Walmart retreats from the Wilderness

[NoPasaran]

Walmart Abandons Plans to Build Supercenter on Wilderness Battlefield

In an unexpected development, Walmart announced this morning that it has abandoned plans to pursue a special use permit previously awarded to the retail giant for construction of a supercenter on the Wilderness Battlefield. The decision came as the trial in a legal challenge seeking to overturn the special use permit was scheduled to begin in Orange County circuit court.

In August 2009, the Orange County Board of Supervisors approved a controversial special use permit to allow construction of the Walmart Supercenter and associated commercial development on the Wilderness Battlefield. A wide range of prominent individuals and organizations publicly opposed the store’s location, including more than 250 American historians led by Pulitzer Prize-winners James McPherson and David McCullough. One month after the decision, a group of concerned citizens and the local Friends of Wilderness Battlefield filed a legal challenge to overturn the decision.

The Battle of the Wilderness, fought May 5–6, 1864, was one of the most significant engagements of the American Civil War. Of the 185,000 soldiers who entered combat amid the tangled mass of second-growth trees and scrub in Virginia’s Orange and Spotsylvania counties, some 30,000 became casualties. The Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, composed of Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, Piedmont Environmental Council, Preservation Virginia, National Trust for Historic Preservation, National Parks Conservation Association, and Civil War Trust, seeks to protect this irreplaceable local and national treasure.

http://www.civilwar.org/aboutus/news/news-releases/2011-news/walmart-abandons-wilderness-plans.html

[sinkingfeeling]

1. This makes me very pleased.

[onethatcares]

2. ah hell,

ya seen one battlefied, ya seen em all and besides we need a bunch of that "associated commecial development" hither and yon.:sarcasm:

[lame54]

3. That site is a symbol of extreme misery and callousness...

A perfect location for a WalMart

[blondeatlast]

4. Thank goodness. There is a Wal-Mart DIRECTLY across from this magnificent

structure and it makes me literally ill:


The Casa Grande Ruins in Coolidge, Arizona


The ruins were abandoned around 1450 and were there possibly hundreds of years before that.

[LibertyLover]

5. I remember visiting Casa Grande when I was 5 or 6

now 50 years ago (ok, that made me feel old). My mom, dad and I had the site to ourselves, well us and the ranger. I still remember how thrilled he was to have visitors and the amazing tour he gave us. How sad to think that a Walmart is now across the road. How sad.

[blondeatlast]

6. I lived in Collidge for 3 years as a kid and when I saw that monstrosity

on a return visit I really did get sick to my stomach. Of course, it eviscerated downtown as well. :mad: