"The Park Service does its best to protect these national treasures [national parks], but it needs the partnership of local governments and local citizens, those who have the most at stake to fully achieve this objective." National Park Service Director William Penn Mott Jr. used his speech at the 125th anniversary ceremonies for the First Battle of Manassas to remind his audience of park concerns. In July 1986 Mott's words seemed especially pertinent to the Manassas National Battlefield Park. Just a few months earlier, the Hazel/Peterson Companies, a northern Virginia real estate development firm, had announced its plans to build a corporate office park and residential district, called the William Center, next to the battlefield park. The way the National Park Service handled the ensuing situation reflected Mott's call for partnerships. [1]

Fig. 12. Amidst musket firing demonstrations and period dress displays commemorating the 125th anniversary of the First Battle of Manassas, National Park Service Director William Penn Mott Jr. reminded attendees of present-day concerns when he called for the National Park Service to develop partnerships with local governments and local citizens to protect such national treasures as Manassas National Battlefield Park from outside development. (Photo by John McDonnell. © 1988, The Washington Post. Reprinted with permission)

Seeking partnerships outside the park was not entirely new for superintendents at the Manassas National Battlefield Park. Joseph Mills Hanson and James Myers had been active in community affairs during the 1940s and 1950s and had used these connections to obtain important acquisitions, including the Dogan House. Francis Wilshin had made it a point to talk with park visitors and enlist their aid in fighting threats to the park. Annie Snyder, a park neighbor recruited by Wilshin, remained an influential ally. Russell Berry took a similar approach when he held discussions with the Marriott Corporation in 1973.

The Service's handling of William Center marked an important change from previous efforts. For the first time, the Park Service became an active negotiator in affairs outside the park. For Hanson, Myers, and Wilshin, contacts with the local community had the sole purpose of adding lands to the park or protecting existing lands. Outside developments that did not touch historically significant land were noted but not formally opposed. During the Marriott theme park controversy, Berry did voice some concerns in his talks with the developer, but he purposely remained a neutral party. With William Center, the Park Service launched a new era of partnership that engaged the park as an active institutional player in the regional business environment.

It is unfortunate that it took until the 1980s for the Park Service to advocate active negotiations. In the 1970s Prince William County officials had made clear that they intended to encourage development up to the national park's borders, Neither the park superintendents nor their regional supervisors contacted county representatives or local business interests to discuss the park's concerns at that time. Such conversations, initiated before any specific development proposals surfaced, could have headed off damaging projects and avoided later protracted battles. Instead, the Park Service addressed each crisis as it appeared, without the benefit of long-range planning or allies in the local business community.

Interpretive Improvements

During the early 1980s, Superintendent Swain oversaw the first significant revisions in interpretation at the battlefield park since the closing of the Mission 66 era and the 1969 retirement of Wilshin. In early summer 1980, just before Swain's arrival, facilities at the visitor center underwent a major rehabilitation. An expanded lobby and new information desk were added to improve contacts with the public, ramps made the building accessible to handicapped visitors, and new administrative offices with refinished furniture brought much-needed space for park employees. [2]

As part of the 1980 rehabilitation, display space for the nonprofit Eastern National Park and Monument Association increased threefold, allowing the Manassas battlefield park to become one of the best sources of Civil War literature in the area. The association served as a friends group to various national park sites on the East Coast, using space in visitor centers to sell educational and travel materials related to the specific parks. Sales at the bookstore, which had hovered around $30,000, jumped more than 10 per cent in 1981 and rose steadily thereafter, amounting to more than $120,000 in 1985. According to the contract between the association and the NPS, receipts went to Eastern and then were distributed to the individual participating parks through a competitive grant process. Later, Eastern adopted a method that gave a standard 5 percent of gross sales to the participating park and 1 percent of sales to the regional office for discretionary use. As Manassas was the only park in the National Capital Region with an Eastern agency, Swain convinced the region to forward its percentage automatically to the battlefield park. This 6 percent of sales augmented the park's interpretation budget. [3]

Aside from the money it provided, Swain considered the expanded Eastern sales area in the visitor center an important part of the park's interpretive program. Each piece of quality information carried away by visitors extended their stay, allowing them to "interact with the resource, with the story of Manassas, days later, weeks later, months later." This "portable interpretation" elaborated on the Civil War battles and kept people in touch with the past. To aid in this effort, Swain avoided "rubber tomahawk" items and instead focused on book reprints, histories, and other educational materials. [4]

