Bringing back the black frontier: Virginia's Explore Park - living history museum that celebrates African American culture - Advertising Supplement: Virginia

American Visions, June-July, 1994 by Henry Chase

For years, virtually the sole voice spreading the word of Roanoke Valley's black heritage has been the Harrison Museum of African-American Culture. Now, however, southwest Virginia has a new destination for travelers interested in the history of Americans of African descent, Virginia's Explore Park. Set in rolling, wooded terrain along three miles of the beautiful Roanoke River, Explore Park is an extensive "living history" museum that features a Blue Ridge Settlement: showing life in early 19th-century western Virginia--life that included African Americans.

Explore Park is not a Frontierland amusement park: rather, it reveals the historically authentic frontier life of America. Authenticity is not merely striven for; it is achieved--in ethnicity, buildings and animals. African-American living-history interpreters portray free black artisans at work in a blacksmith shop and at other trades. The park's 1830 farm is stocked with now uncommon breeds of pigs, chickens, geese and other livestock that were typical of Virginia in the days when the United States' first presidents were natives of the commonwealth. And on the ridge across the meadow from the farm sits an original barn raised in 1803 by a German immigrant family. When visitors want a break from the past, the park offers miles of easy-walking, self-guided hiking trails.

Scheduled to open to the public in May, Explore Park is an institution still in the making, with a planned future that includes a replica of a 17th-century Indian village (which will be developed in cooperation with the Monacan Indian Tribal Council of Amherst County) and an 18th-century frontier fort, as well as a major zoo, a nature center and a conference center.

Though the park's precise future delineation remains to be defined, its commitment to the exploration of Virginia's African-American heritage seems sincerely grounded, as does its openness to guidance and dialogue. Conversations with the Harrison Museum in Roanoke, discussions with the local black community, and consultations with authorities at the Booker T. Washington National Monument in nearby Hardy, for example, convinced the park to alter its original African-American thematic conception and focus on the frontier presence of free black artisans rather than on the role of the black church.

Aiding the park's thinking about its presentation of the black experience in southwestern Virginia has been Larry H. Hamlar, a leading figure in Roanoke's African-American community. As the chairman (1988-93) of the board of directors of the Virginia Recreational Facilities Authority, which formally holds title to the park's 1,300 acres, Hamlar summed up the perspective that guides Explore Park: "The history of Virginia is not complete without including the contributions of Afro-Americans, whether as slaves or as freemen. Explore Park, the Harrison Museum and Booker T. Washington National Monument help reveal Virginia's true history."

Virginia's Explore Park

101 South Jefferson Street Sixth Floor Roanoke 24011-1311 (703) 345-1295 Explore Park is reached by leaving the Blue Ridge Parkway at Mile Post 115 and taking a two-mile-long access road to the park entrance. Sat-Mon, 10am-5pm Adults, $4; students, $2.50; under 6, free

SURROUNDING SITES

Visitors to Explore Park will want to be alert to other opportunities in southwestern Virginia, including the following:

The Booker T. Washington National Monument [(703) 721-20941 in Hardy is a reconstruction of the Burroughs farm on which Washington spent the first nine years of his life. The facility is ruun by the National Park Service, and is well reseached, maintained and explained. Living-history interpreters walk the grounds, and guided tours are offered around the reconstructed small farm, which includes the kitchen cabin birthplace of the African-American educator.

Jefferson National Forest [(703) 265-6051] contains more than 700,000 acres of hardwoods, conifers and wild flowers, which support deer, bear, turkey, grouse, quail, dove and a wide range of other birds and animals. Extending from the James River southwesterly for 218 miles toward the western tip of the state, Jefferson Forest has 16 developed campgrounds and 17 developed picnic areas, and is an excellent choice for family vacations and reunions. (If you're planning a reunion--which likely will include older folks--don't forget the need for nearby accommodations of a less challenging sort than a campground. Remember also that many national hotel chains, such as Holiday Inn, offer family reunion packages that include amenities and discounts.)