if the land had been developed, it would not have been available at any price. We thank our grandparents for their foresight back in 1935. Our generation now has a similar choice.