If you've been along the former Chesapeake & Ohio in West Virginia's New River Gorge, especially to Prince and the "ghost town" of Thurmond, this may interest you:

https://wvexplorer.com/2023/12/16/demol ... onal-park/

This is another stupid government idea. Make sure you click through to the NPS website and let them know.

Following up on my own post, here are my thoughts:
Comments: I strongly object to the demolition of the destruction of 35 deteriorating and excess structures, 21 considered historic and listed or eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

The buildings should be added to the National Register of Historic Places and adaptively reused. The National Park Service should not be in the business of demolishing historic buildings.

Link to the NPS site for public comments:
https://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.c ... tID=133279

Playing devil's advocate here...then donate some money towards the New River Gorge NPS and designate it to preserve those buildings. Also ask yourself, why should the park adapt/reuse some of these structures for?

Also - some of these buildings are ruins already - see Appendix A in this document: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/showFile.c ... fid=693869

I already contribute to NPS via my annual federal income tax payment. As a taxpayer, I participated in the established public comment process, and urge others to do the same.

There are plenty of adaptive reuse possibilities, but NPS needs to organize a study to consider options.

As a tax payer myself, I'm pro knock them down, with the possible exception of the general store. Some of these buildings are beyond saving and all are beyond the majority of the visiting traffic for the national parks.

While this is the newest national park, I implore you to look at their budget and decide what they should do with it, and if you can find a better plan based on the numbers included forward those for comment. Instead of stating they should save everything.

Outside of that this plan seems rational based on their budget and mission.

Because context matters?