The improvements to the visitor center helped offset the understaffing of the park's interpretive program in 1980. For five months after the departure of R. Brien Varnado and before the arrival of Swain, chief historian Stuart Vogt assumed the duties of acting superintendent. Two park technicians left before the start of the traditionally busy summer season, leaving the interpretive program further shorthanded. Supervisory park technician David Ruth, who became the acting chief historian, and seasonal Michael Andrus, who coordinated the Volunteers-in-the-Park program and later became a full-time employee, made up the difference admirably, presenting guided tours, living history demonstrations, and Stone House self-directed tours. Further assistance came from James Burgess, who joined the interpretive staff later in the year. [5]

More enhancements to park interpretation followed. In 1982, prompted by the belief that the existing audiovisual program was the "worst interpretive film in the Park Service," the Sons of Confederate Veterans donated $7,000 to the park for a new one. Members of the Confederate organization pointed out to NPS Director Russell E. Dickenson that the old slide program, developed at the end of Wilshin's superintendency, failed to relate the significant events of the two Manassas battles, particularly Second Manassas, and instead gave a general overview of the entire Civil War. They also argued that the multiple causes for the Civil War needed explanation, not just the issue of slavery. [6]

The Park Service's Harpers Ferry exhibit planning center began designing a new audiovisual program, based on input from park and agency historians. Although recognizing the inadequacies of the former program in conveying specifics about the two Manassas battles, Swain stressed that he wanted a ten-to-twelve-minute show that appealed more to the general public than to the Civil War buff, who represented a small portion of the overall visitation at the park. Edwin C. Bearss, a well-known Civil War authority and then NPS chief historian, emphasized the need for augmenting the discussion on Second Manassas, especially making clear that this battle became a high-water mark for the South. [7]

The new slide program opened in the park's auditorium in time for the annual national camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in mid-August 1983. Reconstructing the narrative from diary entries, the show revolved around a Confederate soldier from the Stonewall Brigade and a Union soldier from the Iron Brigade who had fought at both First and Second Manassas. Period photographs, engravings, and Civil War music set the tone for the presentation. Visitors now had the opportunity to learn about the experiences of the men who had fought at Manassas. [8]

Another correction to the park's interpretive program came in 1985 when temporary historian John Hennessy completed sixteen Second Manassas troop movement maps, accompanied by 380 pages of supporting text. As Bearss later recalled, these maps should have been completed during the 1956-66 Mission 66 parks improvement program, but Wilshin had failed to recognize their usefulness as management and interpretive tools and did not pursue them. Hennessy's maps assisted Swain and the park historians in recognizing the significance of certain tracts of land and in enhancing Second Manassas interpretation. Some battle lines that had been "fogged in conjecture" were now clarified with solid documentation.[9]

Hennessy displayed his avid interest in Second Manassas and his thorough understanding of historical scholarship in his work on the troop movement maps. Swain had hired him as a temporary employee in 1980, and although Swain tried to obtain funding for upgrading the position to full time, Hennessy completed the maps as a temporary park historian. Swain later characterized the arrangement as outright exploitation because temporary employees did not receive full benefits. Swain did convince the Eastern National Park and Monument Association to fund a portion of Hennessy's travel research, which enabled him to conduct background research across the country. With this information in hand, he drew mockups of the maps, which the Denver Service Center then refined and prepared for publication through the Eastern park cooperating association. Bearss called the complete 380-page study a "model of its kind," representing "exceptionally high quality." [10]

Swain also encourage wayside exhibits. These trailside markers, positioned at key stops in the First and Second Manassas walking and auto tours, gave visitors information on the significance of a specific site to the two battles. Using the revised audiovisual program as a model, Woody Harrell, the chief park historian who had replaced Vogt in 1982, promoted the concept of letting "voices from the past . . . speak to the visitor today." As the waysides evolved, they included quotations from soldiers, troop position maps, photographic reproductions, and supporting text. The new exhibit markers, which were not installed until after Swain left in 1988, replaced what had been a hodge-podge of markers installed over the previous thirty years. [11]

More interpretive changes came in 1985 when Edmund Raus transferred from the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National Military Park to Manassas to take over Harrell's position of chief historian. With funding from Eastern National Park and Monument Association, Raus initiated bus tours of Second Manassas during summer 1986. This was so successful that it was repeated in subsequent years. Raus broadened the focus of the Stone House exhibits, which had centered on the building as a field hospital, to show the impact of the battles on civilians living on or near the battlefield. He also introduced special outreach programs to enhance the park's image in the community. He organized Saturday lectures and films in the visitor center auditorium, an annual Christmas open house, and five-mile guided hikes through the battlefield each spring and fall. With a $25,000 grant, Raus initiated a new park education program designed to meet state school curriculum standards and the needs of Prince William County school teachers. To encourage older children to learn about Civil War history, the park renewed its student intern program. [12]

