Georgia Traditional Indian Lands Eligible for Historic Listing
Story-Date: 07:51 p.m. PST Monday   , August 18, 1997

Georgia Traditional Indian Lands Eligible for Historic Listing

BY MIKE BILLIPS, THE MACON TELEGRAPH, GA.
Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News

Aug. 19--Federal officials have ruled that the traditional Indian lands
near downtown Macon known as the Ocmulgee Old Fields is eligible for the
National Register of Historic Places.

The designation of the area -- which local and state officials want to
bisect with the Fall Line Freeway -- would be the first in the Southeast
for a ``traditional cultural property.''

The Keeper of the National Register, Carol Shull, said in a letter dated
Thursday that the boundaries of the Old Fields still need further
definition.

But she said that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation's tribal resolutions provide
more appropriate boundaries than those proposed by the Georgia Department
of Transportation.

The DOT wanted to include an area on the east side of the river, known as
the Macon Reserve, which the Creeks retained in an 1805 treaty. The
National Register did not include much of that area, which crosses Emery
Highway, because it has been heavily developed.

``All properties listed on the National Register have to be historically
significant, and they have to retain their integrity,'' said Marilyn
Harper, a historian with the National Register. ``It can only do that when
it retains its character, and as this is a traditional cultural property,
the modern development does not fit in.''

Interstate 16, the railroad tracks and power lines through the property are
much less obtrusive than the neighborhoods north of Emery Highway and have
not destroyed the district's integrity, Harper said.

The traditional cultural property stretches from the Ocmulgee National
Monument on the north to the Bond Swamp National Wildlife Refuge on the
south. The eastern and western boundaries will require more study, Shull's
letter said.

The National Register, which is under the National Park Service in the U.S.
Department of the Interior, wants more evidence from the DOT about the
district's boundaries. The floodplain on the western side of the river,
where it has not been heavily disturbed, also may be included in the
district.

The DOT is in the process of hiring consultants to perform
environmental impact studies on all the proposed routes for the Fall
Line Freeway. The freeway is a four-lane route from Columbus to Augusta,
which comes into Macon on Interstate 75 from the south and heads east on
Eisenhower Parkway.

On the east side of town, the route runs east and north along Georgia 57.
The plan to connect those two points has put supporters of the Creeks and
environmentalists on one side, with local politicians, business leaders and
the transportation department on the other.

While the property between Bond Swamp and the Ocmulgee National Monument is
privately owned, road builders must clear considerable hurdles in order to
gain federal permission to build the freeway connection through the land.

The DOT will be required to show that no prudent or feasible alternative to
its preferred route through the area exists.

David Studstill, the department's environmental and location engineer
who is working on the Fall Line Freeway, said hiring the consultants likely
would take a couple of months. Producing a report would probably take
another year after that, he said.

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(c) 1997, The Macon (Ga.) Telegraph. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune
Business News.



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