Heritage Area

City officials screened a new documentary yesterday on the efforts of Baltimoreans in the 1960s and 1970s to stop an interstate from cutting through and destroying many of the Inner Harbor's historic neighborhoods. Road Wars, an 11-minute movie, was produced by the city's Heritage Area program and the Mayor's Office of Cable and Communications, and made in part with a grant from the development company Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski introduced the film yesterday at a ceremony at the Inner Harbor visitors center.

'Backpack Buddies' Heritage Baptist Church will host a meeting for groups involved with a backpack program that provides food for children on weekends and school holidays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 30, at the church, 1740 Forest Drive in Annapolis. Information: 410.263.6680. Earth Day Event will be held from noon to 5 p.m. April 14 at Fort Meade's Burba Park. Visitors can enjoy food, games, nature walks and a farmers market. Directions and information: 301-677-9167.

Jeffrey Buchheit, a former assistant director of the American Association of Museums, has begun work as director of the Baltimore City Heritage Area, an arm of the mayor's office that promotes the city's cultural heritage. He replaced Bill Pencek, a preservation expert who left last year to join the state government. Buchheit, 39, has 15 years of experience in museums, including administration, governance, exhibit design, volunteer management and collections management. Before joining the museum association in 2000, he was executive director of the Historical Electronics Museum in Baltimore.

On March 25, 1634, a group of weary travelers who had departed England the previous November aboard two small, crowded and surely unpleasant-smelling boats, The Ark and The Dove, emerged from those vessels in what is now St. Mary's County. They rowed to an island they named St. Clement's, erected a cross, prayed and declared Maryland a colony of England. Two-hundred and sixty-nine years later, in 1903, the state Board of Education set aside March 25 as a day for Maryland schoolchildren to study their state's history.

DWELLING ON HISTORY can be good business, particularly in a county with as many historical sites as Anne Arundel.The County Council's decision to apply to the state government for a "heritage area" designation should help focus thinking and policy-making on ways to boost the county's growing tourism industry.The county would like to have an area stretching south from Sandy Point State Park along the Chesapeake Bay through Annapolis to the county line designated as the "Annapolis and London Town Heritage Area."

The citizens of Oella did it.In sharp contrast to a chaotic Greater Oella Community Association meeting in May, residents of the historic mill town across the Patapsco River from Ellicott City managed last night to hold a civil information-gathering meeting about the proposed Patapsco Heritage Greenway.Jay Patel, president of the community association, said at 9: 30 p.m. that no vote would be taken on whether to support the greenway until a future meeting, probably in late summer or the fall.

Oella -- a tiny, historic mill town on the Patapsco River where some stone structures predate the War of 1812 -- may soon vault into the 1990s for good, with the help of state taxpayers.The Maryland Heritage Areas Authority has formally recognized Oella and its rustic surroundings as a heritage area, making it eligible for public funding that could help chart a formal course for the southwestern Baltimore County community.Among the possibilities that could emerge from an Oella master plan being developed: a system of hiking trails, a picnic area and a museum that would feature Oella's rich legacy of millwork.

Four Rivers: The Heritage Area of Annapolis, London Town & South County is accepting applications for two grants. The Maryland Heritage Areas Authority matching grants of up to $100,000 are available through Four Rivers for projects that include historical, cultural and natural resources and have a heritage tourism component. Eligible applicants include nonprofit organizations and local jurisdictions. Application packages are available at www.marylandhistoricaltrust.net. The Four Rivers Heritage Area office in the Arundel Center, 44 Calvert St. in Annapolis, must receive the completed application package with 15 copies by March 7. MHAA awards will be announced in July.

Lack of funding may throw a monkey wrench into Carroll County's plans to tap into the lucrative heritage tourism market, officials said yesterday.Local leaders have joined a regional effort to become a state-certified Civil War Heritage Area, though no famous battles were fought in Carroll.They are touting a skirmish in Westminster and the movement of Civil War troops through the county in a bid for state recognition. Carroll is joined in the effort by Washington and Frederick counties, the sites of well-known clashes between Confederate and Union troops.

Fire auxiliary plans bridal event The New Windsor Fire Company auxiliary is seeking wedding-related vendors for its Bridal Extravaganza Jan. 13 at Windsor Station fire hall. Interested vendors should call 410-635-2756 or 410-635-6179 by Oct. 1. Reverse 911 includes cell, Internet phones Carroll County's nearly two-year-old Reverse 911 system has been expanded to include residents and businesses who depend primarily on cellular or Internet-based telephones. The system had been programmed with the numbers of all land telephone lines in the county to quickly and automatically notify residents in an emergency.

