Harpers Ferry National Historical Park

Standing above the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, Harpers Ferry holds a pivotal vantage point in the country's history, one with surprisingly deep roots.

One place where you might not need any formal celebration to mark Halloween is Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. More than a few ghost stories swirl around this West Virginia town.

The waters that flow past Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers will rise again, to record levels, and with that in mind park officials are preparing their response plan for the next big flood.

Long before Ken Burns' PBS series on the national parks, the filmmaker produced another multi-program epic that features several NPS areas. THE CIVIL WAR, which first aired in 1990, remains the highest-rated series in the history of American public television. The series is being rebroadcast in early April to mark the 150th anniversary of the beginning of America's Civil War.

Here's a photo contest for all you amateur Civil War buffs. Sponsored by the Civil War Preservation Trust, the Center for Civil War Photography, and History, the deadline to get your images in for consideration is August 31.

Always important, battlefield preservation takes on a renewed sense of urgency as Civil War Sesquicentennial planning shifts into high gear. The FY 2010 Interior Appropriations bill for FY 2010 will include a record $9 million for the federal Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program.

The Sesquicentennial anniversary of the Civil War is less than two years off, so it should come as no surprise that history will be on display in the National Park System. At Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, for instance, they're already talking about John Brown's raid. This short music video summarizes the abolitionist's history.

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park will expand by 176 acres on Thursday as the Civil War Preservation Trust transfers a key part of the battlefield to the National Park Service during ceremonies on historic School House Ridge.

No doubt there are more than a few national park settings where the ghouls and ghosts might come out this Hallows' Eve. As we previously mentioned, the folks at Voyageurs National Park are planning a flashlight tour with story-telling, and more scary stories are to unfold in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Friday evening at the Mountain Farm Museum.

Two-hundred-and-fifty million dollars buys an awful lot of museum. But does that mean the latest proposal to "save" some of the private land surrounding Harpers Ferry National Historical Park from development is a good one?

A behind-the-scenes effort to both protect Harpers Ferry National Historical Park from neighboring development and obtain land for a Museum of the National Park Service has been pulled off.

It's been a year since a 45-foot-wide, 2,000-foot-long trench was blazed, without permission, through a portion of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to lay utility lines for a commercial development. And still the government has not taken any action against the developers. To call attention to this, a candlelight vigil is planned for August 17th at the park.