We have suggested that the Parkway become part of a National Heritage Area, a program of the National Parks Service, but locally managed by a nonprofit organization.
National Heritage Area status, while allowing Parkway land ownership to remain in public hands but allowing for a local nonprofit organization to manage the Parkway, would ensure a federal funding stream long enough to develop endowment funding, and provide additional benefits that national stature endows upon a natural resource.
One already established is the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area in Pennsylvania and as you read this imagine Rivers of Gold instead, and the corresponding language in place of what is said about Rivers of Steel and you can get a sense of what we would like to see occur here.
Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area
Welcome to Rivers of Steel
From 1875 to 1980, southwestern Pennsylvania was the Steel Making Capital of the World, producing the steel for some of America's greatest icons such as the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building. During World War I and II, our steel workers carried a nation's defense on their backs, producing more steel, armor and armaments in a single year than entire countries. While many of the region's legendary mill sites have been dismantled, and it has been decades since the mills belched fire and smoke over Pittsburgh's skyline, the enormity of the region's steel-making contributions and its historical significance to the nation demand its story be told and its sites be preserved.
Created by Congress in 1996, the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area is committed to preserving, interpreting, and managing the historic, cultural, and natural resources related to Big Steel and its related industries. Encompassing 3,000 square miles in the seven counties of Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Westmoreland, Greene, Fayette, and Washington, Rivers of Steel is building on this area's remarkable transition from heavy industry to high technology and diversified services as well as bolstering the new regional economy by promoting tourism and economic development based on this region's historic industrial saga.
A multifaceted program, the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area's mission includes: historic preservation, cultural conservation, education, recreation and resource development. Currently, the Heritage Area has bills in Congress to create the Homestead Works National Park. The proposed park would be located on 38 acres surrounding the Carrie Furnaces, the last of the giant blast furnaces from the Homestead Works, and the Pump House, site of the bloody 1892 Homestead Steel Strike.