Baltimore has long been known as a historic city, but this year it's getting an extra layer of historic designation that's expected to open doors in terms of assistance and attention from the federal government. Mayor Sheila Dixon and other public officials are scheduled to gather in Fells Point at 10:30 a.m. today to celebrate the creation of the Baltimore National Heritage Area, one of nine such districts designated in 2009 by Congress and President Barack Obama. A National Heritage Area is a place where the natural, cultural, historic and scenic resources are considered "uniquely representative" of the American experience.

Four Rivers: The Heritage Area of Annapolis, London Town & South County is accepting applications for two grants. The Maryland Heritage Areas Authority matching grants of up to $100,000 are available through Four Rivers for projects that include historical, cultural and natural resources and have a heritage tourism component. Eligible applicants include nonprofit organizations and local jurisdictions. Application packages are available at www.marylandhistoricaltrust.net. The Four Rivers Heritage Area office in the Arundel Center, 44 Calvert St. in Annapolis, must receive the completed application package with 15 copies by March 7. MHAA awards will be announced in July.

Jeffrey Buchheit, a former assistant director of the American Association of Museums, has begun work as director of the Baltimore City Heritage Area, an arm of the mayor's office that promotes the city's cultural heritage. He replaced Bill Pencek, a preservation expert who left last year to join the state government. Buchheit, 39, has 15 years of experience in museums, including administration, governance, exhibit design, volunteer management and collections management. Before joining the museum association in 2000, he was executive director of the Historical Electronics Museum in Baltimore.

WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives voted yesterday to designate a corridor that runs from Gettysburg to Monticello as a National Heritage Area, over the objections of the Maryland congressman whose district lies at its heart. The Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area would include Carroll, Frederick and Washington counties in Maryland, taking in such historic sites as Antietam National Battlefield, the Mother Seton Shrine and Camp David. Federal recognition would give a Virginia-based private, nonprofit organization, which includes preservationists, businesses and local officials, up to $15 million in federal matching funds over 15 years to safeguard the historic sites along the 175-mile U.S. 15 corridor.

Fire auxiliary plans bridal event The New Windsor Fire Company auxiliary is seeking wedding-related vendors for its Bridal Extravaganza Jan. 13 at Windsor Station fire hall. Interested vendors should call 410-635-2756 or 410-635-6179 by Oct. 1. Reverse 911 includes cell, Internet phones Carroll County's nearly two-year-old Reverse 911 system has been expanded to include residents and businesses who depend primarily on cellular or Internet-based telephones. The system had been programmed with the numbers of all land telephone lines in the county to quickly and automatically notify residents in an emergency.

City officials screened a new documentary yesterday on the efforts of Baltimoreans in the 1960s and 1970s to stop an interstate from cutting through and destroying many of the Inner Harbor's historic neighborhoods. Road Wars, an 11-minute movie, was produced by the city's Heritage Area program and the Mayor's Office of Cable and Communications, and made in part with a grant from the development company Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski introduced the film yesterday at a ceremony at the Inner Harbor visitors center.

At a heated meeting last night on whether to turn the Patapsco Valley into a certified heritage area, a group of environmentalists and concerned citizens formally demanded that Patapsco Valley State Park be removed from plans for a trail network linking the natural, cultural and historic resources of the valley.After almost two hours of arguing, shouting and pleading, the two sides resolved nothing. Heritage area supporters said the Maryland Department of Natural Resources will have the final say on whether to include the park in the plans, but opponents said that was just an excuse to avoid the issue.

In a decision that could put plans for the Patapsco Heritage Greenway in jeopardy, Oella residents voted 2-1 last night against becoming part of the project to create a state-certified heritage area along the Patapsco River in Baltimore and Howard counties. About 300 people came to the Westchester Community Center in Oella to cast a ballot between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. There were 190 votes against the Patapsco Heritage Greenway and 105 for it. Oella is the second community to vote itself out of the greenway.

Hoping to pique the interest of some of the millions of tourists who each year visit Anne Arundel County, the Galesville Heritage Society has published a brochure highlighting some of the maritime community's top historical and cultural attractions. The four-color brochure lists 23 heritage tour sites within the waterfront community in southern Anne Arundel, including many that date to the 1800s. The West River Market, at 1000 Main St., is one of the sites along the tour. It opened in the mid-1800s as a general store and has been converted into an art gallery and antiques shop.

When Thurgood Marshall was growing up in Baltimore, his high school principal punished him by sending him to the basement and requiring that he memorize portions of the Constitution. "Before I left that school," Marshall later recalled, according to biographer Juan Williams, "I knew the whole thing by heart." The formative years of Marshall, the first African-American justice on the Supreme Court, would be retold in an interpretive center that may be created to breathe life into another public school Marshall attended, P.S. 103 at 1315 Division St. in Upton.