Ben Purscell. Great Blue Heron with Hatchlings, 1996. Stone mosaic, 12" x 30".
The Development/Preservation Dance:
Part V: Eliza’s Revenge
prog·ress (pròg´rès´, -res, pro´grès´) noun
[Middle English progresse, Old French, progres, Latin progressus, from past participle of progredì, to advance : pro-, forward, and -gredi, to step.]
1. Movement, as toward a goal; advance.
2. Development or growth.
3. Steady improvement, as of a society or civilization.
4. A ceremonial journey made by a sovereign through his or her realm.
There’s a place that I know of, intimately, that is currently in a battle with that state’s Department of Roads. The location is a small resort community, somewhere in the American midwest, settled on a small group of lakes. The DOR wishes to widen the highway through the community to three lanes, because traffic through it has become congested and dangerous. Some members of the community complain that the unique character of the area will be destroyed by the highway. Despite my inherent predilections as a preservationist, I have no sympathy for the community, and I’ll tell you why.
Before Columbus’s successors found their way into the hinterlands of North America, this area was quiet and peaceful, inhabited on a seasonal basis by people who likely considered the area sacred. Lakes in this part of the world are clear, deep, and cold, created from melted ice chips from the last glacial retreat. Migratory waterfowl live here yet, great blue herons and snowy egrets, and when the Native Americans lived here, the lakes were nestled in the prairie, with a little fringe of coniferous forest. About the middle of the 19th century, European-Americans finally made it into this area, and they began settling the lakes. Actually, things were pretty unsettled, if you’ll pardon the pun, and when a war broke out between the Sioux and the new settlers, all of the 30 or so residents of the area were slaughtered or kidnapped. Eventually, the Sioux lost. The Euro-Americans returned to the area, and one of the kidnapped women joined the lecture circuit, traveling from town to town throughout the country talking about the dreadful circumstances of her capture and the death of her family.
The woman, call her Eliza, eventually returned to the small town that grew in the lakes region, and began working with the community leaders to turn the town into an amusement center, a vacation resort for wealthy people to enjoy. First a railroad line was built to the community. An amusement park, including a roller coaster and Ferris wheel was erected by the 1920s, and streets and houses of all sizes and makes were built over the Native American and early historic sites. Today, the area is filled with bikini shops and sports bars; jet-ski rental agencies and fast food restaurants and motels. The community is well aware of their past; they proudly point to the markers where the early cabins of the Euro-American settlers had been, unconcerned that water mains and sewer lines underlie every single one. One local reported an archaeological site under a parking lot; he knew it was there, he said, because he’d watched as they’d bulldozed off two feet of the topsoil and "I saw lots of potsherds and things." Eliza would be proud.
So no, I’m not very concerned with the DOR’s destruction of the "character" of the lakes region. Make no mistake, I enjoy visiting the lakes region; I have a peculiar fondness for early 20th century tacky architecture. But what I don’t see is the trauma that is said will be created by an extra lane of concrete through an already artificially built environment.
A Native American friend pointed out to me that the lakes are still sacred. You just have to look harder.
conservator (ken-sûr´ve-ter, kòn´ser-vâ´ter) noun
[Latin, conservatio, from conservare, to keep; from com-, together, and servare, to keep, save]
1. A person in charge of maintaining or restoring valuable items, as in a museum or library.
2. One that conserves or preserves from injury, violation, or infraction; a protector.
3. Law. One that is responsible for the person and property of an incompetent.
conservatorship noun
Note: Since I wrote this column, three years ago now, the new
concrete has been laid and the arguments have been settled. The development and
preservation dance will continue to be played out in different tempos and different
resolutions in different parts of the world.
This column is part of a series on various issues in the continuing Development/Preservation battles that occur.