Raus also helped organize the park's observances of the 125th anniversaries of the First and Second Battles of Manassas in 1986 and 1987. In keeping with the policy that NPS Director Conrad Wirth had established after the 1961 First Manassas Reenactment, the battlefield park hosted only special artillery firing demonstrations, leaving the large-scale reenactments to private organizations on non-national park lands. Civil War music programs and guided Second Manassas tours by Hennessy, who had since left the park, gave visitors an opportunity to learn about the battles and the time period. Many people from the local community returned several times to participate in the commemorative activities. [13]

William Penn Mott Jr., who followed Dickenson as NPS director in 1985, used the opportunity of the First Manassas anniversary gathering to address a modern-day threat to the integrity of historic sites. He noted that interstate highways, high-rise complexes, housing subdivisions, and other developments threatened to encircle protected national park areas. For a place like the Manassas battlefield, Mott warned that such intrusions could "destroy the historical atmosphere of the parks just as surely as adverse development within their boundaries." Scenic buffers and land acquisition were some avenues the National Park Service could pursue to protect national parks, but the example of the 1980 boundary expansion at Manassas demonstrated the high cost and protracted amount of time needed. [14]

Mott recognized that each national park site relied on the zoning and building permit system established and enforced by local jurisdictions for the effective control of the surrounding land. In an effort to build bridges with these officials and their voting publics, Mott invited his listeners to join in partnership with the Park Service to serve the needs of both the local community and the national parks. He defended this arrangement by pointing to the benefits of having a place like the Manassas battlefield park in Prince William County. Tourist spending helped the local economy while residents could enjoy the attractive open space maintained by the federal government. The national park also enhanced the quality of life in the county by attracting new industry and employers to the area. By considering the relationship as a partnership in which everyone benefited, Mott hoped to address development threats in a nonconfrontational manner. His olive branch offering was ignored by Prince William County officials but accepted by the William Center developer, Hazel/Peterson Companies. [15]

Planned Mixed-Use Development

Director Mott's call for partnerships between the local community and the National Park Service faced its first test in 1986 when Prince William County representatives reviewed a new zoning category, at Hazel/Peterson Companies' request, called a planned mixed-use district (PMD). This category, which would "encourage and accommodate a mix of commercial, office and residential development," represented a changing trend in real estate development. Pioneered in Houston by developer Gerald D. Hines, planned mixed use linked a range of commercial and business enterprises together in an integrated space that economically offset the high cost of the land. The Houston Galleria joined for the first time a retail mall, a hotel, and an office tower, all interconnected and serviced by multilevel parking garages that allowed consumers to park once and walk to their different destinations within the larger complex. [16]

Hazel/Peterson, along with other developers nationwide, adopted this plan for suburban development and added a residential component, giving people the opportunity to live close to where they worked and shopped. This mix became a powerful draw for corporations, which were always seeking the best and brightest employees they could afford. People liked the idea of working in a setting that was close to home with nearby shopping alternatives, and businesses responded in growing numbers by moving to planned mixed-use areas, with the Hazel/Peterson Fair Lakes development in Fairfax County, Virginia, being one notable example. [17]

Fair Lakes is a complex combination of imposing development and park-like settings. Its 657 acres contain more than 5 million square feet of office retail, and hotel space, an amount comparable to the city of Dayton, Ohio. Winding roads pass walking paths and ponds where Hazel/Peterson encouraged waterfowl to nest. Plenty of trees and shrubbery soften the contours further, making Fair Lakes seem more like a park than the economically driven business community it is. Small shopping centers are located within the development, and a full-scale regional mall called Fair Oaks sits only five miles down the road. Houses complete the mix. According to Milt Peterson, who had joined forces with John T. ("Til") Hazel in 1970 to create what would become one of the largest real estate development companies in northern Virginia, Fair Lakes residents and workers have the sense of living and working in the country, a pleasing alternative to commuting from suburban subdivisions to crowded downtown office buildings. [18]

