Orange Editorial: Walmart Does Not Make Us Less Historic
2009-07-23
By Jeff Poole Few topics have dominated our local discourse to the degree the proposed Route 3 Walmart supercenter has. Though no brick has yet been laid, Walmart’s nebulous presence clouds almost every conversation.
Review Managing Editor
Published: July 23, 2009
There are those who believe the retail giant is evil and its cloud eventually will block the sun, dry up the revenue streams of tourism and independent retailers, wash away the legacy of thousands of valiant Civil War soldiers and generally ruin local life as we know it. Then there are those who believe the cloud carries a silver lining of jobs and tax revenue, not to mention shopping options and the promise of further commercial growth.
For more than a year, collectively we’ve been discussing Walmart. Is it good or bad? In the right place or not? Blessing or blasphemy?
In Orange County right now, we have six national discount retail chain stores (three Dollar Generals, including two in Orange, two Family Dollars and a Maxway). Anybody objecting to the dollar stores? Only in Gordonsville when a fourth Dollar General closed.
After all, these are national chain stores, and Dollar General checks in at 259th among the Fortune 500. Family Dollar is 359th on that list. Walmart is second.
The current discount retail department stores are all in designated growth areas–much as the proposed Walmart would be. The existing stores are in shopping centers among high population concentrations–much as the proposed Walmart would be.
Certainly, the proposed Walmart store is much larger than these existing facilities, but not when you consider the collective size of their fellow shopping center tenants. At the same time, the history that these stores look out upon is no less important than the neighboring battlefield is to the proposed Walmart.
In Orange, one Dollar General is not far from the historic Mayhurst Inn where A.P. Hill headquartered in 1863 (if we follow our Frank Walker history correctly). That’s to say nothing of its relative proximity to other historic local features. Walker’s “Remembering: A History of Orange County” notes the nearby Route 15 home of Woodley was the home James Madison’s brother Ambrose built opposite the southwest mountain ridge of Montpelier and part of the original Montpelier patent. Anyone care to argue Montpelier and Madison are less important than the Wilderness Battlefield? Probably not.
Meanwhile, across town, Orange’s second Dollar General, its Maxway and Family Dollar Store all stare up at Orange County’s historic courthouse every day. In front of the stores is the historic Route 15–the veritable Journey Through Hallowed Ground. Behind it, the Norfolk-Southern rail line that carried troops and supplies to and from war, steel to build, cars to drive, people to love, life to live.
Over in Gordonsville, the Family Dollar sits a little more than half a mile from a fairly historic place called the Exchange Hotel–a one-time Civil War receiving hospital that treated nearly 25,000 dying and wounded soldiers. Many from the Battle of the Wilderness.
The point is history is all around us. It’s not confined to a battlefield. It’s not limited to land owned by the park service. It’s tangible and intangible. It’s our legacy and our life. Some may argue the Wilderness Battlefield was more singularly significant than the aforementioned sites, but history isn’t a singular proposition–it’s a collective one. All of Orange County is historic, but our history is not defined by an old house here, a battlefield there.
We love our history–all of our history–not just our 19th century Civil War history or our 18th century Constitutional history. We spend so much time arguing the significance of a Civil War battlefield, neglecting the history of those who walked, farmed, hunted and lived on these lands before our ancestors even arrived. We love all our history.
But what does that history gain us if our community stumbles for lack of sustainability? To remain a viable, progressive community, we need to accept a certain level of reasonable growth.
Building Walmart doesn’t make Orange County less historic any more than four Dollar Generals, two Family Dollars and a Maxway did.
It just means we’re putting up another national discount retailer on an area we’ve already designated as a growth area (like the two towns where the six other stores are).
The public hearing is Monday night. See you there
