Agenda - 09-07-2005-5f - Laserfiche WebLink

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1i Preliminary Project Description Orange, Durham, Person County Trading Path Heritage Tourism Consortium August 31, 2005 Background The Trading Path Association (TPA) is a 501 c3 non-profit corporation headquartered in Hillsborough, NC. Its purpose is to find the trade routes of the 17th and 18th century Southeast. The proposed project will illuminate three of those old trade routes in Orange, Durham, and Person counties. In doing so it will illuminate an important but forgotten moment of multicultural society. The TPA project is immense and will take a great many years. The TPA will save as much as possible of the remnant archaeology of the southeastern Contact Period (1585-ca 1785). The Southeast was England's first frontier in the New World, and the lessons learned here shaped the American experience for ever after. Yet, we know next to nothing about the period for want of public documents. In very general terms we know it to have been a moment of cultural and genetic blending, of near rampant anarchy, a multicultural moment lost in the shadows of subsequent Black Codes and Jim Crow. This project would reveal and celebrate that singular moment. If the story will be told it will be told with archaeological artifacts. Hence the urgent need to preserve archaeology fast succumbing to urban sprawl. To accomplish this salvation the TPA has developed a message for county and municipal officials. That message is that their historic landscapes and archaeology have value as heritage tourism assets, and that it is better to know in advance where heritage artifacts are rather than collide with preservationists ad hoc with each threat of disturbance. This message resonates well at the local level. Davidson County, NC has the TPA mapping all of its historic river crossings (fords) in preparation for a full mapping of its old roads. Louisburg, INC has the TPA reinterpreting its early history, pushing its historical appeal back over one hundred and fifty years. In the short-term, by 2007, the TPA intends to have five to seven heritage tourism sites open (coinciding with the Jamestown 400 celebration) between Petersburg, VA and Augusta, GA. To that end we have identified two sites in VA and five in NC for development and incorporation in the program. We are working with authorities near the sites to develop the assets as Trading Path sites. Ultimately, the TPA intends to turn over to the National Park Service a 'non-contiguous national park' comprised of heritage sites focused on artifacts of the early trade routes and of the contact era. A consultancy grant will facilitate the TPA travel and coordination efforts in one element of that plan. Page 1 of 4