Hazel/Peterson wanted to build the same type of mixed-use development in Prince William County on the old Marriott tract. Although this tract had A-1 agricultural zoning, the county had designated the site for corporate park development in its 1982 comprehensive plan. Superintendent Swain opposed this designation during the public review process, asking for more specific information on the type of development that might be approved, such as height restrictions and level of density. Prince William representatives left these questions unanswered until a definite proposal was made. [19]

Two development plans were presented during the first half of the 1980s, both of which were warmly received by the county. First, the state of Virginia considered building the Center for Innovative Technology in Prince William County, and the county convinced Marriott, still the landowner, to offer 150 acres toward a package bid. The state instead chose a site along the Dulles Toll Road. Then in 1985, Centennial Development Corporation purchased the entire tract from Marriott and announced its plans to build a high-technology office park. In December of that year, however, Centennial backed out, citing high investment costs. Exact descriptions of these development projects were never completed, leaving Swain with the uncomfortable belief that the county would support almost any type of corporate park development next to the battlefield park. His fears were confirmed in spring 1986 when the Hazel/Peterson Companies obtained an option on the same land and pursued its vision of building a Fair Lakes-type community in Prince William County. [20]

Before Hazel/Peterson could begin developing the land, the planned mixed-use district zoning—a category that did not exist in Prince William County—had to be approved. Although eager to have the planned office park, the board of county supervisors had less interest in the residential component, which demanded more government-funded services and produced less net tax revenues than commercial developments. Fearing that Hazel/Peterson would otherwise abandon the site, the supervisors finally acquiesced and approved the PMD zoning in April 1986. Having the complete development was more important to the supervisors than losing everything over one of its components. Their fears were well-grounded. A month later Hazel argued that it was "totally absurd" for his company to build the office park without the further incentives a residential-retail area would provide. [21]

With the required zoning in place, Hazel/Peterson announced in May what it envisioned for William Center, the 542-acre development that would sit next to the Manassas National Battlefield Park. Modeled after Fair Lakes, William Center would include an office park of about 275 acres; a residential neighborhood consisting of 975 townhouses, garden apartments, and single-family homes; and a small shopping center. Hazel expected the project to take ten years to build, and although he would not set a figure on its value, development officials estimated its cost as exceeding $100 million. Hazel did boast that William Center would be a "catalytic agent" for a commercial boom in Prince William County, blazing the way for expanded economic development along the I-66 corridor. [22]

Negotiations With Hazel/Peterson

When Swain saw the newspaper headlines announcing the William Center proposal, he considered his options. He knew that because the county had approved mixed-use district zoning at the request of Hazel/Peterson, it would view favorably the company's specific proposal for William Center. Making any opposing statements during the public review process seemed fruitless. Swain based this judgment on his past experiences at county public hearings: developers had unlimited time in which to present their proposals at zoning hearings, but Swain had a three-minute time limit to make his case. After three minutes, the county representatives would cut him off. [23]

It had become Swain's custom to pack as much information as possible on the visual impact of new buildings along the park's periphery into these three-minute presentations. He felt the Manassas National Battlefield Park had the potential to be "self-buffering" because its rounded shape allowed visitors the opportunity to escape the heavy development in northern Virginia and step back into a nineteenth-century countryside. Tall buildings along the boundaries would disrupt this historic presence, constantly reminding people of the present. During the zoning hearing over the proposal to build a ten-story Holiday Inn near the park's southern entrance, Swain showed its potential visual intrusion by running helium balloons at the proposed height of the building and then photographing the balloons from different places in the park. By restricting the height of the Holiday Inn and using trees to hide the building, Swain argued that the development would not interfere with the historic preservation mission of battlefield park. [24]

In an ideal world, Swain would have liked no new buildings near the park, but he understood the county's need to diversify its tax base. By asking for height restrictions, he offered what he thought was a compromise. But the county ignored Swain's pleas and in November 1985 amended the regulations for its commercial zoning category to increase the height restriction from forty-five to seventy feet. As Swain wrote in his weekly report at the time, "it appears that Prince William County is going out of its way to accommodate the wishes of developers." [25]

In view of the county's history toward developers and the park, Swain gained permission from the regional director to contact the Hazel/Peterson Companies directly to discuss park concerns over the William Center proposal. Swain began these negotiations in June 1986, one month before Director Mott's speech encouraging active partnerships between the Park Service and local jurisdictions. These negotiations also came before Hazel/Peterson presented its proposal to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors for review and approval. Swain found the developer a willing listener and negotiator. As Til Hazel later stated, "it wasn't our intention to be hostile to the Park Service.... [It was] simply a good faith effort" to keep an interested neighbor informed. Hazel had obtained the option on the Marriott tract with some trepidation, knowing that the Park Service had once considered acquiring the tract. He had reviewed the 1980 Senate hearings over the boundary expansion and felt assured that the Service no longer had an interest in obtaining the land. Sen. Dale Bumpers, who headed the Interior subcommittee that approved the 1980 legislation, later agreed with Hazel's characterization, saying that the 1980 park expansion was supposed to be the final one. Hazel, wanting to avoid contests with the park or park advocates, welcomed the opportunity to talk with the park superintendent. [26]

