Frontier Area — Nye Heritage Area Overview

January 2005

FOR 

NORTHERN NYE COUNTY

 

This outline is intended to introduce the idea of designating a “heritage area” in part of northern Nye County, and to encourage discussion of it. Potential benefits include increased tourism and economic development, increased federal funding, conservation of important historical resources, and ultimate control over the area’s future by its own residents.

A heritage area is a place designated by Congress as illustrating a particularly important part of our national history.  The nineteenth century western frontier was one of the most formative influences on the American character.  A Nye County  heritage area would honor that part of our history by protecting and highlighting two of the local industries most closely associated with the original frontier — mining and open-range ranching.  An area tied to these themes would enable the county to present itself as an important travel destination and, like Independence Hall or Gettysburg, as a place with something important to teach the rest of the country.

A heritage area performs a number of specific tasks:

• It acts as an administrative overlay that can tie together a variety of independent historical properties and present them as a group.
• It organizes a variety of interpretive projects to do this, including preparation of signs, brochures, maps, guidebooks, and commercial directories.
• It makes grants to suitable projects, including museums, historic buildings, and  businesses that are related to the historic themes of the area.
• In these ways it can help to rehabilitate and restore towns of historic interest.

A heritage area has a number of concrete benefits:

• Heritage areas receive federal operating funds averaging $590,000 a year for ten years.
• Heritage areas raise six additional dollars in other grants and investments for each dollar of their federal budget
• Heritage areas are listed in Interior Department publications and websites, and so they have a high visibility that increases tourism by approximately 20 percent.

These benefits can be secured without sacrificing local control:

• While the heritage area program is “located” in the Park Service, heritage areas are not subject to Park Service or federal direction.
• A heritage area does not alter existing property ownership or land use, and it does not have power to impose zoning rules.
• The federal budget for the area is paid to a local management coalition, which is forbidden to use these funds to acquire real property.

A heritage area in Nye County might include the following features:

• It could cover an area about 30 miles east to west, and 60 miles north to south, with Tonopah at the southwest corner.
• The “mining towns” aspect of the area could center on Tonopah and Belmont.
• The “open range ranching” aspect could center on the Monitor and Stone Cabin valleys
• If it seems feasible to include some other jurisdictions, and if they desire it, Goldfield would be a nearby and obvious addition.

Heritage areas are run by a “management entity” specified in the legislation that creates them.  This entity is usually a coalition of local organizations.  Here it could have the following members:

• A voting majority of the members would be local groups, such as a local historical museum, a Tonopah business betterment group, and the county itself.
• A few members of the coalition might be groups with more national visibility, such as the Nevada state historical society.
• A larger advisory board could include several dozen organizations and could provide a variety of perspectives and opportunities for input.

As part of formulating its management plan for the heritage area, the governing coalition should discuss the feasibility and desirability of establishing additional features that will attract tourists and investment funds to the area, while at the same time preserving its unique historic character.  For example, one goal of the Bright Angel Frontier Project is to promote discussion of the idea of establishing a string of three to six small towns, based on 19th-century historic models, on presently empty public lands.

This group of period towns could have several desirable features:

• It would allow the frontier to be re-created on a scale large enough to step into and experience on its own terms, and which will show what the original towns of Nye County were like when they were new.
• It could become a unique travel destination, one that on some preliminary calculations might bring in new income of about $35 million a year.
• Some of the profits from this area could be transferred to the overall heritage area and could provide it with a permanent and independent source of funding.
• But if this project turns out, on study, not to be feasible then it need not be pursued, and the heritage area can stand without it.

Having a national heritage area may affirmatively help the county to protect certain current activities — like traditional ranching — that deserve protection:

• The county could include traditional ranching in the management plan of the heritage area.
• The plan would be an important factor to the federal land agencies as they develop their own management plans for lands that are subject to federal control but are within the boundaries of the heritage area.

If the county decides that it wants a heritage area, then there is a fairly well-defined path to follow:

• Conduct local discussions among interested parties regarding the decision to seek heritage area designation and funding.
• Contact the state Historic Preservation Officer, who has access to many resources (possibly including financial support) that are useful in preparing a legislative proposal.
• Write up a formal proposal for the heritage area.  This should be in a form suitable for submission to the Interior Department and to Congress and should include the following:  (a) a listing of the historic, cultural, and natural resources in the area, and an explanation of how they tell a part of the national story; (b) a rough plan of how these places can be preserved and presented in a way that will eventually become financially self-supporting; (c) a description of the support from local residents; and (d) a description of support from local institutions, including those that would be members of the management coalition.
• Prepare draft legislation to designate the area.
• Develop support from the Nevada delegation in Congress.