These discussions between Hazel/Peterson and Swain resulted in the developer adopting several proffers that largely addressed the Park Service's major concerns about William Center. One series of proffers dealt with the visual impact of the development on the battlefield park. First, Swain asked for and obtained an extended buffer zone along Lee Highway, including plantings, berms, or other suitable methods to screen the development from view, thereby protecting the park's Brawner Farm tract from being overwhelmed by its neighbor across the street. Unfortunately, Hazel/Peterson planned to use deciduous trees as a screen, which would fail to hide the development during the winter. Second, Hazel/Peterson agreed to limit the height of all buildings to forty-five feet. Although the planned mixed-use district zoning (which was separate from the commercial zoning category) already contained this restriction, special use permits could be granted by the county for a particular development. Swain convinced Hazel/Peterson of the importance of staying within the forty-five-foot limit for the sake of reducing the visual impact on the park. [27]

Four additional proffers related directly to traffic concerns. First, Hazel/Peterson agreed to provide $2,250,000 toward the design and construction of an interchange at Interstate 66 and the proposed William Center Boulevard, the main artery for the development. This interchange would relieve traffic on Lee Highway through the battlefield park and provide easy access for residential and commercial residents of William Center. Swain expected this interchange to become part of the larger Route 234 bypass that the county had proposed building. Hazel/Peterson also agreed to direct William Center Boulevard traffic south onto Groveton Road, an existing road that separated the proposed William Center from the battlefield park. This arrangement would prevent overloading the Route 234—Lee Highway intersection. Another nod toward traffic concerns included eliminating Lee Highway access to the community shopping center, meant to decrease use of this already heavily traveled road. Finally, the developer agreed to construct storm water retention ponds to limit drainage to the predevelopment rate. This action would prevent frequent flooding of the Lee Highway—Route 234 intersection, where the Stone House stood. [28]

Hazel/Peterson addressed other concerns raised by local residents with additional proffers. The Northwest Prince William Citizens Association (NWPWCA), of which Annie Snyder was a member, persuaded Hazel/Peterson to decrease the number of residential units in the William Center development from 975 dwellings to 560, thereby reducing the county's burden to provide adequate schools and other services for these new residents. To further assist the county, the developer agreed to contribute $50,000 toward public school site acquisition and construction and another $100,000 for public school purposes. Hazel/Peterson included a community trail system to facilitate pedestrian movements throughout the development. Recreational facilities proffered by the developer included a community swimming pool and center, two tennis courts, two multipurpose courts, and a multipurpose ball field. Five acres were dedicated for a fire station and a commuter parking lot. With these concessions in hand and knowing that they had made the best of a bad situation, the NWPWCA spoke in favor of the William Center rezoning. [29]

Tough Decision

Satisfied that he got "the best deal he could," Swain spoke at the county hearing in support of rezoning the William Center tract from agricultural to planned mixed use. As Swain expected, the board of county supervisors voted six to one in favor of the application (the local representative voted against the rezoning), making the rezoning and the attached proffers legally binding. Swain did not want the William Center development next to the park, but he knew that his negotiations with Hazel/Peterson, along with those by the NWPWCA, resulted in a proposal that would have much less impact than other possible developments. He had toured the Fair Lakes development with one of Hazel/Peterson's landscape architects and felt that the same kind of "campus like office park" could be done at Manassas without being overwhelmingly intrusive. Swain also knew that the county could not have negotiated the same types of concessions with Hazel/Peterson that he obtained. According to Virginia state law, Prince William County could accept proffers, but it could not demand them as a condition for approving a development. [30]

Swain made a tough decision to enter into negotiations with Hazel/Peterson Companies, and many members of the preservation community attacked him for appearing to favor development over the battlefield park's integrity. Jerry Russell, national chairman for the Civil War Round Table Associates, advocated in his organization's monthly newsletter Swain's reassignment to another park where he would "not need to be sensitive to history, or be a strong representative of NPS." Russell's call prompted many of his readers, all Civil War enthusiasts, to write the National Park Service or their congressional representatives demanding explanations for Swain's action. Other preservationists argued that if Swain had resolutely stood for protection of the battlefield park, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors would have taken his stance into account when determining the fate of the old Marriott tract. Preservationists believed that the Park Service managers should aggressively defend park sites from outside assaults. Talking with developers and local landowners was acceptable, especially because so many parks were becoming islands in a sea of development, but preservation of park resources should remain paramount. [31]

National Park Service representatives defended Swain's negotiations with Hazel/Peterson Companies. Susan Moore, who came to the Manassas National Battlefield Park in the fall of 1985 as a management assistant and had worked closely with Swain on land-use and land protection issues, including the William Center development, later argued that the Park Service had to talk with developers and county planners to protect the park. Moore stated that unfortunately "it looked like we were in cahoots with the developer," which she insists was never the case. Chief Historian Bearss also defended Swain to Russell and other Civil War enthusiasts, pointing out that Swain had "stuck his neck out" for the Service and had negotiated an honest deal that was in the park's best interests. Bearss considered Swain a "first-class manager" who discharged his responsibilities at the Manassas battlefield in a "conscientious and satisfactory manner." National Capital Regional Director Jack Fish and NPS Director Mott echoed these statements in support of Swain. For Mott, Swain had implemented the very call for partnerships that he had proposed. [32]

Swain may have appeared less committed to preservation because of his quiet manner in handling issues. Bearss characterized him as low key: "He doesn't lose his temper. He is viewed as somebody that can talk reasonably with both sides." Moore stressed Swain's nonconfrontational nature, his "voice of reason" in which he thought things through very carefully and then acted in the way he felt best preserved the park's resources. And Moore perceptively pointed out that this was new territory for the Park Service: the agency had not been an active negotiator with developers in then past. To Bearss and Moore, Swain's personality and management style were assets when addressing Hazel/Peterson's proposal. To Russell and other preservationists, though, Swain appeared more like an "automaton bureaucrat" who "rolled over and didn't do anything." [33]

Swain had also generated some bad press in spring 1986. When the park had acquired land to the east of the Stone Bridge, as allowed under the 1980 boundary expansion legislation, the NPS had to remove an old gas station. Swain brought in contractors to demolish the building and remove the debris. To save money, Swain agreed to let the contractors place the waste on the northern slope of Henry Hill as opposed to hauling it to the county dump. Swain chose the side of Henry Hill because his maintenance chief had complained that ground depressions there had made the hill difficult to mow. The debris and added top soil would have helped fill in the depressions. The local newspaper reported the event and included a photograph showing the "battlefield eyesore" within sight of the Stone House. In response to public pressure, Swain had the debris moved, but his decisions raised doubts about his commitment to historic preservation. [34]

Despite his poor judgment on the gas station debris, Swain's actions following the William Center rezoning demonstrate his continued commitment to preserve the historical integrity of the Manassas battlefield park. Just days after the rezoning approval, Swain wrote Regional Director Fish and requested immediate assistance in reidentifying the exact park boundaries around the Stone House intersection. Swain needed this information to show that the state did not have sufficient right of way to add left and right turn lanes to the intersection, an idea pushed by the local county supervisor. Swain feared that adding turn lanes would ultimately result in the widening of Lee Highway and Route 234 through the park, an idea that the county and state came to support in 1987. The park's historic flavor would be lost in the noise and pollution of thousands of commuters traveling the high-speed multilane roads through the park. The fact that the county had failed to support funding for the William Center interchange at I-66, thereby making Lee Highway a major access road to the new development, added extra urgency to Swain's request for help. [35]

Swain's strategy worked. Years before, the county had straightened out a dogleg on Route 234 just south of the intersection and in the process had placed the current 234 shoulder on park land under a special use permit. The county then deeded to the park the land vacated by the straightening. Once it became clear in 1987 that Prince William County and Virginia wanted to improve the Lee Highway—Route 234 intersection by widening both roads, Swain called them on then special use permit. He warned that the Park Service would not give a permit to expand the road and that the Service would not renew the special use permit, which was due to expire in 1989. This meant that the county could widen only three of the four arms of the intersection, making the entire endeavor unprofitable. Talk of upgrading Lee Highway—Route 234 quieted, keeping the historic crossroad intact. Yet the quiet around the Manassas National Battlefield Park was only temporary: in 1988 the Hazel/Peterson Companies dropped a bombshell. [36]